Victory At Sea Ironclad

At this point, I cannot offer this game a positive rating despite my liking to it. Hopefully, this will change. Simply put, the naval combat in the game is extremely unrealistic. During the Civil War, ironclad vessels were the king of the era because very few naval guns could defeat their armor. Ironclad warships were oftentimes scoring a ten to one kill ratio, while battle between ironclads could drag on for hours while remaining inconclusive. In the game, however, everything is based on RNG, no realistic consideration of gun penetration or armor whatsoever. A small paddle gunboat could one-shot your ironclad warship through some kind of "catastrophic explosion" just because RNG says so. During the Civil War, naval guns were also horrendously inaccurate at anything beyond point-blank range. It usually takes several broadsides to score a lucky hit on a faraway opponent, and even close range gunfire requires multiple ranging shots to be zeroed in. In the game, however, gunfire at extreme range almost possesses 100% accuracy. This preposterous game feature ruined my immersion completely. More so, the "ramming" attack that tends to sink wooden ships in a single strike does pathetic damage! Making the monstrous ram type ironclad almost ineffective. Additionally, the game slowly descends into a non-functional state the further one plays into a campaign. On 1862 of the Confederate Campaign, loading a save is almost impossible. One would almost always have to quit out of the game in order to load an old save. What's more? I've been stuck on the screen where my blockade runner reaches Europe for many times now. As an enthusiastic Civil War naval fan, I've read articles regarding almost every single Civil War maritime engagement and performed in-depth research regarding Civil War naval guns and ironclads. I chose to purchase this game because it is the only large scale Civil War naval game on Steam so far. Yet, the result is wholeheartedly disappointing. I could forgive the bugs. By all means, I've played so many buggy yet promising games in Early Access state before. Yet, I cannot recommend Victory at Sea Ironclad because of the horrendously unrealistic, RNG based combat model. I will continue monitor the development of the game. Hopefully, my review will change in due time.

For you Civil War or Naval enthusiasts, this game shows promise. It has a few bugs at the time of this review and also some features needing insertion, but there is a playable game here. The open world RTS feel of both the campaign map and the battles is solid and it definitely feels like I can do whatever I want. As for cons, well it's a day old, so there are some issues. For instance, you can turn your ships but can't control their speed (as far as I can tell). Also, it would be nice to choose what pops up. Solid game and made from the guys who made the original Victory at Sea which was a big hit on Steam. Give this one a try if you have the money to spare. https://youtu.be/zXPCv8HH_R4 for early access gameplay and review.

Could have been a great game ... but The game seems uncompleted and no where realistic in history. Winning is easy for the Confederates even on the hardest level, nearly impossible to win as the Union on the easiest level. The historically fact of the Unions industrial might is not in the game. This game shouldn't be listed for purchase it's an unfinished unsupported product not worth any amount.

BUGS

A hard no I'm afraid. The ship handling is bizarre (they turn almost on the spot for no reason) and the AI seems confused by even basic orders, struggling with formation orders, rivers and even bringing broadsides toward a target. It's a little buggy too. All of this I could have forgiven if the campaign were any good but it isn't. For a game about naval combat I hardly saw any ship to ship action. In the 18.7 hours it took to beat the Confederates I only saw nine ships, most of which were single blockade runners. The rest of my campaign was easy and tedious sieges of towns and forts. I lost only a handful of ships and men while I rolled up rebel positions and in the end I won the war in less than nine months. There is so much wasted potential here but what we have falls badly short of expectations.

It's in an early stage (no Confederate campaign, no custom battles, and combat needs work), but the kernel of a great game is here.

I have not played much of this game yet. However, the demo had gotten me into it. It needs good amount of work- the controls and the gameplay could use a touch up. But this game is cool. Seldom talked about subject matter yet super awesome concept for a game. +1 for the dev team and keep the updates coming. Would buy again.

this is early but will say that this is unstable at release. Has issues booting and locks up during loads. Pretty much same mechanics of war at sea pacific. I think there is still no weather effects in game...come on man!

Sehr schön gemacht, gerade für Leute die den Sezessionskrieg interessant finden. Man befindet sich quasi in der Rolle von Marineminister Gideon Welles wieder. Auf einen warten der Oberbefehl aller Flotten, sowie deren Zusammenstellung. Es gibt sehr viele historische Schiffstypen - die man in seiner Einsatzart noch speziell bestimmen kann. Soll eine Fregatte für den Kampf, den Truppentransport oder als Frachter dienen. Diese Entscheidung muss man selber treffen. Ebenso hat man die Ressourcen der "Navy" zu managen. Baut man die Infrastruktur aus, oder lieber erst mal die Flotte erweitern ? Die Fluss-Schiffahrt hat man dabei ebenso zu beachten. Mich hat vor allem die Zeitsteuerung überzeugt. Es läuft alles in Echtzeit, bei nahezu realistischen Entfernungen und Geschwindigkeiten. Man könnte also 2 Wochen die Fahrt von New York nach Washington verfolgen, hat aber auch die Möglichkeit die Zeit hoch zu stellen. Was ich damit sagen möchte ist: das einem die Zeit nicht davon rennt. Sobald es knifflig wird kann man etwas langsamer stellen und behält den Überblick. Bitte mehr davon. =)