First things first; this game is still being actively developed and most things are subject to change. This guide will be up to date as of March of 2024.

If you're looking to recreate historical ships as accurately as possible you're gonna be a bit disappointed. The devs have done a helluva job modeling ships as best they can but in order to balance the game some metrics are way off, specifically displacement, roll/pitch and what equipment is available for what ships. As an example here's my recreated King George V and the armor is way thicker than it should be and displacement is nearly 15,000 tons more than it should be. I wasn't intending to make an absurdly powerful ship but those amounts were needed to get the pitch/roll under control so keep in mind that making historical ships won't be exact copies. (With battleships I'm OCD and don't like them bouncing/rolling all over, especially in calm waters)


I will be providing a few examples of successful designs I've had but this won't be a building tutorial. Experimenting with different designs is a key feature of the game and where a lot of the fun is.

Also this is all from the perspective of someone who did trial and error. I don't look up formulas to calculate hull resistance/armor penetration/pitch etc.. This is more of a catchall guide but there's been quite a few helpful comments I'd recommend you check out for some more in depth explanations.

Thanks to those who comment constructive/helpful stuff.

Your first choice will be choosing what nation to play. There is universal tech each nation gets but each one will have their own types of hulls, bridges and funnels. Don't feel as though you won't get certain guns because you aren't playing a certain nation, you'll get everything. That being said I am going to separate the nations into difficulty categories.

NOTE: All campaigns I play are on Normal and start in 1900. Increasing the difficulty really only gives the AI a GDP bonus and does nothing to battle difficulty as far as I can tell. Your starting year is important however as it determines your starting tech, GDP and standing with other nations.

1890 is the Pre-Dreadnought era and it's a pain. Guns are inaccurate as hell and all ships are slow. More annoying than anything else. And IMO some of the hulls are quite ugly. (Looking at you French Tumblehome Pre-Dreadnought hulls)

I find that 1900 is the best starting time as you're close to getting true dreadnoughts and there isn't a single country that's actively outpacing the others. For example Austria-Hungary no longer existed by 1930 but they can be played as a "what if".

As far as difficulty goes here's a rough ranking of each nation:

Britain - Easy
US - Easy
France - Easy
Italy - Easy/medium
Austria-Hungary - Easy/Medium
Germany - Medium
Japan - Medium
Spain - Hard
Russia - Hard
China - Hard

Italy and Austria-Hungary are special cases as the difficulty largely revolves around how you get along with your neighbors. Friends - Easy; Enemies - Medium

Germany and Japan's difficulty lies mainly around their economies / starting territory. Germany's main ports are in the North and Baltic seas, meaning you have to pass by a lot of potential enemies (UK, France, Italy) to get reinforcements to your African territories. Japan on the other hand starts with territory where oil will never really be found. I'll discuss Oil later but it's an issue unless you can claim some more territory to offset the extra costs you'll incur once you reach oil boilers.

Spain, Russia and China are all nations that by this point in history were not major naval powers anymore and they struggle in this game. China in particular is usually the punching bag in each of my games with Spain not far behind. They also don't really have any unique designs due to a lack of real life examples so only play these if you want a real challenge.

This'll be short but I'd like to give a few points on each nation, few positives and negatives.

Britain: The Royal Navy is the original super navy, being known around the world and was the most powerful in history until the US overtook during WW2.

Pros: Massive starting GDP and territory spread throughout the world.
Cons: That same spread of territory makes a large fleet necessary to defend properly. Battleships also tend to have large superstructures and are thus bigger targets.


United States: The lone naval superpower since WW2. USN power and production remains unmatched to this day.

Pros: Also a massive starting GDP and main territory is isolated from other possible enemies. Later designs have secondary mounts built into the superstructure.
Cons: Going to war requires sending the fleet far overseas, especially in Europe.


France: The Marine Nationale have a rich history, mostly based around butting heads with the Royal Navy.

Pros: Large ports on the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and in South East Asia allow for reasonable security.
Cons: Multiple wars at once are risky as one of those areas could get overrun and fall.


Italy: The Regia Marina are usually forgotten to history now like their land forces of WW2 but their naval prowess was always underestimated and very capable.


Pros: In a position to cause big problems for Austria-Hungary or France if needed.
Cons: Half of your territory will be within reach of Austria-Hungary at all times, a pain for naval minefields.


Germany: The Kriegsmarine were always trying to play catch up with Britain and France. In way they did through tech and tactics.


Pros: Directly in the way to block off the Russian Baltic Fleet and can be a thorn in Britain's side.
Cons: All ports are close and only a few overseas territories with small bases.


Austria-Hungary: The multicultural hodgepodge collapsed after WW1. They mainly squared off with the Italians.


Pros: Main territory is very close together and can directly threaten Italy.
Cons: Only one way in and out of your territory, can be easily blockaded.


Japan: Being an island nation, the IJN have always been at the forefront of Japan's security and prosperity since the mid 19th century.

Pros: Can easily bully China and the Russian Far East. The US held Philippines can also be a target.
Cons: No land connections means your GDP relies solely on transports, risky during wartime. Pagota battleship masts are absurdly tall and big targets.


Russia: The largest country on Earth, Russia's navy has always played second fiddle to their land forces.

Pros: Ports are far away in relation to potential enemies, excluding the Far East.
Cons: Depending on the starting year, can have high unrest from the start, making early events risky. Small starting GDP


China: China was a cluster for the first few decades of the 20th century, with multiple factions and outside influences fighting for control.

Pros: Large population leads to a potentially massive GDP but must be built first.
Cons: Japan, Russia and US territory are all close and large threats. Small starting GDP


Spain: A historically significant navy that was pretty much deleted from existence during the Spanish-American War and took a long time to recover.

Pros: With the proper support can control the area around Gibraltar, hence the main entrance to the Mediterranean.
Cons: Small GDP and can struggle to remain relevant

You've chosen your nation and are ready to rule the waves. Now what? First order of business, go to the finance tab and max out your transport budget. The single most important thing to you is money, measured by your GDP. Transports are your non-combat merchant fleet that you have no direct control over but there isn't a single reason to ever lower it from the max. Each turn more transports are build which reflects in your economic growth. There is currently no cap, the game will display 200% as a max but it won't stop growing. Just look at what I got Austria-Hungary to in this campaign. I'll go into how this works during wartime later on but this should always be your first thing you do every campaign.

Next is increase your shipyards. You should always be building more of them. Even though the largest battleships cap at roughly 120,000 tons, continuing to build shipyards after that point increases your overall shipbuilding ability. Shipyards capacity is used not only when building ships but also refitting and repairing them so you always want more as it allows a larger fleet to be maintained.

Tech is also important but less so, it should be your second priority. Crew training will be last. More money will allow you to max everything at once instead of picking one over the other.

If you had the game auto generate a fleet feel free to go to your shipyard and laugh at the stupid designs you have, but they're gonna have to do for the time being. Don't worry they'll be replaced soon.

Now is also the time to see what territory you have, what fleets are stationed where, and what your major ports are. You won't have to move anything but just keep in mind what you're working with.

Keep in mind this isn't like single battles where you can build a supership and set it loose. You have an economy that has to be kept in balance. For a while ship costs will determine what you can build, more specifically, what is practical to build. One 60,000 ton battleship is great, but two 30,000 ton battleships for the same price may be better at the time.

Unrest and Naval Prestige are things you need to pay attention to at first but as time goes on you'll probably be able to ignore them.

Unrest is how happy the general public of your nation is.

Naval Prestige is how well regarded you are in the public's eye.

Depending on random events you can gain and lose unrest/prestige as you go but war is a main contributor. Do good in battle, take enemy territory and unrest will drop and prestige will rise. Lose ships/territory and the opposite will happen. Government types don't yet matter in game and elections will happen every few years regardless of what they are.

If unrest is low the government stays the same. If it's over 25 a new government will take power and drop unrest to 0 and you will be unaffected.

If unrest ever reaches 100 your nation will undergo a revolution and if you have low prestige you will be expelled from the country and your game will be over.

However if you have high prestige you will again remain unaffected by the revolt as your country will no see you as a cause of it. I've never seen a cap on prestige but once you get it over 100 you really don't have to worry about it and by proxy unrest also can then be ignored as well.

Once your first steps are done it's time to plan what you want to accomplish; what territory you want, who you're willing to fight, and what sort of fleet you want. Let's start out with ship types.

Battleships: The ultimate authority on the oceans. Largest possible ships with the largest possible guns. Can also be fast depending on how they're built. Also the largest investment in both time and money.

Battlecruisers: Take a battleship, lose some armor and make it faster and you've got a battlecruiser. These can be risky to use as they will normally outclass normal cruisers and destroyers but usually lose in a head on fight with a battleship. They're good in a pinch if you're tight on money and need some power but be careful on over relying on them. They're still expensive and much easier to destroy. A good use is stationing them overseas as flagships of your secondary fleets where they're unlikely to run into your main enemy but can be used for raids, or use them as a second battle line with battleships leading the charge.

Cruisers: Cruisers fall into 2 types; Light and Heavy. Heavy cruisers are good support for battleships as they can carry up to 11 inch guns and be reasonably armored. I typically follow the historical US model and forego mounting torpedoes on heavies. Light cruisers are more suited for destroyer and submarine hunting, but can also be used as minelayers. Lights are also useful in supporting battlecruisers in raids thanks to their speed. I typically use the highest yield HE shells possible on them to start endless fires.


Destroyers: The eyes/ears of the fleet, destroyers are cheap, easy to build and can be very deadly when fitted with large torpedo racks. They're quite easy to kill so expect them to be your most common losses but it's useful to have many on hand at all times. In battle they screen for the fleet, spotting enemy ships for your larger combatants and will regularly fight other destroyers. Like light cruisers they can also be used as minesweepers, minelayers or submarine hunters.

Transports: You don't have the option to make the design of your transports but you may run into enemy ones in battle or have to protect yours. They move slow, have no armor whatsoever, and can realistically only defend themselves from destroyers with usually 2 small guns. Their AI makes them always try to flee the battle but they usually cap out @ 11kts so they're easy to chase and sink.

Torpedo Boats: Pretty much pre-destroyers, they're pretty much useless, especially if starting in 1900. Ignore them as they phase out quickly.

Like unrest/naval prestige, there are 2 things that determine your monthly funds; GDP and Naval Budget %.

Army Budget can always be ignored

GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, is everything your nation makes and sells on the global market. With this not being some kind of economics simulation you don't have to keep track of natural resources or trade deals or whatnot. GDP is influenced by 2 main factors, the transport budget and the amount of territory you hold. Just keep track of annual economic growth, positive = good, negative = bad.

Naval Budget % is how much of your monthly GDP income is dedicated directly to the Navy. The only way to change it is through random events.

As a rule of thumb you can't increase one without lowering the other. Naval Budget is better to increase than GDP most of the time as you have more direct control over the GDP and can only modify the Naval % through random events that may or may not even happen.

All nations start with their historical territories. Expanding that territory can be somewhat complicated and sometimes out of your control. While at war you have the option to do Naval Invasions in any coastal area you have naval supremacy in. When this happens the map will show a red sphere around the target port. All you have to do is move fleets into the sphere and maintain more tonnage than the minimum. The game will give you a change of success, which is determined by how much tonnage you have in the sphere and if any enemy fleets also occupy it.

The game may also give you random events saying a minor nation is a threat to you and your government wants to invade and take control of them. The process of doing this is exactly the same but you don't have the option to choose which nation to invade, the game will choose based on relations you can't see.

The final way of expanding territory is your land army. This form you have no control over at all. The game will choose to attack a neighboring territory and each month progress will or will not be made. Considering some territories are fully landlocked I've never bothered trying to figure out if naval presence has any real effect on true land battles and I'd just ignore them.

Allies are both good and bad. They can be a great help during wars but you can be brought into wars you didn't want to be a part of. There's also 2 different types of allies; Full and Minor

Full allies are any other playable nation you aren't playing as. All being allies means is you will defend and declare war together. No trade bonus, no sharing ship designs, nothing like that.

Minor Allies are any nation in game that isn't playable but can become your friend (Belgium, Ireland, Ottoman Empire, Etc.). Again no special trading but they can buy ships you build for them and sometimes will buy ships you mothball. If you get into battle near their territory they will send their own ships to fight along yours.

Full allies are easier to make than minor ones. You can attempt to improve relations with other nations both positively and negatively. Minor allies you don't have any real control over. The game will just tell you they are now your ally after some time of good relations you didn't even know you had. That being said, be careful with both types but for different reasons.

Full allies can affect your standing with other nations and potentially drag you into wars you want no part of. Minor allies won't cause you wars but they may buy a bunch of your ships, abandon you, and side with one of your enemies and possibly use you own designs against you.
Minor allies can buy any ship design you currently have and will pay 25% up front and the rest upon delivery. You'll make typically 75% profit for every ship sale but this will take up shipyard space for your own fleet so don't commit too much to building allied ships and end up not being able to build your own. The AI will decide what ship they want and when and I've never seen them get mad for you refusing to sell them a ship, at least from the start. If you say yes, start building, and cancel the sale halfway through construction to keep the ship yourself they may get mad and break the alliance with you.

As an extra bonus, any nation you are allied to, regardless of them being full or minor, will allow you to use their ports in their territory. Just being near them allow your ships to refuel and refill their ammo and if their port is closer than yours ships will return there for repairs if needed.

I know this seems counterproductive in a game about battleships, but you want to avoid war, at least at first. When you first go to war you get a massive boost to your monthly income, specifically a 50% boost. This isn't permanent however, this boost will only apply while at war and it can be prematurely dropped. Let's go back to transports and your GDP.

Transports belonging to you will automatically pass back and forth between your territories but won't be visible on the overmap. Enemy ships in your territory can sink your transports and you can do the same to your enemies. Some may be caused by actual battle and the rest will be randomly chosen by RNG. Any transport losses you incur will negatively affect your GDP by lowering it progressively. Being at war and not being able to properly defend your territory can lead to a struggling economy while other nations flourish. Also being at war for too long has it's own consequence; the longer the war, the less patience your nation will have for it and eventually your GDP will start dropping on it's own regardless of transport losses. These drops ignore the war boost to your GDP so you may drop right into a negative amount once peace is declared if it drops too much.

As an example; in my Austria-Hungary campaign I managed to stay out of war for 17 in game years. In that time I developed an economy larger than all other nations combined and could build hundreds of ultra expensive ships if I wanted to, money was no longer a problem and I was free to build anything. By comparison, in a recent Japanese campaign I went to war with Italy earlier than I planned and pretty much stalemated. Transports were being destroyed but somewhat slowly so my GDP was more or less stagnant. In that time France and the US became economic powerhouses with more than double my GDP. Their fleets grew out of control and even if I had a technological edge I was vastly outnumbered at that point. Money you earn each month that you don't spend is put into your overall Naval Fund and you are allowed to keep as much as you want. Always keep a surplus in case you run into trouble as you'll have some breathing room to get back on track. If your overall Naval Fund goes into the negative you'll get 1 bailout from your government, but go into the negative again and you'll be fired and your game will be over.

The only exception to all of this is if you can steamroll whoever you're at war with. If the war is short and you gain a lot of of it then by all means do it but try to avoid long conflicts if you're still developing the economy.

Oil is not important at first. If you're still using coal as your main fuel source you can ignore oil. However whether you want it or not coal will be phased out eventually once your boiler tech reaches a certain point. Oil is more expensive than coal but much more effective as a fuel, which will expand your ship range and boiler efficiency. Unlike coal, which doesn't have any sort of cap, your nation will gain a certain amount of oil per month based on territories you hold that have proven oil sources (The ones you're probably thinking of; Texas, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia etc). As time goes on in game oil will be found throughout the world and whoever holds it will suddenly get access to the new supply.

Being honest, I don't believe naval blockades are working as the devs intended, at least currently. How I understand it, at least from a historical perspective, is that ships would surround coastal territory of their enemy and not let anyone enter or leave. However I've tried doing that to Austria-Hungary as they have a lone chokepoint leading in/out of their territory and that did nothing. I think the game currently calculates it based on tonnage present @ sea on the areas of the map. If there's enough and it vastly outpaces their enemy a blockade activates.

Blockades are a nightmare if it's happening to you as no matter what your transport numbers your GDP will start tanking almost immediately. The best way to stop a blockade is move ships into that area and take the enemy head on. Usually if you destroy enough the AI will lift the blockade. Your GDP won't jump back to what it was but at least you'll be able to start recovering.

I won't get into actual battle tactics, but campaign map tactics are different. Any ships out of port incur a maintenance cost regardless of if they see battle or not. Hence it's better to keep them as "Fleets in Being" until they're needed.

What is a Fleet in Being?

A Fleet in Being is a old school naval tactic where a fleet, simply by existing, influences the decisions of it's enemies. An example was the German battleship Tirpitz. After the sinking of the Bismarck, Tirpitz was sent to Norway and spent the rest of it's career hiding out in fjords. Even without doing anything, it caused the Royal Navy to dedicate many forces to keeping it corralled and eventually destroying it, when those forces could have been used elsewhere.

Obviously the AI doesn't understand the tactic but keeping your forces mainly in port allows for 3 positives.

1. Fleets will not incur maintenance costs in port (technically they always do by the ships existing at all but it is the lowest possible while still being in service)

2. Battles will still occur and will pull ships from your port fleet and put them back when done

3. As long as a fleet is in port it makes the port immure to bombardment and makes naval invasions very difficult

When peace is signed between 2 warring nations the victor gets to claim war reparations of the loser. How much can be claimed is based on how many victory points you gained vs. how many your enemy got. You've got 3 choices of stuff the claim; Ships, territory and money. Everything you claim has to add up to the amount of war reparations you earned. Any amount you don't spend on ships or territory is automatically converted to money.

Ships are usually terrible, outdated designs but you can claim one of your enemies most expensive ships to get a rough idea where they are in terms of tech and then scrap it for cash.

Claiming territory is something you need to be careful with as you need to make sure you can properly defend it. For example, Italy has no core territory in the South Pacific and claiming Borneo when you have no other close territory makes it an easy target for other powers in the area.

Say you fight a war and it goes badly; you lose territory and your GDP tanks but you've got a few decent ships left in your fleet you can't really afford anymore. If you have no choice you can mothball them.

Mothball is removing all crew from a ship and placing it into reserve. The crew will go back into your crew pool and the ship will remain there indefinitely until you either recrew it, scrap it, or sell it to a minor ally. The ship will still incur a maintenance cost but it will be the lowest possible one( pretty much just to keep it from sinking @ dock). If you decide to bring the ship back into service by recrewing it be warned there will be a time delay. The assigned crew will need time to be retrained on the ship being brought back and that will depend on how advanced the ship is; more advanced = longer time to bring back.

I'm not going to go too in depth with tech as each nation has different starting levels and it really depends on how you're playing/what you want to build, but there are a few important things regarding it.
1. Free Priorities. Research into new tech is always happening. The speed of it depends on how much you have invested in your tech budget. You are always given 3 free priorities you can apply to boost individual tech lines. NEVER USE ALL 3 AT ONCE! Free priorities will boost the tech line they're applied to but will slow everything else as a trade off. I don't have the exact ratios but as a rough guess; 1 - 50% faster, 2 - 35% faster, 3 - 20% faster. Using 1 freebie is perfectly fine as you boost a tech line of your choosing and minimally slow everything else. Using 2 is acceptable at times if you are close to finishing 2 lines you need but remember to turn them off once you're done. Doing this you can easily outpace everyone else in tech.

2. Tech to prioritize. For the most part there's no truly "useless" tech. However there's some that's much more useful than others.

Examples are: Hull Strengthening (Battleships), Engines, Boilers, Rangefinders, Large Guns, Control Station, Turret Mechanisms, ASW(ASW is how you get Radar)) and Gun layouts.

Now armor is important but once you get Krupp 1 each armor type is a minor improvement at best(Krupp gets lighter, stronger but more expensive the higher the level. Previous types like compound or Harvey are vastly inferior to any level of Krupp). Torpedoes are a bad idea on battleships as they're too much risk and not enough reward. Cruisers and destroyers have already been covered and depend on the type of fleet you want but I'd use at least 1 of them for submarine hunting and minesweeping.

Submarines are highly situational. They can't be customized but fill a role based on their name (Coastal, minelayer, ocean-going etc.). All battles involving them are currently auto resolve only and their effectiveness is tied directly to the Anti Sub warfare rating of the fleet they attack. They'll typically sink a ship or two of an unequipped fleet and will be sunk by a properly equipped fleet. In small engagement areas like the Mediterranean or Southeast Asia they can be very effective but Wolf Packs don't seem to be in the game yet so multiple subs in 1 battle in the middle of the ocean don't happen currently.

To each their own with how they want to build their ships but I've found quite a few tips that have been successful in pretty much all of my campaigns.

1. Bigger isn't always better. Guns in game have a mark for how technologically advanced they are and most of the time a smaller, newer gun will outperform a larger, older gun. Before finishing a design take a look at the gun specs. Example is a 14 inch mark 3 shooting faster and similar distance to a 15 inch mark 2. Shell damage will be less but it's not really noticeable but the 14 inch gun will be weigh less and hence more room on your ship for other stuff.
2. Be careful in your shell choices. Having an absurdly powerful gun with armor piercing capped ballistic capped (APCBC) is great but at times the shell penetration can get excessive, leading to overpenetrations and the shell fuse not arming and hence a liability. On the opposite end giving a large gun semi armor piercing (SAP) will devastate lightly armored ships but be useless against broadside battleships. A good rule is to use either standard shells or capped on battleships. Capped sacrifices some explosive power for armor penetration but not excessively. Building into AP on destroyers and light cruisers is completely useless as their gun calibers are far too small.

3. Even if you don't have exactly what you want on your ship, start building it anyway. Say you want to recreate the Iowa Class and have everything but the guns, with your tech still being @ 14 inch guns. Start building it with the 14s anyway, as it'll take 20-30 months to build. In that time you can research the new guns and refit the design when they're complete instead of waiting to start building and wasting time. 4 months for a refit is better than waiting 12 months to develop new guns. With refits you can change everything but the hull itself so keep that in mind.

4. Auto Resolve can be biased. Be careful using it as the AI for it can be janky. Early it's no big deal, especially if you're still using your starting fleet but once you're using your own designs be more careful as your designs are probably more expensive than AI ones. AI is supposed to auto resolve based on tonnage present in battle but I've had battles where I had 2 battleships, 2 battlecruisers and 4 cruisers vs a lone destroyer and somehow auto resolve decided I lost both battlecruisers and 3 cruisers were damaged while the enemy destroyer was completely undamaged.

Here's a few examples of ships I've built from some of my campaigns. Some are historical and some are just random.

Obviously every game won't be the same but for the most part I've found these techniques work with pretty much every nation. The devs are regularly adding new hulls and making modifications to prior added stuff so things may change. If anyone has any ideas for this guide feel free to let me know. I'm nowhere near a pro gamer type but I'm a naval history nerd that loves reading and studying warships of the 20th century.