Procrastes

Slightly off-topic, I would advice you to stop by to visit the Fiji at tier VII, and try her out before you move on. She is widely held to be among the strongest ships in the game at her tier, and well worth getting acquainted with. Even I, being just barely competent as a cruiser captain, rarely have bad games in her.

Having carriers in the field more or less rules out the Orkan as a valid DD choice, as I see it. You have no AA, no smoke, and no hope. Too bad; she could have been a good ship for this ranked season, otherwise.

You could always check if "Mörlin" is available? (That is more or less how his name would be written in the Swedish alphabet, if one went according to pronunciation only and with no respect for how language actually works.) Please note that you have my sincere sympathies. That sort of thing would bug the heck out of me. On the plus side, you probably have a truly unique avatar name, so I guess that is a good thing...?

This is more or less what happened in 1939... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War

Because of devastating lightning strikes from the sky? I like it!!!

On a more general note, when I press LMB the first time during an attack, the aiming reticle changes colour to a light yellow which is much harder to distinguish from the target and the sea surrounding it. On a number of occasions this has had the effect of making the aiming reticle invisible during the crucial attack phase. Personally, I find this to be less than ideal. I'm not sure if this is a feature of the Kriegsmarine carriers in particular, or if it's part of a general change in one of the latest patches, or if I'm just imagining things and it has always been this way. As for the KM CV:s themselves, I just tried out the Weser. My impression so far is that a set-up with AP rockets and AP boms is by far a less versatile one than if you have HE on at least the rockets. Also, I had problems with aiming the bombs, but that is probably just me being crap. The torpedoes seem reliable but weak.

...are you saying that all my German destroyers - including the T-61 - now have 1/4 HE pen on their guns?

The Carrot is Always Better than the the Stick Any kind of "competence rule", whether a pro-active one such as skill-based matchmaking or a reactive one such as being banned for playing badly, would almost inevitably be incredibly arbitrary, and thus inherently unfair. Moreover, such a rule would by its very nature divide the player base into A-grade and B-grade players, with all the prejudice and bad feeling that would entail. I believe it would hurt the gameplay, and encourage toxic behaviour in the battle chat as well as on the forum. If it comes to it, I'd much rather encourage good play than punish mistakes. Luckily the game already does both, with the allocation of xp and credit gain based on individual in-game performance. I think the system works well enough as it is. So in short, and to quote Captain Teob in post #11 above... I should add that there is probably a case to me made for saying that tier progression in WoWs is currently a bit too fast for comfort. With all the signal flags and special camos that abound, it's now a much quicker trip from tier I to tier X than it was in the beginning. And as most of us would agree, taking the express elevator to the higher tiers is generally not a very good idea. Having a somewhat paced tier progression is a neutral form of competence matchmaking, that doesn't single anyone out but instead applies evenly to all.

What I'm seeing so far in looking at the Z-35, is a gunboat destroyer that is geared to not doing typical gunboat destroyer things like scouting, torping and cap contending, that is not as strong a gunboat as other dedicated gunboat destroyers on its tier, and that is also - provided you go with the AFT skill in order to increase your gun range - not all that well compatible with captain skill builds for other German destroyers. Not too tempting a package, really. The one thing it seems to do reasonably well (although probably still less well than, say, the Akizuki), is long-range HE spamming from smoke. Which is perhaps not what this game currently needs the most, but that's of course a matter of personal taste. A destroyer with 12.8 km base range on its guns, special German HE penetration on its HE shells, and access to hydro and British smoke, does seem conspicuously well tailored to annoy something like, say, a Russian cruiser with a 12 km radar; I'll give it that - but in order to do that, you will still need someone else to spot for you as you sit in your distant little smoke cloud. If the Z-35 had 10 km torpedoes, I would buy her in a jiffy. Depending on just how strong her German HE penetration will prove to be, I guess that sort of torpedo range could perhaps make her a bit too strong, but seeing as she's in the company of such ships as the Lo Yang, the Cossack and the aforementioned Akizuki, I kind of doubt it. In view of how useful that British smoke can be, I'd probably buy her even with 8 km torpedoes. But having less than 8 km torpedo range at tier VIII, just seems too painful. I'll wait for some more reviews to roll in, but for now, I remain to be convinced about this one. I should add that the fact that Wargaming is obviously careful to not introduce an over-strong premium, is of course a good thing in and of itself.

That's what I usually do in my Smolensk! I open fire at the first enemy that is spotted, most often at a range of about 19 km or so, and then I start ducking and weaving as everyone and their uncles in the enemy team toss all they have except the kitchen sink at my shiny metal a$$. Very little of the incoming ordnance tends to hit, and what does frequently overpens. My "potential damage" counter goes through the roof, and I suspect that the foremost destroyer gets a welcome bonus to his "spotting damage" account as well. Fun times. Lately, though, players have gotten better at countering the Smolensk. Either I get a cit-pen from some meddlesome supercruiser that shaves off half my health with a single shell, or some spurious battleship captain has broken the BB Bro Code decided to play the thinking man's game and loaded HE for small game poaching. I look upon this as a good thing.

Ok, how about this: "Back up your destroyer by shooting at whatever ships he spots, preferably without dying (but be prepared to do so if it would help secure the objective without depleting your team of vital resources)." Nah, I dunno. Too cumbersome and a bit lacking in delivery, right? How about this, then: "Actively support your destroyer, but don't take unnecessary damage."

These... ...are all excellent points. The single best piece of advice for destroyer captains that I've gotten in WoWs,* ever, is the simple admonition, "Don't die." A destroyer that survives into the endgame becomes progressively more and more effective as a fighting unit, since his ability to move around unobstructed, spotting and taking caps (and perhaps torpedo-ambushing slow stupid BB:s), increases dramatically for every enemy ship that goes down. Even on very few hit points, a destroyer is typically a much more relevant threat to the enemy than a ship of any other ship class would have been, due to his ability to be useful without being seen.** I expect that Mr Nesbitt of Harlow, Newtown, was enlisted as a destroyer captain before going into TV comedy shows.*** * In fact this advice works fairly well in most situations, even IRL. ** The advent of rocket planes has decreased the survivability of wounded destroyers quite significantly, of course, but hey, I guess they can just dodge? If you can't take a joke, don't play destroyers. ***

What lafeel and waxx25 have said above. It's usually worth taking some initial damage if this means you get an early cap advantage, since this puts pressure on the enemy to play aggressively - and thus expose themselves to fire - or risk losing the game. It's also worth noting that simply targeting an enemy and shooting at him will be good support for your destroyer, even if you don't hit. A destroyer that is targeted by (5) enemies and has shells falling all around him, will be stressed as all heck and far less capable of outplaying any nearby opponents than he would have been if left all alone. I recall one situation where I pushed in to contest a cap in my Daring. I felt fairly confident about this even though the enemy destroyers were backed up by at least two cruisers, since I was backed up by a Smolensk and a Marceau. Or so I thought, anyway. As I got into a dogfight with the enemy destroyers - both of which had of course decided to team up against me - all hell broke loose around me. It was a rain of fire like the one wiping out Sodom and Gomorrah, but all directed at me and nothing at the enemy destroyers. When I had been sunk - which didn't take long - I took a look around me, and found my allies in the Smolensk and the Marceau both parked up snug and safe behind the island to my back, completely unable to shoot at anyone on the enemy team. I watched them circle around aimlessly for a minute or so as the cap was taken by the enemy, and then they decided that retreat was the better part of valour. Seeing that damage to your ship does not, in fact, carry over into the real world, this way of playing the game remains something of a mystery to me. Edited: I just saw that Europizza has made pretty much the same point as I, in the post above. I can only agree with what he says!

As other have said before me: If you want a tier VIII brawler that isn't the Massachusetts, get the Tirpitz. She's forgiving enough to give some leeway for the occasional misplay, and she's tough as an old boot - but don't expect to crush all opposition just by charging at them. Not even the Russian battleships can do that. You should always try to proceed in a way that provides an option to retreat if that becomes necessary. My best battleship games have been those where I have managed to push in, deal and take some damage, and then retreat to heal back up before pushing in again. Doing this with any regularity requires a level of situational awareness that I quite frankly don't have, but I'm getting better at it. If you are prepared to consider something other than a tier VIII ship, I'd advice you to take a look at the Scharnhorst at tier VII. She's been called "the Swiss Army Ship" due to her versatility, since there are very few situations she can't handle. She is particularly good against cruisers, as she can typically outtrade those with her combination of heavy armour and above cruiser-grade guns. But her high shell speed and comparatively fast reload in combination with good secondaries make her fairly capable when dealing with destroyers as well. She should avoid going one-on-one against enemy battleships, but if she is put in a corner by one of the big boys she can always rush him with her torpedoes (just don't make this into your main tactic; showing off your broadside at close range will get you killed no matter what ship you're sailing in). But the best advice I can give here, is to begin grinding the German battleship line. You can use your premium battleship captain on any other German battleship (and indeed on most of the cruisers as well), and there are really no boring ships in that line - at least up to the Bismarck, which is as far as I've got. Best of luck, Captain @Axl06!

This... ...would have been the ideal way for going forward with WoWs, as I see it. Unfortunately, it seems clear enough that Wargaming has chosen another path. Oh well, nothing lasts forever, I suppose. As Robert Frost might have written, had he been a gamer today: Warships' first years were fun, for all and everyone. Her early ships on surface, As their intended purpose. Then carriers came to call; Soon subs will sink us all. My ship goes down today Too bad I cannot stay.

We agree on that. If you buy loot boxes (or whatever they are called) for money or doubloons, and don't know beforehand exactly what will be in the boxes, it is a form of gambling. What I was referring to in my above post, was the set up where you have a "pile" with a given number of "bundles", with a pre-defined content (such as flags, coals and free xp) unevenly distributed among them. The bundles are available for purchase with doubloons, but you can only buy them one at a time, and it is only the content of the first bundle in line that is shown to you before you buy it. If you buy all the bundles, you are guaranteed to get the full content of the pile. The random element is only in what order the separate bundles will be made available, and this is determined one step at a time where the next bundle in line is generated from the pile when you purchase the one in front. The definition of what is and isn't gambling is determined by national law, and ultimately decided in court. But straight off the bat, I doubt that a set-up like the one described above would typically be said to be gambling in a strictly legal sense. And my guess is that this is what Wargaming is gambling on as well - pun intended.

It was not too long ago that the widespread sales of loot boxes for money in Star Wars Battlefront led to Belgium defining loot boxes as a form of gambling. This in turn led to - amongst other things - Electronic Arts being dragged through the streets for gambling with minors, whereafter they redefined loot boxes as "surprise mechanics" in order to get around the issue (hint: it didn't work). Basically it was a case of getting too greedy and killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. There is currently an ongoing process with several European nations contemplating going down the same path with Belgium, with quite a lot of lobbying and counter-lobbying being done in the corridors. Where it will all land is anyone's guess. Meanwhile I think we can rely on Wargaming to not be as greedy and stupid as Electronic Arts. Their latest random pay2loot mechanic, where you pay doubloons in order to purchase a package with content that has already been randomly selected and where the purchase generates the next randomized bundle to appear in line, is really quite ingenious in my opinion. Since you always know exactly what you are buying at the moment of purchase, it can be argued there is no actual moment where you gamble on what you get - which is probably enough leeway for Wargaming to be on the safe side until more rigorous legislation may appear. The way to handle this as customer is to just set a limit on your expenditure, and then spend that limit on whatever takes your fancy. From a parent's perspective, I imagine it should be equally easy to just give your kid access to the game with a set amount of doubloons to spend. With the exception of the Puerto Rico event, Wargaming has so far handled their marketing strategies rather well, in my opinion.

Why, that's cheating! No human player can do that! I have no proof, by I suspect that the Computer - which has to know about the torpedoes in order to implement their trajectories in the game - secretly informs the bot captains, so that they can take the requisite evasive maneuvers. That's the only explanation I can give for how even ships without hydro, but with bot captains at the helm, can perform such prescietic torpedo dodges. Badam-ching!

You might regard yourself as a five-star admiral who, having accidentally received a dispatch with an incomplete number of stars from the communications office (and pointed out this obvious oversight), has had the fifth star appended.

Then all is well with the world. You're not the first commander who's received a botched first draft of the post-battle memo from HQ, I'd wager...!

This is true. For one thing, there are no bots that I know of who are members of the Battleship Border Camping Society.

Bots seem to be programmed to focus their fire on cruisers first and foremost, which makes them predictable and can open up for some pretty weird stunts if you happen to be sailing in a ship of another class. I haven't yet figured out the target priorities if no cruisers are at hand, but I would guess that they are programmed to go for destroyers before shooting at battleships. This programming also means that bots will typically focus fire much more consistently than human players do, with the possible exception of players who happen to be in a division. This can lead to some rather effective pushes from bots. What makes bots much less interesting to fight against, is that they are not programmed to use their consumables in a way that makes sense. Destroyers will trigger their smoke but still keep sailing straight ahead, consistently outrunning their own smoke cloud. Also, from what I've seen, bot radar ships don't use their radar and bot hydro ships don't use their hydro. And the CV bots seem even more badly programmed, being prone to launching flight after flight of severely under-manned squadrons in mid- to late game. Bots don't take effective evasive action to avoid getting broadsided and citadelled. On the other hand, they are often weirdly capable when it comes to anticipating and avoiding torpedo drops. It's almost as if the AI knows that there are torpedoes in the water...

I'm going to let Sarah Connor's room mate, Ginger, take this one: (The relevant part is about 2:20 minutes in.)

I already did that, when I bought the Zeppo. But no Stukas for me...

If we can have it with the full sound- and graphics package, bring it on!