Ironclads: High Seas

Painfully dull, slow and boring game. The worst thing here is that the game is very limited. You buy some ships, you make them join the battle (which takes place on some sort of empty arena) and... that's pretty much it. There's no proper campaign, no proper goals and the only things you can control during the battle are moving direction, moving speed and guns. In other words, you can give your ships an order to shoot, or ignore the enemies completely. And that'll be it. There's nothing else about the battles in this game. That alone is enough to make the game feel bad, but, like I've already said, it's also painfully slow and even at maximum speed every action takes forever for your ships to finish.

As the result, this game is literally as fun as watching the paint dry. With only three kinds of commands, very slow speed and almost nothing to achieve, it's a royal waste of both your time and money. Even with 90% it's not worth it. Dixi.

+The game is cheap even when it's not on sale.

+The game is simple and easy to get the hang of.

+The game has so much potential for being good.

+/- You are likely to lose ships due to damage over time rather than enemy gun fire.
The game will only note ships destroyed by gun fire.

+/- The game is almost too simply to be realistic.

+/-The title says "High seas" so I cannot blame the game for taking place in the middle of the ocean with close to unlimited area. Eventhough a lot of the vessels used are restricted to costal duties.

+/-Not a single cloud in the sky, no wind, no waves, no thunderstoms or fog... This game would be awesome if it was in a fog and you would have to listen for horns and bells.

+/-2 hours of sailing around. Even more in major battles... Enjoy.

+/-If the game was WASD controlled instead of arrow keys, the game would be much nicer to control.

+/-Flooding and fires have their own process rather than just doing direct damage. There is no way to stop them once started.

+/-While all the other games have titles implying the conflict in question, this one is just called "High seas"

-HERE COMES THE LIST-
-There is a lot of DLC and packs for this unpolished game, none of them have anything exciting to offer.

-There is only 1 cannon soundeffect, 1 impact soundeffect and 1 splash soundeffekt... From 6 diffrent warships with diffrent guns... and types of hull.

-Although you are in control, you cannot make ships break line formations to preform manouvers.

-The camera is aweful, rather than remembering what view you were on when looking at ship A, it will keep the same view when you skip to ship B which is fighting an enemy in the oppersit direction. You are fighting the camera all the time.

-The game lacks propper options.

-Expensive ships are easily overtaken by cheap ships due to pivot guns and turrets. Nothing else really matters besides speed.

-Pretty damn boring.

-There is always something that doesn't work in the game.

-Ramming does no damage but makes your computer vomit as it has no idea how to deal with it. It also disables speed up.

-Formations often crash together and get stuck because the game can't handle ramming physics.

-You are limited to 3 squads of ships while the game is sluggish enough for players to control 5 single ships.

-Once you've compleated your first battle... there is little to nothing new in the game. Unless you bother play till you can buy a bigger ship which can do the same things...

-The models and scales are somewhat lazy.

-I have incountered several gameplays where guns do 0 damage or won't fire at all.

-This game is so simply it's amazing it doesn't just work.

-You have to pay for the game.

Personally I love this game, though unfortunately it doesn't get any updates or anything to add to the experience.

sux

For the people who claim the game is slow, it is. That is becaulse of realism. The two hour time limit seems unreasonable, untell you relise that the battle of hampton roads, which was a duel between only 2 ironclads lasted twice that. This game is not for the easly board, but you wont find a better game about ironclads out there.

Absolute dog of a game. It's like a cheap mobile game. The 'campaign' is the same battle over and over. The ships are really boring, and even if one of them was unique, you can sink it again and again, or own 4. Combat drags on forever. Graphics weren't very good for 2009, and haven't aged well.

Edit: While this game is still an absolute DO NOT BUY, I recommend checking out the developer's latest series which are all titled 'Clad in Iron...' They are much improved in all respects, and the price is quite reasonable.

having played now a littl eof this i think it is an okay game to get if on sale perhaps but its appeal is going to be restricted to only the few diehard fans of the period who like their battles to move at a snails pace and also to how a limited role in activity of the battle itself
you can direct the ship column and you can alter its speed and tell it not to fire if you want, though i cant see any reason ever to do so
- there is no way to change formations in battle or even to detach a ship from you column - these omissions i find strange

perhaps the biggest gripe i would have are the non-existent collision physics - for a historical game like this where the close quarters ship firefights happen alot as the AI will come right in to fight, there are frequent collisions, but the ships just bounce of each stutteringly until one a bounce enough to move away - this is ridiculous when the pointy end of an ironclad civil war gun ship rams into the side of a wooden sailing vessel - there is no destruction occurring at all, except for the slight percentage damage added to the ships damage stat - but this sometimes doesnt occur at all - ram a ship like this would certainly sink at least one of them outright

i will recommend the game because it is easy to play with and i think the graphics are nice enough, but with the above caveats about its shoddy collision physics and limited player controls

I wanted to love this game. History and alternate history stories have been a hobby of mine as far back as I can remember and the US Civil war is one of my favorite periods. The idea of the Confederates gaining the naval strength to go toe to toe with the Union navy is one of my favorite What Ifs of the war and there as so few naval foused games, especially set in this period, that it seemed like a match made in heaven.

Where things went wrong.

1: You can only control the flagship of a squadron directly. In fact you can't give any orders to the other ships at all and can't even order your ships into battle formation as far as I can tell.

2: The flagship's controls are far too clunky and the flagships will sometimes switch their engines to full reverse for no apparent reason.

3: Battles take forever even with the turbo speed option engaged. I played one battle for almost an hour. Not only was the battle not over but none of the 13 ships involved had been sunk or surrendered and the most heavily damaged had only taken around 65 percent damage. This ship started fleeing at 60 percent damage but fled through the heart of my nearest squadron guns blazing rather then running away and soon rejoined its squadron for their next pass.

4: There aren't enough ship classes in the game. There are six ship classes but each side only has three warship classes to choose from. Though I will say that I was pleasantly surprised when I realized they didn't just have both sides using the same ship classes they really need more choices in fleet makeup,

Interesting experience for this price. Not super fun but historically accurate for era.

This game is like an early alpha. There's only one mode of play - buy a fleet of ships then set them against eachother in a fleet action. In the battle phase of the game there's very little to actually do. Your ships are grouped into three squadrons and for each squadron you can pick a speed and course, and whether or not the ships can open fire or not. And that's pretty much the total gameplay. You can't pick your targets. You can't choose ammunition types. There's no damage control or firefighting. You can't grapple and board. Because the game is set in the "High Seas" (despite using river monitors!) the battles are in completely open ocean, without so much as an island to add variety. I finally gave up on this game when a ship ramming another amidships had absolutely no effect whatsoever.

Graphics are barely adequate, music and sound effects are okay. It's like someone started a project to do a naval combat game and got the code to the absolute minimal running state before abandoning it. You might be tempted to buy this if you see it cheap. Don't. However little you pay for it, you won't get your money's worth.

waste of space
looks good in the screen shots but the reality is a boring pointless game
no tutorial, no options, can't even turn the dire music off
so many way better naval games than the ironclads
even total wars do a better naval fight than this pile of crud

Well, I got this cos I'm quite a nerd for ironclad ships, but I think I really wasted my money even though I got it pretty cheap on sale. The gameplay is barely there, all you can do is steer your columns of ships and tell them when to start firing. you can't target specific enemy ships, you get very little info about the status of any ships. I was very dissapointed as I really wanted this game to be at least ok.

really sucks

This game is so bad I'm suprised it hasnt been pulled from the store.

I bought it, its now hidden from my library and will stay that way.

a very nice game.

for those who complain that there is no tutorial, i suggest that you consult the game manual.

its brief, clear and does the job.

for those who say its a slow boring game i suggest that realistic naval wargames are obviously not your thing.

this game is very tactical and rewarding.

my only complaint is that i can t turn the music off!

not worth it

GAME VIDEO SETTINGS:

SteamApps Folder (for example C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Ironclads High Seas\Config.exe)


REVIEWS:

100% Wargamer. The Wargamer is pleased to present Totem Games with an Award for Excellence due to exquisite modeling of ship graphics, clean, and simple interface, and study of a neglected topic. ( http://wargamer.com/article/2782/ironclads-high-seas )


93% SubSim. Simple and quick to understand, No complex table and keyboard commands to memorize. Great modeling, a rare subject. ( http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=143313 )


85% Armchairgeneral. Passed Inspection: Great graphics, challenging AI, realistic physics, nice interface, neglected topic, useful editor. Failed Basic: No multi-play, lack of weather and land. ( http://www.armchairgeneral.com/ironclads-high-seas-pc-game-review.htm )


SimHQ Review. Good - Value for the price/ Decent AI / Runs well on moderate hardware (and laptops) / Replayable. Could be Better - No multiplayer/ No custom missions / Water graphics too placid ( http://www.simhq.com/_naval/naval_027a.html )

I liked it,...it's not a fast game,...but..if you like to try out think the enemy...it's fun..and keep in mind the era of play.

Why did I bui this?
Slowest game ever. Takes forever to sink a ship, a real one would sink faster than that!