I did a reboot as Germany again. As I said . . . the game is frickn' addictive
With a bit more clarity on what the overall intent of the game experience is and some past experience with things like what happens when a war starts or, how decisions tend to work, I'm probably playing a bit more intelligently.
So I set it to varied tech, historical resources, 100% research, maybe one other non-standard setting, but not advantaged AI nor harder peace.
Running in Admiral Mode with any and all settings which I can see to set to DO NOT PAUSE. Manual designed legacy fleet.
First thing I did was design an extreme long range "Schwentine Class" CA with colonial service amenities and as much armor and 9" guns as it could carry. I ordered up I think 7 or 8 of these in local yards (they each cost about 52k). Then I designed and built one CL, mainly just as a place holder design. Then one DD. I built one each of the CL and DD for the legacy fleet.
Next thing I did was to set Guns, Torpedos and subs to High, and everything else to Low, then went back and set a few things to Medium too. Idea being: bide my time, get my naval guns up with the big boys, ONLY antagonize Italy for the time being, but be a bit cautious even about that. Related to this, I had a starting goal to be able to station say . . . 3 or 4 of the Schwentine CAs plus some DDs each for West Africa and Indian zones.
My decisions on which events to choose has been more sensible I think and as of Dec 1903 progress is good:
I. GB proposed an alliance in around fall 1902!
II. I now have AMPLE naval base support all around the world! (did NOT expect that as an apparent consequence of not building any BBs)
III. Tension with France, Russia, Japan are in the green. USA is yellow at about 7
IV. War with Italy just started! Exactly what I wanted, and indeed, things have worked out even better than I could have hoped!
My force distribution:
Northern Europe: 10 Coastal subs, 2 CA, 8 DD (600t "Meuse Class")
Med: 4 CA, 8 DD (600t)
West Africa: 2 CA, 8 DD (600t)
Indian Ocean: 3 CA, 8 DD (600t)
Northeast Asia: 1 CA, 1 CL, 1 DD (500t)
That is the sum total of my forces, and with zero B or BB built or under construction I'm probably taking some long-term risks.
Italy has:
B: 2 (1 building)
CA: 8 (3)
CL: 2 (0)
DD: 16 (o)
KE: 2 (4)
SS: 0
I am not sure if GB is at war with Italy yet, or if they will join my war or not, but in any event, I seem to be in decent state.
Now for my observations on computer behavior while in Admiral mode. First scenario I get prompted by is an Italian raid. I think it was two CL? on Jutland coast area. I accept and watch what happens
In the first place, in Admiral Mode, I'm not even sure it is "good gameplay," nor coherent design that I see the battle unfolding at all. Why not just, auto-crunch the outcome of the battle, which is what it amounts to anyway, since it seems the player cannot exert any actual influence on the behavior of friendly forces even though the player has to watch the thing unfold for 9 or 15 minutes (which is tedious btw, and even with DO NOT PAUSE set I think had to unpause it at least a couple times beyond the initial pause).
The way the forces behaved also seemed a bit strange and some of the information displayed was also a bit strange. I had a sub icon up to the north central perhaps 30km off the coast. It just sat there the whole time. My two CAs started off heading northwest (like . . . 310 degrees or so). There was at least one merchant div close to the Dutch coast and heading east. An unidentified ship (Italian obviously) was spotted and my CAs kind of turned that way a bit. I believe the pauses I hadn't really wanted happened with that sighting, but also when the "Run for 24 hours" timer ran out too. I don't know if any shots were fired or not, nothing really showed up in the Report, or if it did it showed up and immediately disappeared. I think I did see some things crop up briefly in either the Log or Report tab, but at least a couple of those were "Autosaved." Messages. My CAs kind waved around a bit and seemingly drove the Italian raiders back from the Merchants and then the Italians seemed to break off and were no longer visible. All of those ship behaviors up to this point seemed pretty reasonable, but what happened next was weird. My two CA divisions started heading northwest again and just kept going and going. I had set the Run timer to about 24 hours a second time so I don't know how long, but I did see at least one nighttime terminator line cross the map. They just kept going making it about 2/3 of the way to Scapa Flow I guess! Then finally the scenario was over.
Some synthetic observations/suggestions from my limited experience with these battles, and I'll restrict it to play with "Admiral Mode," meaning (I assume) least possible player control over how units behave during battles.
1. Include a toggle somewhere that is something like "Spectate in Admiral Mode?" Meaning: if you toggle that, the game functions roughly how it functions now. If you toggle that OFF, then you don't see any of these tactical battle screens AT ALL. You get the final analysis pane that recounts the outcome of the battle. If someone wants to focus on the actual high level operations of a navy, and leave the field commanding to the computer, then it should NOT be necessary to sit through these battles where you are powerless to have any influence anyway.
ADDIT: and I would add! PLEASE consider including the same kind of "Dont Make me Watch It, just tell me when it is over and how it turned out" functionality for the Fleet Exercises too.
2. The friendly units seem to "get stuck" on a particular course bearing and just stay on it. No idea what that could be about.
3. For Admiral mode, some additional options under the Map or Area Overview panes which allow directives to be given that have an influence on how the computer will behave when engagements transpire would be cool. This could be multiple different indices (Objectives, Posture, Range Allowance, Division composition, whatever) each with two or more values that could be set . . . Just as a starting point this could be as simple as:
Posture: Cautious/Aggressive
Objectives: Force Preservation/Take Risks
Range Allowance: Only in Range of Coastal Batteries/Local Navigation/Regional Navigation
Division Composition: possibly easiest UI would be a drop down menu with a text entry on each level to specify minimum numbers for each ship type for each Div.
ADDIT:
4. Facilities to Auto create and fill in Red and Blue forces for the Fleet Exercises and then skip watching the scenario and just see the summary pane at the end would be WONDERFUL!