A noob question about campaign tactics
 

Hi there,

I started a campaign some days ago and I'm having trouble to bring it to a "succesfull" end. I sank a lot of ships but only completed one mission of the whole campaign. All of the sudden the game said: campaign failed, this is bad for germany. Now I wonder what I'm doing wrong...

1. is their maybe a maximum of patrols you can do before a mission ends? Should I rather "refill" instead of "end patrol"?

2. do I need to stick to one mission (blockade of germany, coastal patrols, ...) and finish it before even considering to start a second mission?

3. is there a list of all the ships in game somewhere so I can see their tonnage? That way I could choose my target according to tonnage...

4. is it better to hit a boat with one torpedo, let it burn, stick with it and hope it will sink? Or is it better to sink it right away with 3 torpedo's or so and then go home to refill?

I mean: I sunk a lot of boats and still I fail?? I don't get it.

Thanks for helping out a noob: and yes, I love this game except for the key mappings (azerty here).

3. Use the museum

4. Until there´s no natural sinking mechanics in it, merchants will burn for days without sinking. So use one more Torp to finish him

The end date of each campaign task is displayed in the task menu to the upper left of the screen. So if you compare current date with the end time of the capaign you get a feeling of how much time you have left. Depending on your success it's up to you if you want to refill at port only to save time or dock completly.

Again, that is up to you. It certainly makes sense to stick to one mission first, but it is not a neccessity. Just make sure you took care of most goals when the tasks deadline expires. Sometimes it is possible to do two tasks at the same time, like during the "happy times" campaign, where you have to sink 200.000t os shipping as well as 10 ships loaded with important war materials during the same time in the same area. Even if you did not select one of these two missions, your successes, if in the area of such a task, are added to the achievemant bar of the mission you did not chose.

The museum comes to mind, though I haven't checke dit yet. Some hidden parts within the recognition manual have these infos as well, but I yet have to find it.

That also depends on time and situation. I say when you have no problem with escorts, a lone merchant in front of dead in the water won't go away if you wait a bit to see if it sinks. NNo harm done here.

When you have some high profile targets protected by destroyers, I'd suggest to shoot everything you have at it and then get out ASAP.

Al in all there are no "rules" how to apporach the game. it all depends in the circumstances and personal judgement. It takes a bit of time of getting into it, to develop the right "feel" to propperly judge each individual situation, but do it long enough and you will get the hang out of it =)

Also, sometimes it is required to hit special types of ships, which however is not in the task. For exaple, the "Total Germany" campaign requires you to shoot 5 ships between Iceland and Scotland. That these ships only include 3 warship classes is left out.

There have been quite a few mods adressing the keymapping problem. I personally prefer this one:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=163444