Rule the Waves: a fine game !

[Franciscus]

Hi folks

A very fine game has come to my attention - NWS: Rule the Waves, released last month.

An info piece was posted at wargamer a few days ago: http://www.wargamer.com/Article/10256.

A very interesting game. A (more than) spartan UI, no doubt, and a grognard-level-game, but a very good gameplay experience. The player takes control of the navy of one of the major european nations at the start of the 20th century (USA, Japan, and even a "what-if" CSA and Spain are playable too), and is in charge of designing, researching, building and managing in battle the fleets of that nation, from 1900 up to 1925. Various levels of AI-help are available, for example if you do not fancy to lose time designing ships, the AI can create on-the-fly a design for you.

The gameplay is very interesting, as several events (rebellions, espionnage, treaties, Kaiser's blustering speeches) happen during the game, giving a real "feel" of the tension of those years, all the while driving the player to become entangled in an arms race with the other nation's navies, that will inevitably, sooner or later, end in war.

There is no scripted "WW1", but the game is very fun to play.

Regards

[Stelteck]

I bought it. The interface look like the one of the Aurora 4X and the battle engine is really hard core for the eyes.

But it is actually quite fun and interesting.

I love it.

[Baris]

Designer mentions 'Master of Orion' in manual. It looks very interesting in historical and plausible way of re-creating inventions, tactics and models with preset historical AI ship model behaviour in certain class but gives a slight freedom designing.