legacy fleet manual design for all start years

[Kanonen]

Is there any way to add this to the game?

Honestly, I don't know why this option isn't there.

[Silamon]

I think it makes starting out too easy if you get to choose the starting designs, but I agree it should probably be an option.

[Andrew Cree]

Trouble is, the best B and CA design in 1890 is all single 8" guns with 6" secondaries.

Easy to build on a 15,000t hull and would overwhelm any enemy B...heck, I've had battles where my 6" armed CLs have sunk Bs before.

If NWS could work in an extended legacy fleet constructor, where 25% of your ships use the technology of 20 years previously, 50% of your ships are 10 years old and the remaining 25% of your ships are modern...that would be somewhat more balanced but would need a lot more work, not to mention a massive expansion of AI design templates (adding 1870 and 1880 designs) which are already overwhelmed by the existing templates.

[Kanonen]

Originally posted by Andrew Cree:

Trouble is, the best B and CA design in 1890 is all single 8" guns with 6" secondaries.

Easy to build on a 15,000t hull and would overwhelm any enemy B...heck, I've had battles where my 6" armed CLs have sunk Bs before.

If NWS could work in an extended legacy fleet constructor, where 25% of your ships use the technology of 20 years previously, 50% of your ships are 10 years old and the remaining 25% of your ships are modern...that would be somewhat more balanced but would need a lot more work, not to mention a massive expansion of AI design templates (adding 1870 and 1880 designs) which are already overwhelmed by the existing templates.

Is it really necessary to consider balance?

The tooltip already warns enough that manual design reduces difficulty.
And it's just an option, so the player can choose.

[Heahengel]

Originally posted by ddc1222:

Is it really necessary to consider balance?

The tooltip already warns enough that manual design reduces difficulty.
And it's just an option, so the player can choose.

On the one hand, I agree with you. On the other, I'd love to have the option Andrew Cree described in addition.

[Andrew Cree]

Originally posted by ddc1222:

Is it really necessary to consider balance?

The tooltip already warns enough that manual design reduces difficulty.
And it's just an option, so the player can choose.

I suppose if you just want an 'I win button', then yes. That's how weak some of the starting designs are in 1890.

1920 and 1930s start would have players building a-historical fleet mixes, again giving them a significantly easier play through.

[Daikhan]

Originally posted by Andrew Cree:

Trouble is, the best B and CA design in 1890 is all single 8" guns with 6" secondaries.

Easy to build on a 15,000t hull and would overwhelm any enemy B...heck, I've had battles where my 6" armed CLs have sunk Bs before.

If NWS could work in an extended legacy fleet constructor, where 25% of your ships use the technology of 20 years previously, 50% of your ships are 10 years old and the remaining 25% of your ships are modern...that would be somewhat more balanced but would need a lot more work, not to mention a massive expansion of AI design templates (adding 1870 and 1880 designs) which are already overwhelmed by the existing templates.

I think it will be an excellent idea for a DLC or a next RtW title to include the classic ironclad period of 1860-1890. I would love such a game.

More on the topic: RtW is a sandbox game ultimately where the player decides how hard or easy he wants the game to be. I see no reason to not make an option for manually building legacy fleets for any starting date. It would be a nice addition. And they do have a warning for it

[Klikkit]

I suspect it would require work on the back end. The 1900 start has had legacy fleet building since RTW1 so was probably easy to just slip back in. Some of the legacy equipment like those horrible 15” guns some nations have in their legacy fleets might be hard to finagle in too.

[TheOtherPoster]

Maybe a way around it to give us some input without messing too much or give us too big advantage could be if
in the menu before starting the game (where we choose for example fleet size, research rate or tech variation) we could also choose if we want to build either a Jeune Ecole or a main battleline fleet.

So the AI would still design and build the ships for us but at least we would have had a saying on the types and number of ships:
If choosing Battleline, AI would prioritize battleships, while if we choose Jeune Ecole (for lack of a better name) we would get more BCs, cruisers and other units.

The game is tuned for a classic mahanian blue water navy (battle fleets and so on). Real Jeune Ecole does not work very well, so I’m not really advocating to get the AI to build us a true Jeune Ecole fleet, only to put more weight into battleships in one side or battlecruisers and cruisers and other units in the other.