Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts

It is a very challenging game, and you design your ships, economy, and politics.

A very good game that ive seen on some YT videos that made me want to play it, very good game !

Občas dokáže dost naštvat, ale když si člověk na ty mechaniky zvykne, tak je ta hra super.

Some excellent gameplay ideas for strategy games featuring battles. Some of these not well enough implemented. Definitely worth playing for strategy / naval tactics amateurs. [h1]Shipbuilder[/h1] The ships feature a large list of stats which affect their effectiveness in different situations and against different types of enemies. These stats are tuned in the 3D shipbuilder. We choose the hull type, the main dimensions, the armor characteristics, the weaponry, and other features such as the radio, radar, etc. All are unlocked progressively in the tech tree. So we start a campaign we a line-up of 1 ship design per class, and then upgrade our designs when progressing. The designs have advantages and disadvantages which are carried out into the battles. Thus the shipbuilder allows to apply both a strategy and tactics. They link the campaign map to the battles. The AI factions build their own designs, which change from a campaign to another. That shipbuilder is an excellent feature and should become the basis in any strategy game (at least featuring vehicles, which could be expanded into the infantry soldier package). [h1]Battles[/h1] The battles are thrilling and tactical. They mix up general tactics (groups, fighting range, type of ammo, maneuvers, etc) with "focused moments" where we zoom-in and micro-manage a few ships for specific maneuvers (for example, launching torpedoes at close range). These punctuations in the tactical flow create more immersion with the battle and with our ship designs. The battles are mostly lacking in the group trees and sailing formation fields. Setting up good groups of ships isn't easily done and the groups aren't easily selected in battle. The game would have required an arborescence for groups (squadron / division / detachment). If we use the sailing formations proposed by the UI, some ships do not sail adequately inside their formation (especially, the speed+course of the some ships would have required a better algorithm). Using the proposed formations isn't the most effective way to fight : it's better to micromanage each ship individually, making the formations quite useless except in the approach phase. In addition to the "line ahead" and "line abreast" formations, the game would have required a "free" option for individual ships, keeping them in the group but allowing to remove them from the group orders to micro-manage them temporarily. That would be useful especially for damaged ships, which currently screw up the formations proposed by the game after the combat is engaged. Naval strategy games need a new approach of group setups and formations, for an easier and effective management. UA:Dreanoughts has some interesting ideas, but they would require expansion or even revamp. The AI in battles has some weaknesses, such as trying to escape instead of fighting, when not being able to escape. The AI should also try to use sailing formations more effectively - currently, the AI mostly kites and drops his torpedoes at range. The AI focus fire is also poor. These weaknesses make the AI under-performing and easily beaten. Despite these flaws, the battles are very interesting and entertaining. We want squadrons of advanced ship designs to fight outnumbered, and we focus on our tactics. [h1]Campaigns[/h1] With UA:D, the shipbuilder becomes a main component of the campaign. The shipbuilder links our campaign strategy with our battle tactics. The rest of the campaign, however, lacks in diversity. It doesn't seem that the AI factions have specific effective strategies to choose from, nor any "personality". Also, the AI factions do not build ship designs that are adapted to their situation or to a specific strategy. Also, the campaign AI does not change its strategy and designs smartly during the campaign. The AI shipbuilder would have needed another option in addition to “Historical” and “Random” : "Optimal". Currently, the AI designs lack in quality and are easily beaten. The battles created by the mission builder are redundant. They would have needed different ship type and numbers setups. The campaign AI would have needed a base "personality" reflected in its ship designs, and algorithms that take the current situation into account (diplomacy, economy, fleet tonnage, territory spread) to modify the AI actions. The campaign is good to support the shipbuilder feature and the subsequent battles, but a strategy game also needs diversity and replayability. Our own management gameplay is excellent, but the AI doesn't provide good strategical moves to counter our actions : the AI doesn't use all the mechanics in a sound way. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] The game has 2 main flaws : too weak AI shipyard designs leading to poor battle efficiency, and lack of specific executions of a strategy by the campaign AI. The game is definitely good overall, and should be played at least for the shipbuilder feature. The battles offer a large range of possible tactics to be tested and improved. Although the campaigns are the main weakness of the game, fun can be had in multiple ones, preferably with different factions to somewhat vary the gameplay.