IV Imperator Nikola l

[Wileyfox]

hi i have just bought the IV Imperator Nikola I is it worth buying oh YES the main guns killed a Omaha and  St louis with 3-5 hits of AP yeas its a wee bit slow but worth it if you have the chance snap it up as the ships excellent

[Foxhound128]

Google translate fail?

[mtm78]

Google translate fail?

 

 

As off topic as your reply in this thread, but nice find 

[Sams_Baneblade]

...WHY did I thought it was smart to buy a doubloons package in CBT, as it seems any new premium is in a bundle and I can't buy them...

Wargaming. *Sigh*

 

About the ship itself:

How does it behaves?

Does the secondaries are good?

And the rudder seems very responsive.. And armor?

[Mehmeds]

Hello, on behalf of wargaming i would like to thank you for buying this premium package. We understand we made a commercial success, and decided, that from now on, ALL EU ships will be sold in packs. Thank you for your $$, see you next paycheck.

\Just a spoiler of the future of this game.

Make any exuses you want. But in the end, same people, who buy packs will complain in the future about them.

[Jack_SVK]

...WHY did I thought it was smart to buy a doubloons package in CBT, as it seems any new premium is in a bundle and I can't buy them...

Wargaming. *Sigh*

 

About the ship itself:

How does it behaves?

Does the secondaries are good?

And the rudder seems very responsive.. And armor?

 

It is not bad at all, it has very low top speed, but rudder shift time and turn radius are great for battleship, and it packs great armor (150-300mm on citadels), range of primary guns is good enough, you can fire at enemy before you get spoted, secondaries have only 3,5km range -> they are mostly useless. Primaries turn 45sec (with captain skill, 55 without it), shells fly surprisingly fast and have good grouping (first game hit 15 shells, 6 of them citadels, most at 10km+ range), reload is slow tho - 36sec. Dreadnought in its finest form. If you are fine with 21 knots top speed, i totally recommend. If you wanna see stats:

​ 

 

 

//EDIT: after few more games i have to say 1 more thing: it has nonexistent AA, so if you get to games with tier 5-6 carriers, make your next 2 salvos count, because that is all you´ll have time for

[Xeonos]

Love it, slow, but it take punches and dish them out.

[Marlekin]

Met one today in my Arkansas B, but this guy's salvos couldnt make a good hit on me to save his life. Gun dispersion seems pretty bad on the Imperator. But then again, I've only fought one so far but my impression of the Imperator leaves me thinking its a pretty lousy ship that has trouble landing good salvos. To those who actually bought this ship, what do you think? 

[mtm78]

PhlyDaily has a video up on it ;)

[Xeonos]

Met one today in my Arkansas B, but this guy's salvos couldnt make a good hit on me to save his life. Gun dispersion seems pretty bad on the Imperator. But then again, I've only fought one so far but my impression of the Imperator leaves me thinking its a pretty lousy ship that has trouble landing good salvos. To those who actually bought this ship, what do you think? 

 

Dispersion is actually pretty good for a tier IV, no problem landing shots in this one.

Even at 13-14 km.

[Marlekin]

After watching Phly's video, it doesnt seem so bad. The player I was up against is probably to blame. 

[Jack_SVK]

After watching Phly's video, I have to warn you, dont do as he did, dont shoot at BBs citadels, Nikolai only has 305mm guns, you wont penetrate them... if you have to shoot at BBs, fire HE, use AP only for cruisers 

[mtm78]

After watching Phly's video, I have to warn you, dont do as he did, dont shoot at BBs citadels, Nikolai only has 305mm guns, you wont penetrate them... if you have to shoot at BBs, fire HE, use AP only for cruisers 

 

[IamTroublemaker]

After watching Phly's video, I have to warn you, dont do as he did, dont shoot at BBs citadels, Nikolai only has 305mm guns, you wont penetrate them... if you have to shoot at BBs, fire HE, use AP only for cruisers 

 

Ehm, I hope I read that wrong...

 

ALWAYS shoot AP with BBs at other BBs

[Xeonos]

After watching Phly's video, I have to warn you, dont do as he did, dont shoot at BBs citadels, Nikolai only has 305mm guns, you wont penetrate them... if you have to shoot at BBs, fire HE, use AP only for cruisers 

 

[mtm78]

I'm stealing ur gif 

 

[Poster_2015]

 

Well he isnt totally wrong. Low tier BBs (pre-washington ones) are pretty well protected against their own armament. Dont expect to citadel US BB like ever in this ship. You can hope for myogi/kongo citadels though. If its angled well HE might indeed be better options. I honestly love the folks who "NEVER SHOOT HE WHEN IN BB" , it just makes killing them easier. Especially in Nikolai .

 

Why in Nikolai especially? Now a  disclaimer - i havent played enough games to really consider myself a "pro" at this ship - so treat the following more as "first impressions" after 10-20 battles.

1) Survivability

this thing is an absolute beast in terms of anti-ship armor. 

It ricochets insane amount of shots - just now i fought a myogi + phoenix +st louis+ tenryu , and after 2 mins of combat (I shot 4 times), i lost 700 hp. I dont know why phoenix was shooting AP too, but regardless, myogi hit me around 12 times over that time, and scored ZERO dmg. HE seem to do next to nothing as well (maybe Iowa -like superstructure bug? - i started to lose hp from HE only when i showed them my stern, and they kept hitting the rear end of the ship). It doesnt burn much as well.

However that great armor comes at a cost - it has virtually 0 torpedo protection, and has 0 aa to talk about. Its a floating pinata for both DDs and CVs (as are all the BBs at this level due to slow speed, but this one in particular suffers).

 

2) Guns. 

 1st a word about secondaries. They are amazingly strong, and amazingly useless. IF someone gets in your 2ndary range, they are probably as strong as nagatos. But at the same time they are only 3.5 (4.2 with cpt perk - there is no option for modules) range. There are very few opponents i would like to be so close, definitely not DDs. 

 2nd Main battery. Obvious comparison would be to Wyoming - similiar caliber, same number of guns, so I will do just that.

       a) Range is about the same with the range module on Wyoming (sorry if wyoming cant mount it, havent had it for a while now, but if i recall correctly it can mount it). Slight advantage to Nicolai

       b) Dispersion is better on paper (201 vs 170 but at 30% longer distance), in game it feels really great though (I honestly feel like this game has some hidden mechanics bonus to triple gun turrets - they almost always seem to perform better)

       c) Penetration should be better according to historical data, and in game AP shells on Nicolai have higher values (which indicates usually better penetration), but i cannot say much  - they feel about the same. 

 

3) Modules - this one is a disappointment. It has actually LESS modules then similiar tier ships, unlike Arkansas Beta etc. 

 

Overall very very fun ship, which seems to mainly suit those "masochists" that like to go in 1st and take the brunt of enemy fire. As long as you can dodge torpedoes, this ship is honestly insanely sturdy. Its actually somewhat cheap too, although coming in a bundle as usual  (in my case i needed dubloons, so it was a good buy, but if you dont ... )

 

[mtm78]

I love people who post here but have no battles on their account, yet comment on ships and gameplay without offering us a chance to point out he is either probably right of full of crap. 

 

Can you link your profile so we can see how well you're actually are at the game, so we know how much 'value' we need to put on your 'ideas'?

 

Edit: and I'm happy it has less equipment slots then AB, I still haven't bought the reduced visibility module nor the 3 million gun option nor the 2 million damage control II 

[Poster_2015]

Well and here we differ, because I like to read all posts, and I dont ever specifically check other people stats (well i know yours because of sig, why i said specifically check). I believe stats are largely irrelevant to the stuff i post here (better or worse win % wont change the crap AA this ship has for example). Either way, I don't post here to gain internet fame, so if you dont like my posts Ill live with that. Just posting stuff to "give back" , because i found decent amount of information on those forums that i found useful (and no i havent checked the stats of the posters).

[mtm78]

I am just saying, there are lots of people around with opinions, willing to share them and portray them as true, while a simple glance at a profile would show people to ignore said opinion. 

 

You did touch on the vulnerability against torpedoes which I can only agree with so I'm not accusing you of false info at all, I just want to have clear where your info is coming from ;)

[Xeonos]

You only need to fear carriers..

I bought this ship for grinding exp for another ship, but I don't want any other now..

 

Last match 2 Phoenix, Furutaka, Myogi and a Clemson in quick succesion.

(Well each finished off after 1 salvo, 35 seconds, but you catch my drift.)

 

[Trigger_Happy_Dad]

noob friendly strong ship like all the other russian premiums.

 

Diana - top

 

Aurora - top

 

Kaiser Nicolai I. - top

 

Murmansk - top

 

Gremyashchy - top

 

.... ;)

 

check the stats

 

http://www.warshipstats.com/analytics/

 

 

 

 

[Poster_2015]

Well after a few more battles im a bit less enthusiasthic about its guns. Historically it was shooting a lot heavier 470kg  AP shells than Wyoming (390kg), but at lower velocity (760m/s vs 880m/s). It feels like the latter is in the game, the former not so much. The arc is a bit weird - they dont exactly fly slow/high lobbed way like some cruisers, they start only a bit steeper then other BBs of the era, but they end up falling close to vertical near end - it makes hitting decks at max range somewhat possible, but it also means at ranges 10-12km (which seem to me very common), the penetration is just awful (due to very bad angle of falling shells). 

 

I also know ill get bullied by BB "AP-purists" , but this battleship actually has very decent HE shells. Both in damage (highest for 12inch guns), and in fire chance (which is actually very high 33%x12 guns is 2nd highest chance to set stuff on fire in the game per salvo - only higher being Montana with 36%x12). I started to use them vs BBs who are mid-far range, and not showing enough side area. If i get closer, or if they expose themselves then AP are of course better choice, but HE are really decent otherwise. I guess this will add to the "noob russian ship" stigma though

[Trigger_Happy_Dad]

1,440

Imperator Nikolai I

4

Battleship

5

64.5%

1,160

46,363

0.82

1.28

0.04

0.40

1.07

46.20%

280

 

136,317

Arkansas Beta

4

Battleship

20

53.0%

1,097

35,959

0.58

1.00

0.00

1.27

6.37

41.30%

6788

 

473,535

Wyoming

4

Battleship

28

50.1%

885

31,551

0.38

0.83

0.56

1.10

5.87

44.70%

16692

 

40,481

Ishizuchi

4

Battleship

22

50.4%

954

27,780

0.44

0.78

0.17

0.86

4.19

34.00%

1875

 

 

Any random idiot could do well in the Nikolai ( or Diana or Aurora or Murmansk or Gremyashchy) , sadly no one cares, russian premiums have to be strong, eh?

 

 

[edited]

 

[Poster_2015]

I would wait with stats until the initial hype passes. Nevertheless its definitely a strong BB, but im not entirely sure i would take it over wyoming (myogi is so different its really hard to make a choice here - different role).