Procrastes

From my own perspective, I'd say that if I meet a truly good player, he or she will probably take me out quite easily no matter which ship class either of us are driving. A good player is a force to be reckoned with in any ship, not just a CV. All the same, I've been having an unexpectedly entertaining turkey shoot in my Östergötland so far, bagging 33 planes on one occasion. And the Halland is supposed to be even better!

I can of course only speak for myself, but I've always felt it to be a good thing that there is not too much patriotic or nationalist emphasis in this game. It would certainly be a mistake to try to bolster such an element in a global (and therefore trans-national) online PvP game. People of many various nationalities play this game in order to have fun together, in a community where we are gamers first and foremost. History buffs such as myself may get a bit of extra kick out of seeing how the various navies and ship models are represented, but there is no battle between nations going on, here. Most of us probably play ships of all nationalities, and while most of us also probably have a few favourite ship lines, I doubt that very many of us are reading anything in particular into our respective choices in this regard. I certainly don't. I am Swedish. And I will admit that having ships from my own nation in the game does add an extra touch to my fun, but mostly in the historical context - it has given me an impetus to read up a bit on my country's recent naval history. I have no desire to see my national line take precedence or dominate the battlefields at the expense of overall game balance. Nor do I begrudge other players to have their nation represented, just as long as this does not disrupt the game balance either. So I don't have a problem with this new destroyer line being entered in the lists as European. On the contrary, it feels good to see ships from my nation's history appear together with ships from other countries. In these troubled times, I'd rather focus on what joins us together than on what divides. Happy Easter, everyone!

Sorry, Captain El2aZeR... ...I forgot to make a proviso for this admittedly very possible scenario. My post has now been properly amended.

My verdict on the European Destroyers: Tiers VII-X approved! I'd say that the European destroyers come into their own from tier VII and upwards. It's with the tier VII, the Skåne, and onwards, they get the combination of very fast and really long range torpedoes, great AA and somewhat useful guns, that sets their character apart and gives them a place to call their own in the WoWs destroyer community. The Skåne, the Öland and the Östergötland have a playstyle that is completely new, at least to me. This is how I would sum it up. With your fast, long range torpedoes that have a choice of narrow or super-narrow spread, you can use your torpedoes very effectively not only for area denial, but also for surgical strikes at far greater distances than would be practical for other destroyer lines. With the comparatively low damage you can't hope to sink most ships with just a single volley, so you must be prepared to strike again and again. The comfortably short reload time makes this possible, and also contributes to a fun and fast-paced play style. Be sure to hoist some 'Juliet Whiskey Unaone' signal flags to boost your chances of causing a flooding with 15%; this can make even a few torpedo hits potentially lethal. Don't overstay your welcome at any one place, but make sure to always be on the move. You don't have a smoke, and sitting still in smoke is just asking to get smoke-torped anyway - a lesson you should drive home by riddling any enemy smoke screens you pass by with your blisteringly fast torpedoes. You can cap - but you should probably avoid getting into a gunfight with other destroyers, at least in the early stages of the game. Moreover, your gun turrets turn too slowly to let you handle a close-quarters gunfight with confidence. If you happen to be spotted anyway and have some cover to duck in behind, by all means put a few parting shots into your enemy - but don't light yourself up unnecessarily. Retreat, and then strike back from another direction, with your torpedoes going ahead of you! Since you don't have a smoke screen, you are bound to take some hits if you get spotted. Do not despair - just retreat and heal up! Your heal consumable will let you get back into the action from hits that would cripple the tactical options for most other destroyers. Some 'India Delta' signal flags, to give you an extra 20% heal, is always helpful. See those planes coming in? Get out of the way if possible, but if not, just press the Defensive AA consumable button and watch them drop like mayflies - burning mayflies - all around you.* Sure, a determined air strike will get through - they nearly always do, after all - but you can heal up a fair bit of any damage done. Most CV:s will get the message and go looking for softer targets. In short: Play like a skirmisher! Don't expect to instantly obliterate your enemies, but rather whittle them down - give them the 'Death of a Thousand Cuts'! Embrace your inner Easter Bunny Rabbit, and stay one step ahead - or even five or six steps ahead, since your torpedoes can reach your target anyway! I have not yet played the Halland, but from what I've heard she's basically an Östergötland with extra sugar on top. This is not a bad thing. The Visby and the Västerås are not all that exciting to play, though - or at least that's my opinion. They suffer more from the lack of a smoke screen, since the compensating characteristics of the Swedish destroyers - as outlined above - have not been fully realized with them. They have good torpedo range and decent AA for their respective tier, and that is about the best I can say. The Visby also has a high speed, which is good because she will typically spend a lot of time running away from her enemies after trying to torp them. One possible way of making the Visby and the Västeråsa bit more interesting to play, could be to add the Defensive AA consumable, which they currently lack. That could provide them with an entertaining amount of punch whenever those CV-quartets or CV-sixpacks happen to turn up in the matchmaker. Whether this would fly (pun intended) with the CV Protectionist Lobby, is of course another matter entirely. All in all, my opinion is that Wargaming have hit the mark very well with these new European/Swedish destroyers. They have created a new DD branch with its own distinct playstyle, that is both challenging to master and fun to play. So well done to Wargaming, for this! * Unless they are piloted by @El2aZeR, in which case they will circumvent your futile AA with contemptuous ese and then proceed to annihilate you with a fury that would make the inhabitants of Gomorrah cease their lamentations and quietly go about dusting off the furniture.

Last November, when my year's worth of Wargaming premium account time ran out, I bought the special World of Warships premium account time that gives a 65 % xp bonus instead of the usual 50 %. I thought that having the added bonus would be worth it and I also read something about a daily doubloon bonus of 25 doubloons per day if you had both a special and a general premium running at the same time. I didn't renew the general premium at that time, however, since I was not at that moment spending any significant time in either World of Tanks or World of Warplanes. Now, as Frontline in WoT is starting up again, I went to the store to get some general premium account time as well, since I like getting a bit of extra xp when I do get time available for play. Having two levels of non-cumulative premiums running at the same time could of course be thought of as being just a bit decadent, but I thought that having an extra 25 doubloons per day ticking in could be as good an excuse as any. Bummer for me, though, when I read that this bonus only applies if you activate your special Warships premium after you have activated a general Wargaming premium. If you do it the other way around, that is if you buy some general premium time while you have Warships premium active, you don't get this daily doubloon bonus. I will state right away that I may have understood this completely wrong. If so, it certainly wouldn't be the first time I've failed to fully grasp the intricacies of an online gaming transaction. But if I have understood it correctly, and that I am actually prohibited from getting this double premium doubloon bonus simply due to having started my special Warships premium account time first, then I must, without rancour but with genuine puzzlement, ask - why? I am putting this question up on the forum, since there may be others who either already have the answer, or could benefit - ideally aforehand - from knowing that the question exists. I also take the liberty of addressing @MrConway directly, on the suspicion that he may very well have the information readily at hand...? Best regards to everyone!

All right, this post has stood for more than 20 hours without anyone offering up a theory on why the special doublooon bonus for double premium time is set up the way it is. So then I'll have a go at it myself. This is what I think. Someone who already pays for a general Wargaming premium, with the normal premium bonus of 50 % extra xp for all three WG titles - Tanks, Warships and Warplanes - has not that much incentive to pay roughly double the money to just get another 15 % xp in his Warships games. An added doubloon bonus might make that option more appetizing. But for someone who - like me - only has a special Warships premium up and running, getting a general premium on top of that would add 50 % extra xp on Tanks as well as Warships. That might be incentive enough to buy that general premium, even without a special doubloon bonus thrown in. If this is the way Wargaming have figured it, I guess it makes sense from a business point of view. Why would they give away 25 doubloons per day, when they don't have to? And I should point out that there is no duplicity in this from Wargaming's side - all the relevant information is clearly stated on their website where you buy premium time, easily available for me as a customer. Is is purely on me that I didn't read it through carefully enough when I renewed my Warships premium last fall. Still, I feel that it would have been a handsome touch to include the bonus irrespective of in which order the two types of premium were acquired. And I'm not at all convinced that this current setup will work out the way it might be intended (if I'm right about my theory, that is). I shall now have to think some more about whether or not to buy a general premium for those occasions where I will be playing Tanks or Warplanes, whereas if there had been a doubloon bonus up for grabs, I would have already bought one. I'd like to think that I'm wrong about all this, and that there is some other and less cynical reason for how this double premium/doubloon bonus thing is set up. I have been investing freely in premium time and premium ships since this game was in Beta, and I've always felt that I got my money's worth. I still feel that way. So having to fiddle around with the order in which I buy different kinds of premium time, in order to get or not get a bonus for it, feels a bit, well, niggardly. So I guess maybe this is something of a whine post after all, in spite of me claiming the opposite when tagging it above? So be it - I am old enough to be capable of owning up to sometimes being a hypocrite!

I didn't go all-out pink for just the one plane, no. That would have ticked me off quite a bit. But the text in the post-battle screen, listing your team damage, is a nice hue of pink, and that is what I referred to. I guess I could have expressed myself clearer; sorry about that! Maybe. But that would mean that you would have to shut off the whole baloney, and not just the guns firing in the compromised direction. And it would also be rather demanding on the multitasking capabilities. I would be interested to hear just how Wargaming have thought and gone about these aspects of friendly fire. The shooting down of friendly planes is apparently a bug, according to Excavatus in post #5 above, but how far does it stretch? Can you actually go all the way to being pink by shooting down your own planes, for instance?

The same thing - swatting a friendly plane out of the sky - happened to me yesterday, and I was properly told off for it in nice pink letters in the post-battle result screen. I assume it was my own fighter plane being shot down by my own AA crews, since they are a bit competitive even to begin with and I don't recall seeing any other planes around at the time. The mood was a bit surly in the mess later that evening, now that I think about it. I've actually seen a replay where a battleship sank an allied Atago with his secondaries. They fired at a target on the other side of the allied cruiser, but one of the shots clipped the Atago and set her on fire... and she was on low health and had no repair available.... and burned to death. The battleship player turned pink for something that think everyone could agree was totally not his fault, it was just the random effect of a game mechanic. This was a long time ago and I believe Wargaming have changed the automatic team damage mechanics so that it can't happen again, but I wouldn't stake my reputation on it.

Then I have some good news for you - they get even more awesome at higher tiers. In my first game in the Östergötland last night, I sank two ships and collected a whopping 13 436 xp. Those 90 knot torpedoes don't hit very hard individually, but the damage adds up!

I've managed to redeem five of the codes, and I shall count that as well and good. Thanks for all the help, one and all!

I'll have another go in a while. Right now I'm sitting down with my wife to hear what Wotan has to say to Brünhilde about her recent mess-up with Siegmund and Hunding. Thanks for all the help, mates!

I copy and I paste and I press the redeem button, and all it tells me is "invalid code". Should I type it in in a certain way? I'm sure I'm doing it wrong somehow...

Thanks! And me being me, how do I use the codes?

I clicked to start the Bad Advice collection, but just like with the King of the Sea X collection, nothing seems to happen. No new collection has appeared under my profile. Am I missing something? --- I had missed something. Namely, clicking the big, bright red button to start the collection. Sometimes I wonder if I should worry about myself... ...although I suppose I am slightly less likely than the average guy to accidentally start a nuclear exchange?

So did I! And he started his naval career in the Blyskawica back in the days when she was still competitive, so he's well on his way to making Admiral Floty by now. But I wanted a Swedish captain for the mid-tier ships as well.

Captain @Sir_Sinksalot raises a most valid point. Having a commander with at least 10 skill points from the start is highly desirable on any ship, and never more so than on destroyers. With this in mind I would have expected one or two 10-pointers to have been made available for coal or doubloons as the new Pan-European DD line was released, with at least one of them being Swedish. In the absence of such an offer, I immediately spent 175 000 elite xp to promote Jan Larsson from Löjtnant to Kommendörkapten av första graden. This, I'm sure, has made my initial endeavours in the Visby slightly less painful than they would otherwise have been.

Well, then. Has there been any reply from Wargaming?

Let's see if Flamu's new verdict, that Fun is Cancelled, has any effect on the on-going development of the Odin. His word should not be taken as gospel, of course, but he made some reasonable points. (I am trying very hard not to say something acerbic about soon-to-come Russian ships needing to be much better than new German ships, here.)

Indeed. And the truth of this statement dawned on me just a wee bit too late; se the edit in my post above.

Well, yes. But you'd have to be a native speaker or otherwise proficient in the language, to know how to pronounce written German. And this is especially true with regards to those letters that have no counterparts in English, such as 'ä' and 'ö'. I've watched through a lot of Jingles videos about the battleship König, and although I don't mind that he's chosen to pronounce the last letter in Plattdeutsch rather than Hochdeutsch, it's a constant source of pain to hear him continually butcher the first vowel, 'ö'. He pronounces it as a long 'o', like in 'Dover', whereas it should properly be pronounced as [œ:]. I have refrained from pointing this out to Jingles in a comment on one of his relevant YouTube videos, since a) this would probably only encourage the man to make a point of committing further linguistic atrocities, and b) it might make me appear to be just a bit anal about the whole language thing. Edited: I may have missed the whole point of your reply, namely that someone who was fluent in German to begin with, probably wouldn't need an explanation on how to pronounce a word in that language? If this is what you alluded to, you are of course entirely correct.

Best of luck with your future endeavours, Captain @Blixies!

Ägir was a God of the Sea in Norse mythology. Making an effort to recall my school days phonetics, this is how his name would be pronounced in German (and Swedish): [æ:gir] The initial vowel 'Ä', is long and is pronounced something like the middle sound in the English word 'bear', while the 'g' in 'gir' is pronounced with the tounge at the back of the mouth, like in 'ghost'. The whole word is pronounced with an emphasis on the first vowel. I möchte gern's in Deutsch erklären, aber Ich bin leider nicht so gut im Deutsch - Enstchuldigung!

Wow... the fabled "fibreglass armour" of the 1980's! It takes only 10% of any incoming damage, since even HE will overpen. I used to think it was just a myth...!

And thus endeth the competition!

The best-looking ship in the game, in my opinion, is the Scharnhorst in her Arctic camo pattern. Stark, frozen elegance - an image of deadly beauty! I am at work and can't post a picture right now, but maybe there is someone who can? But all of the ships in the previous posts are great choices as well!