September Digest #3

World of Warships

I am getting used to the routine of playing the NA account during the wee hours after midnight and the SEA account later in the day, around mid-morning. 

NA account
Acquired a couple more ships. Concentrating on four tech lines: Japan, USA, UK, and Pan-America because these are the ships acquired when I started.

Later, while relaxing I saw Trenlass opening the 130 Supercontainers using his earned Festive tokens. It was funny because he has all the ships, and was getting excited over getting mostly signals. Funny guy. Foreshadowing perhaps? 

SEA account
Lunchtime I logged in and began earning Festive tokens to put on the Battle of Santiago de Cuba crates for the collection mosaic tiles. 

Then logged out after making sure to first grab the 1200 Holiday Convoy tokens AND make the exchange for 3000 doubloons. 

Calculate I will need to convert all the Tier IX festive tokens to complete the Collection and grab the Spanish Unique commander. 

Yimeng completed the Holiday Convoy token missions. Was planning to play two others - Karl XIV Johan and Prins van Oranje but was having too much fun that I decided to complete the five missions with her alone. 

Lots of dakka dakka coming from her. Her secondaries are full-on and menacing. Meanwhile her mains gobbled up health points like nothing. Even went brawling into a nest of cruisers with her. Sank two with gunfire (mains and secondaries) and rammed the third. Lots of fun.

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Change of strategy after viewing a few WOW YT streamers opening up 130 Supercrates. Seems to be a thing, an opportunity I had initially dismissed as pointless. But now it looks like I'll be doing the same. It means ensuring there are enough Festive tokens for the 130 Supercrates while also having enough to complete the collection and grab the Spanish commander. Fortunately I have enough ships to follow this change of plan. 

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The situation with the NA account currently reminds me of the time when I joined back in early 2019. I got discouraged for a long while when I had around twenty-seven ships. I couldn't quite get the hang of the game. This was when I was playing Randoms as well as Ranked before I twigged to the toxicity in both battle modes. My commitment at the time was quite casual as I was also playing other PC games. And for a while WOWS was never of high interest, and thus I walked away from it for several month, not returning in earnest until early 2020. 

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Monday was a particularly long grind on my usual SEA account. Primarily did so in order to earn enough Festive tokens to exchange for Supercrates, and complete the Santiago de Cuba collection so I could grab Pascual Cervera y Topete, the Spanish Unique commander. 

Got the commander but could only nab ninety of the one hundred and thirty crates before I decided to call it a night and resume tomorrow for the remainder. 

Nice haul of doubloons, coal, premium days, economic bonuses and signals for the effort however so I am not complaining apart from the usual in-game gripes grinding for the rewards. Signals looking more healthier than before with the boost provided by the Super crates loot. 

Started just after nine this morning and finished just now. It's half past midnight.

Now I'm going to log in to the NA account and play the five games for the Holiday Convoy tokens. Then log out. 

NA Account
I forgot about the Orion '44. Got that to add to my growing NA port fleet. Jurua is a decent enough DD (especially in comparison to the current tech tree line DDs I'm grinding). Placed Jose Padilla Lopez on her, and am actually having fun with it. 

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Grind today on my SEA account (Tuesday) allowed me to nab the remaining forty Supercrates. Got doubloons, steel, coal, economic bonuses and, once again, lots of signals from the opening.

No ship but I wasn't really expecting it. 

Still have to convert Festive tokens for steel from my superships. Once done, that's it. I can sort of relax until the next Update.

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NA Account
Exhausted from yesterday's long grind so skipped the NA account last night. After a decent long sleep I jumped on early this morning (Wed) and played the five for Holiday Convoy tokens grind. 

Then acquired four new ships for the Japanese line - Mutsuki, Agano, Furutaka, Kongo. And played them for their festive tokens and the current 200% bonus port fleet deal. This brings the port fleet total to 33 ships of which two are premiums - Jurua and Orion '44.  

Of course, this plan will inevitably change or even cease as your port fleet increases and priorities change. 

The 11th Anniversary Festive tokens page is pretty much a spectator affair for my NA account simply because I don't have enough Festive token for exchange. Focus therefore is different as a result. Do I get a super crate? Or economic bonuses? Signals even? There's another 20-odd days left with the event so no rush to make a decision just yet. See how much I can accumulate.

Interesting to see a lot more violators on this server than in SEA servers. Lot more chat though, probably because there are lot more English-speakers. Learned part of lingo. "glhf" stands for good luck, have fun. I think. Don't see it on the SEA servers...well, not in Co-Op. 

Today I got hazed by a friendly CV who kept water bombing me while I was trying to play the game in the Orion '44. 

SEA Account
Usual Holiday Convoy token grind. 

Grabbed the steel with the Festive. Surplus Festives used to grab a few Red Steel Titan crates. Thus am done with the 11th Anniversary Festive rewards. 

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NA Account
Playing a day behind (Brisbane domiciled) can be confusing. It's Thursday local time but Wednesday US time. 

Change of plans regarding the broader altruistic aim of "playing for free". 

Figured out a simple plan to get a regular monthly amount of doubloons and premium days while starting out. Only applying this to the NA server account. For AUD20 per Update, you can obtain a total of 3000 doubloons and 2 premium days using the combined 2500 Doubloon and Weekend Pass packages. And still have change left over! The value is that you can spend those doubloons to obtain up ten port slots (in two 5-port bundles). This is beside the two premium days. This will cover any shortfalls generated by upgrading ship lines. 

It's a workable solution to deal with expenditure that isn't whimsical and wasteful. Instead of randomised and often grand spending I am moving towards one that's controlled, planned and constrained. 

Will start with the AUD20 per Update plan, and last long enough until I've accumulated enough resources to dispense with this spending plan. 

To fast track upgrading tech tree line, do not buy the mods. Research them, yes, but don't spend credit  to install them. Only spend credit to upgrade to the next ship. Later, at your leisure, spend on whatever mods you want. Of course, you will be customising the specific ship to your playstyle. 

Routine thus far is around 10pm log into NA account. 

Noticing that the latest updates come earlier on the NA server than the SEA server. As with the new Three Kingdoms event when I logged in last night (Wednesday).

Overpriced and really not worth pursuing. You get one free crate for playing so many games but there's no explanation to explain how and why. Not refusing the green economic bonuses received but not willing to try for more when it's one in five hundred chance of a ship drop!! Lol. No thanks. And it seems some - if not all - of these "new" ships are just recycled existing ships. 

SEA Account
Usual five-ship Holiday Convoy tokens grind routine today (Thursday). 

Focus was on the 20-pt skilled captains. Got enough to upskill two to 21 points but I'm holding back for now. A plan might be obtain at least seventy-five per cent commander XP before spending Elite Commander XP points to finish the job.  

Above is why I'm not bothering with this Update's Dockyard event. It's a grind I don't want to participate in because I've done it so many times in the past. It really is a grind. Thirty thousand base XP is a really arduous grind in Co-Op. At least one hundred games to reach that total (based on averages). Maybe less in Operations or Asymmetric. But it's still hard yakka (mind wanders at times during play). 

Ten million credits can be reached relatively easily but isn't going to happen in a few games. And commander XP can be achieved quicker when using economic bonuses. But why would you bother if all you play is Co-Op? And why squander such a valued resource needlessly?

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