Steel Division 2
Steel Division 2
Game
Game2023
Rule the Waves 3
Developer Naval Warfare Simulations
Rule the Waves III is a simulation of naval ship design and construction, fleet management and naval warfare from 1890 to 1970. From the Steam store page
204 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy) · newest Nov 4, 2026 · last updated Nov 4, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
81
LovedLoved
148 positive · 35 negative
95% range 75–86%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 148 | 35 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 5 | 0 | 6 |
| Lemmy * | 1 | 0 | 9 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
768 of 872 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
81% recommend · 145 yes, 35 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 180 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (954 of 1,092 positive).
Players describe it as a deep, addictive spreadsheet-like naval simulation. [1][2][3] Many praise the ship designer and historical accuracy, especially before 1945. [4][5][6] Some criticize the steep learning curve, poor UI, and AI issues. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [9]
A really, really good, fun idea with tons of potential ruined by absolutely god awful programming and a complete lack of any functional tutorial or even a basic glossary for terms. I say this as someone who enjoys and knows a fair chunk about naval combat and history. First, the game is vastly overpriced for what you get. It really is just a spreadsheet simulator. That is obvious just from looking at screenshots. …
- [2]
Rule the Waves 3 looks like Wikipedia and Excel had a kid… and then left it alone in a room full of warships. You boot it up and it’s just menus, numbers, charts, more numbers… like damn, where’s the “game”? But then it clicks and suddenly you’re obsessing over ship designs at 3am like a complete maniac, arguing with yourself about armor thickness and gun calibers like it actually matters. There’s no flashy action, …
- [4]
Excellent game. You are the Commander in Chief and Chief Designer. You are not the Head of State. You design the fleet within the constraints of the nation you pick. You then lead your fleet into battle if war breaks out. The game covers the years between 1890 and 1970. I found, however, that the game works best in the years before 1945 or so. Once jets and missile technology come on the scene, battles are harder to …
- [12]
It's the videogame equivalent of huffing paint thinners for a quick fleeting high in exchange for a permanent debilitating brain damage. It's awesome. At least often enough. Yes, the battle generator absolutely sucks. Yes, mostly everything possible in this game is unfair towards the player and not really fun. Yes, the AI cheats so hard it makes playing CS with Chinese look like an intelligent activity Yes, the …
- [8]
6.5/10 This is definitely what one might call a grognard game, and if you have a strong interest in warships, designing them, and creating a fairly period accurate fleet there really is no better option. It's not pretty but it's pretty satisfying. Couple big annoyances that make it a lot less fun: * The enemy fleet AI almost always runs away unless they have an overwhelming advantage. It's annoying and makes the …
Summarised from 34 of the 200 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 12, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Players who liked Rule the Waves 3 talk about deep and immersive naval simulation; those who didn't talk about steep learning curve and overwhelming UI. Which matters more to you?
Reactions
60 of 204 · most liked firstIts 1914, I have the biggest naval force I have ever commanded thus far. I have all my battleships, many destroyers and a battlecruiser acting as my scout. Our intention is to bombard French military positions on land near Nice, and by god I have bought some fire power to do it. As we near the French coast our scout, the battle cruiser Pompeo Magno reports the sighting of a ship. Its hard to tell at this stage, but it appears to be a light cruiser with a destroyer support force. Could it be…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It’s hard to write a comment like “after ~500 hours of playtime, I don’t recommend it” — but that’s more or less where I ended up. I’ve been with the series since Rule the Waves 1, and I think it has gone into a dead end. The series is at its best when it focuses on designing ships in the dreadnought era. It’s incredibly fun to juggle priorities for new cruisers and battleships, react to other nations, watch your designs become obsolete, and — most importantly — test them in combat.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Latest update ruined core parts of the game. It removed the ability to select values with the scroll wheel in the ship designer, no longer shows you how many ships you have selected in the fleet tab and it removed the feature to look at the fleet screen while the ship designer was open. On top of that the UI is less clear now it looks worse overall. The same issues remain from before it just looks worse now and it has cut functionality. The update has made the game worse and this review will…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If Microsoft excel was this addictive I would have been an extremely productive member of the society.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →* [*Oxygen Not Included*](https://store.steampowered.com/app/457140/Oxygen_Not_Included/) * [*Caves of Qud*](https://store.steampowered.com/app/333640/Caves_of_Qud/) * [*Fallout 4*](https://store.steampowered.com/app/377160/Fallout_4/). A lot of this is going to be due to mods. * [*Wargame: Red Dragon*](https://store.steampowered.com/app/251060/Wargame_Red_Dragon/). Intended to be played multiplayer; I played it single-player. *Steel Division II* is a far better single-player choice if…
neutral · AI labelView post →Rule the Waves 3 looks like Wikipedia and Excel had a kid… and then left it alone in a room full of warships. You boot it up and it’s just menus, numbers, charts, more numbers… like damn, where’s the “game”? But then it clicks and suddenly you’re obsessing over ship designs at 3am like a complete maniac, arguing with yourself about armor thickness and gun calibers like it actually matters. There’s no flashy action, no hand-holding, nothing pretty to look at. It’s just pure systems, and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →to me, over 1000 hours in this game, all i can say is it is everything i wanted, is it perfect?, no...is anything? is it what i enjoy?, yes...is that not what you want in a game? so that is my review
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If I have a nickel each for owning a naval based game with mechanic so complicated that it's gonna take me forever to understand let alone play, I have 2 nickels. (Rule the Waves 3 & Nebulous)
neutral · AI labelView post →spent 3 years building a brand new flagship as japan in 1920 with the highest technology of the time. war with china. deploy my battleship line, 20 strong, to face their 5 bbs, 2 cls, and 1 dd. their one dd speeds through my line at like 40 knots fires one torpedo sunk the next tick after firing hits my flagship once ruptures the magazine fires spread major flooding flagship sunk 10/10 game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Seems the developer is EA-pilled. Releasing a paid DLC for a game with an already absurd price point. Should have been just a regular content update.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fix flooding ships killing themselves by going full speed when entering AI mode
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →rule the waves 3 is a game about edging world tension in attempt to avoid naval conflict while getting the government to spend more on the naval budget so you can build more and bigger boats
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Excellent game. You are the Commander in Chief and Chief Designer. You are not the Head of State. You design the fleet within the constraints of the nation you pick. You then lead your fleet into battle if war breaks out. The game covers the years between 1890 and 1970. I found, however, that the game works best in the years before 1945 or so. Once jets and missile technology come on the scene, battles are harder to manage and at least to me are actually less interesting. The graphics are…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is the best Microsoft Excel mod I've ever seen.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The rest of my family makes fun of me playing "the spreadsheet game." If that sounds like you, then you will enjoy this game. This game has incredible depth. Design warships, manage your budget, plan the fleet composition, research new technology, conduct espionage, set training priorities, supervise your officers, and then take it all to war. The game does a great job modeling the march of technology from pre-dreadnought technology, through the development of submarines and aircraft, all…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the aluminum superstructure refits of 1940s heavy cruisers will continue until shipyard capacity improves
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A really, really good, fun idea with tons of potential ruined by absolutely god awful programming and a complete lack of any functional tutorial or even a basic glossary for terms. I say this as someone who enjoys and knows a fair chunk about naval combat and history. First, the game is vastly overpriced for what you get. It really is just a spreadsheet simulator. That is obvious just from looking at screenshots. What is not obvious is the absolute lack of any meaningful tutorial, tooltips to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's the videogame equivalent of huffing paint thinners for a quick fleeting high in exchange for a permanent debilitating brain damage. It's awesome. At least often enough. Yes, the battle generator absolutely sucks. Yes, mostly everything possible in this game is unfair towards the player and not really fun. Yes, the AI cheats so hard it makes playing CS with Chinese look like an intelligent activity Yes, the tactical AI is at a level of a lobotomized cucumber. Yes, the enemy AI still seems…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really want to like this game, and it has its moments, but its just not worth it. The designing process and macromanagement aspect are really nice, but the second it comes to war, this game turns into a CBT simulator. The AI eats ♥♥♥♥ and loves hugging the coast, the battle generator makes you feel like the person in charge of strategy justs wants you to die and 90% of battles there isnt even a fight, because you wont find the enemy
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm going to be honest. As cool as this game seems. I'm going to just voice a pet peeve. Why dose every navel game where you build and research you own fleet have to always start exactly in 1890? I get that's around the time the Dreadnought was built. But why the hell not start in the 1850's with the advent of the iron clad? Or the 1810's with the dawn of steam powered vessels? Those are very important moments in history that I think would be fascinating to include. I mean, isn't the point of a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I may have autism
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →> Be me > Be Italy > Go 30 years in the game, fighting wars etc etc > So far have Corsica, Greece, Rhodes, 2 chinese port city's, AND midway (which has oil) > Get into a 4 way war > Somehow leave with no border changes > Great success Great game, if you are unsure, watch a video or two to see if it is your style
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Concept is great, ship designer is great, but the battle generator ruins it all. You surprise an inferior enemy... that has a vastly more powerful fleet. You organise ships into squadrons that are then ignored. You design your own fleet, but are powerless to control how it operates.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Genuinely a fun game once you figure out how to work the game. The naval designer is possibly the single most in-depth ship designer I've ever seen, to the point where I feel the game manual does not go in depth enough.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Rule the Waves 3 is one of those games that greets you with a serious “What am I looking at?” the first time you fire it up. The UI is tiny, clunky, and completely overwhelming — it’s like the entire Rule the Waves team decided to bring back Microsoft Excel from last century. Buttons, menus, and stats everywhere. Honestly, I felt like a poor admiral lost at sea, desperately flipping through an ancient manual while my nation’s fleet just sat there doing nothing. BUT once you survive that…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good game but currently broken due to the inbalance of the battle generator , there's been many requests to explain or fix the system but either the Dev does not understand it himself or is unable to fix it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm seriously struggling to actually like this game. It's a bit like Ultimate Admiral;Dreadnoughts. The ship design function is a little better, but the way the "battles" pan out seems to have been borrowed from that title. It really, really sucked there too. An enemy fleet will be in your waters. You'll have 9 battleships, a handful of cruisers and other ships in the area. It will load you into the fight with 1 cruiser and nothing else. Just WTF? I'm over the time limit to get a refund, which…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is easily, one of the most brilliant naval warfare games on the market. If you have come down with a case of 20th century warship autism (like me), you will like this game. If you want to design pretty ships, go to Ultimate Admiral. If you want to design real ships, that have to fit a purpose, that have to fit a role, that have to fit your budget? You play Rule the Waves 3. I've been playing this series since I picked up Rule the Waves 2 (wasn't available on steam). The game follows a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Rule the waves 3 is a bit of a mixed bag for me. The game before the late 1910s is fantastic. Particularly the dreadnought battles between the other nations and the funky designs you can make. However as soon as I begin using aircraft carriers in any of my games it starts showing the massive AI advantage. They always know where you fleet is and their aircraft do much more damage than yours. CAP does not seem to work at all either which makes this part of the game very disappointing. For this…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The bones of this look very promising, but the complete lack of UI/UX basics is hard to understand. e.g. one shouldn't be able to select technologies that aren't researched yet, e.g. selecting DD as a class should prevent selecting parameters that invalidate the build for that class... basic. While it's interesting to me, I can't in good conscience recommend it to other players.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is the best fleet simulator I have found. Fantastic game with so much replay value.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I would absolutely recommend this game to anyone who's curious about playing. Rule the Waves 3 may seem complex from its UI, but I learned it quickly after only a few tutorials. I would recommend playing with a small fleet in the 1890's start date. I thought I would hate the 1890's, but playing this game has made me appreciate all the time periods of naval warfare represented in it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →PLEASE LOWER THE PRICE!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →That's a lot of different categories. I like naval warfare games, but I tend towards the sim side, not the "experience being someone there" sort. The naval warfare game that I have played the most of recently is [*Rule the Waves 3*](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2008100/Rule_the_Waves_3/). That's definitely not an eye candy game, but it models the design and development of warships from 1880 into the Cold War, the construction of fleets, and the tactics when they meet, has a lot of…
neutral · AI labelView post →I love this game. The designing, the managing and the combat aspects are so so good. But what screws everything up is the RNG. What do you mean that I just designed the best fleet on the world and won wars just to get my run tossed out the window by a random event? And it´s not just a bump, it´s run destroying. 10 hours in I run I was doing very good just to instantly get my budget reduced three times and plus enter war with Britain, which I couldn´t afford since I had to put my whole fleet on…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Really great spreadsheet simulator.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Qualified thumbs up. This game is for you only, repeat only, if you are a naval history enthusiast, or about to become one. This mostly means naval history from 1890 to about 1945, as the game starts slowly coming apart in different ways as it moves into the missile age. Where the game shines is in how it reflects naval technology, ship design and their development. The ship designer, while absolutely terrifying, is actually pretty good. The game also has a pretty ok way to simulate great…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →>There's room in the market for a huge number of regular games, but with live-service games, only a handful of winners can ever really succeed, creating an eye-watering risk profile for any new entrant into the market. Ehhh. I mean, I agree with the general idea that there have been far too many live-service games chasing too few players, but I think that it's probably possible to create lower-budget, niche-oriented live service games that appeal very strongly to a particular group rather…
neutral · AI labelView post →Great game. Deep naval warfare simulation. Steep learning curve. Immersive. If you're into historical Naval warfare Simulations this one is for you. Give it a shot.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game should be right up my alley. I am a massive nerd for naval history, I love RTS games, and I love designing things, let alone all 3 in the same game. And yet, upon opening it, I feel like a kid told to design and operate a nuclear reactor with no help every time. The game does not explain how the design system works, it is not hands on at all and is really just changing numbers on a spreadsheet, and the "guide" included with the game does not help with my confusion at all. And that's…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Some interesting ideas, but the game is poorly documented and buggy. Like playing CMANO with slightly less tactical depth. The AI also isn't good enough to pose a real challenge, although that's fairly typical for this genre. (edit after trying it again) this is a great example of how to make a game that *looks* like it has a lot of depth and meaningful optimization/decision-making, but bungled so horribly that none of those decisions actually matter. take the ship designer for example. it has…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The management part of the game is good. In theoery the battle part is good aswell HOWEVER whoever was responsible for the battle generator should never EVER touch a PC again because ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ why the ♥♥♥♥ am i building an entire ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ battle fleet when i can only use TWO(2) destroyers in my HOME WATERS. What is the point of the entire game when the game refuses to allow me to use anything other than useless destroyers? Why am i building dreadnoughts when i am not allowed to use them?
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Creating ships, commanding the navy great. Fleet battle system terrible. Just add an option for autoresolve.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It starts as a decent game but its a lie, once you get past the novelty of it you realise its basically just a less rewarding gambling addiction, RNG controls everything in this game and its really biased against the player, for example there is a serious biased battle generator that will almost always put you at a serious disadvantage, allowing the enemy to outnumber you 3-1. A complete lack of control in your own operations ie - Yeah the enemy is invading your territory from the sea but you…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →6.5/10 This is definitely what one might call a grognard game, and if you have a strong interest in warships, designing them, and creating a fairly period accurate fleet there really is no better option. It's not pretty but it's pretty satisfying. Couple big annoyances that make it a lot less fun: * The enemy fleet AI almost always runs away unless they have an overwhelming advantage. It's annoying and makes the battles too easy most of the time because the path finding is so bad single…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pretty good game. Bonus points for being able to play at work.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →top tier naval sim for nerds
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Among the games I've recently played and enjoyed: * Nova Drift * Rule the Waves 3 * Dominions 6 Those are all one- or two-man efforts. I also like some games with much larger teams, but I'm not sure that things are simply getting bigger.
positive · AI labelView post →The battle system is just ridiculous. Too much is left to chance as to which ships in an area will meet. It's so difficult to get an equalized battle to happen. I'm all for realism. Heck, no one who has spent the time necessary to learn this game (as I did) would play it if it wasn't for realism. BUT, you have to build enough fun into the game, even if it means allowing more equalized engagements than real life would allow. Sorry, the algorithms just aren't fun enough to get good match-ups.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The idea is amazing, but this is incredibly outdated, especially for the cost
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a spreadsheet game for a certain niche. It's good fun for a while. Some things are goofy (can't take a nation's homeland, so nations like Austria-Hungary linger unless you have a later start date) and planes are super pivotal. For this time in history, it's a solid game made with passion, even if you have to have a bunch of housekeeping tasks along the way.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fantastic game, but only if you are a big naval history nerd. Definitely not for the average casual gamer. Main screen looks like a spreadsheet so maybe you can get away with playing it at work.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game i enjoy making battleships at 50.000 tons with 9 17 inch main guns and 8 13 inch secondary's and tough armor no speed and watching the ai just up and run away after i kill 1 of there ships with 1 well placed volley lol. 10/10
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Played for a bit. Its raw, mostly just running spread sheets I guess. I love naval history and could get past that, but the ship building is complex and making some parts of the ships (the line drawing) is just too tedious even for me. I do like naming the ships, running the tech, assigning captains and admirals. I think this game does have potential, but its just not there for me today and certainly not at this price.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a fine game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Well, it depends. I mean, I play rather newer games that I suspect either can handle fine, but they're light on 3D rendering. [*Nova Drift*](https://store.steampowered.com/app/858210/Nova_Drift/) is one favorite. That exited Early Access this year. I play it regularly. But...it just uses 3D hardware for some lightweight effects. *goes to see what minimum system requirements are* Yeah, that actually lists your older Intel integrated GPU, the one on the MacBook, as being the minimum…
neutral · AI labelView post →Hmm. "Strategy" is pretty broad. Most of the new stuff you have is turn-based, but you've got tactics stuff like X-COM and strategy stuff. If we're including both real-time and turn-based, and both strategy and tactics...What do I enjoy? I tend to lean more towards the milsim side of strategy... * [*Stellaris*](https://store.steampowered.com/app/281990/Stellaris/). Lot of stuff to do here -- follows the Paradox model of a ton of DLCs with content and lots of iteration on the game. Not…
neutral · AI labelView post →Not giving the player any control over when you end a war is easily the worst design choice i have ever seen in a strategy/simulation game. The sheer stupidity of fighting a war for 2 years and having no oppertunity to end a war that started for undisclosed reasons other than ''tension'' and forcing you to fight pointless battles where the AI either has a clear numbers advantage despite you having litteraly your entire fleet stationed in the same seabord as the AI. Or you are given the most…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The ship design and strategic aspects are interesting and unlike anything else out there, but the battles are tedious and boring - whether you do it yourself or have the AI manage everything. I would give anything for a one-click autoresolve that quickly generates battle results. It seems like such an easy and obvious feature, and I cannot understand why it is not included.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's one of the worst pieces of software that I've seen. Game have a decent simulator, all RNG based, which is not a bad thing, but it has nothing to do with real physics and real ships. But the implementation, omg. Game runs as slideshow, literally. UI is incosistent and really badly implemented. Don't even dream about being able to read text there on hi-res monitor. I'm genuinely thinking that the game would benefit a lot if devs port it to excel. We would have actually nice fonts, proper…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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