Victory At Sea a Naval Strategy Game For Pc! Finally! - Don't Give Up The Ships!

 

Victory at Sea is a rather new member in the family of naval strategy games for pc, the game was recently released on the 8th of august 2014 and was developed by Evil Twin Artworks. The title of this post says it all, finally a new naval game has been thrown upon us! Victory at Sea is a real time strategy game, which like most naval strategy games is set in World War II. There are over 80 classes of ships and submarines available in the game, a lot of these classes are not covered in other naval games. For example, you'll be able to control ships like the Littorio class battleship of the Italian Navy or the Richelieu class battleship of the French Navy. In addition to these 80 classes, the developers are thinking of adding more ships and submarines of diverse classes and countries in future dlc's and updates.

One of the Italian ships

The game has seven factions you can choose from namely: The United States Navy, the Japanese Imperial Fleet, Italy's Regia Marina, Great Britain's Royal Navy, Vichy France, Free France and of course last but not least the Kriegsmarine of Germany. Each navy has it strengths and weaknesses, it's up to you to get the best out of each faction.

Victory at Sea has three game modes available: Campaign Game, Historical Scenario and Custom Battle.

• Campaign Game: in this mode you'll be given a large campaign map, comparable to the one in Pacific Storm or Hearts of Iron. The main objective will be to conquer enemy ports and expand your territory. You can manage your fleet and make it fit for battle, you can also buy new ships and add them to your fleet. There are three theatres you can choose from: the Pacific, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. A downside of this Campaign Mode was that you were only able to play with two allied powers Great Britain's Royal Navy and The United States Navy. Luckily in Beta 1.1 the Japanese Imperial fleet was made playable, and probably more factions will become playable in the future.

Campaign mode map

• Historical Scenario: this game mode is pretty much self-explanatory. You can choose different historical battles like the Battle of Cape Matapan or the Battle of the Denmark Strait together with some other battles. Here you'll have the choice to change history or re-enact it, well... at least on your computer!

• The last game mode Custom Battle, gives you the ability to create a custom battle between two factions of your choosing. At the beginning of this game mode you'll be given a certain amount of points, with these points you'll be able to choose from different kind of ships or submarines that belong to a certain faction.

French ship being hit hard

You'll have a whole arsenal at your disposal to fight the enemy, you can destroy them with your large calibre gun, light calibre guns, torpedoes, depth charges, ... The game also has a permanent changing weather system, with cold foggy weather in the Atlantic, while it's hot and sunny in the Mediterranean. There's also a day and night system in the game, which you can use to sneak up behind the enemy without them seeing you.

Victory at Sea is a very promising naval strategy game, and has so much potential. With the different updates, beta's and possible dlc's who knows how good this game can become! It's definitely a welcome member in the family of naval warfare games on pc!

Naval Wargaming - Warship Mod 3.0 For Silent Hunter 3

Starting screen of Warship mod

  

Silent Hunter 3 Warship mod 3.0 is a modification for Silent Hunter 3, where you can take control of some of the ships in the game (you could say it's a free battleship simulator game). It was developed by Chinese U-47, if you want, you can check out his other work at the Subsim forum. If you’re looking for something new to do with your copy of Silent Hunter 3, this is definitely something you should do.

 

The mod has 3 packs and in each pack there are 3 different ships, I’m quite sure they are all German ships. Some examples of the ships you can use are: the aircraft carrier ‘Graf Zeppelin’, the light cruiser ‘Leipzig’, just to name a few. I’ve been playing around a bit with one pack, and can really say that this modification is pretty fun and different! The interface of the game stays the same as in the ‘normal’ Silent Hunter version (aka when playing without the mod). Commanding the ship is really easy, just choose your speed and adjust your rudder, just like you would do normally. When you click on the periscope icon on the left, you go directly to the view you would get when you would be playing without the mod, so even if you’re sailing with a ship, the same interface will always appear. The only thing that has changed is that when you click on the bridge icon, you actually end up on the bridge of your ship, with a sailor behind you steering the ship and the binoculars in front of you. Most of the commands on the left are practically unusable, pretty logic because I don’t think you want to go diving with your ship (although it sometimes happened that I could).

Shooting at those nasty destroyers

NOTE: If you just installed the mod and you’re asking yourself why the guns aren’t moving be sure to put some men on the deck gun in the crew interface.

I’ve played the career mode with this mod and came to the conclusion that the aim of some of the enemy ships is really really bad. Only when they came close enough (say between 500 and 1000 meters) were the destroyers able to hit me, but at the time they got close enough they were already burning and ready to sink. The only time I was actually worried is after having raided Hartlepool with ease, I went to Firth of Forth that was right next to it. While entering the bay didn’t find too much resistance, maybe two destroyers, but then I saw the coastal batteries, thinking they would also shoot to the stars (it was night time) I went straight ahead in direction of the port. Boy was I wrong, I really took a beating there, everything was flooded fortunately the crew could repair the damage. When advancing further into the bay I saw another line of coastal batteries, so I decided it was best to turn back as fast as possible. There wasn’t anything special in the port except for some lousy merchants that were not worth my time. Came out of the bay safe and sound, saved the game first, and headed straight back to Wilhelmshaven put the time accelerator on 1024 and was going home. Unfortunately my plotting skills were a bit rusty and I ran ashore not far from the harbour. To my surprise I couldn’t load up my save game! All I can say is that it was fun until it lasted!

Majestically sailing to Hell

Little tutorial on how to install the warship mod 3.0:

1.      Have Silent Hunter 3 patched to version 1.4b

2.       Download WSM3.0SH3V1.4 to your desktop, there’s also a version if you have GWX installed

3.       Copy everything that’s inside WSM3.0SH3V1.4 (JGSME.exe, readme, MODS) to your Silent Hunter directory

4.       Start JGSME.exe, normally you should see WSM3.0 activate it, by putting it to the right, close JGSME.exe

5.       Reopen JGSME.exe and you should see Ge I, Ge II and Ge III, enable only one of these three and start the game enjoy!

 (didn't have any problems installing this mod, but be careful for your save games!)


Feel free to like, share and leave comments about other mods/naval games you found worth playing!

Very deadly encounter

 

Free Submarine Simulation Game - Silent Hunter Online Beta!

Ubisoft the famous developer of the submarine simulation games Silent Hunter, has launched a new free on-line submarine simulation game, named Silent Hunter Online (duh). It's a free browser game, that like in the other submarine games lets you take command of a German U-boat during the second World War. Your mission, like in the other Silent Hunter games, is to sink everything that floats, be it a helpless transport or a mighty carrier. Saying that it's a browser game means that there's no large download necessary.

The game is still in a beta phase, so it's logic that people are complaining about seeing a lot of bugs in the game. The game has a single player and a multiplayer. Personally I think the single player is rather dull, maybe good to do some training. It's obvious that the real action lies in the multiplayer aspect of the game. Who hasn't dreamt of leading a wolfpack of submarines against an enemy convoy? The game isn't as good a the real Silent Hunter series, but it's definitely worth a try! If you want to play this free submarine simulation game, just go to the Silent Hunter Online beta website!

World of Warships Update! New cinematic trailer for E3

Wargaming.net has released a new cinematic trailer for its new MMO game called World of Warships. The trailer was released during the E3 event, and an ALPHA version of the naval simulation game should be coming soon (at least according to the site...) It really looks promising! A nice addition to the world of battleship gaming!

Submarine Simulator Game - Silent Hunter 3

One of the most popular submarine simulator games that you can find on the market, must be the Silent Hunter series. Personally, I think Silent Hunter 3 is one of the best games in the list of Silent Hunter games. Man, I spent a lot of hours on that game!

Basically, Silent Hunter 3 puts you in command of a World War II German sub (U-boat). It’s your mission to sink as many enemy merchants as possible, this way no supplies can reach the Allies, consequently this makes it easier for the German army to be victorious over the Allies. Of course this mission is not without peril, most merchants will be escorted by destroyers, or will be organised in large convoys. For everyone who’s not familiar with the Silent Hunter games, there are several tutorials available. These tutorials, help you to get familiar with the different aspects of the game (controls, map, attacking). There are also some standard tactical mission (historical and non-historical).

In the campaign mode of Silent Hunter, you’ll be able to choose in which period you want to start the game. You could say that each period has it’s own difficulty level. The sooner you start, the easier it will be. For example the 1940-41 are referred to as the ‘Happy Times’ for German submarines, in this period the German U-boats sunk a considerable amount of enemy vessels. The technology for hunting submarines wasn’t up to date and British warships had a hard time detecting subs. This is also reflected in the game, you will not find too many destroyers in the beginning. But when the campaign moves on, merchants will be organised in heavily defended convoys, merchants will be equipped with guns...

As the campaign moves on, you’ll also be able to acquire new technology for your sub, this also depends on the tonnage you sink on your missions. Each time you sink a ship, you’ll get renown (practically points) and with these points, you can acquire different items: from a new engine, to a new deck gun. There is also the possibility to enlist new crew members, to promote them, you can upgrade their skill levels (for example making them better at shooting down planes) and so on. When starting your campaign, you also have the possibility to change to realism level. You can change every aspect to your liking, or you could go hardcore full realism in this submarine simulator game (no game speed up, no automatic aiming, ...). Setting the voices of your crew to German is also really cool.

You’re pretty much free to do what you want on the campaign missions. You can sail everywhere you want: United States, Mediterranean, but you need to keep a close eye on your fuel level, or you can set it to unlimited fuel, in the realism options. If you want a real challenge try to sail through the Strait Of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, and try to intercept some convoys trying to get to Malta. I tell you, you’ll need a lot of patience and skill to get past the Strait, the amount of enemy warships is just crazy (at least in my game). If you want to see the British aircraft carriers, try to sneak through the port Scapa Flow (I think). But watch out, most of the time, these ports are heavily guarded with destroyers and anti-submarine nets.

Silent Hunter 3, is one of the best submarine simulator games I’ve ever played. You get totally immersed by the game, and after some time you get really attached to your crew and sub. It’s definitely still worth a play and must have for every gamer who’s interested in naval warfare during World War II.