>>1898831
>Is there anything more to battle than just adjusting the heading?
You can also adjust speed :^)
>Not sure why we're even moving. Easier to park, face each other, and see who the RNG favours.
If you just parked your battle line, the enemy would cut in front of you, concentrate all its fire on the closest ship, sink it, and then repeat. So you want to outmaneuver the enemy, and have as many of your ships firing on as few targets as possible. If an enemy ship falls out of line you want to finish it off, cutting it off from the main fleet, ordering a flotilla attack etc., and defend your own from the same tactics.
Still, I'd say "slugging it out" and "RNG" are part of the core experience. Many shots are fired, very few hit, some of those may cause critical damage and decide a battle, it's just the nature of big gun battleship warfare. You need to optimize the odds in your favour.
>I usually set my CL div to A.I. screen and control the B div myself.
As far as I know ships set to Screen will stand between your battle line and the enemy, and that gets in the way of accurate fire. You should (not) see a penalty like "X ships fouling the range" in the chance to hit window. To place them out of the way but still close by you use the Support role.
>f I have a CA it's normally set to A.I. core or scout. Maybe I should manually control these?
In the pre-dreadnought era armoured cruisers are also second-rate battleships since medium caliber batteries still do most of the work. So having them as Core to your battleship division should work fine. Of course if you micromanage every single division and ship, you'll have an easier time (es. having two lines of ship firing at the enemy from both sides), but personally I play Admiral mode.>>1898831
The issue with giving general advice is that it can be extremely dependent upon the year and tech progress of your situation. In a pre-DD age I find CLs to be entirely viable as torpedo attack craft, combined with attempts to split enemy battle lines by constantly closing with their mid point followed by an aggressive turn inwards. But attempt that 5 years later and you'll get butchered on the approach. 10 years on and you won't even get to that range before you're crippled.

Your issue could be any number of things, from range to ship design to tactics. But if 1890s combat isn't doing it for you, holding out for 1910s or later combat might be something you love. Or do a 1935 start and see how carrier battles suit you.>>1898875
>In a pre-DD age I find CLs to be entirely viable as torpedo attack craft
How do you get Torpedoes on CLs before unlocking Destroyers? That seems like an improbable tech variation.>>1898887
Submerged torpedo tubes are 1889 tech Anon>>1898831
1890 is a shit start honestly, battles are just slogs until post-dreadnoughts start rolling out>>1898889
>>1898831
just build bullshit 10,000 ton CAs with this configuration
>>1898674
and you can sink the entire world's pre-dreadnought navy in the 15 years from 1890 to 1905 then start losing because you don't actually know how to build a ship for modern gunnery>>1898888
Forgot about those. I wouldn't consider submerged tube CLs to be an effective torpedo force but I play admiral so nobody is an effective torpedo force.>>1898871
>>1898875
So basically the battles are just an RNG simulator with bias based on what you've researched and built?
I guess I can just auto-complete the battles, but then this game is really a very poor man's Paradox game.
There's no appeal left in this game. Battles are boring and bereft of any tactics. The "strategy" boils down to "keep research up to date" and "build better ships".
Help me understand. From what I can tell, this game isn't very strategic. There's lots of buttons and complexity, but it's all RNG. Wide as an ocean and as deep as a puddle.>So basically the battles are just an RNG simulator
>I guess I can just auto-complete the battles
Are you in the right thread?
>The "strategy" boils down to "keep research up to date" and "build better ships".
Whether you are or aren't in the right thread, are you implying that this isn't the best strategy in any applicable game?>>1899039
There are other games with better strategy. Keep in mind, strategy comes from making decisions, but there are so few meaningful decisions to make in RTW3.
For example, in RTW3, technology is random. You don't get to make a choice on research. Sure, you set an expenditure, and low/medium/high, but there's no reason for you to manipulate anything, not really. Maybe spend a little more? But the low/medium/high is nonsense because there's no way to anticipate what you want to be ahead or behind in.
That's because who you're at war with is RNG and you've got fuck all say. Considering the number of opponents, it's obvious from the outside that you'll be up against most of them eventually. So the only course is to set all tech to medium. Maybe adjust them here and there, but you'd likely get as much success changing nothing.
Then there's the "strategic" campaign side of the game. No diplomacy. Just painful random events that have no narrative background (yet try to half-ass a vague narrative). Why not just have a popup that asks, "Increase tension, Increase budget and tension, Do nothing"?
But these are basically RNG so another decision (i.e. what makes the strategy in a strategy game) is taken from you.
I guess it's interesting to design your own ships, but at the end of the day, the tactics are so non-existent it doesn't seem to matter. You either have more guns and armour or you don't. Then end.
And, as I already said, the guns and armour numbers are just increased randomly after clicking "next turn".
Abilities of commanders is random, not influenced by combat.

Let's contrast to something like HOI4. Far more decisions. You make all decisions, they're not taken away from you. There's lots of numbers that go up or down, just like RTW3, but you control them explicitly. The random events have an established narrative backdrop too.
I know narrative isn't important in a pure strategy game, but RTW3 opened itself to criticism in this regard by having random events.>>1899046
In HOI4, you choose the abilities of commanders, they develop in directions according to their battles.
You have far more tactical control, to the point where the macro-tactics blend smoothly into the strategic layer.

I could go on but I won't for now. I really want to be wrong about RTW3. I really do. But I just don't see a good strategy game, I see an RNG where you click the heading of your units for no good reason.>>1899039
>Are you in the right thread?
Probably not.>>1899046
Naval strategy is build strategy. The tactics you want to use should influence the ships you build and the ships you build will dictate what tactics you can employ effectively. Its a feedback loop with enough nuance to argue about all day. You obviously are not proficient enough with Rule the Waves to even know where depth lies in the game. If its not your jam that's fine, but calling RTW3 shallow just makes you look foolish.For real though can you actually autocomplete battles? It might be fun to see how the AI employs my carefully crafted metafleets.>>1899046
Okay, but, if we are to believe that HoI4 is somehow better at these things, they are different games all together. You are not the omnipotent god of a nation looking at a list of decisions or focuses knowing full well the outcome of the path you've chosen. Let's not forget that HoI4 RNG in the Austria and Turkey paths was hated forever. In RTW, you are the commander of the navy, sorta like one of those portraits you assign to a pink stack in HoI4 then forget about. But, do not forget, getting Hortler in charge is not actually the goal, and nor do all strategy games need that level of interaction. Is Gary Grigsby's War in the East not a strategy game because you can't get Himmler in charge?
Maybe, you should just go back to naval bombers and invading England in 1936.>>1899049
Explain where the strategy is. I want to be proven wrong.
If my builds determine the tactics... Where are these tactics employed? I'm still just pointing my ships in directions.

>>1899052
You've not really addressed anything I said. Where's the strategy in random tech upgrades, building ships with whatever the latest tech is, and watching them circle each other on a battle map.

Honestly. I feel like I'm not seeing something you all are. Give me an example of where a decision I make in RTW3 has an impact, and where I see that impact?>>1899054
What impact do you want to make? You manage a budget, design the ships, fight the battles directly, and even have choice on foreign policy via the events. How is that not making an impact? How is setting the budget, considering RNG, not making an impact on investment? How is designing the ships, fighting the battles with, at minimum, the same level of involvement as HoI land battles, not impactful? Since the tech tree in HoI4 is fixed, and the best answers are often already known, where's the strategy in that at all? You never get the chance to have an out of pocket advantage, for instance.
Going back to my first question, what impact do you want to make?>>1899067
Oh, and the point I was, admittedly drunkenly, trying to make here >>1899052 was that HoI4 has a very different level of abstraction and focus, but has similar, if not greater, levels of nonsense. In fact, some ways, it's worse.>>1899067
>what impact do you want to have
Maybe impact was the wrong word.
Maybe I should ask, how does focusing exclusively on torpedoes affect the game?
How does building bigger armour, less guns impact the tactics?
How about more smaller guns over less bigger guns?

These are genuine questions I have when playing.>>1899078
Well, they have impact in battles, naturally. I've played,with the highest tech variance, and been surprised when my armor was better than everyone, but the Brits had 16" guns in 1912. You build the best ship you can with the tech you have. The 1890 start is the least that, since you can build a big CA and meme your way through. But if you play on, it gets a lot more difficult, for instance, in my last game, the question of dropping the armor I wanted vrs the guns I wanted and the timing of getting tonnage I want in service all came together to make an unsatisfactory ship. But, it was a ship that I had, I could have waited and had nothing.

Mechanically, Major Tech focuses can get bogged down, but otherwise, you can have long-lance style torps or dive bombers before anyone else.
If you have big armor, but can't close to a range your smaller guns hit hard, it doesn't matter. The AI will, somewhat incompetently, whittle your ship away. As the timeline goes on, the preponderance of guns shifts, a big 12500 CA that mopped up the world in 1895 won't be shit in 1905 when it's 3kn slower than anything and they have -1 vs -2 guns, hitting you 4000 yards further out.

Rule the Waves

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