Sea Power : Naval Combat in the Missile Age Reviews

Microprose is a company that's been making war games since the Commodore 64 days. Sea Power continues that tradition with an expansive game that brings naval combat into the (mostly) modern age. Bringing the huge number of moving parts in any ship, much less flotilla of ships, down to a system a single player can control is no small feat. Sea Power strikes a decent balance between detail and streamlining. Keeping track of many units between air, sea, and even land can be overwhelming at times, but luckily as a single player game- time can be slowed or fully paused. The exhaustive list of units and variants means no two scenarios play out the same. One time you might curb stomp the other side with ease, while running the scenario again may see half your fleet being sunk. This is a game that heavily relies on user-created content in the workshop. There are a limited number of pre-made scenarios and a fairly complicated custom scenario maker. The Workshop is stuffed with new units and scenarios to try. A chief complaint is that despite an encyclopedia, there isn't enough detail for doctrine and systems employment. For example you may get access to recon or EW assets- but little info on how to actually use them well. What altitude should you set your EW planes? Do helicopters need to fully stop to use dipping sonar? How high should you set SEAD planes? The encyclopedia offers a lot of background but very little practical application information. Well worth your time and money, people familiar with Microprose will nod approvingly. Sea Power is only getting better as more people add mods and scenarios to the workshop.

I have played this game FAR too much. It scratches that itch for naval and submarine and all round warfare that doesn't involve paywalls or multiplayer. There is a good following, and the mod community is astounding. This is still in early access, therefore, there are some bugs, but very rarely gamebreaking. The learning curve is relatively straightforward and easy to master, and devs are al;ways adding more. Modding community adds even MORE to the game with upgrades and the devs are of the opinion that YOU decide how you play the game. It can be goiing very quiet, nothing happening at all. Radar is calm, no enemy units detected. Suddenly you hear 'Vampire! Vampire! Vampire!' and it kicks off. You can go from 0-60 in a moment! over 800 hours ijn game... This is, by far, my favourite 'Go to' game... Thoroughly recommend if you love naval combat and lived through the 70s, 80s or 90s, watching films like Hunt for Red October, Crimson Dawn, Behind Enemy Lines, Final Countdown etc...

A fun game, even though it's more or less alpha at the moment. You can set up your own battles and the hours just fly by. It's going to be a very good game when finished. Sometimes controlling your assets gets a bit arcane, and you have to do a lot of micro managing as the ai isn't quite there yet.

honestly, its alright. people call it the spiritual successor to cold waters, as of April 2025 it is not that. this is a very different game in most ways, this is more a strategy whereas cold waters is a sub sim. the game is fun, i enjoy playing it quite a bit. it also needs development, and i am personally looking forwards to the dynamic campaign that i heard about. the workshop really expands the possibilities , there are so many brilliant creators on there that compliment the brilliant dedication of the game devs. as a brit, i really look forwards to non US and USSR units in sea power. would reccomend but with a warning that the game is in development.

You should buy this game if you really into naval game, and willing to put up with many bugs and annoying things in this game. For me [b]nothing came close to the depth and complexity that this game brings, while still absolutely playable to someone who is not an expert on naval system / naval strategy[/b], it's simply the best naval game I've ever played. Otherwise, if you don't want to deal with any of the bugs and annoyances, put it on your wishlist, and check again after few months (or maybe a year). Here's some annoying thing that you should expect: - The AI really sucks: -- AI ships often stuck in "avoiding collision" when rearranging formations -- AI aircraft is dumb as rock, doing convulted "performing pursuit" when ordered to attack, or sometimes even just crashed into the ground when doing a low-level bombing run. You really need to micro-manage them to make them work. -- AI aircraft carrier cannot properly use their air wing, once in a blue moon, they send some flight of aircraft to you or something, but most of the time, they just act like other surface ship, pointlessly taking their air wing to sail across the sea - Ground unit sometimes spawned in the wrong place, for example, sometimes you will find an airbase spawned underwater - The game performance feels really unoptimized, and can absolutely eat all your CPU & RAM, especially on more complex missions. - etc. I can't be more happy that this game actually exists, and cannot wait for the devs to keep pusing on fixing and refining the stuff, and make this game much more enjoyable than it currently is.

Fantastic option for those obsessed with modern high-tech combat. A good balance between realism and fun. You don't really need a manual to play, but if that is your style, learning about the tactics behind late Cold War weapon systems will be helpful.

If you are interested in complex military strategy during the Cold War, you will almost certainly love this game. The attention to detail and sheer scale of the game is genuinely fantastic, and really pretty unmatched as far as I’m aware. I think if you’re expecting something a bit more casual or fast paced you may be disappointed, and there are certainly some bugs and features which are not yet implemented. But the foundation is rock solid and would highly recommend it provided you are aware of what the game involves. There’s some great videos of missions on YouTube, check them out first! The mission editor and ease of modding (so I’m told) also means there is a huge amount of replayability with new missions and campaigns appearing on the workshop for free all the time. Well worth your time, and clearly a game from a team which are very passionate about what they make

The game is fun to a point, but it has some REALLY screwed up capabilities that will screw you. Russian missles are frequently shot in vast quantities at at least 3-4x times their actual range IRL. So you get hordes of Russian missles fired from a distance that is easily 3x your effective range, in quarnties that you can't possibly beat. When you launch your missles, the Russian jammers, notoriously ineffective, will render your 16 harpoons useless as they crash into the ocean. And this is a jammer on a 1963 Russian Destroyer. The realism in other areas is impressive, but it seems like instead of putting interesting logic into the Russian threat, they've just been given ridiculous quantities of weapons and had their ranges tripled "to make it fair", which doesn't "make it real". The mission editor is a fun aspect of the game allowing you to create your own scenarios, just don't put a Russan SAG with 2 heavy missle cruisers because they will have approximately 15,000 SSM's to fire at you, 26,000 SAMs to defeat your missles, and jammers that are infallable.

This is the successor of Jane's Fleet Command. Those missions are even available in the workshop. Fleet command was one of my favorite games when I was younger. Just as Jane's Fleet Command was, this game is fantastic. Although Jane's Fleet Command is basic, as is this, it is a nice time to turn off the brain in between sessions of Command Modern Operations. If you are not yet ready to tackle Command, or you want a more arcade and laid back naval simulation game similar to Fleet Command, look no further. Very happy with this purchase.

This is a tricky one. In my mind, this game is great when you are commanding a small task group of 1-3 surface assets for example in well designed, low to medium intensity scenarios and terrible when commanding fleets in high intensity situations. What do I mean by this? Well, if the player wishes to be efficient they have to micro almost everything from firing individual missiles at individual incoming threats, clicking on individual aircraft in a flight to make sure they all drop their ordnance on the same targets, micromanaging aircraft during a dogfight, micromanaging individual weapon usage.... It gets really exhausting and tiresome after a while because you just cannot trust the AI to do things sensibly. On top of that, there are still a number of incredibly irritating bugs / issues still present. My all time personal favourite is aircraft lawndarting into the ground / water when engaging low flying air targets and certain ground targets. I mean, really? Come on. Again, the amount of babying you need to do to make sure it doesn't happen is tiresome. Another super annoying one is when certain ships in a formation will just stop moving randomly, for no good reason though that one is easily fixed. The devs have made some good progress on making the user experience better since the game first dropped but it still has a long way to go to iron out the major irritations. Loads of promise in this game and I do enjoy it to a point and I hope to enjoy it more as and when the devs are able to refine it more.