What realism setting do most of you play in?

[gabeeg]

I'm curious what Realism mode most players of RTW play in.   I have always played in Rear Admirals mode but thinking as a change of pace to give Admirals mode a shot.  Really curious if many of you play in Captains mode during battles.

[cwemyss]

I've never changed it, so I've always played in RA. I have a hard enough time there. :-)

[Roumba]

I did a game or two of Admiral's mode, but recently I take the -10% VP of Rear Admiral so I can do things like pull moron ships off of a tangled coastline or order a damaged ship to reduce speed so it doesn't sink itself in minutes by increased flooding.

I am tempted to try Captain so I can let loose all those torpedoes on boats that like to hoard them.

[trenton59]

I play in captains mode, mostly to help deal with ships swapping targets every turn or refusing to launch torpedoes, but I have played in Rear Admiral before.

[JagdFlanker]

i know i'm crazy, but the tactical battles are my least fav part of this game so i skip most of them, and when i do play them i go admiral mode and ignore the rest of my fleet i don't control.

the ai for my fleet isn't bad in general so i get away with it, but i'd love to be able to organize my fleet before the battle and then let the ai do all the fighting for me. even better (but will likely never happen) i'd like to only give basic commands for the ai to execute as the battle unfolds (stand off from enemy battle line, chase enemy, return to port, etc), dependent on whether my flagship is able to signal orders to the rest of my participating fleet

[elouda]

I play on Rear-Admiral, though I almost always leave everything but my lead squadron under AI control. Rear-Admiral just means that if needed, I can take control of other elements if I need to for some reason, and then drop them back into AI control when possible.

[dang]

Player destroyer squadrons are basically cheating, in my opinion. It's fairly trivial to sink 60% of an AI force at night by controlling destroyer squadrons.

[ccip]

Rear admiral, although I rarely use manual control for any other divisions - it's only rarely that I take ships off AI control. In SAI I only play on Admiral - here I stick to VA as a way to compensate slightly for lack of control over fleet composition.

[mikerolf1]

What exactly do the different difficulty settings do?

[bcoopactual]

Jul 25, 2017 1:30:04 GMT -6 mikerolf1 said:

What exactly do the different difficulty settings do?

Here is the description from the SAI manual.

"Admiral's mode: The ultimate in realism.  
The player can only give orders to the lead
divisions of each force. Other divisions can
be controlled only by selecting their role.
No manual targeting is allowed. If you want
to experience the limitations of WW1 fleet
command, this is how you should play
Jutland!

Rear admiral's mode: The player can put
any divisions in his force on manual or AI
control as long as they are within sight of
the force flagship. The player can give
target orders to divisions. Victory points will
be reduced by 10%.

Captain's mode: The player can put any
divisions in his force on manual or AI
control. The player can give target orders to
divisions or ships. Victory points will be
reduced by 20%."

If that didn't answer your questions let us know and we'll try to answer them for you.

[boomboomf22]

I play Captains mode, but put everything but the lead divisions on AI. I just like the ability to micro everything if I have too.

[garrisonchisholm]

One of the reasons I set fleet signaling research on High is exactly because of those frustrating cases when your fleet's 2nd squadron goes careening off in some horrible direction, but I consider that the perils of the early 'oughts and part of the atmosphere. Battles go much more quickly and easily if you are only commanding your flag too, accepting of course the perils of individual captain's recognizance. I can't say as I feel I have ever lost a "game" due to a failed torpedo attack or mistaken signal, though games have definitely become much harder for that cause.

I just fought a battle where I had to turn my fleet in an undesirable direction simply so-as to be in a better position for my Second Battle Squadron to rejoin me once they figured out they were sailing under incorrect instructions. That kind of thing feels environmentally appropriate to me, and - momentary ire aside - must add to my appreciation of the game because I keep playing that way.

[theexecuter]

I only play admirals mode...because it's the most realistic way to test my designs.

I had a cruiser battle once (2 enemy CAs vs 2 CAs and a few destroyers). The enemy got a lucky shot on my lead cruiser...so my second cruiser tried to take both enemy cruisers on at once. Knowing this was a losing proposition, I flagged to my torpedo boats (early oughts) to make a torpedo attack to drive off the enemy cruisers while I tried to limp into port.

My torpedo boats took that signal as a license for them to retire...and they ran for port...leaving my cruisers to die.

It was epicly terrible. I loved the realism.

[bcoopactual]

Those torpedo boats aren't winning the Taffy 3 unit award this year.

[axe99]

Admirals for me - as well as the realism, it also puts me "as level as possible" with the AI - but I have on occasion gone down to RA to test whether it would help with the "ships sinking themselves when they didn't need to" thing - but I console myself with the fact that the AI is likely to do this to itself too, so it's all fair (and hey, it's not as if captain's always did the right thing historically either).