Rule the Waves 3 News

While technology has always played a role in shaping the military, naval warfare in the early 20th century was defined by rapid innovation that saw whole generations of ships made obsolete only a few years after they were completed. The Ironclad gave way to the Battleship, and the Battleship to the Dreadnought. Here we are covering the big innovations that drove the changing face of naval warfare in the 20th century in our new historical video series.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Special thanks to Drachinifel for lending his voice to this project.

You can expect Episode 2 out February, next month.

Hello Admirals,

We are happy to release the largest update RTW3 has gotten since launch. The Admiral Update includes a completely reworked battle generator, adding an entire new level of command to Rule the Waves 3.


Admirals can now be promoted and assigned to command forces in a particular area. These admirals have command skills that can be used to re-arrange your divisions before contact with the enemy.

Rearranging your forces can lead to misunderstood signals before battle however, so it is a risky option. With an intelligence coup you can even decline battle without the normal victory point penalty.

There are also numerous other features included with this update. The tactical AI has been tweaked, a slew of bugs have been fixed, and improvements have been made to the UI to improve functionality (the N key will advance time on the strategic map, the ESC button now closes the division editor etc).

The full changelog is posted below.

What’s New in Version 1.00.27
Battle Generation

• Fixed missing objective in a convoy attack battle Germany vs France.
  
• Completely new pre battle procedure that lets the player edit the force before battle, depending on a command roll for the commanding admiral.
  
• On an intelligence coup, you can decline the battle with no penalty.
  
• Fixed a bug in battle generation that could lead to error messages, primarily in carrier battles.
  

Battle Resolution

• Some tweaks to the tactical AI.
  
• Made the check for airstrikes in the air preventing scenario end more restrictive. An air formation must now have more than 3 aircraft and be within 100 nm of enemy ships to stop a scenario from ending.
  
• Improved the notification when a friendly ship suffers a magazine explosion from a torpedo hit.
  
• Limited flooding from collisions in some extreme cases.
  

Ship Design

• Fixed illegal AI build templates that combine protected cruiser and narrow belt.
  
• Prevented replacement of -2 quality main guns if ship has more than 2 centerline turrets.
  
• Stopped the auto-designer from using triple wing turrets.
  
• Improved Japanese ship names list (thanks to @Burningapple3 and helpers!).
  

Officers

• Admirals can now command forces in areas. Their ability will be used in the pre-battle stage.
  
• Admirals will not be eligible to send as Naval Attache.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug with KE being allowed to have submerged torpedo tubes.
  
• Fixed a bug with battlecruisers not being included in the losses history statistic.
  
• Made sure the the lukewarm wartime support event does not fire if the player nation has been at war with the enemy of the ally.
  
• Suppressed a debug message with "Too many rounds" that could appear very occasionally.
  
• Fixed a bug that made detached damaged ships occasionally go towards their original division instead of to nearest friendly base.
  
• Removed double message in turn reports about base expansion.
  

UI Improvements

• On events, pressing the 1,2,3 key will now select the respective answer and close the event dialog.
  
• Escape button now closes the division editor.
  
• Current submarine reliability is now visible when building a new submarine.
  
• Added a button in the design screen for upgrading guns in a refit (instead of changing the caliber back and forth).
  
• The N key will now advance the turn in strategic mode.
  
• Added a help button on the main screen to show keyboard shortcuts.
  

Divisions

• Added warning when assigning more than one core division to follow the same lead division.
  
• Fixed oversensitive core divisions check.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause an error message when the division screen was closed.
  

Balance Changes

• The Japanese surprise attack can no longer be declined by the defender.
  

We hope you enjoy this new update, and hope to deliver more exciting news and updates next year.

We want you - yes YOU Admiral - to nominate us for the Best Game you Suck category for the steam awards. Since our launch back in May we have had plenty of AAR's on the forums highlighting all the challenges players face in RTW3. From 1890 to 1970 the challenges you face as a naval commander certainly evolve.

She's only a little sunk

Starting off in 1890 you have to deal with the Ironclad age. Fire control systems are as sophisticated as the human eyeball, and torpedoes have a range of about a kilometre and change. But really at this point combat is still rather simple. Your mistakes are forgiven because naval weaponry is still pretty inaccurate and small caliber. AP shells aren't that impressive yet.

That certainly changes with dreadnoughts and battleship

As we skip ahead to the 1910's and 1920's gunnery improves by leaps and bounds. Fire control systems and rangefinders are invented and quickly become very effective. The weight of broadsides massively increases as we go from two turret battleships to four turret dreadnoughts and battle-cruisers. You have to adapt your style of play for an increasingly lethal world.

We've got a need for speed

By the time the 30's and 40's come around you may have mastered the art of battleship engagements, only to run into waves upon waves of torpedo and dive bombers. Bomb loads and air ranges improve drastically and most nations begin constructing airbases and carriers. Your prized battle fleet is increasingly vulnerable to those magnificent men in their flying machines.

Why even bother with armor anymore?

Finally, we get to the 50's and 60's, and the whole game changes yet again. Guns are out, battleships are obsolete, because how do you armor against a supersonic missile attack? In an age of jet aircraft and guided weapons the only way to survive is to not get hit.

We hope you managed your allies correctly

You have to change your tactics, balance alliances, research the techs to fit your doctrine, and make sure you don't over invest in a boondoggle and ruin your budget for the coming fiscal year. It's ship designs and spreadsheets, a wonderful challenge for lovers of naval history, and the Best Game you Suck At.

Hello Admirals, the first Ship Design Contest is over and we have our winners. Gabino, Hououtenki, EwaldvonKleist, Dyna, Student Wang, and The Black Baron's designs were chosen as the judges favourites. We had a grand total of 66 different people submit designs for our two categories, which meant well over a hundred ships were in the running for the six winner slots.

All the vouchers have been sent so if you haven't gotten yours, be sure to ping the contest email you submitted your design to at [email protected]


If you missed the stream and the winning designs we have it archived below.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Given the massive number of submissions the contest received, we are definitely doing another one. While it's still far too early to set any exact dates, keep an eye out for announcements in the new year for another ship design contest. If you missed the contest or still haven't picked up Rule the Waves 3, it is currently having a sale on Steam with 25% off.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2008100/Rule_the_Waves_3/

We also have news on a Rule the Waves 3 update in the works. The Admirals Update has an improved interface and sequence for battle generation.

The player will get a more detailed assessment of enemy forces and a possibility of rearranging his own force before deciding to accept or decline battle. There will also be a role for admirals as area commanders. Before battle, the commanding admiral will do a command check to determine the extent to which the force can be modified. On a very good roll, he may even be able to add a ship. Note that the enemy gets a vote too. There is a corresponding check to see if the enemy can add a ship to his force.

Also included in this update are numerous bugfixes and UI improvements.

The update is currently in public beta and can be opted into either via steam or the forums. The forum post also includes a detailed log of all features currently in the beta.

This update will be fully released late November.

Hello everyone, we are happy to announce that we got a ton of great submissions from the community. Thank you everyone that chose to participate in this event!

Submissions are now closed and all of the designs have been forwarded to the judges. They are now getting to work going through your ships to pick out their favorites and choose our six winners for this first ship design contest.

Our livetsream where we announce the results of the contest will be Monday, October 23rd, at 7PM CEST/ 1PM EDT hosted on the Slitherine twitch channel.

After the results have been announced we will get to work sending off those Matrix Store vouchers to those who participated and to the contest winners.

Thanks for participating and I hope to see many of you in chat on Monday!