Frequently Asked Questions

Naval Estimates: The Dreadnought Age is a naval grand strategy wargame set in the era of dreadnought battleships. The game focuses on deep design, management and construction of ships and fleet, and tactical combat.

Nothing. Naval Estimates will be free, in the tradition of deep, community-driven simulations like Dwarf Fortress Classic and Aurora 4X: complex, long-lived, transparent, and built with its players.

That changes what we ask of players. Rather than wishlists and purchases, the invitation is to play, test, share designs, report problems, and help shape the simulation.

The game focuses on the dreadnought age, beginning in 1900 and following the rapid technological and political changes of the early twentieth century. The first installment will focus on the period up to 1930, with extensions planned as development continues.

The planned playable nations include the eight major naval powers of the time: the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Japan and Austria-Hungary.

In addition, a number of naval minor powers is also playable: Sweden, the Netherlands, Turkey, China, Spain, Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Greece.

The game begins from a historical world, but it is not intended to simply replay history.

Nations have their own strengths, limits, geography, fleets, budgets and strategic problems, but decisions made during play can push events in different directions. The aim is to capture the pressures of the period, not force a fixed timeline.

Ship design is built around the major decisions naval architects and governments had to make: displacement, speed, armour, armament, machinery, range, cost and construction time. This includes a dedicated designer for naval guns and their mountings.

Tactical combat is planned as part of the game, but focus is shared with the long-term development of the navy: designing ships, managing programmes, responding to rivals, and making decisions before the battle ever begins.

Naval Estimates shares a lineage with both - it is a naval grand strategy wargame born of years spent playing and modding games like them - but it makes different choices.

Compared with Rule the Waves, the engineering goes deeper: guns, mountings and hulls are designed individually in dedicated designers rather than chosen from broad parameters, so the design decisions of the period are yours to make in full. Compared with Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts, the centre of gravity is the long game - budgets, programmes and rival navies - rather than standalone battles.

And Naval Estimates is free, built openly with its community rather than sold as a product.

There is no final release date yet. The project has been in development since December 2025.

The first free public build will showcase the core ship design systems, and is planned for 24 July 2026, released free on itch.io and playable in your browser.

The first public build will focus on the design side of the game, covering gun, turret and ship design systems.

The current plan is for the first public build to be set in 1905 with a semi-guided experience around building the first dreadnought as the Royal Navy. You will also be able to disable the tutorial and simply explore the designers freely.

Players will be able to save and share their Dreadnought designs, and a weekly design competition will be run on the Discord.

The first free public build runs in the browser, hosted on itch.io - there is nothing to download or install, and system requirements are minimal.

The optional 3D ship viewer needs WebGL, which any up-to-date browser provides.

A downloadable version will follow as an option soon after the initial web release.

Naval Estimates is an independent passion project by Elouda, built on decades of interest in naval history and warship engineering, and shaped by years of modding naval wargames. The full story is on the About page.

You can follow @NavalEstimates on Twitter/X or Bluesky, and join the Discord to get regular development snippets and additional information.