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Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts; General Discussion

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So, I've looked, and I'm not sure, but the previous UAD threads are too old at this point to bother with...

So, in light of its competitors release a few weeks ago or so. I've decided to see if a third attempt for a discussion thread on this game will actually garner interest.

Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts

It has been available on Steam for several months; only recently joined by its competitor/predecessor RTW.

The two games are similar that they focus on Naval strategy, but where UAD goes is a tangent that people might find interesting...

The Shipyard, unlike RTW, has no limitations outside of hull extents [tonnage etc] for design. You can armor up a BC as much as a BB or visa vis. You can also edit each section of belt, deck, conning tower, superstructure, turret, citadel and even casemate armor if you so choose.

[I'm not used to this sort of thing... Starting open ended general discussion threads...]

Campaigns are straight forward, at the moment, limited to 1890 to 1950.

Submarines and mines are included. CVs are [and probably never will be] not included.

Countries: US, UK, Germany, A-H, France, Italy, Russia, Japan and China.

There is a diplomacy feature under politics that can be used once per country per turn I believe.

You have the ability to control the economic GDP of your country through the transport [freight] funding slider. Also, there is the ability to control the size of the crew pool through funding. You can see if your dockyard capacity is overflowing as well as having the choice to expand that space.

It is not like RTW, where the amount of dockyard tonnage is fixed per upgrade time. UAD gives you a slider that goes from a 6 month upgrade out to 24 month upgrade with the default being at 15 months. As you increase your dockyard capacity through shipyard upgrades, the amount that you can upgrade your shipyard by each time increases [I believe it goes up by 100% per time or so, I havent really noticed closely].

This is a thread I hope will have more discussion and interest than the previous threads. One of the reasons I'm doing this thread is so that as to not derail the RTW thread.

Feel free to share your designs, discuss designs, discuss campaigns, battles and various things. I will allow comparison discussion with the caveat of keeping the subject to the point

Apologies if there has been a recent [within last few months] thread open on this game; if thats the case, please let me know.

Thank you.
 
I think the biggest differences if that UAD has 3d models.

Submarine and mines might go optional in a future patch.

Speaking of patch, the developer is unafraid to cram some fairly heavy change in a subversion of a major patch. This can work out well, this can go horribly (Looking at you forced alliances).

Minor OCD infuriating complaints include:

While most hulls can be upgraded right up 1950 some early hulls can't. This is rooted in the fact that while most upgrades are optional an upgraded mark of turret is always installed if a refit is ordered. This can for some hulls result in no longer being able to fit a main gun of any caliber/barrel combination which in turn renders the design invalid.

Some late game techs increase the weight of shells. This weight increase is applied instantly and can render an otherwise prior valid design declared unbuildable due to overweight.
Notably, the reverse, which you will encounter much earlier tech wise, when a tech decreases weight, like hull or armor weight, or improved gun marks will only be applied during a refit.

Torpedoes are way more powerful in the AI's than yours. Ok, part of that is the AI mistaking torp launchers for armor and slathering them on like the USN did AA in WW2. The other part is that the AI is stupid. By which I mean your AI is stupid. There is no manual control over to launch torps and the AI seems to be unable to consider friendly ships when targeting hostile ships. Rarely this hits the enemy to but there a few things more infuriating than your Super-Iowa blowing because a "escorting" DD planted a full spread right in the magazines.

AI control over ships is also kinda shitty.
-Screening ships stop screening if the enemy gets to close and retreat behind your capital ships - they can even do this if the enemy is unspotted. It only really gets "better" late game where spotting and gun increase past their preferred distance.
- Ships set independend AI control are kinda shit, you'll find them doing circles after the first fight nowhere close to the action
- Ships will will follow the flag ship in a formation. The flag ship will decide to stop being the flag once damaged enough. Your entire formation can be damaged enough that all ships will instantly try to stop being the flag resulting in a death march circle of damaged ships trying to get behind each other

There is a tendency for "ghost" battles where your taskforce corners an enemy fleet of one DD which flees at once unspotted but still taking 4 RL minutes resolving the battle. You can't autoresolve, I mean you could, because that might result in sunk ships for you (How? No idea. At least my design are capable of shredding any single DD). Bonus point of after the battle your fleets magically teleports to a friendly port.
 
I really want to like UA:D, because the designer is so much more in depth than in, say, RTW3.
But it doesn't back the designer up with good mouthfeel. Refits are broad in scope, fights are overly decisive and as of my last play the tech tree was a wild west of content.
 
Haven't actually done the campaign yet, but the ship designer's... gotten a bit strange recently. Things like the biggest guns available in the early 30s being 15", despite the major naval powers having had 16" and 18" guns either in service or in development by 1920. Also somewhat annoyed by how difficult it's been to even approximate RL ships, with the designer all but forcing bigger and more absurd vessels. Except for destroyers, where you're basically stuck at WW1 no matter how big you go.
 
A important bit of note is the game adds hull shapes with just about every major patch. However, the UAD developer is from Ukraine which has thrown things out of whack. Last patch the us got a bunch of BB and DD hulls. Not all nations have access to the same hulls.

Tech is, in the campaign, randomized to an extent and dependent on the general level of funding and if there is a focus on the specific branch.

You want big guns, better keep the focus on big guns.
 
So, 1.3.8 released recently.

One thing the UAD now has that rtw does not is...

The Colonial request.

Basically, whether in war or peace, every so often now, you'll get a yes/no box for helping to support an invasion of a "minor" territory.

Like in my US campaign where I got a pop up for Cuba. While it wasnt a success, I do like and enjoy the idea.. I had several other requests as well in the play session.

I would highly recommend doing a campaign, because you get a better feel for the mechanics that way, and no need to really do the naval academy either...

I will say that part of my gripes come from the weird "Pacifist protests" pop ups that one gets at times, even when there is no unrest to speak of... In past versions I've had the peaceful option costing more than my entire budget at times...

So far as I've played US and Japan campaigns, I like the dreadnought series hull for the Japanese the best thus far.

Some tips:

To help with GDP growth, set transport funding to something like +0.11% or so, then your budget will generally increase depending on the various choice boxes that come up.

And speaking of choice boxes, there are far more then RTW in terms of what sort of effect the choice made has on your budget.

Set tech research at 57-as high as 75 or so %, helps get you better stuff faster.

A word on the vials/beakers. you can use them, but it is better not to as you get more return just by having a high tech research funding.

So, of the three areas in your budget, crew training is probably the unattended category of the bunch; something has to suffer the budget shorthand, and crew training is it. Be aware that generally, crew training gets better with every battle fought [not auto-resolve mind you]. Higher funding to this area is supposed to also help crew skill retention or something [Havent really paid heed much to crew training funding anyway myself].

Something I like to do is start building ships [larger ones] at the start of a year because it makes things a little easier to keep track of. This also applies to shipyard expansion. More a personal preference really.

Diplomacy is rather random, I've noticed you can fail at something as much you succeed in things, and considering you can only focus on one country every other month in your attempts... Yeah.

With the campaigns, I've been able to push into 3000ton destroyer land with little issue, and thats as Japan by the way, who historically never had a decent research past certain requirements for doctrinal purposes.

So that could potentially be an alt history story there...

Also, I believe for the most part, all of the current developers for the game are at least out of harms way. Nothing's been said about any issues in recent months... That I've noticed at least.

When you say mouthfeel... could you elaborate?

Another thing is that UAD games take far longer because of the RTS feel vs RTW's insta-turn. A whole RTW2 game can take maybe 2-3 hours versus several play sessions for UAD...

Yeah, combat is a bit weird still, why I usually hit auto resolve most of the time, especially towards the earlier decades of a campaign.
 
AR is usually a terrible idea, as it vastly overvalues the damage a single, out spotted ship can do which leads to the trade-off of "A battle where literally nothing happens for 5 RL minutes" vs. "A quick AR where the results suggest I ate more torps (that performed better) than opposing side actually carries, also nobody was spotting at all"
 
To be fair, I've never checked on the really finite details of the battle report...
"Did the force do some damage?" Yep.
"Points look ok to me [even the really close squeaks]." Yup.

"Review done. Moving o-"

"But sir-"

"Moving on."

I'd probably make a terrible admiral, being the sort for; "As long as you made it back and things are in reasonable shape... Its good to me..."
 
It is really bad in one ships vs a entire fleet battle.

You know how these go when manually fought: The enemy ship spawns in, magically knows "Oh shit a fleet" and "From the North", turns tail and flees. You've fought enough battles to know that during halfway decent conditions the enemy is spotted before the AI is willing to to release torps and in any case (at least for my ships) you've crammed the latest hydro/sonar on your ships so that typically you know a torp is launched from the moment it hits the water, assuming rough tech parity.
Aiming issues aside, my typical fleet contains 4 BB / BC and I don't skimp on secondaries or protective / mobility techs for them - single ships die if focused upon as the sole target and that discounts my escorts both pusing out the spotting range and having torps of their own.

Even if against all reason the enemy could manage to close and launch torp salvoe and I can't dodge them - this happens during proper fleet battles after all too (Mostly because the AI controlling how escorts and such do their job is shit and performs worse over time as ships accumulate damage) - the chance of crippling damage per individual hit is low. Yes, a torp can cause a flash fire and scuttle your ship - if you skimp on bulkheads and barbette protection. A proper designed ship, even early game needs multiple hits to suffer enough flooding or structural damage.

So when the AR goes "3 BB badly damaged, 2 escorts sunk" I am calling bullshit on such claims
 
True..

But, I'm considering a story based on my American Campaign; started in 1900 and its 1921 now. I think I've spent last 15 years or so in some war, but only in the last couple years has the ai actually appeared to fight...

Anyway, A modest freight increase in budget at first and increase of Tech research before state of war set in, and due to that war state for so long. I have a 17+ billion reserve and 600some million a MONTH budget.

Sitting on 518 ships, building 28 more. over 300 submarines.. I have modern battleship hull 1 already... Seriously, I think this is a story best told from the external viewpoint...

"The American Juggernaught..."

Already taken over most of Central America. The Caribbean is down to USN, RN and France... Declined a chance to take over Heglioland [spelling]....

I'm looking at Reagan's 600 ship navy in the 1920s.... And close to the 1945 Navy probably sometime in the 30s...

LOL

On the other side, I started another game as Japan. 1890 to 1912 so far. Nearing 200 ships there, and iirc, I've not yet a had a war so far. But, my tech rate is around 90 to 97% or so and I just started coastal submarines. Have a few parked around the region so far. Still no war yet... Budget is modest, about 50 mill a month or so with reserve of a billion... Every time too, I've been expanding dockyards and recent just got to over 100ktons dockyard...

For USN game its over 500ktons and still expanding because I'm building over 900ktons of ships [17 bbs and 11BCs].

For comparison at what the ai does. France, the closest in tonnage to me, has 126 ships building at once... And considering how the game handles ship building, not to mention France being France... Yeah...

My US game I'm just shrugging at the AR losses, usually acceptable because who knows what sort of weather the battle will have, and I dont like dealing with bleh weather.

But I'm starting to think of trying US on Legendary or hard... Normal is a bloody cakewalk...

"What do you mean naval treaty? There is no arms race here. We're winning hands down...." :whistle::lol::p
 
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So, after a couple of false starts, I've found out how to handle 1890s Spain's armored cruiser armada as the USN. Battleships, and lots of them. On a related note, *glances at the RN's 40+ BBs* I may have spooked the Brits.
 
Nah, they do that. And yes, BB are counter to anything. Provided you have something to act a torp bait early to mid, where the AI can usually outspot you and thus has window to launch torps.
 
Obfuscated said:
Nah, they do that. And yes, BB are counter to anything. Provided you have something to act a torp bait early to mid, where the AI can usually outspot you and thus has window to launch torps.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Lucked and got TDS early, actually. Then drowned Spain in BBs. Dreadnoughts even. And maaaay have gone overboard and conquered all of the Spanish Empire...
 
Yeah, my normal US campaign is now building big... Finished with the BBs and BCs, now building 6 Idaho class super BBs... They wont be finished till like 1927 though...

6x3 17" main guns...

5x3 8" or so secondaries....

118,500 tons...

---------------------------
On my japan campaign, I've made a really nice Kongo class

4x3 15" guns

8" secondaries x 36 [both turret and casemate combined]

About 30 knots or so.

Another BB I did that had 4x3 14" main guns...
full deck of casemated 8" secondaries topped with two double level barbettes with 2 8"turrets each and I think 4 8" turrets per side on the main deck.

Called it the Pyrodakka class....

Nice thing about submarines is that most of the time, they can sit undetected where ever, perfect for trimming enemy fleets...
 
One thing I should mention, is that versus RTW, UAD actually is more forgiving in the at war aspect.

They've been updating alot recently. 1.4 is likely coming soon... As they are going like 1.39 R6 or so now...

Sorry for the double post.
 
When you go to war in UAD, the country effectively goes to a war footing budget...

Say you have a general monthly "allowance" of +$50 mill a month or so.

A month or 10 down the line, and you're at war with someone, with that turn until the nation is at peace again. Your "allowance" has jumped at least 3x to lets say +150 mill or greater per month.

Part of this allocation is an allowance for transport protection, which, in wartime, is supposed to be maxed out for national transport protection. For ultimate success, its advised to keep the transport funding maxed as along as one is at war.

Unlike RTW, this automatic war footing budget doesn't really penalize as much for post war budget. In fact, I have a tendency to stay at war in order to build up the naval funds the best I can.

I started a save a while back with the US on Legendary, and the budget allowance one can get just by nudging the transport funding to the right a bit is nice... versus RTW where you can't really control the country's economic growth as well considering theres no way to outright allocate for freighters [Likely wrong on this to a degree].

Current UAD version is 1.39.1 or so
 
Yes, but not the way UAD does it. Ofc, I havent played rtw that much lately, but with UAD you dont get dragged through the streets for refusing to be aggressive. Thats my problem with how rtw has handled the territory acquisition since 1.2 or so of rtw2. Like there's a choice that SAYS it has no effect, but it actually results in a negative from refusing to be aggressively expansionist. And at least in rtw2, they've never fixed that either.

Not sure how rtw 3 does it...

UAD, there's no threat to your prestige, granted UADs prestige system is a lot more forgiving...
 
Interestingly, you can screw yourself over when accepting these missions in two ways:

1, the obvious one is that attacking an allied minor nation can cause relation hits which draw in other great powers - Austria often gets into wars with Russia due to a tendency to attack minor nation Serbia, for example.

2., the less obvious one is this: Minor buy ships ships from majors. During a naval invasion these minor ships can set sail and cause a battle. If you are unaware of this you collection of ramshackle pre-dreds (kept around for their tonnage for invading islands during war) might suddenly face your (or someone else) latest designs (and a whole bunch of crap -minors don't seem to scrap and can't refit. They can order refit variant hulls, tho') which can get dicey.
 
Yes, thats why I don't sell to any minor nations... I have enough issue with trying to build my fleet, let alone someone elses.

Edit: Also, I notice the discussion on the 1890s time frame in the rtw thread...

The 1890 start in UAD can be different depending on the country your playing... Austria Hungary is HARD, especially if your doing manual build of initial fleet. Japan or the US isnt so bad...

Partly due to how the map is handled. I prefer 1890 start for the US. and a 1900 start for Japan. Each to own tho.
 
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1890 start is currently fucked, in my opinion. There have been some econ changes that have seen ship cost balloon by 5-6 times, which practice means that in 1890 few nations can actually afford a historical sized navy.
 
Yeah, new version out today..

1.3.9.2 R

Yeah, I dont really like how they went with what appears to be 2015 values for money, thats my major issue with the game.
 
Well, take battleships... a 1910s battleship was, and correct me if wrong, at least 15mill per ship in the 1910s?

UAD, that same era ship is approaching 50+ mill per? Depending too on the technology unlocked...

Edit: 1890 US campaign at 1918. The cost of a 1914 battleship to build is 155+million. Each. That should give you some idea...

I know rtw might be more accurate with ship costs, but that games inflation was quite tame compared to UAD...

By the time you get to the 20s in UAD, and with tech level researched, likely staring at 170+ mill per capital ship.

I'm mostly likely wrong somewhere, and I don't mind.
 
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