Battleships

Hi folks!

Today, we'll take a closer look at the battleship class. Once you got some XP from the initial games, you can quickly branch out from cruisers, and battleships are one of the obvious fun choices - lots of guns, heavy armour, what's not to like.

The Battleship

Battleships have around twice the health of a cruiser, and much better defences (damage reduction, fire / flooding protection etc). Their main batteries consist of large-calibre guns, usually in turrets of two or three. We're talking 300 mm plus shells here. Unlike the early cruisers and destroyers, battleships will use armour piercing shells by default, instead of the other ships' high-explosive ones. They won't cause fires, but due to the high damage output, critical hits (those penetrating into the internal structure of the enemy ship) deal massive amounts of damage.

Their secondary guns are usually mounted on both sides, and have a much shorter range, but a higher rate of fire.

On the downside, battleships are usually quite slow - slow in terms of speed, slow in terms of turning, and slow in terms of realigning their turrets. This means they're delivering deadly broadsides, but are in danger of being flanked.

Against other classes

Battleships are pretty deadly against cruisers. Their heavy armour means they can't be easily damaged by the cruiser's smaller-calibre main guns, and cruisers are large enough targets to be fairly easily hit by the devastating main batteries. US and Soviet cruisers have to get very close to hit them with torpedoes, usually not making that an appealing option.

Destroyers, on the other hand, are a huge nuisance. Due to their slow turning speed, and inability to realign their main turrets in time, destroyers will often flank a battleship, meaning they simply drive around them and approach from the "other side". Close-range torpedo salvos will hurt even the mighty battleship, and well-driven destroyers never stand still long enough to be hit reliably by the main batteries.

Success in Slugging it out with other battleships mostly depends on positioning, concentration of firepower and luck. Critical hits from main batteries can do as much damage as a torpedo. The ideal position is an "angled broadside" - just enough for both fore and aft turrets to be able to zero in on target, but exposing as little surface as possible to enemy shells. Ideally, "crossing the T" can be achieved - you catch the enemy battleship out of position, and can land one or two full salvos before they can respond with all their guns.

Battleships have the strongest set of AAA, but they're also the least manoeuvrable, making them prime targets for enemy torpedo bombers. Fortunately, air-dropped torps don't do quite as much damage as the ones launched from destroyers and cruisers, and usually come in smaller numbers. Once a carrier is spotted successfully, battleships can shred them to bits in no time.

Strategies

Battleship captains should pick a side of the map early on. Sailing head-first into an enemy formation is a recipe for disaster - flanking fire will come in quickly, and is hard to react to. Instead, keep the enemy fleet on one side, and keep your turrets trained on that side.

Be sure to target the main batteries as precisely as possible - reloading them takes a really, really long time. You can use the secondaries while waiting for the next salvo to be ready, but they do comparatively little damage. Choose targets wisely - firing a full salvo at a fast-moving destroyer at long range is pretty much a wasted one. A good hit at a damaged cruiser at medium range can possibly sink it, removing its firepower from the battle.

Don't forget to use the secondary guns while the main batteries are reloading - you can usually get two salvos off before the primary ones are ready again. If you've got a clear target, go for a full salvo, but if you're not sure, "zero in" with firing turrets individually first, especially at long range.

Nations

Only two nations currently have battleships in the game - USA and Japan. The Japanese ships tend to be faster, but less heavily armoured, whereas the early US ships are dreadfully slow, but can take a bit more of a beating. They're fairly equivalent, so it's really just a matter of taste which tech tree you chose.

Next time, we'll take a closer look at the destroyers.

Cruisers

Hi folks!

Next up, we'll take a closer look at the different ship classes, and the respective playstyles. First, the cruiser, since it's the class that's designated "easiest" to play by the game, and it's what you'll be starting out with in tier one.

The Cruiser

Cruisers have average, but balanced capabilities in terms of manoeuvrability, firepower and armour. When progressing through the tiers, cruisers have, on average, around double the hitpoints of destroyers, but only half of battleships. Their armament includes a good number of primary guns, at a lower calibre than battleships' main batteries, but with a faster rate of fire. Secondary guns quickly get replaced by torpedoes, but in smaller numbers than destroyers.

Against other classes

The cruiser usually is quite powerful against destroyers - it's fast enough to chase them, and the numerous main guns get through the weak armour quickly, with fast reload time giving it enough shots to compensate for misses due to the destroyer's agility and small size. You'll have to watch out for torpedoes though, since a single salvo from a destroyer is usually enough to sink a cruiser. While they're more agile than battleships, evading a well-targeted torpedo salvo at close range is almost impossible.

Against battleships, cruisers can again bring their fire rate to bear, but have a very similar problem as against destroyers: A battleship's main battery salvo can shred through a cruiser very quickly, their armour-piercing shells doing some severe critical damage. And, unlike the destroyers, they don't have to come close, but actually outrange your main guns. Cruisers are big enough targets for battleships to hit at 10 km with relative ease.

The next problem a cruiser captain is facing against battleships is their armour plating. Sure, you've got quick-firing triple-gun turrets, but they're 150 mm calibre, and your armour-piercing shots mostly just bounce off the battleship's hull plating, doing no damage whatsoever. Then they respond with a full broadside of their 320 mm main battery, and half your hitpoints are gone in a single salvo.

Lastly, against aircraft carriers. The main issue with destroying aircraft carriers is that you have to get to them. There are some problems with that:

• They're at the other end of the map
• You only have 6 minutes to get there
• The whole rest of the enemy fleet is kind of in the way
• They'll start sending aircraft out to drop unpleasant things on you once you get close

Cruisers are actually quite useful in that task, since they're decently fast, and have enough range and firepower on their main guns to sink the weakly armoured carriers quickly.

Strategies

If we're looking at the historic role of cruisers during the early 20th century, they're often designed for escort and merchant interdiction purposes. The big naval battles were fought by heavily armoured battleships, descendants of the ships-of-the-line, in direct broadside engagements.

This is quite close as you should play them in "World of Warships" as well: stick with the heavier battleships, and keep pesky destroyers off their slow-moving backsides. Going out alone with a cruiser is quite risky - run into an enemy battleship line, and you're toast. Run into an enemy destroyer pack, and you're torpedo-toast.

The other option is to go pack-hunting with the destroyers. Cruisers can keep up mostly in terms of speed, and can pack a good punch against enemy destroyers at range. "Warships" is a team game, and mostly those who can work together will win very convincingly.

Nations

There are four nations currently in the game: Soviets, USA, Japan and Great Britain. Three of them have cruisers in the tech tree - the Soviets, in fact, only have cruisers, and the British really just come along for the ride with a single premium ship at the moment anyway.

The Soviet cruisers are focused on main guns. Starting tier four, their range is close to battleships, with a good firing rate. Their torpedoes are a bit of an afterthought, with very short range they're more of a rarely used measure if a careless enemy gets too close.

The US cruisers are more balanced designs, with average torpedo range and main guns, and a decent defence.

The Japanese cruisers play more like oversized destroyers, with very strong, long-range torpedoes, but often inferior main guns. They're fast and good hunters, most suitable to the destroyer-pack approach.

That's it for today, next time, we'll take a closer look at the battleship.

World Of Warships Blitz

Hi folks!

World of Warships has been a very successful real-time strategy game on PC, and now there's a mobile version as well - World of Warships Blitz. I've been playing this for a little while, and very much enjoyed it, so let's take a closer look a the "free to play" setup.

The game currently offers 7v7 tactical naval battles, against real or AI players. Whichever team scores the most points within a 6 minute time-limit wins, points are awarded for controlling areas or sinking enemy ships.

Ships

Ships come in four classes: destroyers, cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers. Historical ships from the first and second world war are available, from Soviet, British, Japanese and US fleets (although only the Japanese and US fleets are currently properly fleshed out).

The ships are classified in ten tiers, and XP is needed to "research" the next higher tier. XP is gained from battles. Once a ship is researched, it has to be bought using silver. There are multiple ways to increase the ship's capabilities - upgrades to hull, weapons etc using "blueprints" (which are gained in battle), installing equipment (paid for in silver) or using special consumables (again, silver).

Currencies

This brings us to the classic free-to-play multiple currency setup. Silver is the regular currency, which is gained in battle, gold is the "special" currency, which usually has to be paid for with real money. Gold buys a variety of things:

• more ship slots
• create your own fleet (alliance, team, whatever you want to call it)
• profile pictures
• buy premium ships
• buy premium account time
• buy special paint jobs
• convert experience
• buy silver

Some of these are vanity items (like profile pictures), others are quite useful (like premium account time). That said, the way the game is currently set up (and the quite steep price for gold), it's perfectly playable without spending much real money.

Once you've reached tier 6 (out of ten), things slow down very considerably. The cost for new ships scales exponentially, both in terms of XP needed to unlock them, and silver needed to purchase and upgrade them. We'll be taking a closer look in future posts at what's the best path to choose to deal with these, what to expect, as well as the ship types with their strengths and weaknesses and winning strategies.

Conclusion

As always, if you enjoy the game, I'd recommend paying what you feel it's worth to support the developers. But as "free to pay" goes, it's certainly one of the good ones out there.