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Post by eaterofsuns on Jun 1, 2023 10:16:23 GMT -6
Let me preface this by pointing out the forum that this is being posted on should be a good indicator of where my loyalties lie. For the record I own RTW 1-3 and UAD, and have spent more hours than I should probably admit in all 4 now.
I think the general consensus here seems mostly right, UAD has a flawed approach to simulation. That said, I have more than gotten my money's worth in entertainment from the game. The campaign system they have is a mess, but notably improving over time. Honestly most of the fun for me has been using it as a toy, playing through the academy missions or custom battles when I don't really want to think too hard and would rather fool around with ships for a few minutes. The UAD ship designer is way too fiddly, but it is still satisfying to make pretty ships and see them underway.
In terms of actual simulation value though RTW is incomparably better. I still babble to my naval history friends about my fondest RTW2 memory of accidentally recreating the Richelieu in the 1930s as Russia almost exactly as the French designed her right down to armor thickness and nearly exact gun fits, due to looking at a strategic situation similar to 1930s France and coming to nearly the same conclusions their naval architects did. The fact that RTW organically brought me to a conclusion which matched up with actual historical decisions is enormously impressive.
I suppose then my thesis would boil down to I like all these games and am glad they exist. I think RTW is better in most ways, but I am quite happy to support more than one entry into the naval game arena.
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Post by nightshift on Jun 3, 2023 17:33:43 GMT -6
Played the heck out of it for the last year or so. It was the only game for me that could scratch that itch, until Rule The Waves 3 popped up on my steam recommondations (never heard of it before, although I probably look at every naval game that comes even remotely close to me). Bought it and don't think I can go back now.
For some reason I find this Win3.1 version more immersive though.
For one, land seems to be an important feature in naval battles, at least for some aspects.
The Admiral realism option is just awesome. Having to micro every dd, isn't fun and puts you in an unfair advantage over a rather limited AI. This makes the use of commanders and improved fleet management a nice feature which would be useless in U:AD.
Politics feel more meaningfull and events, although sometimes similar, feel more impactfull in RTW3.
Even though I failed twice starting as Austria-Hungary (no save scumming), I'm having a pretty good time with Germany now and think UA:D eased me into the terminologies and general mindset for overall naval developements of the time (probably gonna hit a bump soon, once planes get introduced since they don't play any role in UA:D - wouldn't work there anyway).
All I can say is I enjoyed UA:D a lot, got my money out it several times (close to 1k hours), but RTW3 does most things better.
Offers for mothballed ships and more minor nations interactions is one thing RTW3 could take a look at from UA:D..
And after having designed hundreds of ships in UA:D the editor in RTW3 is such a streamlined relief. 2 minutes and you have a good design.
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Post by cabalamat on Jun 4, 2023 7:11:00 GMT -6
UAD has a flawed approach to simulation. What do you feel is flawed about it?
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Post by buttons on Jun 28, 2023 8:49:19 GMT -6
Say someone made a tank designer game for example I know you're making a hypothetical but there is a recent game about that, Sprocket, and it's pretty good Damn I love that game. Soothes the strong urge I have to design tanks.
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Post by Nicholas on Jul 19, 2023 17:11:33 GMT -6
Both games have their pros and cons. For me, RTW's only obvious con is that the ships are represented as 2D models. Otherwise, 10 out of 10 would dedicate hours of the day to RTW. Ship design is simple. Let the game generate a design and modify some values. Interactions with AI nations is easy to understand. Combat is dictated by your settings, your fleet and the enemy fleet's location and the type of battle generated. All three games are simple to understand until you get to RTW2's air combat and start dabbling in RTW3's divisions.
UAD, on the other hand, not only represents ships as 3d models but grants you more control over the designs. From choosing specific hulls, towers, funnels, and gun calibers to propulsion systems, armor schemes, munitions, armor thickness and specific gun caliber and length. Custom battles allow you to immediately pit ships against one another, with the entire thing being randomly generated or the player specifying which nations are participating in the battle with what level of technology and with the exact number of ships each side has and in what weather. The naval academy has missions that range in difficulty. Early missions teach players to design effective ships and how to command said ships, while later missions force players to design radically unique ships for those scenarios. And the campaign is where things start falling apart. To start with, I like being allowed to design ships for every starting date and that includes the enemy's legacy fleet to some extent. And being able to sway your government to reduce or increase tension with specific nations is nice and there being a risk as to whether it succeeds or not makes sense, but it fails so often that I feel as if I shouldn't bother with it in the first place. Coupled with the fact that AI nations have the same ability and utilize it better, it's all too easy to find yourself at war with another nation and for other Ai nations to go to war among themselves. Minor nations are an interesting addition, but I'm not an exact fan of how they dealt with the British Commonwealth, with nations like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand being free to side with other nations, the fact that minor nations have budgets that allow them to field battleships and battlecruisers near effortlessly, and our ability to interact with them is limited. The game map is a mixed bag. Moving ships from specific ports is nice, but having to send task forces to track down enemy task forces tedious at best and infuriating at worst, and the weather is doing most of the work in differentiating battles from one another otherwise it's just long range fights that end in either one side retreating or the two sides closing the distance to slug it out, every single time. And last and perhaps most importantly of all the army. The player has no control over what the army does which makes sense, but must the army invade provinces for little to no reason with no way for the navy to support the battle. I cannot say how many times I've seen a 1920 Germany invade either Czechoslovakia or Poland, raising tensions with a number of nations and starting another European year within a year.
In short, I'd spend hours playing RTW and maybe minutes playing UAD. Even though I love the ships I design in UAD without a well put together campaign I can't say they leave a lasting impression on me.
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Post by xxpu69yslayerxx on Nov 3, 2023 10:58:04 GMT -6
I'm just going to say you can mod WAY more in U-$A++)D (If you can see what I did...), I know the devs are constrained by the engine or something, and I think RTWs is superior, (wish I found it sooner). Idk, I feel sorry for U-$A++)D (lol) frankly as it does lack depth at times...
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Post by zulu354 on Nov 29, 2023 9:45:53 GMT -6
To stand up for the devs of UA:D They already stated, their game is heavily inspired by RtW. They also were blamed to be too similar to RtW. Also as they stated they had to release the game earlier as expected, as they're located in Ukraine and things gotten worse over there as we know and they needed to generate more renvue. Imho there is no other way, both games would be similar. Just think about the Sudden Strike and Blitzkrieg franchise in ww2 rts games back in the 90s.
This said, I like both games, and think both games have there pros and cons. Though RtW I play more often for several reasons.
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