Verblonde

Never gets old...! I accidentally completed the US Cruisers collection last night, and stuck the lairy camo on my Cleveland; I imagine it'll stay there until I get bored with the sheer glorious tackiness of the thing...

I would definitely do so - she's hilarious! Just know what you're letting yourself in for...

I play WOWS Blitz too (I need to get out more) - the premium ship xp conversion works the same way as it does in the 'full' WOWS - pay gold, and you can convert your elite xp to free xp (I think you can do it with silver ships too, when they're sufficiently researched)... Edit: I would suggest not doing too much of this - it gets expensive, and practice at lower tiers is good (and, in Blitz, the way you upgrade modules doesn't work the same way i.e. you can't upgrade modules with free xp, which is perhaps the main use of free xp in WOWS, apart from captain training).

I don't think I have any of the gaudy Merica camos (unless you count the Texas one, which I won a while ago, and gets an occasional airing) yet, but I would probably use them now and again, just for a bit of a giggle. I probably wouldn't if I were on the US server though: someone might mistake me for a ghastly American...!

True, but I haven't had a SC in ages (got Kamikaze in the last one - yay!). I think there may be some talking at cross-purposes going on: the freebie Merica crates didn't contain ships - they (sometimes) contained a mission to earn the ship in question. Personally, I was using a sort of short-hand for brevity: I didn't actually get a ship in the crate; I got the mission that allowed you to earn an Atlanta (actually, silver in my case, as I had the ship already).

I'm not certain this is entirely accurate: I bought one crate, to start the collection off - no mission. I subsequently got the Atlanta mission, and it must have come from a free crate, as I didn't buy any more after the initial one...

WG are in a difficult position, I guess: Julio was used as a place to 'disappear' people, whilst the other obvious candidate was recently (historically-speaking) sunk, with great loss of life, and memories in some quarters will still be raw. I might have gone with Belgrano myself: she was lost in combat, and wasn't used for anything nefarious (as far as I know, the Argentinian navy stated that she was a legitimate target, and they had orders to sink any British ships they found); it would be tasteless though, if relatives of those lost on board are playing the game... My knowledge isn't good enough: aren't there any other good candidates from South America, that don't come with baggage?

Sounds like a very solid education to me - thumbs up to Norway! As a further digression: I'm hoping that it turns out that David Attenborough is in fact an immortal - I really don't think Britain will be able to cope if he ever shuffles off...

It looks pretty good overall; the only tweak I might suggest (and it's pretty minor) is that for the in-game missions, it might have been sensible to have a simple 'damage' one - getting points for kills is likely to result in some flaky game-play, as people hold fire in the hope of being able to finish a target off. Whilst removing enemy guns from the game is almost always good (this is why I don't use the phrase 'kill-stealing' incidentally), there is perhaps the risk of people unloading a cataclysmic broadside into an enemy with almost no hp left, when they could more usefully tear huge chunks off a healthier enemy nearby? This, of course, assumes that there is someone weedier nearby who can finish off the damaged foe. I doubt it's a big problem though...

True - I didn't say it was exclusive to my area...

I've seen it argued that the Tirpitz wasn't as big a waste of resources as we often think, on the grounds that (until the 617 mob did the necessary) she tied up a disproportionate amount of RN ships merely by existing. I think the suggestion is that if she'd come out and engaged in mortal combat, the RN would have sunk her (possibly with one or two losses on our side), and that would have been that - assets freed up to do other things. As it was, more than one BB's worth of resources were chasing round after her... I do buying/planning things in a corporate retail office; you only need to do that for a few years before you realise that almost all of your planning is just guessing (albeit in an educated way)...! My finest hour involved a product several years ago that I *knew* wouldn't sell (I only put it in to liven up an otherwise fairly conservative range, and budgeted to reduce the things heavily at the end of the season); b*gger me, if they didn't sell out in under a week...! On my turf, we have the 80:20 rule, whereby 80% of your profit will come from 20% of your products; I gloomily translate that as "well done - 80% of your buy sucked!"... (Edit to change vintage slang that reads a lot ruder nowadays than I meant)

I assume you mean which are solid keepers? In which case, there are probably as many answers as there are players, and the answer will vary significantly depending on where you are in your development, and which types of ships you gel with. Your battle count is still fairly low, so your own answer will most likely evolve greatly over the next thousand or so games. For me, I tend to keep quite a lot of ships (I don't mind buying port slots when they're on offer); at least in part because when you sell a silver ship you lose half the silver value that you paid (obviously, you should never sell a premium - like in WOT). I've kept one or two of the low tier 'dakka' cruisers, because they're plain hilarious (along with several premium equivalents); I also hold onto anything where I have permanent camo; I've kept several T4 ships (mostly DDs and cruisers) too, for when I fancy some protected MM messing about; overall, most of my keepers are IJN DDs and the RN cruiser line (even though I'm rubbish with them - they're fun). Gneis and Bismark are looking like keepers too; I don't really like BBs on the whole, but with a secondary build, those two are a hoot (and gel nicely with Shinyhorse, and Derpitz for captain training).

Presumably, outside of South America, Boise will out-sell the other 20 to 1, as it doesn't require a unique commander...?

This is part of what I do for a living; if you're any good at it, one of the key lessons to learn is "you may very well be wrong"...!

I'm quite relaxed about all this: I probably shouldn't spend much more on this game than I have already - closing the 'cheap doubloons' loophole means I'll spend less money. Simple. WG presumably calculate that they will net more money overall this way; whilst I can't speak for others, in my case they won't: if doubloons are relatively cheap, I'll say "f*ck it" and buy some for lazy free-xping etc. When they're at full (over)price, I tend to be a lot more disciplined, and spend less money overall. Still, if you don't have Loyang yet, it's a bloody good ship, and 30% off is as good as it gets (that I've seen)...

OP: in case you haven't noticed: a premium ship sale has started; it appears that something new will be added each day (with each ship only lasting on sale for a day). The first one is 50% off Warspite...

I think I have pretty much all the premiums (that aren't BBs, as playing BBs excessively gives you cooties); since the doubloon compensation nerf, this type of sale is now wholly unattractive... Presumably, WG are now only really interested in new players' money? Oh well, I can always think of something more constructive to spend my ackers on...

Just embarrassed myself horribly in front of @Riselotte - I hang my head in shame...

According to Wikipedia (if I'm reading it right), the Americans actually pronounce this one approximately correctly...?

The cynic in me wonders if the Russians have yet to forgive Japan for Tsushima, and the IJN gets the proverbial sh*tty end of the stick as a result...?

@powerfullblackmr_tr In an ideal world, you would play more games, in as many different types of ship as possible first; this would enable you to identify which premium ships most suit your playstyle, and preferences. In case you haven't found it yet, the wiki (http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships) has write-ups of all the ships in the game, including premiums; there are also links to LWM's reviews of premiums, which are also worth reading (they often provide a useful alternative POV, compared to the wiki). The standard advice is usually not to buy any premiums of higher tier than where you've got to with silver ships; I would agree with this as far as playing in randoms (or any other mode against real people) goes - you'll get your arse handed to you, which isn't much fun. Although they won't earn you a tonne of silver, some of the lower-mid tier premiums are great fun, as well as including some historically significant ships. If you want to ignore this advice (plenty of people do), I strongly urge you to play any such premiums in coop mode - you'll still make silver, won't get slaughtered (well, less badly, anyway), and you won't be a liability to anyone's team in the modes that people take more seriously. As others have mentioned, it is likely that there will be a sale soon; I would hold off buying anything until that happens - there is a good chance there will be some decent reductions that'll save you a decent amount of money (if the discounts are *really* good, perhaps even buy a premium, or two, of higher tier - just don't play it outside coop until you have more experience!)... BTW speaking of reductions: read all the blurb from WG very carefully; often, what appears to be a good deal may not be - there is a tendency to bloat bundles with stuff you can buy for silver (which is usually very easy to generate with regular play). The ideal thing to look for is a flat-out reduction in a premium ship's price, and no unnecessary extra bumpf.

@albinbino - you may find this of help: https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/updates/modernizations-x/

You're both right - I went and checked the other evening, and couldn't then remember which thread I'd written the erroneous information on! Senior moment... Anyway, I've been having a happy time messing with the permanent camo on those US ships where I've unlocked the relevant option.

She used not to be regarded as a terribly effective ship; I don't know if the buffs have changed that rep (I'm finding her less awful to play these days, but it may just be that I'm a little less inexperienced). Generally, doing lots of damage equates to healthy earnings, and Indie isn't necessarily the easiest ship to do that with (although the AP shells are glorious if they hit, and you do have radar)...

I ducked into WOT for a few battles over the weekend (mainly to do the Kursk missions); despite the insanity of the current MM, I was reminded of one of the key advantages that games has - people will actually advance/attack! The number of games over the weekend where anyone in anything bigger than a DD basically just ran for the borders was infuriating. I'm starting to feel that BB drivers (especially) should be forced to play a few games in WOT brawler heavies, to introduce them to the concept of attacking!