Got this a while back, waiting to build up the patience to sit down and figure it out. How straightforward is playing it? By that I mean can I sit down and figure it out by playing and reading the manual, or do I have to visit some third party to learn about esoterics? Unity of Command 2 was like that before it had a proper manual.
Third party, but that's oddly half the fun. Sitting down and learning as you play is a big part of the fun.
The manual for the previous two games has information but there's so much to the game that they leave a lot untouched upon for you to discover.
It's very much a series that is helped by knowing thr naval history of the era (and as such is a great education tool if you don't but have the patience to learn alongside of playing it).
For instance, there is no mention about the benefits of an all-forwarded gun lay out in the manual and the massive weight savings you get from it (see what I mean here:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/20/f0/31/20f031ed3c59d5c441b24ebdaf9b980d.jpg) which are in the game. If you knew nothing about all forward armament you'd only discover that through design experimentation or learning about ship design out of game and trying to replicate the Nelsons or Richelieus.
Same goes for the only mention of Unit Machinery being what is brought up by its selection box in the ship design screen (and only then when researched). In that case, you need to know of how how the shift in the 1920s and 30s to it resulted in isolating boilers and engines into their own compartments to prevent a single hit from KOing the whole engine room and leaving the ship dead in the water.
In game, this is major for destroyers as their small size and lack of armour result in them being frequently knocked out and left helpless if you don't check that box. As such, you can have more DDs live after making torpedo attacks by being better able to limp away rather than winding up like Wiesbaden at Jutland, caught between your side and the enemy's, a floating target for every passing enemy warship to take pot shots at.
When I bought RTW2 I wanted to know if there was more to Unit Machinery described in the manual, but there was nothing. I learned more about it reading up about the first RN destroyer class that introduced it elsewhere.
Even then there are many things kept under the hood of the game for a reason to introduce vagueness into the combat.
