Clad in Iron: Sakhalin 1904 Reviews

This is the best naval game I've played. No fools! Of course, we must understand that this is a somewhat old-fashioned game. But this is a good honest old-school wargame.

This is my 3rd game in Clad in Iron game series and I have to say it feels most polished of then, I seen Philippines was updated too but I didn't check it, so torpedoes are stable, ships are stable on x4 acceleration at least for my PC, water looks better, probably developers tuned it, from technical side I got not surprises. From gameplay side, it's a surprise! This game (at least on current state) is about torpedo destroyers, both sides have a lot of them, Russian Empire even 3 types including 25 tons super small boat. You shoot and shoot and again lots of torpedoes and get them from another side, it super fast and intensive, I spend in the first fight only 20 mins an finished it in auto-resolve when a result was on my side, and still I have a lot of ships to sank and harbors to take! I continue to play and probably update review soon.

The pinnacle of Totem Games work, Clad in Iron: Sakhalin 1904 expands upon all of the previous works by the devs and really demonstrate the skill and passion they have for the genre. The team has learned from the past and have made a fun, challenging, and absolutely beautiful game. I must warn you, it can be difficult to get into as there is no tutorial but there is a very useful manual and the controls are rather simple once you get the hang of it.

For those who love this period of history, this game fills a very satisfying and specific niche. For future titles it would be great to see a sandbox "custom battle" feature where players could play around and experiment with different ships and also practise their skills. Overall I'm looking forward to future titles!

At first, everything is incomprehensible, then everything is strange, and after understanding the basics of the game - excellent 10/10

New to this, but really enjoying it. It's strangely addictive. I bought ALL the modules in this series - the Clad in Iron series - and in the previous Ironclads 2 series. There's not too much difference between the two (I understand a change of publisher caused the title change). In the latest series there are a few more features in the strategic level game and somewhat more taxing graphics. (In the latest series the game looks deceptively simple, graphically, but if I set the sea settings to highest levels it still manages to really test my card, which is a GTX 1080 ti...) I think probably you have to be really into the strange beauty of these ships to get this series and get sucked in. It certainly feels like the devs (always very prompt and helpful in the forums) must be into producing these games for that very reason, for the love of the ships (and definitely not for the money, because this really is a niche within a niche...). The games are refreshingly eccentric in appearance and design choices, but always superbly stylish. They are certainly deceptively simple-looking. Playing them can be a gripping and absorbing experience, despite the fact that you can learn enough to get going simply by reading the short manual, which will take you all of ten minutes, max. Basically, there is a thin, board-game-like strategic layer - just enough to help convince you that your tactical battles matter and have consequences, fronting a beautifully drawn tactical layer. The tactical battles between a maximum of 8 ships each side are what this game is about. Staged in eerily beautiful calm-water seascapes representing sheltered coastal waters, the images are vaguely reminiscent of those nineteenth century paintings of such scenes which occur in the game documentation. Your options in battle are so clean and simple that you will probably think it's going to be predictable and easy, but that's far from the truth. Before writing this I just finished a battle in one of the earlier titles - the Pacific War title depicting a scrap between Chile and Peru - and at the beginning it was clear I had better ships with greater firepower - I should have won easily. As it progressed and my ships lumbered gracefully through placid, reflective waters, monstrously spewing pollutants into a clear blue sky, it looked for almost 2 hours (which is how long the battle took, though I used the faster setting between immediate engagements) as if I would easily win. After much careful manoeuvring, my 4 ships sank 3 of the 4 opposition. But then I made some steering mistakes with damaged, unresponsive ships and a disastrous collision sank one of my own ships and damaged another. The remaining AI ship then fought an excellent battle chasing my limping monitor whilst simultaneously evading my one fully functional ship. So in the end the result was far from what I had expected. Before that, in this game (Sakhalin) I learned just how difficult early torpedo-boat warfare could be, desperately trying to manage a 4 torpedo-boat attack against massive Japanese battleships. The torpedo boats have one fish only and you are so damaged by the time you get close enough to take your single chance that the whole thing is sacrificial - but the immersion is surprising as you wait to see whether your lone torpedo will hit its mark. Only one of my four torpedoes did, but it failed to detonate... I would recommend these games to anyone who has enjoyed Distant Guns, or Steam and Iron (or has an interest in the histories of these somewhat obscure conflicts), but mostly to those who can find these odd, hybrid boats beautiful and intriguing. The game gives you some choice, nicely-drawn boats to play with and the physics are detailed and correct enough to give things a level of realism that can really make for a challenge. A beautiful, odd little game.

If you know how an armored cruiser differs from a torpedo boat destroyer, why melinite is better than gunpowder, and what was the name of the Russian and Japanese admirals in the Tsushima battle, then I recommend this game to you. You will understand the rules, learn to use the interface and get your portion of pleasure.

My first impressions of the game are the most positive. I played almost all the games in the Ironclads series and I feel that this is the most rapid gameplay. Down with the agonizing wait until the monstrous 15-inch Dalgren’s finally finish reloading. Everything is fast here: shells from all sides, destroyers at full speed and torpedoes, torpedoes, torpedoes! All right, well... let's see what happens. UPDT I play on a tablet PC (Acer Aspire Switch 11). This is not the most powerful device, but it is enough to easily play in turned-based strategy mode. In real-time sim mode, I can still play at the minimum graphics settings. There are some problems, but I remind you that I have a tablet PC.

For those who have never played the Totems naval war-game’s: The first game in the Ironclads series was published 10 years ago. It was a very bad and very strange game. I played this game. Then there were more games. Each of them became better than the previous one, while retaining its own oddities. In the Clad in Iron games, all the original ideas of the series are finally fully realized. There is still not enough in-game tutorial, a custom battle mode and multiplayer. In addition, here is the strangest strategic turn-based system I've ever seen. This system has its own logic and works well within it, but this logic is not always based on common sense. For example, here one tiny ship can hold several large battleships at the harbor entrance for a whole week. Also surprised by the instant reaction of the computer AI to the player's actions. You forget about all this as soon as the game moves from the turn-based strategy mode to the real time sim mode. Here, the outdated old-fashioned interface hides the capabilities of a real admiral of the iron and steam age. The ships can change the formation, the guns are charged with different types of projectiles and are controlled automatically or manually and so on. All this may not be enough for beginners. If this happens, then do not rush to scold the developers. You just have to know that Totem Games is a group of like-minded people from different countries whose passion is the creation of naval games. They make these games for themselves and their friends, and if they do not know how to do something themselves, then they hire professionals. For example, look at the beautiful realistic 3d models of ships in their games, and you will understand that they are not wasting money. For those who have already played the Totems naval war-game’s: This scenario is about the Russian-Japanese war, there are swift destroyers and torpedo boats, mad shootouts and a lot of torpedoes. What else do you need? Come on!

I'll start with the most important - this game is unfriendly to newbies. There is no training or anything like that. To learn how to play, you need to read the user manual and watch some tutorial videos. In general, the game is nothing complicated, but you need to spend your time to figure it out. For a fan of naval war games like me, this is not a problem. No less important point on which depends the perception of the game - this is not a commercial project and this is not an indie. I bought the first game of this Ironclads series, when nobody heard about indie devs. All the money from the sale are investing in the new games in free time. Developers are actively communicating with players in social networks and forums as Grogheads, Subsim, Octopus, SimHQ etc. I did not have any technical problems. There is a large selection of graphics options. Saving and loading work fine. This is the most beautiful naval sim and war game I've ever seen. The change of weather and the effect of waves on the ship are very realistic. I like it. The UI of the Ironclads series has not changed for several years. On the one hand, he does his job well. On the other hand, everything is too small - both icons and fonts. I think that this game can be called historical war game. The developers responsibly approached the modeling of the situation around Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands at the beginning of the Russian-Japanese war. 3d ship models correspond to their historical prototypes. It is interesting to play strategy. The computer opponent tries to use all his strengths and does not forgive mistakes. I remember that some players do not like the ship movement system. Here everything is unchanged. This game has its own rules. Sometimes they are pretty abstract, but with this you can play and have fun. Playing the simulator is not boring. In this era, there were already fast warships, rapid-fire cannons and torpedoes. Usually you spend from 30 minutes to one hour for each fight. Generally, it is a short game. For 5-6 hours you can finish the game for one of the parties. That is, it takes about 12 hours to play for Russia and Japan. Of course, you can play more than once. Every time there is a new situation. I like this game and I recommend it to lovers of old-fashioned naval games.