Rule The Waves

[Skywalkre]

 

Had another "I'm just going to play for a bit to see how this aspect of the game works" session turn into 6+ hours the other night. Haven't had this much just-one-more-turn syndrome since the early Civ games.

 

The one thing I was curious about was whether or not you could go back and research guns you already knew to boost their effectiveness. So, for example, if you had a -1 gun you could make it 0 or turn a 0 into a +1. I haven't gotten far enough into any of these games (battles take a while) to see if the negative ones you start with are preset and all future guns are 0 or if it's RNG and you can get -1 to 1. So far the only way I've seen to get better ones is to buy from other countries.

 

Anyone know? There's a whole separate tab listing gun sizes but I didn't see any means to interact with it (which left me wondering the point of it at all) besides listing the stats of each gun.

 

Edit: Played some more tonight and randomly got an upgraded version of a gun I already had researched. Guessing it's just RNG that governs this.

Edited October 5, 2015 by Skywalkre

[Skywalkre]

So into my first real game, which wasn't intended to be one, and up to about 1912. Every other game I called short around 1905 since I was just looking into different aspects of how the game actually works.

 

Playing Germany and the original point of this one was just to test out custom building my initial fleet. I thought I was playing it safe by having the game suggest designs and then make some changes (which almost always involved getting rid of the submerged torp tubes and lowering the caliber of the main guns til my first 0 rating... more on this below). I ended up with only 12 ships - 3 Bs, 4 CAs, and 5 CLs (and two of these were little more than glorified DDs with just 2 x 6 in guns and nothing else as I figured my ship count was too low and I needed something). Since that's all I could afford I figured I was fine... until the first message in the game was my Kaiser voicing displeasure with my lack of B tonnage.

 

I left out DDs on purpose. I wasn't planning on playing this game past my first war, previous games hadn't shown DDs do anything in the early years anyways, and was curious if something unconventional like this would work. The only use I got out of DDs in other games early on was as cheap CP duty. Shortly after starting this game I simply built about 10 MSs to cover that.

 

My first war was against Italy and happened fairly quickly. I flooded the Med with almost my entire fleet (on paper I was apparently much stronger) and won every engagement against them. The big ones were never decisive and instead most of my VPs came from engagements where my cruisers caught large numbers of transports and I ended up sinking all of them.

 

This war was as much experimentation as anything else. In previous games I'd basically take the earliest peace offering where supposedly some colonial possessions would transfer to our side. In those previous games I repeatedly ran into situations where I could take 4 points of something but every enemy holding was 5 or more, thus ending up with nothing. In this game I held out. My VP ratio was like 10:1 so when the option to keep fighting came up I always took it and always supported social programs to ease the strain at home. Money was tight so all I ended up doing since the game had started and during the war was refitting a few ships with better FC systems and improved machinery (despite having this on Low I always seem to get frequent upgrades). In the end Italy fell apart from within, sued for peace, and I took her best B as well as Sardinia and a few colonial possessions! Lesson learned - holding out when clearly winning can net some sweet rewards.

 

There were other lessons learned as well. First, ammo counts, even when slightly higher than the game suggests, aren't nearly high enough. In basically every engagement my ships would always run low or completely out of ammo. This, more than the nature of combat, seemed the biggest reason why major engagements weren't decisive. Second, CLs are worthless in fleet engagements. My theory I was testing was simply building them, up-gunning them a bit, and having them hold off enemy DDs while hopefully having enough punch to hurt CAs as well. In practice they just reinforced what CT96 has mentioned about having big-gunned, low armor ships tends to result in nothing more than easy targets for your enemy. Third, there doesn't seem to be a thing as having too many guns on a ship. A few of my designs were more 'conventional' with fewer but bigger guns. I'm guessing that given the tech of the era this just wasn't practical yet.

 

So, taking these lessons I moved into my post-war phase and hoped to address them. The first thing I did was commission a new CA with more guns and bigger ones at that. A new B/BB was too expensive and out of the question (I had continually favored funding for social programs and the Army during the last war so my budget was still tight). Second, I started refitting ships (some for the second time) with maxed out ammo loads. Third, I wanted to experiment with CLs as raiders during a war and commissioned a new ship with very weak armament but that was extremely fast. The plan was if I was to get caught I'd simply run away, draw out the scenario, and keep raiding.

 

Unfortunately my next war came rather quickly so all of the above was barely in motion. I signed a treaty with Britain for several years thinking that would buy me time to put my changes into effect but apparently France wasn't intimidated. War came and I had all of just 2 of the new CAs, most of my original ships still with their original low ammo loadouts, and just 2 of the new CLs.

 

On paper France was much larger than me. We had a fairly large engagement early on which ended in stalemate and a few of my ships took quite a beating. Given their larger fleet I knew I couldn't afford to keep that up so drastically changed course for the rest of the war. From then on I avoided all major fleet engagements and dispatched one B and a few CAs to other theaters even though I was blockaded. The CLs went on their raiding duty right from the start. MSs were back on CP and I had a few subs as well (only built because my Prestige had gotten fairly low). Surprisingly... things are going rather well. While I lose about 70 VPs a turn from avoiding major engagements in the North Atlantic I gain at least 100 or more from raiding with CLs (and subs to a lesser degree... I really should be taking note at the efficiency of the cost spent vs return for the two) and from winning engagements in places like the Med where I have more ships than them. The budget is super tight given we're blockaded and I've been doing the same approach of social + Army so all I've done since the war started is build 3 more of the new CLs.

 

The war is still waging and has gone on for a few years now (pretty sure I'll win as I have a 3:2 VP ratio and the latest reports from the Army are positive). I saved my game right at the first real major engagement was about to take place since the start of the war (though I think it'll be indecisive as I played through 1/4 of it and hadn't even spotted them). I've whittled down enough of the French fleet in other theaters that our North Atlantic fleets are finally on par. I've taken away a few lessons so far, though, despite the war not being over. First, those CL raiders seem extremely worthwhile. As I mentioned they return quite a bit of VPs every turn and are fast enough (the ones I have are 27 knots in 1912) to outrun anything that has intercepted them so far. In future games where I design my fleet I'll go for this setup from the start. Second, I made a point since the game started to focus research, training, and refitting on accuracy. In my war with Italy this was hardly noticeable. Against France I've started to routinely see almost double their hit % in engagements. So much of this game is just small and gradual improvements. I'm thinking they're finally starting to add up a dozen years into the scenario. Third, the more-and-bigger-gun approach with my latest CAs seems to have been a good move. I've had several small engagements with them against French cruisers and completely dominated the enemy ships (quick engagements with the enemy sunk and almost no damage to me).

 

The one thing I'm not sure about is whether my focus on guns of at least 0 rating is meaningful. When I started the game I downgraded my Bs to have 10 in guns because the 11 in ones for Germany were -1. In my war with Italy I got her best B as a reward and then noticed she had -1 guns. I remembered several engagements with this ship during the war and her hit % was right up there with my ships (which all had top FC and gunnery training at the time). So... in short... I have no real idea what that number means and how it interacts with game mechanics.

[CT96]

I never got a prize ship... something to look for in the future. Of course in most wars where I've got a huge VP ratio, I've actually sunk most of the enemy fleet, so there's not much left to take as a prize.

 

I treat my CLs as over-sized DDs. Usually have them at, or very nearly at DD speed. No Armor, ever. Lots of light guns. They are the eyes of my battle fleet and the force to finish off wounded stragglers when my battle fleet can't afford the time to deal with a (often toothless but not mortally wounded) limping BB. My CA's are my fast van, able to shape the enemy course and keep my battle fleet from plowing into something unawares (almost never had my T crossed, though it was a near thing a few times). Older CLs and CAs I send off to be raiders... on occasion even B's and some old BBs do a good job at that (had a campaign a while back where enemy BCs were being quite effective as cruiser killers, and kept killing off my raiders and even catching non-raiders out on occasion - then I put a pair of my oldest BBs on raiding, and nailed the enemy BCs. Hard. Blew one clean out of the water (turret flash), and pummeled the other one under. My BB got hurt badly, but survived to make port and was back on patrol in a couple months. When a 15-20 year old BB can take on a pair of the newest modern BCs and win handily, BC's aren't worth crap. Unless you make them overly armored, under-gunned. This is why I have such formidable CAs.

 

I plan for modernization in all CAs and above, so even if the original design is a -1 gun, the larger caliber is what I go with - eventually it will get modernized (if the ship survives long enough - and the way I armor them, they usually do), and get a 0 or even a +1 later on. My crazy later CAs are just bristling with main battery 10" turrets... Fwd, Fwd superimposed, Q, Aft, Aft superimposed. I've even done it with all triples. The volume of fire from them is simply astounding. Against other CAs and anything lighter, the fight is usually over before it even starts. Against BBs it is fast enough to keep distance, and take some pounding... against BCs, it's kinda done. But the cost is so much lesser than BCs it's worth it - I will happily trade two of my CAs to take out a BC (and still consider it a bargain).

 

Playing as Germany is tough. Far too easy to get blockaded, bottled up in the North Sea. I too avoid fleet battle until a time and place of my choosing (as Germany). In my current campaign (haven't played in over a week now I guess), despite taking more than half the British colonial empire, they still out build me in BBs. One can really understand why Germany focused on U-boats and raiding (when it wasn't focused almost entirely on being a Land Power).

[Edmund]

Every time I have tried to really armor my CA's and keep some speed they cost almost as much as a B or BB. So I just keep them at around 6" belts. That keeps 6" guns from doing much but allows decent speed and a lower cost. Early CA's mount 9" guns and later CA's get 10". My CA's also get a dozen 6" guns and eight 4". These keep DD's and CL's at bay.

 

For CL's I go for speed, range and very light armor. They only need enough guns to kill DD's and other CL's since they are not going to kill CA's and up. They get torps as that can help finish a wounded ship.

 

Current game I had an issue. The computer kept moving my ships from where I stationed them to some other area during war with US. Many ended up in the Med. But Indian ocean , NE Asia and SE Asia were weakened. Same for West Africa, Caribbean and SA East coast. US had raiders in Med but no major ships. US also put a BC everywhere they had bases.

 

CT96 I know you said BC's were no trouble for you, but US BC's give me fits. I can't figure out how they build so many and well armored and gunned. The US had 2 less BB's (11 to 9) but had 9 BC's to my 3. Seriously they have 10" belts, go 28knts or more and have 12" and up guns. All this for 18K to 25K tons ships in 1910. I tried to build some and mine go up in tonnage and cost. Additionally, they seem to be treated as CA's for any action that has CA's. So in a convoy raid I have a couple CA's and they get BC's. My CA's as designed can't handle BC's. Even when I have B's & BB's in the area they don't make the OB.

 

Need a new plan.

[Skywalkre]

First bit of frustration with the game...

 

So that game as Germany where I was in war with France up above? Well, I won the war after 4-5 years, had a 2:1 VP ratio (which was almost all me... surprisingly little added by my ally Britain despite having the world's biggest fleet), and ended up taking 4 African colonies from them when it was all said and done. Then what happens to me less than a year after? I'm sacked and the game ends because my 'prestige' is too low.

 

 

I can understand the need for the system so you discourage players from playing a game, just building and managing, and never going to war. But by 1916 or so, when this was all said and done, I had been in two wars with very little downtime in between, won both handily, taken 7+ colonies between the defeated nations, and that still wasn't enough? No more than a turn after the French war every prompt was for me to make inflammatory moves against another nation.

 

To avoid this nuisance in the future I think I'll look at the intel sliders and leave them at none to see if that changes the prompts I get. I routinely see "a spy was caught" messages and on principle I deny involvement (umm... why do I want to turn a bad spy into a national hero?). I'm curious if these are tied to your intel level. I've been using it, and fairly extensively so far, simply because it's so cheap.

Edited October 8, 2015 by Skywalkre

[CT96]

On "cheap" CAs: I always minimize my tonnage, and I move to AoN armor as soon as feasible. My first few games I wound up having BB tonnage CAs because I didn't think to drop the weight. I keep a minimum of "reserve" tonnage of between 50 and 100.

[Skywalkre]

On "cheap" CAs: I always minimize my tonnage, and I move to AoN armor as soon as feasible. My first few games I wound up having BB tonnage CAs because I didn't think to drop the weight. I keep a minimum of "reserve" tonnage of between 50 and 100.

How does that even work in this game? I got that announcement shortly before my game ended above and went to the design screen and saw no option in the armor layout. Is it just default on all ships after you research it?

[Harold Jones]

Armor improvements are automatically applied to new builds. Stronger armor is modeled as being lighter for a given level of protection. Here's a link to one of their forum pages that has links to various useful things. http://nws-online.proboards.com/thread/335/rtw-rule-waves-information-downloads including a patch that I didn't know was out.

 

ETA link to updates forum thread http://nws-online.proboards.com/thread/454/rule-waves-updates-release-notices

Edited October 8, 2015 by Harold Jones

[CT96]

It's not just the availability of the AoN scheme (R&D), it's updating my designs to use it too.

[Harold Jones]

Oh you mean all or nothing. Thought you were talking about a metallurgy upgrade.

[Skywalkre]

Anyone still playing this? That last game I wrote about a few posts above left such a bad taste in my mouth I haven't gone back. Anyone following it and heard of any changes in recent patches?

[Allan W]

I still play it occasionally, but I find the replay value is becoming less and less. Same game over and over again gets boring after a while.

[CT96]

I would like to play... but I'm sitting at the start of a major Jutland battle, and I know how long that will take to play out... and my time just hasn't been there of late.

 

What this game is really missing - for me at least - is a multi-player version. As with many such games, it is TOO easy to beat the computer, and I would really like a human opponent to challenge me. I *am* working on a more traditional tabletop global strategy game - that will require lots of people to play out (which is the other side problem of getting enough people to play it out). I am looking at building a large strategy game that drops into Seekrieg or Tactics II or Platoon leader, or whatever for individual tactical actions (depending upon scale - don't want to play Jutland out in Seekrieg, but don't want to use something as simple as Der Tag for cruiser actions, want to have a theater or army level strategy, but be able to play out smaller actions with more detail etc.).

 

Now, if I could use Rule the Waves/Steam and Iron as the naval engine for it, and do some other computer integration....

[Harold Jones]

Here's their forum thread for patches. Looks like the latest version is 1.23 http://nws-online.proboards.com/thread/454/rule-waves-updates-release-notices

[Edmund]

I just started a new game. Trying to rely on speed more then armour. Working so far for the most part. However I just lost a big battle with Germany with rough seas and very limited visibility. Battle started with my ships (2 BC's 1 CA, 5 CL's 10 DD's) headed South and Germany's fleet (2 BC's, 2 CA's, 4 CL's and 12 DD's) headed East. The game started my ships almost touching the Germans with my bow facing their broadside. I got hammered by their guns and torpedoes before I could really maneuver. Then my best BC in the battle blew up in a flash fire. I was able protect my merchant ships but lost my last BC, 2 CL's and 4 DD's. Germany lost 1 CA, 2 CL's, and 6 DD's. Huge loss for UK. I did manage to damage both of their BC's but not seriously.

 

Oh forgot to mention I am fighting Germany and Russia at the same time (Not my intention as I was hassling Russia and suddenly Germany hated me too). This battle did not include Russian ships.

 

No glitches or crashes so far. I downloaded whatever the last patch is but I started. I did note that everyone could 25 knot BB's but I could only build 23 knot ones even with oil. Any faster and it makes me call it a BC.

[Al]

This a fun game to play. Some of the battles that start at night will sometimes have the opposing fleets very (too?) close to each other. A few small quirks but overall one of the better naval games I've purchased.

[Skywalkre]

I should go read up and see if he's addressed the issue about being pushed into a war all the time. Having WW1 levels of combat every 5 years is a bit much.

[Edmund]

Funny SkyWalkre. But in the game I posted about above, Russia and I have fought every four or five years. Never amounts to much as their Navy rarely comes out to play. Although their raiders are deadly. They have raiders sinking my ships before I get mine built. My raiders never sink anything. I love trying figure out designs that work. Wished I could.

Edited July 1, 2016 by Edmund

[Al]

You can work it so that wars don't happen so often but I think the system rewards aggressive behavior.

 

I don't seem to have any trouble with my raiders sinking enemy merchant ships - but I put as many ships as I can into raiding and have used as raiders everything from DD's to BB's. Subs are also are useful - and relatively cheap - means for sinking enemy ships.

 

What I have trouble with is designing good cruisers. I haven't quite found the best balance between armor and firepower and cruiser actions seem to be the most common types of battles. What I have found is that once a ship gets an "elite" crew that can overcome a lot of design shortcomings.

[Skywalkre]

You can work it so that wars don't happen so often but I think the system rewards aggressive behavior.

 

I don't seem to have any trouble with my raiders sinking enemy merchant ships - but I put as many ships as I can into raiding and have used as raiders everything from DD's to BB's. Subs are also are useful - and relatively cheap - means for sinking enemy ships.

 

What I have trouble with is designing good cruisers. I haven't quite found the best balance between armor and firepower and cruiser actions seem to be the most common types of battles. What I have found is that once a ship gets an "elite" crew that can overcome a lot of design shortcomings.

The game gives the illusion of choice. It pushes you to aggressive, reckless behavior and if you don't go with it it ends the game for you once that one stat (influence?) gets low enough. Said direction it pushes you in is so over the top you might as well have phasers and photon torpedoes as part of the tech advances. It'd be just as believable.

Edited July 1, 2016 by Skywalkre

[Al]

From my experience (YMMV) I played the system - i.e. aggressive - at first but once I got up to a certain level - above 30 - I could tone it down without a loss of prestige. Is it believable? Not entirely and the developer seems to acknowledge that but I think it's a fun game to play.

[Skywalkre]

Anyone still playing?

 

I checked the update thread Harold linked way back. Doesn't seem any changes have been made to the influence/rep/whatever system that was really annoying me. This game, like AW/WoT, is exactly the type of game I'd love to play if it weren't for some key dev choices that just ruin it for me.

[CT96]

It's a great engine, but poor AI and no way to multi-player it. Even a Play by Email campaign would be amazing. I've been playing other wargames (or not playing games at all as we get ready for a little one to arrive this summer).

[TomG]

Aren't they working on a sequel to RtW?