Starting Fleets

[Wowzery]

Now that we can play a campaign a little bit, if you build your fleet what do you usually start with?  Focus on battleship, cruisers or destroyers?

Personally, I like the feeling that I'm moving into the position and taking over someone else's fleet so I have to deal with that problem as well.  Just my personal way to play but a lot of people like creating your own starting fleet.  So what do you start with and what campaign year?

[SiWi]

I create always my own fleet. Year depends on mood. Early years have but so have the big BB#s you can build in 1920+.

Thoi I think 1930+ campaign suffer in terms of balance alot.

Well I usually design one of each typ thou most of the time 2 types of either TP or DD as "gunboat" and torp spammer respectively.

 

Then I try to match enemy BB numbers with maybe a bit of an advantage from 2+ ships.

Then I use a couple of BC, CA and CL.

If enough money is left I would go to DD's in 6 packs and see then how much I can still afford. 

Edited January 10, 2022 by SiWi

[Littorio]

3 hours ago, Wowzery said:

Now that we can play a campaign a little bit, if you build your fleet what do you usually start with?  Focus on battleship, cruisers or destroyers?

Personally, I like the feeling that I'm moving into the position and taking over someone else's fleet so I have to deal with that problem as well.  Just my personal way to play but a lot of people like creating your own starting fleet.  So what do you start with and what campaign year?

Build a balanced fleet. The AI often builds clown ships, so you can get away with fewer but more powerful vessels. If they have 10 BBs, you can probably get by with 6-7. Scale it like that for CAs, CLs, TBs, etc. If money is an issue for my preferred ratio, I leave the TBs out, simply because once I play one turn and get a second dump of starting capital, I can start work on lots of TBs. Yeah, there will be a few months where I won't have any, but you can them a lot faster than larger ships.

[AurumCorvus]

No matter what year I play, I generally place emphasis on a strong initial BB and BC/CA fleet (and definitely quality over quantity), and then get minimal cheap screening vessels for those BBs/BCs/CAs.

Basically, the idea is that I can lose some CLs/DDs and build them again in a campaign. But trying to build a top-notch BB/BCs without peace mechanics is very, very hard. CAs are kind of the halfway line. If I can't build more BBs/BCs and have sufficient CLs/DDs, I might pick up a few CAs for commerce raiding. But they aren't a main priority either.

So, I have a strong battle line, and rest I slowly beef up into a balanced fleet. The exact mechanics and ratios change from patch to patch (and even game, if I'm playing RTW), but the concept remains the same.

[Kommandant Flauschige]

My modus operandi is simply: 
CL's suck.

Secondly, CL's still suck.

Thirdly, torpedoboats are for sissies. Real admirals get up close and personal and blow the enemy away with their broadsides, like in the Good Old Days in the Age of Sail. If you're not inside the torpedo minimum arming distance, you're doing it wrong.

CA's are fine for commerce raiding, but BB's have longer range, and don't get sunk by errant torpedoes. BC's are the best at this sort of work, because they can get to an enemy convoy, rake them with shells from stem to stern, and then disengage with 30kts+ speed.

Insincerely,

Kommandant_Flauschige

Flotteadmiral

Oberkommando der See

 

[Lastreaumont]

I always build my own fleet too, and play only in 1920 and after. 

Fleet heart is some SOTA, big, fast and well armored BC. They are more very fast battleships than real BC. 

I add also few heavy gunboat DD. 

If I still have money, I build 2 or 3 CA, with a design similar to the german pocket battleships, but faster and better armored. 

All ships have good speed, to run after fleeing AI.

I don't build BB, because of the shipyard tonnage limitation, which is often very low compared to BB hulls maximum tonnage. Sometimes I start to build a BB during the campaign, when I rise the shipyard size high enough, but I never have time too acheive the construction before the end of the campaign.