I have complicated feelings regarding this game. I've sunk many hours into it, and at the moment, I think it's best to give it a thumbs down. The game does have some significant strengths: there are a number of campaigns available, and the performance of each U-Boat does vary enough, generally speaking, to invest the time and effort into earning a promotion and transferring to a new boat. In addition, this is the first time I've seen Operation Monsoon done any justice since Silent Hunters (and that had its' own issues), so I will give the game props there. Unfortunate that once again we are denied the opportunity to command a Japanese or Italian sub, however.
I think I'm more concerned about the problematic parts of the game, and it's probably best I just get those out of the way.
1. Random events are a huge problem:
While random events do add a great deal of friction to the game, they are often so random that they bare little connection to what's going on, or what may in fact be fixable at sea.
While a lot of virtual ink has been spent on this, one of the most concerning issues is that, on occasion, your navigator will simply fail to do his job. You will lose track of your submarine on the map, the Navigator will be told to fix your position, and he simply will not do it. Sometimes this can go on for hours. I once left it running just to see for most of the evening. Nope, navigator never found our position.
Occasionally you'll have issues with poor air quality. Even if you've been travelling on the surface for the entirety of your cruise.
Crew morale is highly unpredictable. Sometimes, you'll be assigned a patrol so far out that by the time you'll get there your crew will already be complaining, and I've run out of morale more than once simply -getting to- an assigned sector.
The randomness of torpedos continues to rear its ugly head, and I'm not talking about duds. On several occasions I've had torpedoes with a 98% chance of hitting the target miss the target. At least once, a torpedo with 100% probability missed the target, too.
Crew willingness do their job is also highly randomized. In one of my recent campaigns, my crew simply refused to load torpedoes. Wouldn't touch them. In the middle of an attack on a convoy, no less.
Sometimes the sub will simply flood for no given reason. Often you'll check below the waterline, the ship having taken no damage and not so much as having dived beyond periscope depth, to find your crew wading knee deep or higher in water. No reason given.
2. Crew is generally lousy at doing its job:
Part of this is down to the random events earlier, but in general, no matter what the setting, crew is fairly bad doing their duties well. They'll often complain they are tired and go to bed, leaving their posts two or three hours at sea. That sometimes necessitates setting an alarm, but an alarm can exhaust and fatigue a crew, meaning that it simply makes them more tired. Even your own character, the Captain of the ship, will do this. More than once I've been on an attack run when the Captain and the Botswain both begin to say "sir, I'm going to need to rest soon,..." In the middle of an attack.
Crew takes far too long to repair simple items, and will simply stroll to the assignments it has been given.
A navigator, if not micromanaged, can and will run you aground. Sometimes you cannot dislodge yourself.
Etc, etc.
3. Enemy AI is at times ludicrously effective:
This occurs even very early war. Isolated observation aircraft can and will sink your ship. Destroyers and corvettes will sometimes detect you automatically, and when they do, depth charges are virtually impossible to escape. Damage is vicious, so vicious that I think somebody looked at the high rate of losses for WW2 Uboats and said, "no, not quite vicious enough for a wargame."
One of the other issues that is talked about a lot has to do with special missions: land an agent here, spot the defenses there, etc. The problem is that, in some cases, the missions play out exactly the same. In other cases, however, many of the missions will also suddenly add a complication. It seems every agent you land anywhere is miraculously discovered by the Allies who not only know which U-Boat dropped off the agents but manage to muster a full flotilla to go hunting for you within minutes of your finishing a task.
4. HQ doesn't seem to know what it wants you to do:
There has been no allowance in HQ planning to account for fuel use. On more than one occasion, in both European and Indian ocean runs, I've been given assignments to complete tasks that I absolutely cannot complete due to the amount of fuel I carry.
HQ will often interrupt one mission to give you another. Hope you like going to find yet another U-Boat that's somehow struck a mine - in the middle of the Atlantic, mind you - causing its batteries to flood with the gas consequently killing the crew. Then you've got to scuttle them, which seems to be impossible with torpedoes or guns and works only with explosive charges or engineers who have trained that specific skill. (Apparently U-Boats in the universe of this particular game don't arm themselves with anything remotely explosive.)
Sometimes HQ becomes confused and doesn't credit you for missions. For example, this evening I was given the task of sinking a specific ship (this happens a lot, very common in the game, and realistic, so no complaints here.) The ship retreated into a port. I ran the gauntlet, got into the port, and sank the ship. HQ gave me credit for sinking a ship of that tonnage, but did not credit me for the assignment of sinking -that- specific ship.
It's also absurd, pardon me for saying so, that you are given a BUDGET to acquire torpedoes. Okay, fine, you want extra gear (like spare parts to repair your ship, maybe filters for your air filtration system, you wild animal, you), I guess I can see justifying expending some sort of influence to pay for them. But torpedoes? Really? Your standard issue weapon? The thing that makes you a threat? It's absurd, especially given that mines, when they are assigned, cost absolutely nothing.
5. Some of the Subs don't perform particularly accurately:
I'm a wargamer, not a simulationist, but some things just don't make sense. A U-Boat that could historically make a trip to the Caribbean and raid shipping for weeks with only one refueling stop probably shouldn't run out of fuel with a trip from Malaysia to the cost of India, should it? What about a shallow draft coastal submarine like the Type 2? Guess what.. runs aground just as easily as anything else.
There is a good game in here. But right now, I think this is far more about submarine survival than actually commanding a submarine. I think the fact that crew performs so poorly on lower complexity levels of play is particularly troubling: the captain of a ship's job is to pass along orders so that -others- can do their job. Getting somebody to man a radio or load a torpedo shouldn't require forcing him to do it, or suddenly taking on the role of that character to do the task.
