Took a break from this game for a year, feedback

[Liebestod]

Here are the general impressions I had that were the most striking:
CAMPAIGN:
-I was surprised when it ended after a few years. I was expecting the campaign to last to 1950! Especially given the timescale of the tech tree. I made peace with England several times, but the peace only seemed to last a month each time. I was expecting years of peace. 

-The 1890 campaign is all about torpedoes. Because guns simply can't aim or hit anything at all unless it's under 1km in distance, and even then.

-I still felt the need to individually control every one of my ships, due to bizarre formation behavior. But the least intuitive part was the collision avoidance. It shouldn't override manual commands. Very often I plotted a course for two of my ships that would have avoided a collision, and the game sends them in the opposite direction anyhow. This is especially bad for torpedo warfare, when the ability to move where I command is the difference between winning and losing.

-Just as was true a year ago, many of the battles finish with an extremely long or neverending chase. Sometimes all I want to do is end the battle, but the enemy has a fast ship that I can neither catch nor escape from. This was exacerbated in the campaign by the fact that guns have <1% accuracy at most ranges and torpedoes completely destroyed the engines of most of my ships.

[crp1985]

I tend to build my ships in this early period specifically around maximum accuracy. I'll use the appropriate shell weight, and propellant that buffs accuracy. I will fiddle with my ship design to move most stuff centerline reducing Pitch and Roll. I also use only one smoke stack when possible even if there are major engine penalties. Adding to superstructure armor slightly reduces Pitch and Roll, increasing the ship's speed, and moving objects as close to the center of the ship as possible all help. With this design philosophy my ships usually way outperform the AI designs. Also want to mention the importance of setting crew training to maximum in your campaign. This has a big affect on accuracy over time. 

 

Edited January 27, 2022 by crp1985

[Wowzery]

On 1/26/2022 at 1:15 PM, Liebestod said:

I was surprised when it ended after a few years. I was expecting the campaign to last to 1950! Especially given the timescale of the tech tree. I made peace with England several times, but the peace only seemed to last a month each time. I was expecting years of peace. 

At the moment the campaigns are only UK vs. Germany in war.  Once peace happens its over.  You have several start dates.  After you beat 1890 start you get 1900 then 1910, etc.

I'm looking forward to the full campaign going from 1890 to 1940.