Rule the Waves III is a simulation of ship design, fleet management and naval combat that depicts the period from 1890 to 1970, covering eighty years of naval history with changing technology and tactics.
Rule the Waves III places you in the role of 'Grand Admiral' of one of the leading navies of the time. Playable nations are USA, Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Austria Hungary, Russia, Spain and China. The game will let you design and build the ships of your navy, and lead them into battle when war erupts. You will guide your navy's deployment, construction and operations during a period of great technological innovation and political tensions.
Playing as Italy, tensions are heating up with Austria-Hungary. Best to take a look at what we know about their ships.
The player will have to deal with interfering Navy ministers, Kaisers and Presidents, as well as other aspects of politics and economics. You can influence but not decide foreign policy, so to some extent you and your navy can be subject to the turns and twists of changing politics. While there will be periods of higher or lower tensions, you can never know for sure when your navy will have to stand the test of battle.
Rule the Waves is not a simple game. Ship design, battles and the limits of command and control of the time are portrayed realistically. Some grasp of 20th century naval warfare and warships is not necessary, but certainly will be helpful for players of the game. The game focuses on realistic ship design, technical development and naval combat and tactics. If you are genuinely interested in naval history, warship construction and the way navies fought and manoeuvred in the first half of the 20th century, this is a game that will keep you engaged for many hours. If you want quick action packed battles with ships exploding in 3D graphics and no complications, this game might not be for you. Be aware that graphics in RTW are adequate for the purposes of the simulation, but not cutting edge.
There is an in game naval almanac to keep an eye on the opposition. Here we take a look at the British fleet.
You will design and build the ships of your Navy. The game includes a detailed and comprehensive ship designer where you can design your own ideal ship, from dreadnought battleships down to the lowly antisubmarine corvette or minesweeper. However, if you do not want to design ships from the keel up, there is an autodesigner that can design the ship for you, and you can just change any details you might want to alter.
Once designed you need to build your ships. A battleship can take several years to build, and as technical development in the period covered move quickly, this means that ships can be obsolete by the time they are commissioned. As a player, this might be frustrating, but it affects the opposing nations as well. You will have to learn to live with it and learn how to plan ahead.
Designing a battlecruiser for the US Navy in the ship designer
There is a temptation to delay the design of that battleship you are planning, to take advantage of the latest technology. But you must keep in mind that as construction times of major warships are several years, you may find yourself in a situation where you have to fight with the navy you have, and not the one you are planning that will be ready in two years' time.
At your disposition you will have a naval budget. The budget will vary with political decisions, in times of high tension it will tend to rise, while in times of low tension, the politicians will tend to want to cut down on naval expenditures. You will often be consulted on foreign policy matters by the Kaiser, Prime Minister or President. Hawkish answers will tend to drive up tension and increase the navy budget, while more measured responses will keep tensions manageable.
When war erupts, you will coordinate the operations of your fleet and lead it on the seas of battle to further the ambitions of your nation. You can deploy your navy in sea zones across the globe. Battles are generated semi randomly depending on where your ships are deployed and depending on amphibious operations or other activities.
When tactical battles occur, they will be played out on the tactical map where your ships will deploy and fight according to the doctrine and technology of the time, which will change gradually over the ages of the game.
Battles are simulated with realistic tactics, formations and limited by weather and visibility. You can select varying levels of realism in command and control. On admiral’s mode you will only control your flagship, while other formations will be given roles in relation to the flagship. On lower levels of realism, you can control all divisions of ships in your fleet and even the gunnery of individual ships.
Gunnery, torpedoes and later bombs and missiles and their effects will all be simulated in realistic detail. Armour penetration is of course covered, modified by current shell and armour technology. Damage to ships is realistically applied, including progressive flooding, fires and critical hits.
Later battles will include aircraft, both carrier-based and land-based, as well as missiles.
It is in war the ships that you have designed will have to stand their test in battle. Was that new battleship design such a great idea? And that cruiser that sacrificed armour for speed, how did that work out? Only the crucible of real naval combat will give the answer.
There are options to start the game in 1890, 1900, 1920 or 1935. When the game starts, you will have an existing legacy fleet at game start. The legacy fleet is normally generated automatically, but can optionally be built manually in the 1900 start. The game ends in 1970, but there is an option to continue the game until 1980, though technological progress will trail off after the regular game ends.
Starting a game as France
Note that Rule the Waves centres around the campaign game where you design, build and fight with your own Navy. There are no historical scenarios and the starting fleets do not recreate historical orders of battle. The starting fleets for the various start dates are realistic ships for that time period and the various navies, but are not the exact ships that composed those navies at that time.
Rule that Waves is single player only, but with a competent AI that will design ships and fight naval battles in a realistic manner.
In the upcoming developer diaries we will take a look at how Rule the Waves III differs from RTWI and II, ship design and also tactics and battles in the different time periods Rule the Waves III covers from 1890-1970.