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What's the optimum dock size? I notice that the AI apparently continues to increase dock size throughout the game and has some truly gargantuan ships by the late game. Is bigger always better? Or is it that "it isn't the size of the gun but the skill of the gunner that counts"?

For capital ships it holds that

The higher the tonnage, the cheaper the ship per ton
The higher the tonnage, the higher the combat value in artillery duels per ton

As such, there is a strong imperative to build big ships in RtW3, even though the formulas used in the ship designer dampen the even stronger real life imperative to build bigger ships.

Therefore, I have my dockyards on auto expansion until 90kt, and I usually build the biggest BB/BC that I currently can.

In other words, one 90kt BB will beat 2 45kt BB in a pure artillery duel. Rule the Waves does not really simulate the strategic and operational and political considerations that IRL limited ship sizes. Big is beautiful.

Too bad you can't design a ship for the docks you're building.

Another thing to consider is the blockage value.
2 45 Kt battleship have twice the blockage value than 1 90kt battleship.

If your first objective is to avoid or implement blockage, bigger is not always better.

True, though my way of not getting blockaded is to sink everything that does the blockading with the biggest ship my dockyards can build, and meanwhile I enjoy getting my unrest reset by all the news of sunk enemy ships

EwaldvonKleist wrote: Fri Oct 06, 2023 10:54 am True, though my way of not getting blockaded is to sink everything that does the blockading with the biggest ship my dockyards can build, and meanwhile I enjoy getting my unrest reset by all the news of sunk enemy ships

It is clearly the best outcome