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Post by axe99 on Mar 15, 2016 19:21:10 GMT -6
Dum dum de dum dum, dum dum dum da dum da dum.... Yep, I've been sacked. I guess they wanted some who was going to start a war. I built and trained an excellent navy, got good research, even got a disarmament treaty but I was not aggressive enough. Wonderful. Well, I wonder how they would have felt if I had started a war and got their children killed off. Why can't I get points for staying OUT of the war. Well more reading and research. Any suggestions on prestige gaining would be appreciated. Haha, this is the way I played my first game as well - I played as the RN, so didn't end up sacked, but the game definitely relies on you making some 'provocative' decisions (+ prestige, + tension) to keep prestige up. The mechanic almost guarantees a war at some stage, and the randomness in events means you'll never know when. It does mean far more wars than you might expect historically if you're looking to maximise prestige (which is the scoring mechanic). Maybe try and keep your prestige at 20 or so, and avoid wars as best you can, as a challenge? Good luck, and enjoy .
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Post by axe99 on Mar 6, 2016 1:28:48 GMT -6
Has anyone noticed that the AI battle line always moves faster than yours? I mean, I know I drop mine by a knot or so to keep things together, but I swear it looks like the enemy battleships have warp drive. And they never seem to straggle when flipping direction, either. *sigh* I've never had any trouble with this, although I tend to go for a slightly faster battle line most of the time (although not my current game), so usually have a knot or two higher top speed. I've found they often try and stay together, so will drop down to the speed of damaged ships if they still think they can contest the battle, but then the faster ships cut loose and leave the damaged ones to their fate if they decide they're on the wrong end of things. That's just the general impression though, I haven't been taking notes. I'll also use my BCs to 'herd' them a bit if I can, even if it's sometimes as a carrot rather than a stick.
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Post by axe99 on Mar 5, 2016 18:26:19 GMT -6
Isolating one or more of the enemy big ships is a common theme in this thread and does work pretty well. I hesitate to assume I have better ships, though of course after a while you get a good idea of what the AI is going to build and you have good intelligence on their ships once you identify the one(s) you encounter. If you go into the almanac, you can get the basic data (armour, guns, torpedoes, speed, displacement) on the ships the other nations in the game have commissioned (but not the ones they are building) which can give you a decent idea of what you're likely to be up against, if that helps. Apologies if you already knew.
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Post by axe99 on Mar 5, 2016 18:24:48 GMT -6
Not quite a greatest victory/defeat, but yesterday I played a 'convoy defence' mission in the Caribbean (playing as the US, at war with the French), with six destroyers in two groups of three. We steam at full speed to the convoy and find two French destroyers running amok and engage them, and a plucky little Durandal class DD rams one of the merchant ships! It stops dead, so I assume it's out of action and finish off the other destroyer, and then notice that the Durandal survived the collision and is causing trouble again, so go back to deal with it, and in the course of the action the Durandal class destroyer rams one of my vessels, survives the pummelling my two other ships (other other destroyer division I'd set to independent to keep an eye out for any other stray shpis, figuring my 3 should be able to handle the wounded Durandal-class) give it while it gets steam back up again, and then manages to survive until I run out of ammunition, and steams off into the sunset!
Toughest enemy destroyer, ever - give that destroyer a cookie. I don't want to know what its bow looks like!
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Post by axe99 on Mar 5, 2016 18:15:56 GMT -6
* and it's just "I reckon", I haven't done a study - as per my original post, always assess things more deeply than one random guy on the internet's post. Axe, I must admit that the purist in me is raging at the idea that a game would need prettying up. Hahaha, totally sympathise, and the prettying up wouldn't be for me, but I know a lot of people are influenced by aesthetics (its part of how we're genetically programmed, and 'oldies' have the benefit of being conditioned to things like this (hell, at one point, RtW would have qualified as cutting-edge visually in terms of the games I played, although that would have been a few years ago now). It's not just prettying up though - things like better tooltips and the like I think could go a long way to making the game more accessible without influencing the design (I'm not, absolutely not, suggesting dumbing down the gameplay, but I think the chance of NWS doing that isn't high ) I like the idea of crowdfunding as well Director, although if it were me crowdfunding it, I'd probably get some prototype 'concept' screens done to give an idea of what people were getting, or it might end not broadening the audience that much.
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Post by axe99 on Mar 4, 2016 20:47:14 GMT -6
Not sure if this has been mentioned already (and apologies if it has), but a toggle when you're drawing your deck superstructure so that the line clicked to the nearest 45 degree angle, say, would make getting straight lines a lot easier. Not a biggy, just mentioning as it seemed the thread for it . Also - when I delete deck design elements in the ship designer, if I select and delete the third line element, it deletes the third funnel as well. Is this as intended?
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Post by axe99 on Mar 4, 2016 20:45:01 GMT -6
3) Which is "better", an 11 inch gun (rated 0) or a 12 inch gun (rated -1). I'm guessing the advantage to the 12 inch gun is range. Any other advantages? When you're in the ship designer, there's a button in the main armament section called "gun data". Click that, and you'll see the range and the belt/deck penetration at a list of ranges. Numbers vary, but the gaps between 0 and -1 for smaller calibres can be pretty reasonable (particularly as the smaller calibres are lighter). In my last game, I had -1 15" and 16", and build 16" gunned ships, but once I had 15" guns rated 0, it made more sense to build them, as the stats were similar (just a teensy bit less penetration), but you could fit more barrels on. Great write-up there Elouda. I draw most of them m'self as well. I wish there was a way to hold down alt to lock the line to the nearest 45 degree angle or similar....
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Post by axe99 on Mar 4, 2016 20:39:13 GMT -6
Even without the spit and polish the game is pretty addictive even to unsuspecting crowd. My brother has zero interest in history or ships, much less dreadnoughts, still plays the game. Oh aye, this is what I'm getting at - it's not just a great naval game (which it is), but it's a great game, full stop. I'm sure it'd do alright on Steam 'as is', but I reckon with a bit of spit and polish (as MarcoRossilini well says, it's aesthetic has a bit of 'Microsoft Office' to it) it could get a lot more attention. No skin off my nose, and I could be way off the mark, but with a bit more prettiness (not much more - I'm not talking 3D with effects and what-have-you, just a bit nicer 2D, with a bit more user-friendliness to the UI) and I reckon* it could get a decent amount of interest in the strategy/PC gaming crowd. * and it's just "I reckon", I haven't done a study - as per my original post, always assess things more deeply than one random guy on the internet's post.
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Post by axe99 on Mar 4, 2016 15:14:24 GMT -6
I've just finished my seventh or eighth game of RtW, and it's freaking brilliant. Always play it all the way through, really enjoying it, and it got me thinking that the gameplay 'loop' in RtW is really, really good. The way that the strategic layer, technology (so you're always facing different design challenges each game) and tactical layer (where you see how your answers to those design challenges performed) is a big winner as a game, and not just as a naval warfare simulation (although it looks pretty good at that as well, although I'm barely qualified to comment on that level . So it got me thinking - and it's just a thought, and probably one NWS have already talked about, but has their been any thought to hiring a few extra people, giving the UI and visuals some spit and polish, add in some more tooltips and trying to get it up on Steam or Matrix games or similar? Note, I'm just a random person on the internet - if you think about this seriously, do research and cost-benefit analyses and whatnot - but I can't help but feel that with the right UI that helped people that weren't into ships as much, it could find a wider audience (and I mean no offence at all, but if it hadn't been for word-of-mouth I wouldn't have known RtW existed). Deffo no offence intended if it's a "no way in hell" for whatever reason, was just a thought, as you've got a freakin' awesome game here (and, I will admit, the idea of you having more sales so more resources to invest in RtW2 would serve my interests very nicely, so I'm not a completely disinterested observer).
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Post by axe99 on Jan 6, 2016 16:30:42 GMT -6
I'm a big fan of the later game destroyers (once they've got twin 4" turrets on them, and 6+TTs, they're monsters), but early on I like to build some 'heavy' CLs, 6000-8000 tons, fast-ish, 2-3" armour with as many 6" guns and torps as I can fit on them*. Usually a match for early enemy CLs, and fast/strong enough to support fleet actions well. Tech wise, I prioritise light forces, fire control, damage control and guns early, and torps a bit more later on. For my capital ships, I generally prioritise armour over speed, although try and get a bit of a balance going. Lots of great choices to be made.
* Unless I get a request to build 14 new CLs while playing as Austria Hungary, lol.
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Post by axe99 on Jan 5, 2016 19:31:19 GMT -6
The Philippines were discovered by Magellan on his around the world expedition and there further colonization occurred. Why? To find precious metals and spices in the Far East. That's how the America's were discovered, Columbus was looking for the East Indies for the same reason, and found the West Indies instead. Why did he and rest go? Because spices could not be grown in the Mediterranean climate of the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Greece and Northwest Africa. They did not have the gold and silver either, so they headed to the Far East because traveler's from China and the Silk Road had those items with them. That's why Venice and Italy flourished in the Renaissance economically. Geography again. Aye, but why Spain and not Portugal, or England? I think we agree - that geography is important but not the only factor, and that groups of humans up to and including states can act for other reasons, from matters of pride (Hitler and his CV) to other factors that aren't directly a factor of geography (like climate and disease - although both could potentially be rolled into geography if we were drawing geography large).
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Post by axe99 on Jan 5, 2016 0:46:18 GMT -6
No question that a substantial proportion, and easily the largest part, of a nation's interest is defined by its geography, but things like trade and inter-marrying of powerful families and migration and the like start to niggle away at the edge of that (unless we define geography's impact very broadly, but if we're going to say "geography is everything" then saying geography defines a nation's interests isn't saying much anyway).
For example, during the middle ages through to the 1700s at least, nations would go to war and acquire/lose territory because of marriage style arrangements and births or deaths that were not a direct geographic factor.
It could also be said that many of the larger Empire's possessions went beyond geography to depend on trade after a certain scope. Was the Spanish colonisation of the Philippines solely due to their geography, or were other factors involved as well? I'm not suggesting that Geography isn't important, but it's not the only game in town.
It can even come down to the ruler/ruling group at the time getting strange notions in their head. This thread was triggered by a comment about Germany never having an aircraft carrier, when it almost definitely would have had one had WWII not started for another year or two, mainly because Hitler wanted a 'power projection' fleet, regardless of it making limited geopolitical sense to Germany.
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Post by axe99 on Jan 4, 2016 18:28:38 GMT -6
While I think a nations' geography strongly influences how it behaves in a geopolitical state, I wouldn't be as deterministic to say that nations can't escape their 'fate', per se, or that we understand the various elements of geography well enough to fully understand what that fate may be if they could.
Nations have interests, and those interests are (perhaps most) often related to their geography, but the full spectrum of a nations' interests isn't fully bound by geography, thus a nation may act in a way its geography may not initially suggest, due to other non-geographical interests.
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Post by axe99 on Jan 3, 2016 1:32:11 GMT -6
If the decision is to proceed beyond 1922 and include developmental air operations, you basically have three countries; realistically. England, US and Japan would be the primary developers. You could include France and Italy. The development of the carriers accelerated with the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty and the 1930 Treaty. No treaties and maybe an arms race in dreadnoughts. The Lexington's might have ended up as battlecruisers, like they were designed. It might be interesting to pursue the development of air operations and the aircraft itself, up to 1930. It is the decision for the team. I'd definitely prefer any 'formal' extension to the 1940s or so to include aircraft (with basic scouting aircraft and some very early strike aircraft making their way into the time period covered by the game). While I agree it would have taken longer for aircraft to 'catch on', the first carriers were laid down during WW1, and adding aviation would also allow for seaplane tenders/carriers to make their way into gameplay as well. Also, had there been no Washington Treaty, there's no reason Germany wouldn't have been involved in the development of naval aviation as well.
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Post by axe99 on Dec 31, 2015 15:04:39 GMT -6
From the fun I've had in the game so far, I'd be all over an expansion. Would it be better to perhaps expand it back in time first though, where (at least from my untrained eye) it would be easier to adapt the mechanics around a longer pre-dreadnought period? It may be the case that introducing naval air would mean a whole new game, rather than an expansions (although I know these days the line between the two isn't necessarily as clear as it used to be). Either way, more RtW sounds like a good thing .
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