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prophetinreverse wrote: Tue May 02, 2023 1:45 am Well I followed you over here, and so far I am not disappointed (at least in the quality of the writing, but a battleship armed with 11” -2 guns is extremely disappointing!)

The 1890 start is going to require (or at least should require) some adjustment to expectations?

I had roughly the same thought... basically, a lot of these feel like garbage versions of 1900-built ships, not the ships a Navy would have in 1890.

I was expecting weird turret configurations (Remember the Maine!!!), center-battery ironclads, lots of stuff with masts, and at best a lot of 19-knot "fast cruisers" like the Charleston class, which I believe were pretty state of the art in 1887.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Charleston_(C-2)

cwemyss wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 12:41 pm I had roughly the same thought... basically, a lot of these feel like garbage versions of 1900-built ships, not the ships a Navy would have in 1890.

I was expecting weird turret configurations (Remember the Maine!!!), center-battery ironclads, lots of stuff with masts, and at best a lot of 19-knot "fast cruisers" like the Charleston class, which I believe were pretty state of the art in 1887.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Charleston_(C-2)

A lot of the 1890 fleets I've seen so far (and as all auto build we must assume they are what we're going to get?) are full of 20+ knot cruisers. Since the real "Fighting Ships of the World 1890" only had 3 or 4 individual cruisers that fast ( AFAIK consisting of: HMS Medea and Medusa, the Elswick built Italian Piemonte - fastest cruiser in the world! And, the only notionally 20 knot French Davout, that broke down whilst working up apparently?) and they're all only just entering service IN 1890!

I have often felt that RTW legacy fleets are rather too advanced to be realistic, but I guess that's just a limitation of the system.

zederfflinger wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 7:07 pm I have often felt that RTW legacy fleets are rather too advanced to be realistic, but I guess that's just a limitation of the system.

That's a symptom of how the "Design Eras" work I think. When I was trying to get more historically appropriate fleets for my 1900 RTW2 games I found that the 1900 ship designs were the same for the first c.3 years, so you either had retro stuff being laid down in 1902 or you had a legacy fleet that looked too "cutting edge". In the end I brute force designed everyone's start fleet and had "modern" ERA0 designs waiting to be picked for any new builds.

Total side-note, since I'll apparently not be writing anything 100% coherent tonight. This was one of the first things I noticed when I opened the new version:



Holy cow, that's the BALTIC!!!

In RTW1/2 that was all part of Northern Europe. At least for the first ~40 years of the game*, that doesn't do it justice. I'm glad to see it gets its own sea zone for the new version.

*: After that it's a hellscape of overlapping land-based air coverage, and you go there in great fear for the survival of your capital ships. I can only assume it gets much worse when missiles come along!!!

September 1891 – AG Vulcan Shipyard, Stettin, Deutsches Kaiserreich



Kapitän zur See Rudolf Rieve reached out to take Fregattenkapitän Dieter Hoffman’s extended hand, shaking it warmly, before both men returned to huddling in their greatcoats to shelter from the sleet blowing in off the Baltic. They both hailed from Klotten, on the Mosel, and Rieve had known Hoffman almost since the latter’s birth.

“Welcome to the Second Scout Division, Dieter,” Rieve said as the two walked through the busy shipyard.

“Thank you, Herr Kapitän,” answered the younger man, “The shakedown cruise to Sankt Petersburg went very well, but I’m looking forward to seeing what the Undine can really do with the other ships.”





The Undine had just formally entered the fleet and would be joining her smaller cousins in the swift Second Division. Hoffman had previously commanded a small patrol steamer operating from Warnemünde, a sleepy fishing village with good access to the Danish Straits. He was rightly proud of his new, much larger, command, gleaming white at the quayside in spite of the gloomy weather.

“Outrun them, most likely,” said the Squadron commander with a slight smile. “And probably whip both of them together, if it came to it.”

“I’d rather whip a Frenchman, sir,” Hoffman said earnestly. His father had marched west with the 40th Prussian Regiment in 1870, been gravely wounded in the war’s opening action at Saarbrucken, and had never recovered, dying while Hoffman was in primary school.

“You may get your chance,” Rieve answered. “Our intelligence services are matched only by our research arm in hopeless blundering. The French public is furious since that fellow Vogel was caught at Saint-Chamond.”





“But still,” he added, “the furor will likely pass.” The two men continued along the quay, stepping aside as a troop of Prussian cavalry passed, their part in the commissioning ceremony finished. The band was packing away their instruments, and on board a number of dignitaries were still milling about the Undine’s deck. Hoffman had left his executive officer in charge, as the man absolutely craved the attention, while Hoffman decidedly did not.

They reached a different part of the dockyard, this one clamoring with the ring of hammers and heavy equipment in contrast to the celebration around Undine. “Which one is this?” Hoffman asked, nodding at the steel hull towering above them.

“The Wettin,” answered Rieve. “She’ll launch in another couple months, but it’s still a year and a half before she joins the fleet. Until she and her sisters are in service, we all need to hope the politicos can keep things at a low simmer and no more.”

Editor's note: Yep. Apparently science is hard.

SIX failed scientific endeavors, and not a single advancement yet. And that's actually through March 1892, 26 months. I pulled one ahead in the story just because it makes the picture funnier. I did have research set to 8% instead of my normal 10-12%, but I think I'm caught in RNG hell.

Wonderful AAR! I love the immersiveness of your writing. Thanks for taking the time.

As for the ahistoricity of the fleets at game start, I've never been especially bothered by them in RTW2. If you avoid going to war for the first 15-20 years of the game, they don't stand out so much. The game isn't really about where you start from -- it's about where you go.

January 1892 – Agadir, Marokko



The setting sun painted the western extremity of the Atlas Mountains as the anchorage grew dim, and Fregattenkapitän Theodor Korn felt like it might finally be cooling off. An offshore breeze still brought occasional hot, dry Sahara blasts, but nothing like at the height of the day. They’d reached Agadir yesterday, bringing along a dozen transports carrying a hodgepodge of Deutsches Heer and Schutztruppe units.

The Kaiser’s fiery speech on a frigid afternoon in Wilhelmshaven had declared they were sending troops simply to support and defend the Sultan’s sovereignty, but he’d gone on to threaten Prussian boots marching once again into Paris, and naturally the French had taken umbrage. And since the French and British had become unusually cozy in recent years, their ambassador had expressed displeasure as well, leading to his being publicly snubbed by the Chancellor. With all that piled on top of the simmering tensions between Italy and Austria-Hungary, it looked to Korn like Europe was hurtling toward an unnecessary war. That, however, was well above his duties.



All that had happened before the German flotilla had even passed through the English Channel, shadowed by ships from both Britain and France but fortunately without incident. Storms in the Bay of Biscay had scatted the convoy and the German cruisers escorting the force had spent two days re-gathering them before finishing the eighteen-hundred mile journey.

They’d found at least a nominally friendly port and the small coastal battery hadn’t challenged them. Looking to the southern horizon, Korn could just make out the silhouette of a French cruiser against the last of the sunset. He sighed, deeply exhausted, and turned as Kapitän zur See Berhnard Weneker walked up. Korn’s salute was perfunctorily returned by a skipper that looked just as tired.

“The flag signaled that unloading is almost complete,” the Fürst Bismarck’s commander said, “and the Sultan’s troops are acting as guides. There’s been no opposition as our men started moving into the hills, though supposedly there’s parts of the interior that aren’t really under the Sultan’s control.”

“Let us hope that the force landing at Tangiers is having the same good fortune,” Korn responded.

July 1892 – Rabat, Marokko



Fregattenkapitän Theodor Korn heard the Victoria Louise’s big guns echo across the glassy harbor, saw the smoke roll away from the big cruiser, and watched another salvo of 21-cm rounds crash into the walls of Rabat’s thousand-year-old kasbah. Then he heard the higher crack of Gefion’s 105-mm guns, and felt the shock as the Fürst Bismarck, much closer, joined in with her main battery.

The Sultan’s armies, backed by Schutztruppe companies and Deutsches Heer artillery had chased the rebels north from Agadir and south from Tangiers, and with the fall of Marrakesh last month Rabat held the last remaining resistance in the country’s major towns. It had been a grinding campaign and the rebels delaying tactics had created time for the French to move north from Dakar. There was a strong suspicion among the German forces in Marokko that the French had supplied the rebels, though if the government were acting on those suspicions it was being kept quiet.





The French interference had in turn prompted the Spanish to land troops from the Canaries at El Aiun, essentially claiming the southern third of the Sultan’s territory while interposing themselves between the French and the Sultan’s German-backed troops.

Korn knew the diplomats had been working overtime to prevent the English coming in from Gibraltar, and that was also why they hadn’t sent one of the squadron’s cruisers to Freetown when fighting flared up between the Africans and their colonial rulers in Sierra Leone. No German citizens had been killed, but it had rankled watching from the sidelines while they were in danger.



There was another sharp crack as the army’s cannons joined in, firing from a bluff on the other side of the river. The Sultan’s men had already retaken the Royal Palace in the city’s center and most of the city was firmly in friendly hands. The men around him cheered, and as Korn watched a section of the kasbah’s minaret come tumbling down in a cloud of red dust. Such a waste, he thought, truly unfortunate that the rebels had chosen the ancient citadel for their last stand.

Korn sat, sweating in the heat, with a volunteer company from Fürst Bismarck in ship’s boats. He checked his watch, raised a flare gun overhead, and fired. His company bent to the oars, joined by units from the other two cruisers, eight boats in all carrying two hundred men. They pulled the quarter mile to shore, opposing gunfire sporadic and ineffective, approaching the kasbah from the north. The cruisers all fired one more salvo then went silent to avoid shelling their own men, while the army battery kept up a steady fire from the eastern riverbank.

Sand hissed under the boat and Korn leapt over the side, pistol held high. His sailors jumped from the boat as well, pulling it up the beach then spreading out to head inland through low, dry scrub. Korn pointed to a gap in the kasbah’s ramparts, partially blocked by rubble from the bombardment, and shouted “Follow me!”

He didn’t turn to look behind him, confident that the sailors were following. The men stormed through the breach then fanned out, moving between blocks of fallen masonry as the defenders began firing at this new threat. Korn felt a bullet hum past his ear and turned to see a man in a burnous frantically working to reload an ancient Chassepot rifle. Korn raised his pistol and fired as the man brought his rifle up, and the rebel fell.

As Korn’s sailors rushed through the kasbah’s courtyard, rebels began laying down arms and within a few minutes the fortress was secure.

November 1892 – Friedrichshafen, Deutsches Kaiserreich



Korvettenkapitän Leon Papperitz took a minute to look at Schloss Friedrichshafen’s opulent décor, and marveled again at how he’d come to be here. He felt distinctly out of place, both due the unaccustomed civilian suit he was wearing and due to his age, quite a lot younger than most of the crowded meeting hall. It had started when he tagged along to a scientific conference in Karlsruhe two years ago, his father presenting a paper on mathematics. There he’d met any number of international luminaries, but had really hit it off with a member of the British contingent.

Over quite a lot of wine and beer they’d discovered a genuine mutual esteem and had continued exchanging correspondence. His new friend had invited him to a technical forum this summer in Liverpool and there he’d become acquainted with a number of British scientists and engineers. Toward the end of the English conference, he’d been approached by a Captain in the Royal Corps of Navy Constructors, who had apparently mistaken his father’s scientific and mathematical status for his own decidedly middling importance in the German hierarchy.



Papperitz had duly passed on the offer, expecting that the state of relations between the two countries would inhibit any exchange of ideas, but his superiors at Wilhelmshaven had laughed. In spite of German eminence in so many scientific fields, their naval research arm was a shambles. They’d forwarded the offer to Berlin, and a week later Papperitz had found himself meeting with Vitzeadmiral Alexander von Posen himself, at the Imperial Naval Office.

He'd found himself immediately reassigned from an administrative role in the Supply branch, to head a very vaguely defined new Office of Technical Cooperation. He found himself traveling throughout the continent attending engineering and scientific conferences, and his small but growing staff worked to analyze and pass on what they learned to German industry. His duties appeared to wander somewhere between diplomacy, scientific research, and occasionally outright espionage, but it was certainly interesting.

Papperitz took his seat in the large auditorium and settled in as the next speaker approached the rostrum.

Ed note: when you're offered a tech sharing agreement, and have researched EXACTLY NOTHING.... you take it.

Jan 1893 (so 36 months in) I have achieved two research levels, both of which are detailed above. I've also gotten another 'scientists are struggling' message, bringing me to seven total. Meaning my science and research branch has done nothing.

cwemyss wrote: Sat May 13, 2023 7:03 pm Ed note: when you're offered a tech sharing agreement, and have researched EXACTLY NOTHING.... you take it.

Jan 1893 (so 36 months in) I have achieved two research levels, both of which are detailed above. I've also gotten another 'scientists are struggling' message, bringing me to seven total. Meaning my science and research branch has done nothing.

At that rate we may see coal-fired guided-missile cruisers or nuclear submarine with bronze cannons. XD

A good exemple of german over-engineering, focussing on every bit of a ship's technological marvel, while the real value of a ship is only derived from its grog ration!

Can't you buy (or capture) a new ship to reverse-engineer it or invest in spying instead of research?

I believe spying can have tech steal events but their fairly rare? I didn't see many from RTW2.

While I don't think you can reverse engineer foreign ships. You can order them from foreign yards to take advantage of their technical skills. Which is one way of closing the technical gap you can find yourself in.

With the obvious risks of tension increasing with the host nation and them seizing your ships. I wonder if they can do it even if a AI and AI nation goes to war. Like the British did the south American ships they were constructing before WW1.

zederfflinger wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 7:07 pm I have often felt that RTW legacy fleets are rather too advanced to be realistic, but I guess that's just a limitation of the system.

Obviously not sure if this carries over yet but both RTW 1+2 lift the designs used by the game for player auto design and AI fleets from the "IDes" file. This divides designs by type, nation and also by "ERA". These are periods of time with broadly distinctive design themes ... In RTW 2 they are (not named in game) approximately: "Pre-Dreadnoughts" (c.1900-1902/3), "Semi-Dreadnoughts" (c.1903-05), "Early Dreadnoughts" (1905-10), "Later Dreadnoughts" (c.1910-1917?) and so on. (As an aside I suspect the AI will occasionally "reach into the future" and surprise me with extra cutting edge designs)
Now the 1920 start lifts designs from all (?) the previous Eras of designs so it gives an appropriately mixed force of the sort that a navy would actually have. The 1900 start (in RTW 1+2 at least) though only takes designs from "ERA0" so that collection has to cover 1900 legacy fleets and anything being built by the AI nations in the first couple of years.
If the new game uses a similar system for stock designs then the 1890 start may have legacy fleets lifted from a similar single collection, this having to cover a wide and very disparate collection of weird and obsolescent ironclads. This could be why the Legacy fleets we've seen so far are a rather mixed bunch?

Now, this is all rather surmise of course...

owe166 wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 8:47 am I believe spying can have tech steal events but their fairly rare? I didn't see many from RTW2.

While I don't think you can reverse engineer foreign ships. You can order them from foreign yards to take advantage of their technical skills. Which is one way of closing the technical gap you can find yourself in.

With the obvious risks of tension increasing with the host nation and them seizing your ships. I wonder if they can do it even if a AI and AI nation goes to war. Like the British did the south American ships they were constructing before WW1.

In RTW2, if you order a ship from a nation that has a higher degree of technological advancement than you and it completes without being seized, then you do get a boost to RPs when you receive said ship. I think I've even had a collective facepalm moment as the boffins go 'oh yeah...' and gained some techs automatically.

In RTW3 it is also possible for the player's tech advances to be (positively) affected by alliance(s) with other nations, at least for tech areas the allied nation is more advanced in.

January 1893 – Fort Zeelandia, Paramaribo, Niederländisch-Guayana



Korvettenkapitän Manfred Gygas descended the steps two at a time from the fort’s stone southern rampart and hurriedly covered a hundred yards of the Suriname River bank to the rough jetty. As he trotted up the Denebola's gangplank he heard Feldwebel Rolf Albrecht yell, “Captain coming aboard”

“Albrecht,” he called after saluting the quarterdeck, “raise steam and make ready to depart. Signal the men back to the ship, immediately, and ask Herr Trummler to meet me in my cabin.”

“Right away sir,” the petty officer responded, and Gygas was gratified to see the signal flags going up before Albrecht even turned to repeat the orders. The crack of the saluting gun followed moments later.



On reaching his cabin Gygas doffed his uniform jacket, happy to gain some relief from the equatorial heat. He threw the garment on his bunk and turned to the chart locker. There was a knock at the door.

“Enter,” he said without turning, before selecting a chart and spreading it out on his desk. He looked up and nodded at Kapitänleutnant Oscar Trummler, wordlessly handing him a telegram. Trummler read it and handed it back.
“This wasn’t exactly unexpected, was it sir?”

“No, not at all. The two have been jousting in the press and in parliamentary speeches for months. This is past due, if anything. It was inevitable after that American steamer was captured. I do wish they’d waited until we were out of the Caribbean, though,” he answered. "The Dutch didn't have enough coal here to top us up fully, and the beer is simply awful."



“The message orders us to make best speed for Duala,” Trummler said. “That's a two week cruise just to get there. Do you have any instructions beyond that?”

“None whatsoever,” Gygas responded. “I suspect it’s the usual. Show the German flag to make sure the French know we care. Weniger has the Gazelle up at Casablanca, but Marokko is still too unstable to leave unattended. The Admiralty thinks we’ve done enough visiting with the Dutch and wants our presence in Kamerun.”

“Our most recent intelligence says they both have a handful of cruisers in the Antilles,” Trummler offered, “but not a whole lot else. Will the French or the English come in?”

Gygas shook his head. “Unlikely, as long as both sides leave their islands alone. And neither one is in any position to take on that kind of challenge.”

December 1893 – Reich Chancellery, Berlin, Deutsches Kaiserreich



“Good afternoon, Herr Admiral,” called Friederich Alfred Krupp, breezing through the doorway of Vitzeadmiral Alexander von Posen’s office with another man in tow. von Posen looked up, thankful for the interruption, and set down his reading glasses.

“Guten tag, Herr Krupp. And you as well Herr Schmidt.” He’d invited the shipyard director to the Naval Office, but wondered why he’d brought he metalworking firm’s owner as well. “I was just looking at the Navy’s shipbuilding allowance for the next year, and frankly it’s rather grim.”

“We suspected as much,” said Gustav Schmidt, taking the offered seat at the Admiral’s table. “The market panic this summer was bad enough, but even worse it put a number of Socialists in the Reichstag. They have the Kaiser’s ear and they’re pushing for an expansion of Bismarck’s welfare state.”

“And let us not forget the marvelous new edifice overlooking Bodensee,” Krupp added with a smile, drawing an uncomfortable sniff from Shcmidt and a cold glare from von Posen. Leading the country's largest employer gave Krupp the freedom to make such statements, but it still wasn't going to earn him any friends.







Schmidt cleared his throat and continued. “That’s why I brought Herr Krupp with me. We’d like to propose jointly financing a fourth Wörth-class ship. The Kaiserliche Werft at Wilhelmshaven has sat idle since Wittelsbach completed, and...”

“We’d much rather see the workers building ships than standing in a bread line,” Krupp broke in. “We can cover a portion of the cost and complete it within two years.”



“I can certainly see the benefits of that,” answered von Posen. “I had hoped to begin work on a new class in the spring, but this blasted budget just doesn’t allow for it. And it’s not as though we have many new technical marvels to include anyway. The office working with England has come through with more than our own scientists have, but honestly not enough to justify a new class of ships.”



“Very good,” Schmidt responded. “We’ll make all the necessary arrangements."

He took a sip of tea before continuing. “How goes the American war with Spain?”

“I have heard very little,” admitted von Posen. “We’ve had little contact with either fleet, and our attaché’s report nothing decisive, at least at sea. There’s been a grinding campaign on Luzon, and the Americans have twice landed forces to support Cuban rebels, but so far nothing’s really come of it.”