Procrastes

I'm kinda sorta still hoping they will sell the Småland for money as well. I almost have the 2 million free xp, but frankly I'd rather spend those on leveling up a Swedish captain and getting a bit of the way up the European silver ship line. I know there is a certain value in not making top tier ships available for money, but that ship sailed long ago when Wargaming started selling tier IX ships for money. Making tier X ships available for money as well won't make any real difference except in tier X exclusive events, and I can't help but to feel that those have already been compromised by tier X colliers such as the Smolensk and the Thunderer. So I'd be real pleased to see some kind of Swedish Admiralty pack appear in the shop in the near future? I do have an 18-point Polish captain, Admiral floty Ksawery Waliszewski from the Blyskawica, and I don't doubt that he will perform well enough - but I can't wait to hear the Swedish voice-overs. They're quite hilarious in World of Tanks!

The Friesland was announced for 1 million free xp, or so I recall. But then it was also put up for sale for money. Will WG do the same with the Småland?

I will look forward to having your opinion on the Småland, then! I'm not really good enough to reliably pull my weight in tier X battles, but I didn't want to miss out completely on this season's ranked battles of tier X arms race. So I've played all my ranked battles in my Smolensk this time around, with mixed results to say the least. I wouldn't say I've been a complete potato, but I think I would have done a better job in a destroyer. I did rather a lot of good in my Black in the tier IX arms race last time. So I guess I should get me at least one tier X destroyer, for future endeavours if nothing else. I'm contemplating pushing my way up to the Daring with free xp (I'm currently at the Jervis), since I hear that the Daring will get a huge indirect buff from the IFHE rework (is this true, by the way?). But another option would obviously be to fork out 2 million free xp for the Småland and hope for the best... I honestly don't know. My ancestry is actually half-Smålandish, so I guess there is that as well, although spending that much free xp for purely sentimental reasons would probably qualify as just a wee bit weird? Edited: Come to think of it, my other ancestral half is Hallandish. So a third option would be to grind out the whole silver line of Swedish ships and go for the Halland as my first tier X destroyer. Flamu seems to have preferred the Halland over the Småland, if I remember correctly. So many ships, so little free xp... I just hope WG puts out a few nice 10-point Swedish commanders for coal and doubloons in the shop!

As far as I know, yes - the new Swedish destroyers will be part of the Pan-European ship tree, just like the Blyskawica. So a Blyskawica captain should work fine on any of the Swedish/Pan-European ships. For what it's worth, I could put my Blyskawica captain on the Friesland without a problem. So I guess you could get either the Blyskawica or the Friesland, and put that captain on any one of the new Swedish/Pan-European ships. Although you'd still have to retrain him in order to put him on a silver ship, just as usual. If you are going to get a Pan-European premium anyway, and don't want to wait for the Småland, you might find the Friesland to be a more interesting pick than the Blyskawica. The Blyska was great in her day, but she's been ruthlessly power-crept over the years and can bring little to a table which sits such power-houses as the Haida or the Jervis, to name just two. Best of luck!

A good and nuanced poll, Captain @Capra76 ! On question 1, I've voted to remove CV:s completely. Not because they make the game unplayable, but because they, when present, tend to make the game less fun for other ship classes. In a binary choice situation, this solution leads to a better and more balanced game for the majority of ship classes. On question 2, my vote (if temporary acting CEO of Wargaming) would be to keep CV:s in the game but to introduce a hard cap of max one CV per team. Online PvP games such as the World of Warships thrive on diversity and dynamic gameplay, so having workable CV:s is in my opinion better than having no CV:s at all. I believe that this kind of hard cap would solve most of the problems with CV:s in their current iteration. The main effect would be to realize one of the stated aims with the rework, namely to fix the issue of a skilled CV player being able to basically be everywhere at once. While this was possible for a truly skilled CV player in the old RTS days, it is no longer the case with the reworked CV:s, since a single player can only be at one place at a time. If there are two or more CV:s on the same team, however, they can easily cover the entire map between them. Then, those planes are simply everywhere, all the time - which I, for one, find to be a rather un-fun experience. From what I've understood of WG communiqés so far, this solution would lead to some rather hefty queuing issues for CV players. This is of course regrettable, but I still think it would be a better way than to have the game frequently change from a "World of Warships" into "Carriers and Sidekicks". Cheers!

I'm sure you are quite right! After all, if in-game battleships were made as strong in relation to other ship classes as they were in real life, cruisers and destroyers would have an unreasonably hard time of it. It would be almost as crazy as to make in-game aircraft carriers as ridiculously strong in relation to other ship classes as they were in real life, which would obviously make life for in-game cruisers, destroyers and battleships into a nightmare of humiliation and despair... ... ... ...on second thoughts, let's just be happy that all of us captains of destroyers, cruisers and battleships can find at least one place of common ground to anchor up around? Disclaimer: This is a deliberate spoof post, made in good cheer, under a gibbous moon, and with no intention to be taken seriously. A good night to you all!

I am most certainly not questioning your personal experience of the game! In fact, I think I know exactly how you feel. I've been outplayed in my battleships by clever cruiser captains more times than I'd care to admit. Captain @DFens_666 gives some excellent advice about this very situation in post #70 above, and when I read what he writes, I recognize that when I got cruiser-smacked on those occasions, I frequently made much the same mistakes that he counsels against. So don't give up hope of delivering a proper Jingles paddlin' to those pesky cruisers just yet!

Without implying that you played badly, I'd rather say that this was probably a very well played Myoko? In a one-on-one between a Gneisenau and a Myoko, and with allowances made for the fickle Gods of RNG, victory will most likely go to the player that is best at playing to the strengths of his or her ship. The Myoko would probably want to keep the distance, wearing the Gnu down with HE while hoping to be able to keep dodging the salvoes from the battleship, while the Gneisenau would typically try to close the distance enough to make sure of landing some decisive citadel hits (and hopefully avoid being sunk by torpedoes in return). Game working as intended, in other words. But if on the other hand the game should be balanced so as to guarantee victory to a battleship that goes up against a same-tier cruiser, then we would have unbalance in the game.

When does the time to complete the Royal Navy tokens Directive end? I'm starting to doubt if I'll have enough time on hand for the next two weeks. Edited: Thanks a bunch, Captain @Palubarac, for your very picturesque response in post#18 below! The answer, of course, was right in front of me the whole time!

One thing that should be taken into consideration when comparing Russian longer range radar to US longer duration radar, is that even one or two extra kilometres range will cover a vastly bigger area. Not just two extra kilometres in one direction, but two extra kilometres in all directions. As I see it, using radar is not mainly about killing a certain enemy ship (although doing so is certainly a nice bonus), it's about area denial. By exposing an area to radar you can effectively deny a cap, or discourage a scouting destroyer. And the longer range your radar has, the bigger area you can affect without jeopardizing your own ship. This is not to say that Russian radar is always superior to US radar. In situations where you are in a close range encounter to begin with, for example, having longer duration radar is obviously more useful than having extra range that you don't need anyway.

Congratulations! Someone recently mentioned something about a Naval Legends video about nuclear torpedoes. And I thought to myself, "Oh, bugger and blast...!"

Only this morning I took out my Smolensk and joined up with a Kléber to hunt down two Shimas that were harassing the eastern flank. We cornered them and wiped them out in short order, but they managed to kill both of us in return, which I have to say reflects better on them than on us. I went down like a total noob, to a post-mortem torpedo strike from the last Shima. But I still ended second place on the post-battle screen, so I will try to carry my shame with some dignity.

This... ...and this: In my Smolensk, I can usually get away with kiting around in the open at 15+ km for a fairly long time, shooting HE at any and all enemies I can see and dodging most or even all of their return fire. After a few opening salvoes they tend to give up and focus on my team mates, and then after half a dozen or so more fires they rage out and start shooting at me again. Typically, about halfway through the battle I will finally take a citadel that almost kills me, and then I smoke up and start shooting again. I'm far more cautious if there are cruisers around. It should be noted that battleships can get around the whole overpen issue by just loading HE. Those that do, tend to get a +1 from me for being "Worthy Adversaries". Of course, they still have to hit me, which is no easy task. The Smolensk can be fun to play, but I can see why many would say that she's not so very fun to play against. I'm honestly a bit mystified as to why Wargaming thought it would be a good idea to release a premium ship with this, a-hem, somewhat provoking combination of smoke, hydro, concealment, manoeuvrability and rail guns from an 80's action movie. The best I can think of is that they are trying to win back the Russian gamer population, which has waned somewhat over the past two years or so if what I've read elsewhere on this forum is correct. If so, this may also explain their proposed plans on an upcoming Russian cruiser split (which has its own thread, so let's not go further into that here). I often try to balance the strengths of the Smolensk by going at it in a fairly 'proactive' way, such as - for instance - taking the fight directly to any enemy destroyers that try to push their luck early on. Getting up close and personal is far more risky, but also much more fun!

A shorter and more succinct way of saying the same, yes.

Sauron, and his Eye, managed to completely fail to accurately locate Sam and Frodo until they were both well within the confines of Mount Doom. In the post-battle investigation it was widely recognized that while the 'Eye of Sauron' technology had achieved some notable propaganda successes early on, it had proved repeatedly unable to secure any form of lasting tactical advantage for the Forces of Evil. The Horde of Enquiry concluded that this was at least partly due to the 'Maian factor', as grade 9 immortal beings like Sauron are notoriously liable to gloating which in turn will lead to irrational decision-making and misallocation of resources, but that the main part of the problem lay in the fact that the whole excorporeal entity construction had proved to be an inefficient and diffuse form of leadership from the onset of the conflict. In the case of the 'Eye of Sauron' technology in particular, this had led to tunnel vision and a lack of delegation to commanders in the field, with HQ relying almost completely on micromanaging by Palantîri and with unsupervised commanders frequently proving unable to take any form of independent action. This debate has of late experienced a countermovement based around the concept of 'Elven Bias', whose main proponents argue that the failure of Sauron wasn't due to his lack of vision but rather to his opponents' use of Elven cloaking devices. While most M.E. historians agree that the Realm of Mordor, as led by Sauron, should have had more than ample resources at hand to dispose of any magical equipment fielded by humans or their inhuman allies, this thesis claims that Elven technology will always be provided with an artificial, plot-driven boost to guarantee its eventual victory. The debate, mainly between Orcaboos and Elfaboos, goes on.

Here I must disagree! Considering how much of the battle area in all the various maps consist of island cover, removing the ability to radar and hydro through islands would completely gimp the functionality of these consumables within the scope of the game. Even as a DD main, I don't think that would be a good idea. The way these and other consumables work is determined first and foremost in the interest of game balance, which is as it should be. Historical accuracy must needs come a distant second. If we would strive for historical accuracy as a priority, we would have to play most or even all battles on the Ocean map to begin with, since no sane naval commander would take his cruisers or battleships into such shallow coastal waters as is the norm in WoWs, with consideration to scale and distance. But playing all our battles on the Ocean map would be boring as hell - especially for destroyers. So I will happily accept magical sonar arrays, physics-defying radars and other weird game mechanics that defy the immutable laws of nature,* as long as they make some minimal effort to mimic the real world counterparts while still keeping the game playable. * Isn't it weird, for instance, how plane squadrons will be spotted by surface ships - even big ol' battleships - long before spotting them in return?

You're right about that - I'd really not want to meet a Minotaur while sailing around an island maze in a destroyer! I know that there are already cruisers with stealth radar capability in the game. And I may well be over-imagining the effect a stealth radar-flavoured new Russian cruiser line will have on destroyer team-play. But Russian radar typically has a considerably longer range that that of other nations, and if you combine this with Russian rail guns, you get quite a nasty cocktail to swallow for a destroyer captain.

I have to go for Germany. Germany has overall the most beautifully rendered ship models in the game, to my mind - the premiums especially. Also, they have many of the most entertaining ships in the game when it comes to uniquely flavoured play styles, such as the Scharnhorst or the Graf Spee. It helps that they also have a lot of history, most of them being real ships with actual combat records.

This post by Captain Oldschoolgaming_YouTube... ...just about sums it up. I was so happy and pleased with Wargaming when they reworked a number of US cruisers to remove stealth radar capability more or less across the board. Stealth radar is so obviously bad for the game, and the decision to remove it was a real confidence boost for Wargaming. As it is now, I find it hard to avoid the suspicion that they were saving this juicy tidbit for the Russian cruisers all along, removing it from other nations beforehand so as to have a better selling point. If this is the way it is, it's a pretty shitty move. Edited: I just realized that I can stealth radar in my USS Black. I could make an argument that radar-carrying destroyers are a special case, what with certain high-tier Pan-Asian DD:s and all... but still, I'm such a hypocrite!

Hmmm... lower southwest corner, J1? Trying desperately to sail into the next map? I'd still want too see a game mechanic that allows for persistent borderhuggers to just drop over the edge and fall into limbo... I think of it as the "Terry Pratchett Effect".

I, too, have seen questionable things. My last ranked battle saw an allied Salem start out the game by shooting some salvoes in the wake of our destroyer; he didn't say why. He was dead two minutes later after having apparently yoloed the enemy line, so I guess what we saw was just another dude with 10 000 games played in the Umikaze and one tier X Salem bought for his ill-gotten gains... needless to say, we lost. This is still better than hearing his great grandfather, Lord Mostinbred, order an uphill cavalry charge against a line of Maxim guns anno 1889 "because that's how it's done", so I won't complain. I can just play another battle.

I know, right? You just load HE and spank it to Kingdom Come. It's frankly puzzling how reluctant some BB players are to press the ammo switch; it's almost as weird as their inability (in some cases) to master the WASD hax!

I usually start off my Smolensk battles by opening fire on the first target I see, and then I spend the next few minutes dodging the rain of fire with Boney M:s Rah-Rah-Rasputin! going at full blast across the waves as everyone and their uncles unload all they have except the kitchen sink at my tiny metal a$$. I'm almost never hit with anything that does any damage worth mentioning, and as my attackers all immediately reveal their positions they tend to get fairly well bruised by return fire from my team mates. This is much more fun than just camping in my little smoke cloud, in my opinion. I tend to reserve the latter for the second half of the game, when things can get a bit more close and personal. I've played four or five games in this season's ranked battles, and am currently at rank 13. It's an open question how far I will get before the end. I'd still probably have preferred playing a destroyer in Arms Race, but since WG have locked all their tier X premium destroyers behind a Steel wall, that's not going to happen this time around (I'm still a far way from unlocking any tier X silver ship). Anyway, my hope is that this more 'proactive' way of playing the Smolensk may mitigate some of the karma loss that might otherwise entail from playing this somewhat controversial ship. That, and the fact that I'm not anywhere near being a skilled enough player to make the most out of this lovely and shamelessly overpowered little ship!

Please accept this Medal of Honour from the Destroyer Preservation Society, in recognition of your laudable efforts on behalf of this beautiful but endangered species! It is stamped from the steel of sunken destroyers - wear it with pride! On a more serious note: While removing rocket planes would indeed make it harder for CV captains to damage destroyers directly, the main problem - namely their power to keep destroyers spotted from the air, allowing their team members to attack them - remains. Also, even rockets can be dodged - and a CV that keeps going after destroyers with rockets, will very likely waste a lot of time hunting this beautiful but elusive specimen instead of bagging more tempting and easy-to-hit targets. I no longer look upon rockets as a big problem, in and of themselves.

Good brainstorming initiative, Captain loppantorkel! Some short initial thoughts about your suggestions. Increased torpedo range and speed are two important balancing factors to keep destroyers effective despite the prevalence of radar, hydro and plane spotting. This should be done judiciously and with care, however, since a straight up 20 % increase over the whole field would most likely play havoc with the overall game balance in more ways than one. But I believe that the idea of fast, long-range torpedoes is already in the cooking in the form of the forthcoming Swedish destroyers...? As for the Radio Location skill, I have long been of the opinion that it makes the gameplay less fun and that it should be removed. But I am clearly in the minority, and I don't want to get off-topic so this is all I will say about it, here. I don't think I like this idea, to be honest. Making smoke less effective for the destroyer employing it, seems counter-intuitive from a pro-destroyer point of view, in my opinion. There are many ways to flush out a destroyer that goes into smoking mode, and when I - for once - manage to place myself in a good smoke-firing position, and have the luxury of allies to spot for me, I really don't want that moment to be ruined. So while I can see the reason for your suggestion, I vote no to this. Hell, no! Let the Pan-Asians keep their gimmicky torpedoes, and let the rest of the gunboat/torpedo boat hybrids live and fight on in the way that nature intended! If I'm in my T-61 and happen to be fighting a Gadjah Mada, I know that while I would be hopelessly outclassed in a gun fight, I can still outwit him with my hydro, my smoke and my torpedoes. And if I'm in my Gadjah Mada and face off against a T-61, I know that I must maneuver carefully and pick my moment so that the battle will be decided by guns and not by smoke, hydro and torpedoes. Give the T-61 deep water torpedoes, and the Gadjah Mada can just rush him and kill him irrespective of smoke and hydro. (These two ship types are just intended as examples; these points will hold true for many other ships as well.) I vote yes to this. As it is now, the low air detection radius for destroyers is mainly a test of patience for the CV captain, which luckily most of them fail since they usually can't be bothered to start flying in circles to locate the hidden destroyer that they know is currently watching them with the kind of stoic misery that comes from many nights of fun and engaging CV/DD interaction. A nice and nuanced thread, Captain @loppantorkel, with lots of food for thought!