invicta2012

Well, there was a reward for these bundles. However the playerbase don't value camos, special signal flags or credits as highly as WG think they do. The Royal bundles are a bonus, no worse than the everyday Containers, but I can't see myself spending 1,000 doubloons (cash value: £2.80) on seven consumable camos and 10 special signals found in the Imperial bundles, it doesn't feel like decent value.

Been there, done that. The penalty isn't much to write home about.

I'm sure they won't! But there are other ports available. "Arkhangelsk" is a decent name and has lots of positive naval connotations.

I'd like a Three Sisters map, to go with Two Brothers. A choice of two channels with the possibility that the YOLO teams might miss each other completely. Western Approaches would be good, too - some Isles of Scilly style island nests with central cover for destroyers and some treacherous reefs around the outside for careless BBs to snag themselves on.

Well, y'know. The naming department at WG has been having problems of late. Tallinn is OK, I suppose, as it was historical - that's why no-one blinked at Kiev - but Riga is a bit "all your ports are belonging to us". Call it Sevastopol, instead.

It's not confirmed, but the stream said you would be able to keep them if you already had them. That was what I thought. Clearly HMS Dublin will be coming soon, as we don't worry about that sort of thing any more.

I seem to recall doing quite well out of it when they split the Russian reality-based DD line (and that I liked the Podvoisky in comparison to the Gnevny). I hope the new line is worth the candle because I hate the existing Soviet cruiser line. Shchorohshshs seems to explode when someone looks at it.

From the dev blog:

The Tier VIII is called the Tallin, and the IX is called the Riga. Hmm.

The Effingham? Interesting ship and yes, twin 4inch AA mounts as mentioned. But also as mentioned, they are on the edge of the main deck, not in the central bandstand, which her reconstruction allowed. Most of the Treaty stuff was down to the British. They'd realised at the end of WW1 that they needed more cruisers for trade protection than any other navy in the world, and if they allowed the Heavy Cruiser to become the norm, they would be out built and outgunned in every theatre of potential war. By limiting size and tonnage on an international basis they could, at least, have a navy that they could afford and which could be comparable with those of other potential adversaries. The plan was for overseas cruiser forces to remain as either sacrificial disruptive elements until the arrival of the main fleet (rather like the ABDACOM force at the Battle of the Java Sea). It also resulted in the "stick as many guns on the smallest possible ship" design ethos, which we all enjoy so much in the shape of Leander and Fiji...

For those of you watching in black and white... (I'd actually like a Sepia toned camo for that "vintage photo" look).

Jean Bart. Georgia looks quite similar with the fast, mobile gameplay, strong secondaries and punchy main guns, but when you attack the French thing of forward turrets gives you the ability to keep all main guns on target without showing an inch of broadside. And you will feel as if you missed out if you don't take it... it might not ever come back, like Missouri and Musashi. I think Georgia and Thunderer will be around for a while (and by then, I might have decided which one I want).

Some random thoughts... Hawkins' B-Hull and her AA guns. WG aren't far off the mark here. RN thinking on cruiser AA was that there should be "four cornered" fire - at least one twin 4 inch mount to cover each corner of the ship, plus two Pom-pom mounts to cover each side of the ship, plus mounts to fire forwards, and as many 20mm Oerlikons as could be mounted. If you look at the CLs - Leander's A Hull especially - you will see this in action. The problem with having twin mounts on Hawkins is that they aren't deck level, like Leander, but up on a bandstand mounting in the middle of the ship. I would have thought that would give considerable issues with weight, as they would be trying to mount twin, shielded mounts in the place of single unshielded guns. It's almost certainly why Emerald still has her single 4 inch guns, located in similar positions. Devonshire - the suspicion here is that WG intended her to be the late war ship, with X turret removed in compensation for consumables (smoke) that they later decided against, and stuck the turret back on again. Surrey - much too tall! That's a battleship superstructure, not a Cruiser. The Surrey design was from the late 1920s and the RN hadn't designed anything that looked remotely like that. The County class had plenty of room for expansion compared to other RN cruisers but the in-game Surrey looks horribly, horribly top-heavy. Albemarle - I'm going to disagree with the OP here, I think this is the best-looking British cruiser in the game. What it resembles is a Southampton-type Town-class cruiser with the aircraft handling equipment and hanger placed harmoniously in the centre of the ship, rather than the brutal track carved down through the Edinburgh-type (which I think makes it look like the ship is about to snap in half). Here's a pic of Southampton by way of comparison: The carving out of the jowls of the superstructure to make way for the secondary turrets is elegant, and overall the Albemarle design looks "right". The only problem I have is the presence of those 4.5" MK VI turrets, which seem to have escaped from Neptune or Daring. There is an issue here for WG because the 4.5" turrets used on Ark Royal or Renown wouldn't be suitable for such a position... but I think the MkIV turrets (as seen on Jutland and Drake) would look better. I also think it's a great ship to play, versatile and with much bouncebackability. As for Drake and Goliath, and especially their guns.... from what I've read any 9.2 inch gun cruiser would have had weapons of a new design, not recycled WW1 era 9.2 inchers (even though those weapons were quite formidable), and it was largely the difficulties of making these new weapons which caused the RN to look to 8 inch designs (the idea being to borrow as much tech from the Americans as was possible).

Wrong way up. The problem with Ops Divisions and Private Queues is that they inflate reward expectations way beyond what could possibly be obtained with a Random queue team. Hence the people who form divisions and play privately won't play with the plebs because they don't get 2,000,000 base XP per match. That means not only a fall in quality of Random Ops players but also player numbers. And Spreadsheet will notice that.

I'm sorry, but the Krasny Krym bashing has to stop. :)

Well, all the other camos now appear to be available for Doubloons, so they should be available to purchase.

I did buy the Blyskawica for cash, and I'm not miffed about it being available for coal. I think there should be more mid and low Tier ships for coal, including the "event" ones like Hill.

Gosh yes. The joy of Smolensk shall be visited upon all the tiers, and the Destroyers drivers shall weep and wail and Battleships shall be ablaze from stem to stern. The great Lord WG Balancing department shall look down and smile, for this will be good. We've not had a great Tier VII available to the masses for a while, so this is quite exciting news.

Woof. Flint and Black available for Coal? I am quite excited about that. PS WG - Can we have the Spokane or Fresno, as well? Please? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneau-class_cruiser Sad to see JB go, she is v.fun indeed. Is it time to buy the Smolensk, though? I have plenty of Coal but somehow it seems wrong.

Good ship. You'll enjoy playing her.

Congrats. You've not paid for ships which will be free in a fortnight.

Did they always have these animated fire visuals? I don't remember it from the original ships.

I had a triple Surrey game earlier. There was a Gneisenau in it too, and I misread it as Guildford. Too much Surrey.

I quite like Trento, but boy, does she need more smoke charges. Raimondo (the Tier V) has to be my least favourite ship of all, just because she is clearly a light cruiser but plays like a heavy, which is all wrong (especially when you're used to a Duca D'Aosta). I would swap out the SAP shells for normal Italian 6 inch guns and ammo any time, for the situations that ship gets into, the slow reload is a disaster. At least Genova has torps to fall back on.

The other thing to remember is that the French Tier IV has a massive torpedo loadout. She is up there with Emerald in that respect, so you can get close up and Dev Strike a battleship, just like a Triangle.... Sorry, a DD. You can't do that in an Emile Bertin. Emile's speed caused me huge problems when I played it as I always over-extended and the ship doesn't have the tools to recover from misplays like that. Spaced armour or not, you will get whacked. The thing about cruiser survival is that you need to vary your speed as much your direction, and that you always need to be looking for cover. Emile B has nearly 15k range so there's no need to rush at the start of a game - don't zoom ahead and get spotted and focused, work with your team, focus targets and spam HE to get them burning and wasting their damage control. Then you can use your speed to look for opportunities - getting in close to a cap to hunt DDs or re positioning, if your team needs it. It's that same old sweet spot between staying alive and over caution, being daring and dying too too quickly. That takes time and practice (and if you work it out, tell me how).