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 Rule the Waves is a Grand Strategy Game (think something akin to Paradox's games or the Total War series) where instead of ruling counties and leading armies into battle, you're the Grand Admiral of a nation's navy at the dawn of the 20th century. It is up to you to manage your budget (which politicians are all to eager to gently caress with), advise your nation's leaders on matters of naval and foreign policy, direct research, design and build your fleet, and, when the time comes (and it will), order your forces into battle on the seas against your nation's enemies.     Yes, the game looks like something from the Windows 95/98 era and the UI is a bit obtuse, but underneath those trappings is a surprisingly fun, addictive, and satisfying game of maritime conquest. Somewhat continuing the recent trend of "Grognard" games becoming cheaper, the game only costs $35 on the company's webpage. Yes, that is a Yahoo store website, and yes, you have to actually wait for someone to send you a registration key via email, it is still a grognard game. One of the best additions to the game since release has been the ability to generate/assemble pretty side views for your ships. If you're willing to put in the effort, these can get surprisingly detailed thanks to a collection of components being released by members of the official forums. Here are a few samples:     The Nations available to play as, in a rough ordering of power, are:  The British Empire ++ Loadsamoney + Excellent Shipbuilding capability + Technology Leader + Starting access to oil +/- Vast Colonial Empire Requires significant global commitment of ships - Ships sometimes plagued with problems and have a worrying tendency to explode  The United States of America ++ The full industrial capability of the United States of America (their budget rivals or exceeds Britain towards the end of the game) + Technology Leader + Permanent access to oil +/- Modest overseas holdings +/- Cage masts  (you don't have to use them thankfully)- Lacks rivals in home waters, meaning wars might be a bit boring  Germany + Technology Leader + Respectable Economy +/- Modest overseas holdings - Troublesome and Bombastic Kaiser will cause headaches  France + Respectable Economy +/- Modest overseas holdings - Government meddles in Naval Affairs  Russia + Respectable Economy + Permanent access to oil +/- Modest overseas holdings - Undeveloped Shipbuilding Industry - Poor Education (effects shipbuilding and crew quality)  Japan +/- Somewhat Isolated from Western Powers ensures enemies will struggle to bring their full naval power against you, but might make wars a bit more boring. +/- Poor Economy strained by heavy naval expenditures +/- Surprise Attacks against colonial powers in Asia - Undeveloped Shipbuilding Industry  Italy + Innovators in Ship design +/- Minimal overseas holdings - Weak Economy - Government meddles in Naval Affairs - Poor Education (effects shipbuilding and crew quality) - Corruption in elements of Navy/Government  Austria-Hungary + Permanent access to oil +/- No overseas holdings - Poor Economy  Ottoman Empire (Alt-History, a custom nation by yours truly. Download Link) The 1882 Young Ottoman revolution resulted in the overthrow of the despotic reigning Sultan and the establishment of a Constitutional Sultanate. Now the nation works diligently to modernize itself as the new philosophy of Ottomanism encourages a greater sense of national identity, unity, and religious tolerance. The “victorious” war for Crete against Greece has shown the nation is capable, but its navy outdated and still lacking respect from the European Powers. +/- No colonial holdings outside the Mediterranean - Poor Economy - Undeveloped Shipbuilding Industry - Poor Education (effects shipbuilding and crew quality) - Corruption in elements of Navy/Government  Spain (Alt-History, the two Spains that come with the game assume the Spanish-American war never occured for one reason or another. I have made a version that takes it into account here.) +/- Modest overseas holdings (or none, if you use my Spanish-American War Edition) - Weak Economy - Undeveloped Shipbuilding Industry What's that? The Confederate Shitheads of America? Who cares about them. Other Custom Nations made by players can be found on the official forums. Examples include the Byzantine Empire, Sweden, Qing China, Tropico, and a few more. Odds and Ends: Official Forums Turret Position Reference A collection of potentially useful comments and insights about RtW's gameplay by the developer TriggerHappyPilot's ongoing LP A database of fighting ships from this period and beyond The Source for all the colorized photos I used Armor Areas diagram:  Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Oct 23, 2016 |
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Jul 17, 2015 06:53
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I've had a pile of fun with this; I'd highly recommend it!
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Jul 17, 2015 07:09
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This game is a lot of fun and a lot more accessible than it looks at first.
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Jul 17, 2015 08:18
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Obstacle2 posted:This game is a lot of fun and a lot more accessible than it looks at first. It's hella easy to play. It's hella hard to play well.
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Jul 17, 2015 08:23
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Infamous player of grog games Grey Hunter is currently doing a Let's Play of Steam and Iron, the developer's previous game. Naval Warfare Simulations took the battle engine from this game and attached a dynamic campaign system to it to create Rule the Waves. He'll be moving onto an LP of Rule the Waves as soon as he finished his latest sinking of the Royal Navy. Sooner I think - RtW will have a reletivly slow update schedule and S&I is winding down, so I was going to get the OP done soon. Also, buy this game if you have ANY interest in warships.
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Jul 17, 2015 08:53
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This game is rad as hell, you can get a lot of mileage out of the  smiley.Also it's incredibly satisfying when you finally crush the British economy and make them give up all their oil bearing overseas provinces as war reparations. They then have to spend a staggering amount of money on refitting their fancy oil ships back to coal! Saros fucked around with this message at 08:59 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 08:54
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One thing I like about the game is that you are forced to build ships that you know will be obsolete when they are finally complete. You have to make decisions 30 turns ahead of time. Ship design, reactions to political events, fleet tactical combat needs to be a compromise. The game has fun decisions to make every step along the way. Do you heavily invest in submarines? How many early dreadnoughts can you afford? Should you put your obsolete battleships in mothballs to afford building the next generation of ships? Is it a good idea to keep my destroyers around my main fleet to fight the enemy's destroyers, or should I send them on a near-suicidal torpedo attack? Can I risk my fleet and press the attack after dark? Should I tell the Kaiser to get stuffed rather than build the 9 cruisers he thinks I need?
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Jul 17, 2015 08:54
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Kaiser demands 10 light new light cruisers costing 20 million each! Yearly budget is about 100million. What's that, funding increase? 
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Jul 17, 2015 09:02
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The minister of finance asked for 18 DDs because of reasons, and since i needed to update my fleet anyway, I obliged. After all of them completed, one month later I get another request for 18 DDs 
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Jul 17, 2015 09:04
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Baloogan posted:One thing I like about the game is that you are forced to build ships that you know will be obsolete when they are finally complete. You have to make decisions 30 turns ahead of time. Ship design, reactions to political events, fleet tactical combat needs to be a compromise. Another thing I find fascinating is the kind of inertia you develop. Sure, you could build a 24 kn BB with the latest guns, but it has to integrate with the existing battle line so you might as well cut it back to 20 kn and add some armor. Or just build it smaller so it's cheaper. I've been harping on the concept of the Fast Battleship as strictly superior, but I got a lot of mileage out of the six regular dreadnoughts I build in my game as Germany (I had a treaty that limited me to 18ktons and the press was getting antsy because are battleships). The war with Russia was pretty nuts, too. Six months of back to back fleet battles and battleship engagements.
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Jul 17, 2015 09:24
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It's very easy to be very bad at this game. And to turn a certain victory into a costly costly rout.
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Jul 17, 2015 09:45
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I've found that submarines are really good for my victory points and really bad for my submarine crews.
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Jul 17, 2015 10:24
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Still trying to finish my first game, still don't know poo poo about naval warfare. The battleship ramming the cruiser screenshot is from my first game. I managed to whip Italy pretty incredibly because their battle line was absolutely obliterated by this ship here:  She made 4 dreadnoughts straight up explode before getting torpedoed. RIP. I hate torpedoes.
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Jul 17, 2015 12:40
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Definitely design your legacy fleet. The robot decided to give me nominal CA's in my starting fleet as A-H that had 8 6" guns as their primaries. Why yes, these will go toe-to-toe with Italy's 2x10 6x7 CAs.
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Jul 17, 2015 12:41
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Do super structures do anything? I believe I've designed most of my ships without them as I had no idea that I could actually draw them on. Same with funnels, eye candy? This is a fun game, but half the time I have no idea what half this poo poo is. A casement gun, a cockburn valve? A cockburn valve on my casement gun... 
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Jul 17, 2015 13:07
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On a scale from 1 to "Hitler replaced the design committee with himself again", how bad of an idea is this Richelieu knockoff going to be?
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Jul 17, 2015 13:10
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13 19:49 BC Prinz Heinrich opens fire at CL! 13 19:50 BC Prinz Heinrich holds fire - uncertain identity 13 19:51 BC Prinz Heinrich is avoiding torpedoes! 13 19:51 BC Prinz Heinrich is hit by a torpedo! 13 19:51 BC Prinz Heinrich is avoiding torpedoes! 13 19:51 BC Prinz Heinrich strikes a mine! 13 19:51 Engine room hit 13 19:51 BC Prinz Heinrich has lost sight of target 13 19:51 BC Prinz Heinrich is sinking! WHAT
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Jul 17, 2015 13:11
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For anybody still on the edge of buying this, a review just came out on Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
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Jul 17, 2015 13:22
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The number of approaches you can take in the game is pretty staggering. So far, I've run a Japanese torpedo destroyer swarm game, where I wrecked the Russian fleet in Port Arthur twice during surprise attacks. A USA game where my legacy fleet 24-knot heavy cruisers were curb-stomping British light cruisers well into the 1920s. A Confederate game where I repeatedly picked fights with France until their entire empire collapsed (I did get revolutioned once and lost my two best BCs, though). And a Spanish game where I had the third-largest battleship fleet in the world.
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Jul 17, 2015 13:23
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Illegal Username posted:She made 4 dreadnoughts straight up explode before getting torpedoed. RIP. That will happen in close range fighting. The whole point to having 16" guns on a 24 knot ship is that you can keep out of the enemy gun range. Nobody can realistically carry enough armor to stop 13-18" shells inside 5000 yards. But you're going to get torpedoed. (If you really know nothing about naval combat: shells slow down as they fly, so the closer you are the faster the shells are moving when they hit and the more armor they can plow through. A gun designed to pierce a 12" steel belt at a range of 18000 yards will punch holes in anything afloat at 5000 yards.) Basically, the closer the range the more deadly everything is from gunnery to torpedoes. At very close range a destroyer is just as deadly as a heavy cruiser and a light cruiser is easily as dangerous as a battleship. Battleships fighting battleships inside two miles will blow up within minutes of engagement. If you find yourself in a close-range fight (for example poor visibility) it often makes sense to just go home with your big ships and leave the small ships to do the fighting. Big ships are more a liability than an asset up close. For example if you're Italy in the early game you can just build a ton of cramped destroyers and light cruisers, train your crews on torpedoes and night fighting, and run away from any fights in clear weather in the day. Then when you fight in the rain or in the dark just run your light assets straight into their line and laugh as everything dies: your cheap ships and their expensive ships. That's a nice late-game battleship you have there but you would do better to commit less expensive assets to close-range fights. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 13:32 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 13:26
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I've managed to resist getting this because of the clunky store page, but you people are going to make me buy it aren't you? 
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Jul 17, 2015 13:27
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gently caress your rules, dad. Your legacy fleet sucks. I'm going to design MY boats how I want. They're going to be sleek 200 ton destroyers and they're going to have tons of guns and each one of them will be 18 inches and-  Oh.  Fine. Takanago fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 13:32
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Managed to build some sweet 40 000+ tons French battleships with 3xQuad 17" guns, all directed to the front  Then of course no one wants to pick an actual battleship fight for the rest of the game  My most cost-effective tactive have been to build some 3-4k light cruisers packed with 4xdouble torpedo launchers and just run them into the enemy formation of battleships. Sure they'll probably all sink, but so will the enemy battleships. e: Saw that there's a no time limit mod already, but how's that Qing mod coming?
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Jul 17, 2015 13:37
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Since they removed MBTs from the game it would be nice if they also removed the naval secretary event where he demands you build 20 of them!
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Jul 17, 2015 13:42
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You can build DDs that have torps instead.
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Jul 17, 2015 13:43
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Asehujiko posted:On a scale from 1 to "Hitler replaced the design committee with himself again", how bad of an idea is this Richelieu knockoff going to be? Triple eights for your secondaries is a huge waste. The same number of 6" guns in doubles will be way lighter. Also skeptical about a ship carrying 18" with an 8' belt
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Jul 17, 2015 14:10
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I think a ship designed to keep out of range of an opponent while hammering her with long guns should have an aft turret.
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Jul 17, 2015 14:56
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Takanago posted:gently caress your rules, dad. Your legacy fleet sucks. I'm going to design MY boats how I want.  That superstructure is to land helicopters on. As soon as we invent helicopters
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Jul 17, 2015 15:26
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Arglebargle III posted:That will happen in close range fighting. The whole point to having 16" guns on a 24 knot ship is that you can keep out of the enemy gun range. Nobody can realistically carry enough armor to stop 13-18" shells inside 5000 yards. But you're going to get torpedoed. (If you really know nothing about naval combat: shells slow down as they fly, so the closer you are the faster the shells are moving when they hit and the more armor they can plow through. A gun designed to pierce a 12" steel belt at a range of 18000 yards will punch holes in anything afloat at 5000 yards.)
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Jul 17, 2015 15:28
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Baloogan fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 15:57
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When I saw that in the wiki article on Dreadnought, I seriously considered using it as an avatar, but sadly it just doesn't reduce to 150px very well. Its a pretty good summary of both the actual time and this game though! 
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Jul 17, 2015 16:02
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How crazy can you get with the superstructure design? I know it has no effect, but I have bad ideas.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:06
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Arglebargle III posted:I think a ship designed to keep out of range of an opponent while hammering her with long guns should have an aft turret. Just reverse the Richelieu. Have two quad turrets in the back and nothing else. Insert French ship joke here.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:12
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chrisoya posted:How crazy can you get with the superstructure design? I know it has no effect, but I have bad ideas. You're limited to 4 lines/boxes, and each can have 10 points before mirroring, though you do get another "free" one (lines only) or two (box) line out of it when it mirrors your lines and connects it to the other side. You also get up to four funnels (circular or oval) but they can only be placed along the centerline. You can still get reasonably fancy though:     Yooper posted:Do super structures do anything? I believe I've designed most of my ships without them as I had no idea that I could actually draw them on. Same with funnels, eye candy? Supertructure and funnels do nothing AFAIK.They're just cosmetic. As for a casement gun, this is a casemate gun:  All the little guns on the side of the hull on this ship are casemate guns:  They are a type of fortified gun placement that was popular on warships in the late 1800s and the first years of the 1900s. They have narrower fields of fire than most turrets, but usually can be given superior armor protection for less weight. However casemates placed on the hull of a ship (instead of the super structure) can be vulnerable to flooding in heavy seas, swamping them and temporarily taking them out of action. As for how Casemates vs Turrets go in Rule the Waves, I'm unsure. Casemates generally weigh a bit less for secondary guns, but I suspect they have worse angles of fire. Then again they might still be worth using early on since before you get some early technologies secondary guns suffer RoF penalties in turrets. Then again, its usually only -20%, maybe that is worth the greater field of fire? As for the Cockburn Valve, its just a technology research that makes your engines lighter when building new ships. A lot of tech research is that way (making stuff lighter) and are applied automatically. Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 16:34
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Stealing for the LP banner 
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Jul 17, 2015 16:59
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I have no interest in this game but I want to tell you that I appreciate the thread title, anyways later
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Jul 17, 2015 17:01
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I'm not a grognard by any stretch, but you guys convinced me to give this a shot. I royally screwed up my first game by picking A-H on small fleet size. This left me with almost no budget. I think I built one B the whole game. With my tiny budget, I could only afford the bare basics. Building one CL pretty much zero'd out my budget. So, I spammed submarines. I think I build over 110 subs before the game was over. Once you get subs in number, they're seriously effective. The first month of a war with France I sunk 50 merchant ships, plus a few smaller boats. I was gamey, I know, but a few CLs, decent destroyers, and a whole bunch of submarines are surprisingly effective. Also boring. Does anyone know if torpedo tech effects the efficiency of your submarines, or are the subs considered in isolation? EDIT: Does the AI ever go to war with itself? In my game the only wars that happened involved me.
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Jul 17, 2015 17:03
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Great, now I want an old school box for the game with this for the cover.
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Jul 17, 2015 17:06
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sparkmaster posted:EDIT: Does the AI ever go to war with itself? In my game the only wars that happened involved me. There are some people on the official forums making suggestions to change this though. If you've got feedback he is definitely taking it into consideration, he's already got some gameplay/UI stuff lined up to change/improve in the 1.1 patch currently being worked on. Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 17:07
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 13:36 |
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Grey Hunter posted:Stealing for the LP banner Cheers!
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Jul 17, 2015 17:14
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