You know you're about to lose another run. But fear not, I bring some tips and tricks to get you started and extend your average run time in Dread Admiral!
Flagship Upgrades - you start with an Upgrade and Perks available to you. Before you do anything, go assign them. This will give you better Damage and XP at a minimum.
Consider playing Quick Battle to get acquainted with the Combat and learn what ships do.
Selecting a unit will detail all of their stats. Hovering your mouse over a button in game will often tell you what it does.
Putting your Ship in the same Hex as an enemy ship will allow them to deal bonus damage. These attacks can never be interrupted and are performed even if their Skirmish Damage would kill your ship!
In the Combat Phase, you and the Opponent take turns alternating activating ships. Prioritize sinking enemy ships that haven't activated and prioritize using your ships that could be sunk before they lose their chance!
In the first mission, your Flagship rules the seas. Use it to bully everything else out of the way so you can capture cities with your transport.
Armor subtracts damage from Skirmishes and Cannon fire. Torpedoes and Bombers deal full damage to units with Armor. This means you should bully non-armored ships with your Cruisers and Battleships, while prioritizing Battleships with your Subs and Carriers.
All non-submarine units supply at least 1 Flak to friendly hexes nearby. Keeping your fleet together will cause more planes to be shot down more consistently.
Use non-Carrier ships to move and block your opponents, keeping them from getting close to your Carriers or potentially keeping them from getting Destroyers to your Submarines.
PT Boats and Destroyers are equipped with Sonar, and all Carriers have Recon aircraft. Use the Sonar or Recon from these to reveal a Submarine for your Carriers to bomb, or use the Depth Charges on the PT Boat or Destroyer to destroy the Submarine by ending its movement in the Submarine's Hex.
Using Subs - Subs can fire with impunity on their opponent's turn, then be moved somewhere else so that the enemy can't easily detect them. Consider skipping a Sub's actions on your own turn so that you can get free shots on the opponent's. Submarines are also the only ship able to safely blockade a City while it's protected by Gun Forts.
Submarines are the only ships allowed to move through enemy ships.
Getting as many ships as you can to the exit area before you run out of time is your primary goal each map. Achieving objectives is optional. The exit area is marked in Yellow on your Minimap.
Aggressively capture cities as fast as you can.
Achieving mission objectives grants roughly double the XP, and even more if you're finishing Mission 3 of the Demo Campaign. This helps you gain additional Flagship upgrades.
City Population grants both Income and Victory Points, making Population Growth a powerful modifier if you build it early enough.
City Population also grants additional Black Fleet turns in the next map, buying you more time to earn money or accomplish objectives.
You can further delay the Black Fleet by earning Victory Points. Netting 10k, 15k, 25k, etc will yield more and more turns for your next missions. I often build a Downtown over a Refinery in order to maximize the amount of turns I'll get quickly.
If you have a lot of spare money, e.g. $150 or more, start building spare ships to leave behind. These can *alsogrant you additional turns in the next mission. The first breakpoint is at $50, which would be a Battleship + 2 PT boats.
These cause free damage to cities as well as prevent them from healing or building anything (perks notwithstanding). Blockading with a Transport even reduces the Income and Victory Point generation of the city!
As always, I appreciate all your feedback, and if you have any additional bug reports or Demo feedback!
I am always available to talk on our Community Discord Server!
You only lose by losing your Flagship.
I hope this helps you get started