Finished a career - final thoughts

[Eichenlaub]

Having recently finished my first career in SHIII, I thought this would be a good time to reflect back on the game from the perspective of a dynamic campaign. I played a patched stock game.

My setup: AMD Athlon 1.1 Ghz, 64 mb graphics card and 384 mb RAM. As you can tell, my pc is so poor I couldn't use the 3D interface, preferring the hotkeys instead.

Realism set at 79%. I didn't play DID as I'm not good enough yet and the limitations of my computer presented a challenge of its own.

Things I enjoyed:
-raiding ports
-3D interface (despite almost never using it, it still looked wonderful and added atmosphere)
-seeing my officers wearing their appropriate medals
-ordering my crew around when necessary
-building up my crew and assigning them to quarters according to my preferences (I have some issues with the way the crew is handled but the idea of crew management I certainly like)
-feeling the advances in the war; starting early and being near invincible and gradually having that feeling turned into despair at the Allied advancements
-the graphics!
-the general submarine operations of attacking convoys and lone merchants, escaping DD's and DE's

Things I did not enjoy much or not at all:
-sailing at high TC and suddenly getting "We're being damaged, sir!" and "Men down on the deck!" messages, followed by the instant death screen
-the INSTANT DEATH screen
-DC's being either almost harmless or complete one hit wonders

(those three annoyed me to no end)

-weird escort behaviour: from being completely oblivious to me whilst I'm shooting up a convoy, to being psychic and automatically detecting me at ridiculous ranges or knowing exactly from where an electric torpedo was fired
-Coastal Command that seems to send out their bombers in squadron formation - it's unrealistic to see 9 Catalina's gunning for you simultaneously
-the logs recording your career are no longer accessible once you finished your career
-limited dynamic campaign; only one type of mission and no historical operations, seemingly random patrol assignments, being rather isolated from the rest of the war and no real interaction with BdU and other U-boats
-Type XXI not living up to expectations (this might be just me though), considering how Addi Schnee handled it - I've never recreated that performance!

Maybe I'll think of something more later. Generally though I loved this game. I'm looking forward to expanding into GW and SHCommander as soon as I purchase a decent computer.

Kind regards,

Eichenlaub

[Von Hinten]

Interesting read, thank you for sharing. I’m not that far advanced in my new career but I spot a lot of similarities already.

[stabiz]

Oh my, what a time you will have when you get a new pc and grey wolves!

[P_Funk]

Indeed Grey Wolves is a treat compared to stock. The whole immersion factor increases too much to tell.

[Eichenlaub]

I can't wait for that either! I do hear though that the psychic escorts are even more prominent in NYGM and GW - am I going to be detected at 3,000 metres while running silently at 1 knots?

Kind regards,

Eichenlaub

[kiwi_2005]

Originally Posted by Eichenlaub

My setup: AMD Athlon 1.1 Ghz, 64 mb graphics card and 384 mb RAM. As you can tell, my pc is so poor I couldn't use the 3D interface, preferring the hotkeys instead.

Well done, your PC specs would of made the game more of a challenge as well! Ive never finish a full war career and ive been playing this game since it first came out - im always starting up carreers or losing em over file currupts etc.,

[Eichenlaub]

Thank you, all of you, for you contributions.

yes, my pc is horrible. When I first began, I used a 32mb graphics card. That card was so poor the ocean was just one orange-yellow blot!

Anyway, good luck on your careers! I'm not going to start a new one until I get a better rig and GW...

Kind regards,

Eichenlaub