Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts

[jebsmoker]

i'd say the game is worth trying after a couple months of patching now. i sat on it for 3 months, gave it a whirl, and got surprised at how competent the AI is

i tried to take down an enemy battleship with one of my own and a torpedo boat. i tried to do the old crossing the T tactic with my battlecruiser while my torpedo boat was getting into range so that it can zero in and use its torpedoes, but my battleship got shown who is the boss of this gym by getting destroyed by a magazine explosion after the enemy ship scored a lucky hit, and my torpedo boat got zeroed in after my other ship sank to the bottom of the sea like a sack of shit

 

[Norfleet]

i tried to take down an enemy battleship with one of my own and a torpedo boat. i tried to do the old crossing the T tactic with my battlecruiser while my torpedo boat was getting into range so that it can zero in and use its torpedoes, but my battleship got shown who is the boss of this gym by getting destroyed by a magazine explosion after the enemy ship scored a lucky hit, and my torpedo boat got zeroed in after my other ship sank to the bottom of the sea like a sack of shit

This sounds like a case of "I don't know how to battlecruiser". Crossing the T = presenting broadside of the ship to the enemy. Not the greatest way to tank fire, but it's extra bad when you're a battlecruiser and cannot tank fire from a battleship. Getting ammo exploded was not a lucky hit, it was going to happen sooner or later that way. The correct way to engage in this scenario is to move to the range at which you can effectively fire at your enemy (preferrably one at which he CAN'T), then turn away at the sharpest angle you can while still keeping all your guns in action and commence bombardment. If you attempt to close, you will die. If you present flat broadside, you will die. T-crossing is a tactic for battleships, not battlecruisers. Battlecruisers are long bois with big soft broadsides, and presenting your side in this way vs. proper BB is asking to die.

And torpedo boats have a very narrow era of efficacy, primarily dominating the 1890s while fading quickly throughout the 1900s, and tend to be functionally obsolete by the time battlecruisers are coming into play. Game probably won't even let you build them anymore once DDs get invented, for good reason: By that point, they're only really suitable as minesweepers, although they can still claim kills against the AI's horde of obsolete ships that he seems to keep around.

 

[Joggerino]

So they finally introduced the campaign?

 

[jebsmoker]

So they finally introduced the campaign?

yes, although it feels very rough in terms of quality

 

[Beastro]

Ramming was another typical example of warship building shenanigans: effective combat data was so haphazard and rare that flukes and scatterbrained ideas dominated development and building until obsolescence. The fact that ramming worked once in a specific situation was then extended and wasted a ton of resources, but that's the story of military navy development.

Just the benefit of the player designing in hindsight tends to provide a lot more powerful designs that actually occurred in real life. Then you have the usual shenanigans, where you build a Spathi Eluder. Because every custom design in every game inevitably boils down to trying to create a Spathi Eluder.

[*]AI is cheating rather obviously. Not talking about money here, but torpedoes. AI will instaspot and evade your torpedoes, even if it did not actually spot them (can be checked in battle log). Conversely the AI will always perfectly aim their own torpedoes at max distance, unless you are able to spot them and evade. Makes fighting lategame fleets of destroyers with super speed and 5x deck torpedoes a chore.

AI is cheating rather obviously. Not talking about money here, but torpedoes. AI will instaspot and evade your torpedoes, even if it did not actually spot them (can be checked in battle log). Conversely the AI will always perfectly aim their own torpedoes at max distance, unless you are able to spot them and evade. Makes fighting lategame fleets of destroyers with super speed and 5x deck torpedoes a chore

If the AI is like RTWs then they're not spotting the torpedoes, they're tracking ideal torpedo solutions and evading as soon as a ship of yours gets one.

The upside to this in RTW is that the AI doesn't recognize if a warship is empty of torpedoes, which allows you to send out ahead expended DDs and make faux charges to force the AI to change course in ways you want. This is very useful in chases.

I don't own this game, but give that a try in it and see if it helps.

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

 

[Beastro]

So how's the game shaping up so far? Is there any almanac where you can look at enemy ship designs?

I find the AI designs in RTW lackluster, but the game is so easily modded that you can go into files and alter their designs to improve them.

I remember the first game of the rtw series. Didn't know it got a sequel and another is in works. Is the 2nd substantially better than the first one?

We have a LP here, but it's... incremental. Air is somewhat realistic and it makes surface combat essentially obsolete if approached "properly" - so with WW2 tech is pretty much impossible to have fun old-style battles because planes are everywhere. It's nonetheless fun to follow their development and deployment, but it's not such a GREAT revolution from RTW1. Thankfully you can purposefully slow air development to let you play more with your Yamato Super Battleships pew-pew battles.

I'd suggest to wait for the third one at this point, we'll get Cold War tech, I can't say much about the historical basis for that because there have been.... essentially no surface engagements bar the usual ASW missile strike, so I'm kinda curious.

From what i read about the 3rd instalment - the more interesting part for me is the start in 1890 (from 1900) which makes pre-dreadnaught ship design a thing other than them being just obsolete almost from the start. I would really love if they got all the way back to the ~1870*. Me want big ships with big guns doing pew-pew. Me not want air things and ships going <sound of an air-to-ship and ship-to-ship guided rocket>.

*Imagine designing ships with ramming in mind - a semi-common thing in late 1860s and 1870s. They sucked but the fun of it if you manage to sink something! Austrians managed to sink a large Italian armoured warship at Lissa 1866 iirc this way.

You are right about the battle of Lissa, it was a time when ship armor had progressed so much that smaller guns were unable to get decisive hits in, so Admiral Tegetthoff went for a ramming maneuver. They even built a fancy ass column to commemorate.

Large Image.

Lissa isn't a good example of a battle of the era. That's the problem with it being the only example people had to go by because people took lessons from it that were very specific to certain conditions that wouldn't appear again.

Had A-H gone up against a half-competant foe they'd have been ripped apart, but they went up against an Italian admiral who behaved so badly in the battle his nation suspected he was a spy working for the Austrians.

 

[Serus]

I know that Italians have bad rep but they weren't the only ones with high ranking idiot-admirals in that era. Stupidity and stupid decisions of commanders are as much part of war as is competence. Perhaps more. As we both said, it was the ONLY example of a big battle where this tactic was used in the era. We simply cannot be certain what would happen if more would be fought. There are examples in history where stupid tactics were used. Sometimes they even worked despite their nature.
I also want to note that the idea of returning to ancient tactic of ramming had place BEFORE battle of Lissa - that's why (some or most, too lazy to check) armored ships in that battle already had rams. What happened wasn't some kind of last minute improvisation. Well, except when an old non-armored Austrian ship-of-the-line (without a ram?) did it. But that was just silly.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Talk about a buggy, unoptimized piece of shit code that is barely holding together. Designing ships is dreadful and annoying... in a game about designing ships. Also, me watching a new campaign needing to generate itself for 5 minutes left me speechless.

I don't really see any hope of this game getting any better after two whole years in the oven.

 

[Beastro]

Talk about a buggy, unoptimized piece of shit code that is barely holding together. Designing ships is dreadful and annoying... in a game about designing ships. Also, me watching a new campaign needing to generate itself for 5 minutes left me speechless.

I don't really see any hope of this game getting any better after two whole years in the oven.

I was wondering that watching the vidoes above.

If a battle of two dozen TBs going against 4 BBs, 8 cruisers and a handful of TBs is causing the game to chug, then it's not going to handle the battle scales RTW offers where 50+ BBs and BCs on each side are going at it with over twice as many support ships mulling about.

My current RTW game's last battle had me lure the French to Plymouth and trap them against the coast wiping out 40 BBs and a dozen BCs.

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

Exporto FTW

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

 

[Beastro]

 

[Beastro]

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1069660/view/515196931452962390

Major Update v1.7 "The last one"
A game add-on including new hulls, new guns and part models plus refinements to gameplay
Hello admirals,

This is the last major update of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts offering new hulls, new guns and parts, and many game optimizations. You are definitely going to enjoy it.

However you need to know the following:

- Old campaign saves and all ship saves will become unavailable. if you DO NOT want to start a new game on the new major update and lose any previous saved designs of the older game version then you can switch to the previous stable version: v1.6.1.5 Optx4 as shown here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1069660/discussions/2/4763206964692197802/
- The shared designs will have issues with tonnage or will have different models of guns, which will make the designs invalid. It is up to you to repair them manually or delete them. It is advised to NOT USE them for the campaign until you are sure they are functional. You can select the campaign setting to not use shared designs. Please DO NOT report bugs, if you know that you use old shared designs.

*v1.7 MAJOR UPDATE*/h3]

*14x NEW HULLS*

• New USA “Dreadnought IV” (Shifting the naming of previous Dreadnought hulls accordingly) based on the USS Arizona Battleship, which can be recreated with sufficient accuracy. It has a base displacement between 27,500 and 35,500 tons and is available during 1914-1927.
• New USA “Dreadnought VI” (Shifting the naming of previous Dreadnought hulls accordingly) with a base displacement between 31,500 and 42,500 tons, available during 1916-1927.
• New British “Compact N3 class” which can recreate the HMS Nelson. It has a base displacement between 32,000 and 39,500 tons. available from 1919.
• New British “Experimental Large Cruiser” with a base displacement between 27,500 and 32,500 tons, available from 1923.
• New Chinese/Spanish “Assault Battleship” with a base displacement between 45,000 and 59,500 tons, available from 1929.
• New Austro-Hungarian “Small Assault Battleship” with a base displacement between 36,000 and 45,500 tons, available from 1929.
• New Russian “Assault Battlecruiser” with a base displacement between 70,500 and 87,500 tons, available from 1929.
• New Chinese/Spanish “Ironclad I” which can recreate the HMS Inflexible ironclad. It has a base displacement between 9,770 and 12,900 tons, available from 1890 to1899.
• New Chinese/Spanish “Ironclad II” with a base displacement between 10,900 and 13,900 tons, available from 1891 to1899.
• New Chinese “Experimental Ironclad I” with a base displacement between 9,600 and 11,200 tons, available from 1890 to1895.
• New Chinese “Experimental Ironclad II” with a base displacement between 9,750 and 12,250 tons, available from 1890 to1895.
• New Chinese “Experimental Ironclad III” with a base displacement between 9,850 and 12,550 tons, available from 1890 to1895.
• New Chinese armored cruiser “Ironclad Cruiser” with a base displacement between 3,000 and 11,500 tons, available from 1890 to 1905.
• New Chinese light cruiser “Small Ironclad” with a base displacement between 3,000 and 6,500 tons, available from 1890 to 1902.
• Various new ship parts.

*NEW GUNS*

• New quad guns for almost all calibers and for all nations.
• New USA 17 to 20-inch guns for Mark-2 tech, 7 to 18-inch guns for Mark-3 tech, 12 to 18-inch guns for Mark-4 tech.
• New USA 4-inch guns for Mark-4/5 techs.
• New USA 2 to 3-inch guns for Mark-2/3 techs.
• New British 15 to 20-inch guns for Mark 1/2/3 techs.
• New British 6 to 8-inch guns for Mark 3/4/5 techs.
• New German 17 to 20-inch guns for Mark-2 tech, 15 to 16-inch guns for Mark-2/3 techs.
• Various fixes and improvements for several guns.

*OTHER*

• Ship parts weights are reduced and costs have been adjusted accordingly. Armor and engine weights slightly adjusted. The result is more available tonnage for ship design, as much as was needed for allowing to recreate historical designs more easily, with adequate protection.
• Triple guns and quad guns are now available sooner in the technology tree.
• Optimizations in ship design calculations affecting positively the loading times and all the processes when you design ships.
• Custom battle's maximum year is now 1960.
• Battle AI became further improved.
• Auto-design is further improved.
• Balances in the ship damage model, mainly affecting the durability of ship parts, armor endurance and how flooding is affected due to structural damage. The overall experience should be an even more realistic and expected feeling of how ships damage each other according to their displacement and protection schemes.
• Optimization and improvement in the Division Screen/Scout logic. This will positively affect the Opponent Battle AI and the player’s divisions set to “Screen” or “Scout”.
• Fixed a minor UI issue which caused a wrong calculation indication for cost of shipyard development.
• Fixed a potential bug that could cause a ship of a design to be wrongly deleted, when its design was deleted.
• Reduced aggression of minors to try to take their own home lands.
• Fine tuning of Game's difficulty settings in Easy/Normal/Hard settings.

*==============================*

Thank you everyone who supported this game and we hope you will continue to enjoy it for many years to come.​

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Yeah, Game Labs are dead, so no more updates for any of their stuff. RIP, I enjoyed most of the stuff they did.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I saw that video too. Truly sad. I have "Ultimate General: American Revolution" and the first one - "Civil War". Dreadnoughts I never bought, just kept wondering why no Napoleonics game.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

[...] just kept wondering why no Napoleonics game.

Yeah, me too. Civil War was brilliant in its dynamics and consequences, a similar treatment of The 100 Days would have been glorious. And it certainly would have found a bigger audience.