This game is a waste of time, and it always has been.

[GerthQuake]

All the hours spent designing ships, thinking up a doctrine that would suit the roles they fill, meticulously crafting a fleet that would dominate the waves - All of it, is completely in vain because the battle generator, underlying mechanics, and AI are absolutely the bottom-of-the-barrel that software development has to offer in 2025.

What good is the ship and force design of the game - if when it comes time to actually USE the formations you spent so long building, the AI simply does whatever the f*ck it wants, and turns the battle into a medieval melee?

From Generating 'Carrier Battles' in typhoon conditions within 25 miles of an enemy Battleship Formation, Generating Carrier Battles wherein your forces are pinned to a continent and can't sail away due to the wind direction, the AI randomly taking control of my forces and sailing straight into the enemy because they suddenly became 'confused', all the way down to the random 40,000yd AI torpedo sniping in 1920 - this game is an utter waste of potential, time, and interest.

I've spent years playing this franchise, and years participating on the NWS boards - each and every minute of it was a total waste of time invested because evidently the game hasn't gotten ANY better in the 10+ years i've been playing it.

It's always the same old story - I fall back into interest in Naval Warfare - install the game and take days meticulously going through the early management and pre-war years, then when War Breaks out - within a couple hours the game is uninstalled and it sits in my library for another 6 months.

Fix it.

[Reynolds]

The fortunes of war. It is the same bad weather for both sides.

[NoG]

Gonna have to agree, for a game priced like this many ease of use features and bugs need to be implemented to make this worth while. The method of battle set ups being to where ship numbers and availability are near ambiguous and barely controllable, to frustrating budget management clashing with rng events, or when playing against Britain and game save is over in less than 3 years in because I cant form anything close to fight them nor can I choose to lower aggression toward them prior to war. I get I can run the clock by attacking merchants and winning battles of convoy protection but it is so tedious going back on prior saves every time my one of 7 or so battleships get sunk because that ship alone with a a few CL will spawn right next to the entire enemy fleet to get torpedoed at night. I think I saw a review on this game that summarized it very well, its somewhat along the lines of; like your stuck in a small room. and the walls that are around you are like the primitive tactics of this game; The limited overall tactical choices and freedom. I think this game could learn a lot from UAD with exception the most recent few dumpster fire updates, things like more ship/ visual customization, in depth global map fleet control, and a reduced reliance on RNG and spontaneous events (Or improve events by adding more total events and options). As many said the potential is there but it noticeably falls short in frustrating ways.

[Graf Erik]

Eh, well, every game is waste of time if you think about it.

As for this one here:
Its okay. Fun even.
But yes, the 'battle generator' is by far the weakest part of the game. The one way I found the game to be enjoyable, is to save before clicking 'end turn', twice, and then reload if the 'battle' that its generated sucks.
Which it does roughly 4 out of 5 times.
I have to save twice, because I save again at the beginning of the battle, run it at fastest speed to check the setup, and when the game decided (again) the enemy gets 6 BCs (out of the 6 it has) while I get 2 CAs (and none of my 12 BCs) I reload)
Which, I guess by now, is exactly what the ai does. The ai knows the numbers before the battle, and if it isnt in their favor, it declines. Often 10 times in a row. And when it doesnt decline it gets its whole fleet and I get 2 cruisers.

And I'd say 2 out of 3 time I have to manually 'fix' the generated battle first, by editing the save file, so that I do actually get a battle.
Remove the NoOrdersBS (I didnt come up with that name), change the time, so that the battle doesnt end 10 minutes after it started cause I cant see the enemy anymore, move the fleets so that they actually meet each other (honestly, the number of times you start a battle were you cant even give orders before you meet the enemy, but you never meet the enemy, so you just stare at the screem for 5 minutes at maximum acceleration before the battle ends in a draw is embarrising).
Or move the fleets away from the coast because the ai completly loses it when it comes to close.
Appart from that the ai isnt even that terrible. I mean, I would never let the ai control one of my capital ships. DDs maybe, but only until I actually need them to attack.

[Andrew Cree]

Yes, most of the AIs are abject cowards.

Which you can use as an exploit...

[NoG]

Originally posted by Graf Erik:

Eh, well, every game is waste of time if you think about it.

As for this one here:
Its okay. Fun even.
But yes, the 'battle generator' is by far the weakest part of the game. The one way I found the game to be enjoyable, is to save before clicking 'end turn', twice, and then reload if the 'battle' that its generated sucks.
Which it does roughly 4 out of 5 times.
I have to save twice, because I save again at the beginning of the battle, run it at fastest speed to check the setup, and when the game decided (again) the enemy gets 6 BCs (out of the 6 it has) while I get 2 CAs (and none of my 12 BCs) I reload)
Which, I guess by now, is exactly what the ai does. The ai knows the numbers before the battle, and if it isnt in their favor, it declines. Often 10 times in a row. And when it doesnt decline it gets its whole fleet and I get 2 cruisers.

And I'd say 2 out of 3 time I have to manually 'fix' the generated battle first, by editing the save file, so that I do actually get a battle.
Remove the NoOrdersBS (I didnt come up with that name), change the time, so that the battle doesnt end 10 minutes after it started cause I cant see the enemy anymore, move the fleets so that they actually meet each other (honestly, the number of times you start a battle were you cant even give orders before you meet the enemy, but you never meet the enemy, so you just stare at the screem for 5 minutes at maximum acceleration before the battle ends in a draw is embarrising).
Or move the fleets away from the coast because the ai completly loses it when it comes to close.
Appart from that the ai isnt even that terrible. I mean, I would never let the ai control one of my capital ships. DDs maybe, but only until I actually need them to attack.

for a game that seems to be based on platform almost over a decade old i believe these kind of issues should have been ironed out. A lot of a time i wouldn't choose for the AI to control my ships but due to several in game features (mostly out of sight) thats what happens. I do the save loading for battles all the time due to the exact issue of my new and competitive battleships not being used once over about a year time frame, save states are nice but its not an ideal way to play a game at the frequency I need to use them. In summary, I strongly believe this game needs mechanics and features improvements, bug fixes wouldn't hurt too.

[NoG]

also whos tagging all the clown emotes lol

[Andrew Cree]

Oh, it's not perfect, but it is better than it was.

It used to be simple to herd the AI into the coastline, now I have to work at it.

P.S. do you have the 'Large Battles' setting enabled in your Preferences? That increases the likelihood of seeing more of your ships in action each turn.

[GerthQuake]

Originally posted by Andrew Cree:

Oh, it's not perfect, but it is better than it was.

It used to be simple to herd the AI into the coastline, now I have to work at it.

P.S. do you have the 'Large Battles' setting enabled in your Preferences? That increases the likelihood of seeing more of your ships in action each turn.

I do. Doesn't change much - in fact in many respects, it's worse.

Not sure why the game even allows me to form divisions of my own - because every time I get thrown into battle the AI splits my stuff up and subdivides it into it's own divisions.

Yet another mechanism where the player is supposed to have direct control - simply being overridden by the AI to be mangled.

Thanks for reminding me of another broken mechanic that I had forgot to mention.

[NoG]

Originally posted by Andrew Cree:

Oh, it's not perfect, but it is better than it was.

It used to be simple to herd the AI into the coastline, now I have to work at it.

P.S. do you have the 'Large Battles' setting enabled in your Preferences? That increases the likelihood of seeing more of your ships in action each turn.

I had it disabled, i will try now with large fleet battles