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In Progress Let's Play: Rule The Waves

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
4,465
Location
Shaper Crypt
Unnnngh.

Ok.

Let's get the interface over quick. Maybe no one will care, but muh *autism* requires a proper order.

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The section in red is the Log&Random shit tabs. We have there our Order of Battle, our Log (that will give us the results of shooting and the messages for the ships) the objective&report tabs. Everything is pretty much what it says on the tin.

Blue. All the usual random crap with zooming, save games ad exit. Quite relevant to our interests are the three circles that we can enable, Spotting Range, Firing Range and Torpedo Range, from the bigger to the smaller. All the Ranges are influenced by the sea and climatic conditions, so if you are lucky you can get in the middle of the enemy formation in a dark and stormy night without even knowing it. Once I lost a DD 'cause in the night a CL rammed it. Sad story.

Green. Despite it being "animated" in real time, the game is pretty much turn-based. Every turn the game checks direction, fire and random stuff, and the result is animated. We can set up the speed of the animation and the amount of turns we want to play in a single go, from 1 to continous. We can even check the Almanac if we are curious about our opposition's ships.

In brown, the wind&sea conditions. As I said, essential.

Last, the most important tab, down on the left, in yellow. That little set of commands is for speed, direction and targeting.

We are playing in Rear Admiral Mode.

Rear admiral's mode: The player can put any divisions in his force on manual or AI control as long as they are within sight of the force flagship. The player can give target orders to divisions. Victory points will be reduced by 10%.

Bluntly put, we can give direct orders only to our Flag Division or to ships in line-of-sight. Admiral mode is even more hardcore, with us giving orders only to our Flag division.

I'm lazy and I like to avoid micro, so Rear Admiral mode is perfect for me.

UX2aT4g.jpg


In this scenario, we have a Cruiser fight. There are other friendly forces in this area, but they are AI controlled and will proceed to kill themselves without our direct supervision. We command the Azova, a 1904 Armoured Cruiser, one of our lastest models.

23 knots of speed in this age is nothing to scoff at, and the main weapons are of relatively good quality for the age. Plus the secondaries are 8 inch, enough to make a dent on older CAs. The worrying thing is crew quality, set at -1. Russkies are tough, but Poor Literacy strikes again.

I guess we can simply move on and see if we get any enemy ships. The weather is Cloudy, but that should not be such a big problem. It's 10.35 in the morning, so the night will not catch up with us soon.

Let's go. For Tsar, God and Russia.




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Well, it begins.

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When we spot the ship, we are given full control on speed and direction. Time to discover what it is. We increase the speed, and the men ready the guns. As soon as we are sure that it speaks Hundesprache , we open fire.

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It's a German CL, a light cruiser of the Nymphe class. Must be a 1899 design, it's slow and poorly armed. In other terms, prey. FULL FORWARD,OPEN FIRE WHEN IN RANGE.

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The CL turns tail and runs. Little problem. We are faster. More worrying are the reports from other ships, one of our Destroyers has identified a enemy CA nearby. A more fitting foe, but I am worried for my recon units. Again, they are outside of our control and we can't even see them, only receive the radio reports in the log.

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After roughly one hour of hunt, the Nymphe class has lost much of its advantage. It's only a matter of time before one of our guns get a lucky shot in and the Cruiser will be ours. We gotta get that shot in and we have received no further info from our Destroyers. Imagine the laughs if we are found by the German CA.

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After several hours of dueling and hunting, the enemy CL gets near the coasts of Sweden. No one has managed to get a hit on the other, and that's not very surprising considering both ships are at full speed, under fire and our crew is, well, subpar. Our hit chance is a magnificent 1,93%, but don't worry, in the Real World even at Jutland (a target rich enviroment) the hit ration was from 4% to 5%. What a waste of the Taxpayers' money.

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First blood to the Germans. Several of their hits reach us, damaging our secondary batteries. Drat.

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We return the favour. And our bite is a bit.... stronger.

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After two hours of dueling, the returing fire from the German cruiser has slackened. Despite our problematic hit ratio, several of our guns have found the enemy's flanks and they are now slowing down. The Cruiser Division of the Captains Baardhaas and Kalin have came to join in the feast, as far as I can see. Good.

h8iYxrU.jpg


But I fear there will be no need. Another hit, and the Nymphe halts. You can see that many of her turrets are destroyed (black) or non-operational (grey). It's time to give a mercy kill to this Naiad (Ahaha, get it? it's a Sea Nymph! So it's a Naia... Ok. I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry.).

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With her rudder damaged, the Nymphe beaches. Some kind gentlemen rush to help her out of the predicament (freakin' kill-stealing bastards, hope you get a torpedo).

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The German ship is now under a hurrican of fire. One of the peculiarities of the engine is that sunk ships do not immediately explode or sink in a bunch of random pixels. They stay there, burning. You can never be sure if they are dead or if the pixelmen inside are still screaming, waiting for you to be dumb and unleash a last avenging torpedo. It's not like I lost a Cruiser once to that, nooo.

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Around 18:00, a light rain starts to fall. The Nymphe is nothing but a burning husk (the triangle symbol signals when a ship is nothing but scrap). We order to get away from the coast, our job here is done. Just seven hours for a fight, exciting!

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The Scenario Length is an artificial amount of time before the tac maps ends. OF course, if you are in shooting distance, the match will not stop until you lose contact. On the other side, if you fail to get contact with the enemy at the beginning the game can choose to avoid wasting your time and end a battle sooner.

OZExHli.jpg


Holy Mother of Jesus. As you can see, the scenario summary tells us the number of ships in the area. The Germans outnumbered us , but failed to bring all their forces together, and we managed to gain a minor prize before retreating. Remember guys, no radar and no airplane recon. Stuff was difficult in this era.

Minor Victory!

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This is our prey, the Thetis. As you saw in the summary, we got extra points by rescuing the sailors from the wreck. Being a good Russian pays.

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Sweet, sweet victory points. And we are Blockaded. Fuck.

Well, I'll explain the small details of War and how we are fucked in the next update. In the meantime, enjoy the sweet taste of victory, Codex. It won't last long.

 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
4,465
Location
Shaper Crypt
Those rebuilds look rather expensive for just fire control. Did you also replace machinery/guns or something?

Yeh. For a clearance of 15k tons, there was a lot of free weight, so new machinery and more secondary guns seemed to be a good idea. Plus, 4 months of rebuilds was little to get them in top form against the Germans.


You jumped straight to 4 centerlines? That's pretty damn nice, not just for BB's. Though with 18000 size limit I'm not sure you'll be able to fit in 4 main turrets on BB.

Nah, nah, just 3. I am dreaming of things to come.

its evening here bro!!!!!

Even here, but I mean, I have to eat, read a bit, chat with the cats and enjoy the daily dose of Japanese cosplay porn. Cut me some slack, I try to deliver. The next update, that one will be a bitch. Guess I'll get it on Sunday, at best.
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
4,465
Location
Shaper Crypt
Let's keep up the tragedy.

As I said last turn, we are Blockaded.

A blockade happens when the enemy reaches the 110% of your fleet strength in your Home Port (so, for us, the Baltic sea/Northern Europe). The freakin' Krauts have one of their pocket 13.5k tons battleships here granting them an advantage, so we suffer the problems. A major victory could even switch the position, but for now we suffer. A blockade will raise the internal unrest of the nation, and well, we risk to become the Red Fleet (not that I would complain) if we don't win.

Pestjyt.jpg


The War results tab is now open: we can see the Victory Point balance between us and the Germans, the Patrol Fulfilment (the game requires some of your ships to be employed in wartime patrols, a drain on our overall fighting strength, even if the need now is somewhat low at 6 vessels) and the Sub Engagement rules. The engagement rules are pretty self-explanatory: Fleet Support means that they will target mostly military targets and confirmed enemy merchantships, Prize Rules that they will try to sink as much enemy civilian ship as possible on prize rules but accidents with neutrals may happen, Unrestricted means accidents will happen.

Winnin a war is easy: get more victory points than the enemy, don't get a coup, and hope that the diplomats do their work. If we are lucky, they can even ask our opinion on what to gain!

Furthermore, we can set up our ships in Raider status, in order to get them to hunt enemy merchantmen and sink them. The majority of our CL gets the role, we need the VPs to keep up.

Ok. Done. To war!

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The Dreaad gets an order to get back home. All men must return to the Motherland, no matter how enticing are the loins of the natives.

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Even under the duress of war, research continues. Pity we can't design proper Dreadnoughts due to the Treaty.


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Our hunters claim the first kills.

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The Imperial Russian submarine Beluga. Look, it's cute as hell.


Welp, a GREAT beginning. One of our raider CL gets caught by a German ship. Let's see if she can fight.

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Fantastic, I'm not trusting this to fight a real world beluga. The animal, I mean. Let's try to disengage from the Germans.

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"Weather: Cloudy" and Night. No chance to catch her, and we escape without a fight. Good. Sometimes being cautious IS the best thing to do. We manage to escape without even getting a glimpse of the German vessels.

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Greeeeat. The Germans have sneaked a Battleship in the Far East. Probably operating from their Pacific Colonies.

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GREEEAT.
TWO PATROL DETROYERS. Let's hope they don't find anything and fail to bomb our bases.

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Great 3. It's a CA, and it manages to land a hit on one of our Destroyers before we bail out. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

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Time to run for the port. Can't win this. What luck, the SINGLE hit got one of the engine rooms of the Zharki. What a beautiful thing!

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Phew!

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Take that! At least our Sub Forces do their job like true Russian heroes.

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Keep up the good job. Yet, with the Blockade up, it's mostly moot. We start suffering Steel shortages and the unrest is rising. Dammit.

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That's.... something. Who is the capitan of the Quad Bless? I mean, that's.... something. Guess it's a W9N9F9D9.

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The Tsar orders us to breach the blockade. Here we are, this one is the big one. We win or lose the war here, methinks. Our Battleships are ready, and we will fight to the last. Or maybe not. We have under us five battleships, two Armoured Cruisers and seven destroyers. It's a good force. We can do this.



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After some hours of tense search, CONTACT!

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Crap. It's a simple DD. We hunt nonetheless. Better than nothing, I guess? After some hours of hunt, the thing escapes us.

For an entire night, the Fleet slaves into the darkness, hunting the ships that are a blight upon all Russia. For hours, the sailors toil. Nothing is spotted. The coal reserves run lower and lower. What can we do? Should we retreat in disgrace, the objective failed?

Yet, on the next morning....


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CONTACT!

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It's the German main fleet. We can see all five of their battleships. And with barely 10 time units of mission time. It was riveting, I can ensure, hunting in the darkness.... but now it's time to fight!

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The two battlelines start to exchange fire furiously. The precision of both sides is lacking, but sometimes a lucky shot finds its mark.

Their ships are smaller, but the tech and the crew quality is superior.

Our ships are bigger, our guns more numerous, but our quality is overall inferior. Quantity and inches are a quality of their own, though.

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Damage starts to show on the two lines. The second ship of the German line, a Mecklenburg class, gets shredded by a series of precise hits. Both of her 12 inch turrets are knocked off-line.

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The German admiral orders a maneuver to the south. Maybe they are disengaging: our fire has been somewhat more effective and coal levels must be low for them also. Speed has been reduced for both of our forces, and we are forced to fight at 15 knots. Luckily the destroyer screens of both forces is rather weak: I can't imagine the damage we could get if Torpedoes could be deployed against a slow line of battleships.

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The German formation loses coherency: one of their Mecklenburg class slows down and their battleline collapses into a mess of ships. Two Germans Armoured Cruisers however come into view. It's time to risk: we have to hunt the fleeing prey and disable the all the ships we can. A single sunk Battleship could mean the end of the blockade!

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I order our Destroyers to stop their screening and to engage the lone Mecklenburg. A lucky torped could mean a kill. We have to risk.

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Success! Two torpedoes hit the German Battleship, without doubt causing heavy damage.

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However, one of our Destroyers has been savaged by the beast's final frantic firing. Sleep well, heroes, your sacrifice has not been in vain. Plus we can pick up the survivors.

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A beast, however, tamed and dead. One kill for Russia! Our Destroyers pick up the survivors of both the German and Russian sinking ships.

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Our Battleships are fighting well against the remainins German ships, still trying desperately to disengage from the russian barrages. A Weissenburg class is heavily damaged and burning. However, not all is good: the fuel reserves of the russian ships are dangerously low for safe travel and the ammo reserves are being expended at an atrocious speed. No one of the Russian ships has more than 50% remaining ammo.
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After another hour of struggle, with the ammo reserves approaching 20%, one of the Weisseiburg class of the enemy fleet starts circling after a 12 inch hit from the Big Thruster. Our chance for a last kill and to get back home victorious!

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The rest of the German fleet escapes, and the wounded battleship is circled by the Imperial Russian Navy. The last ammunition will be discharged on a worthy target. Yet, our ammo run too low and we decide that's time to disengage. We can't sink this ship: our men are tired, our ships damaged and our guns ammoless. Time to withdraw. Yet, in cauda venenum, as they say....

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Did I tell you that our sub crews are heroes all? A destroyer falls into the trap!

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This is a magnificent victory. We failed to sink a lot of enemy ships, but the damage we have given to them is great, and the loss of a battleship, plus the arrival of the Dreaad from the Pacific Fleet, will help us immensely!

Yet, this one was a weird one. I wasted most of the first day cruising around, failing to find the enemy, and when the time was almost up I got 'em, and for another day we traded shots. I guess the victory was gained when the enemy AI decided to bail out and let me damage a lot of their ships and to torpedo one with my Destroyers.

From the battle results, I can congratulate Captain Matalarata and the Costa Concordia crew for causing the most damage to the enemy, and having the second best precision after our flagship Eustafi. I mean, 2% precision is still something. We need that training, I guess....

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Our prey, one of the Treaty Battleships build by Germany. It's a small design, maybe this explains how they managed to start building seven.

Let us see the political results.


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We gain 2200 VP, and the game decides to give this one as a "Great Battle" of our career. We call it the battle of Bornholm, from the Danish isle near the resting site of the unlucky German battleship. Maybe in a century we'll get tourists diving on the place. Or the Baltic sea is too cold? Never been there.

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A single victory changed te course of the war. Now, with one of their battleships and her escort in the Pacific, we have the upper hand, and Germany is blockaded. We can win this!

Sadly, I'm tired as fuck and you'll see the end of the year in the next update.

Rest well, russkielings.
 
Last edited:
Unwanted

Kalin

Unwanted
Dumbfuck Zionist Agent
Joined
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Messages
1,868,264
Location
Al Scandiya
Dayyālu said:
we risk to become the Red Fleet (not that I would complain)

:timcain:

That would be GAME OVER!


Dayyālu said:
800px-Russian_submarine_Beluga.png


The Imperial Russian submarine Beluga. Look, it's cute as hell.

The little submarine that could! :salute:


Dayyālu said:
Now, with one of their battleships and her escort in the Pacific, we have the upped hand, and Germany is blockaded. We can win this!


B0uB66P.png


For the Emprah!
 

Baardhaas

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Dec 1, 2014
Messages
576
Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here
Nicely done!

What does damage translate to in game? I assume it is monetary damage combined with downtime where the ships can't be used. But does, for example, 'medium damage' mean the ship is wrecked for half its purchase price and is out of order for several months, or is it much less severe?
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
4,465
Location
Shaper Crypt
Nicely done!

What does damage translate to in game? I assume it is monetary damage combined with downtime where the ships can't be used. But does, for example, 'medium damage' mean the ship is wrecked for half its purchase price and is out of order for several months, or is it much less severe?

j0GZ5Li.jpg


See the ship list? After location, there is a small column with the Stat. sign, meaning "Status". We can have several statuses:

Active Fleet: Ship is employed as a standard part of our Fleets.

Reserve Fleet: instead of full-time sailors, the crew is made up of low quality recruits or of weekend soldiers. They are far cheaper, and less effective.

Mothballed:
We place the ship in storage, and the running costs are greatly diminished.

Of course, we can mobilize and get everyone and everything in active status.

Other statuses are:

CP: Convoy Protection, the Patrol Fulfilment we talked about.

R: Raider status. You can see how most of our CLs are raiding. Now it will be easier!

And about your question, when you see a number it means it's in Repairs. Some of the enemy ships will be out of commission for months, from 1 to 4-5. Our damage was far less severe.

The damage model of RTW is very nice, worthy of an extra post someday. Simple yet simulative.
 

Baardhaas

Cipher
Patron
Joined
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Messages
576
Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here
And about your question, when you see a number it means it's in Repairs. Some of the enemy ships will be out of commission for months, from 1 to 4-5. Our damage was far less severe.

The damage model of RTW is very nice, worthy of an extra post someday. Simple yet simulative.
Thanks for the explanation. A post detailing the damage system would be much appreciated.
 
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,160
Excellent work from subs. Haven't seen results this good from early coastal submarines myself. Usually it's not until I get access to medium range ones before they start properly contributing to war effort.

You can design your dreadnought knock-off any time you want. Treaty went down the toilet when war started.

On topic of raiding, it's actually harder to raid when you blockade enemy, you know considering you block ships from leaving or entering Germany. Probably should set subs to hunt for warships. You can also use raiders to run blockade but it probably won't be needed now.
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
4,465
Location
Shaper Crypt
And about your question, when you see a number it means it's in Repairs. Some of the enemy ships will be out of commission for months, from 1 to 4-5. Our damage was far less severe.

The damage model of RTW is very nice, worthy of an extra post someday. Simple yet simulative.
Thanks for the explanation. A post detailing the damage system would be much appreciated.

japan-asia-disputed-islan-2.jpg


Another BUMP and the explanation of the Damage model.

eWfhTZz.jpg


This example is taken from our last Glorious Battle. You can see the relevant info and the ship picture, but what interests us is the detailed data below. We have the main guns, their turrets, ammo and hit rate, the secondary and tertiary guns, the torpedoes and the crew/fire control quality.

What interests us is the Damage model.

First of all, a shell must hit a ship to cause damage. The distance can influence what is hit, with deck hits far more frequent at longer ranges.

When a shell hits, it can cause Structure or Flotation damage.

Flotation damage, well, means that the ship is taking water and flooding. It will lose speed and if the crew does not manage to stop it we can end up with sinking. Of course, going at full speed does not help damage control. Torpedo and Mine hits will cause heavy flotation damage, as will Waterline Hits by guns, as they all can cause "progressive flooding". Think of it like the traditional bleeding damage of the RPGs of yore.

Structure damage is not as lethal, but in great amounts will influence our rate of fire and fire control.

Turrets and Engines can also be hit, with obvious results. Engine hits slow us down. Turrets can be Destroyed or Disabled, and disabled turrets can be repaired by the crew. The crew, if exposed, can also be hit by shrapnel and killed.

B_57_01.jpg


This is not a naval gun, but it helps us understand the risks for unshielded crew

Turret hits, very rarely, can cause Ammo Explosions, and those are NEVER fun. Just ask the HMS Hood. Torpedo tubes can also be likewise disabled.

Critical hits are where the fun begins, as all the more "peculiar" effects are caused by these: rudder damage (have fun circling!), ammo and magazine hits not related to the turrets, conning tower damages, electrical system damage, bridge hits, mines going off.... it's the most entertaining thing.

Well, at least if was not a contentless BUMP!

The update is half-ready, but I fear I'll finish it tomorrow. Lazy, lazy me.
 

Grimgravy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
3,469
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire
Bump. Been watching videos on youtube to get my fix. They're not as entertaining as you.
 

Baardhaas

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Dec 1, 2014
Messages
576
Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here
Thanks for the explanation! For this I feel you've earned a bump with a little story.

This ship bumped in to a buoy and sank in shallow waters, about 3 to 4 meters deep. At first it had a strong list to portside, but later stabilized and lays seemingly perfectly horizontal, the booms are just above the waterline. No loss of life, but the interior of the ship was a total loss of course.

1523288147-2b48ae9a.jpg
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
4,465
Location
Shaper Crypt
Bump. Been watching videos on youtube to get my fix. They're not as entertaining as you.

Buy the game. It has only pure grognard prices!

Or search the pirate copy that is around in the Net.

480px-USS_Caron_%28DD-970%29_collision.jpg


Bumping the Capitalist
 

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