Post by Adseria on Mar 9, 2019 21:39:23 GMT -6
Fable. Noun. A short story conveying a moral.
This is the story of the first game I ever played. It's not a long story, and not particularly exciting. I'm not even sure I want to tell it; it's kind of embarrassing, and I'm not sure how well I'll be able to tell it, but here goes.
I didn't know how the research system worked. I read somewhere (probably the manual) that you had to research the ability to build dreadnoughts, but I didn't know what tech unlocked it (tbh, I still don't really know; I mostly just wait until I get 3 centreline turrets). As a result, I assumed that there would be a specific tech that would allow me to build dreadnoughts. Now, by about 1915, I hadn't yet got this tech (for obvious reasons). Therefore, I assumed that I couldn't yet build dreadnoughts. However, my legacy fleet was beginning to get obsolete, and I knew that I needed a new battleship design. Enter the Resolution-class battleship, an attempt to fake a dreadnought with Pre-Dreadnought limitations. Don't pay too much attention to the fact that it's massively underweight; I lost the original design, so this is it recreated, as close as I can remember, in my latest game, where it's 1941; the weapons loadout (calibre and positioning) is definitely accurate; not sure about the armour or speed, but I think they're close enough.
As you can see, since I couldn't have more than 2 main battery turrets (or at least, that's what I thought at the time), I put as many guns in the 2 turrets as I could, and made them as big as I could, and then gave her an abnormally large secondary battery of 8" guns. At the time, I didn't actually know much about pre-dreadnought design, but from what I've learned since, this design seems to me to be built along the same lines as real pre-dreadnoughts; a small number of large guns, then lots of cruiser-calibre guns for engaging enemy cruisers and for destroying the superstructure of capital ships.
In action, the Resolution wasn't spectacular (she was mostly fighting dreadnoughts, of course), but she wasn't terrible. In particular, that large number of 8" guns made her devastating to enemy cruisers, on the rare occasion that she actually got to fight.
However, this wasn't the only ship I built at this time. My cruisers were also becoming obsolete, and I decided that I needed a replacement for them. The result was the Europa-class armoured cruiser (again, this is a recreation from memory, so it may not be entirely accurate).
As you can see, the design philosophy was similar to that of the Resolution-class; A limited number of main-battery turrets meant that the firepower was focused into a large secondary battery.
I only built one Europa-class (Europa herself), but, unlike the Resolution-class, the Europa engaged the enemy in battle many times. As a result, I can now say that the Europa was one of the best ships I've ever built. The main guns were more than capable of dealing with early cruisers (in fact, Europa defeated enemy dreadnoughts on more than one occasion). However, by far her best feature was that secondary battery; put her up against enemy light cruisers and destroyers, and she would completely annihilate them (assuming they didn't run away, of course). This meant that she was particularly effective in support of the main battlefleet; in a way, I almost used her like a slow battlecruiser; this was emphasized by the fact that the game kept making her the sole capital ship of my scouting force, which suited me just fine.
For some reason, I only ever built one Europa-class. I wanted to; I remember thinking on multiple occasions that, given how effective she was, I should build more of her. I assume that I just didn't have enough money (I was playing on the smallest fleet size), and, by the time I did, she was obsolete anyway; I realised that I'd already unlocked dreadnoughts a few (in-game) years after she was commissioned, and both Europa and the Resolution-class became largely obsolete. Even so, they remained in service for many years, and, though the Resolution-class never really got the chance to prove themselves, the Europa did, and she served with distinction through many wars.
The moral of the story is simple; don't be afraid to experiment, even when you don't need to. If I'd known how the game worked, I never would have made anything like the Europa. But because I didn't, I was forced to try something different, and, in this case, it worked out.