It launched on 18th August, 2006 and at first only featured the big four naval powers (Germany, Japan, America and the UK); a later update added the French navy, then another added the Soviet navy, and the Italian navy is due who-knows-when.
Provides examples of:
- Allegedly Free Game: Ranting aside, until very recently, players were actually forced to pay in order to continue playing after level 30. (For those unfamiliar with the game, that's not long.) Some players have premium accounts because it entitles you to a minimum of +1000 experience and a x10 exp multiplier overall for battles.
- As the game enters steady decline in recent years, however, it is increasingly being less of this trope. General increase of exp gain, combined with events after events that shower players with exp boosts, otherwise-paid items or in some cases the premium currency itself makes leveling up a usable crew much easier than it used to be. On the other hand, the newly-introduced World at War gamemode, where most sailor ability caps are either lifted or raised, remains a safe haven for players who heavily invest in the game to duke it out with each other and eat free players for breakfast.
- Boring, but Practical: The FFs and DDs, beginner ships with little in the way of firepower or armour, but their speed and small size make them harder to hit. They can also spot enemy submarines while submerged and can hit them with torpedoes and depth charges, making them the best anti-sub defence for the big ships.
- Scout aircraft. They're slow, generally unable to shoot down enemy aircraft, incapable of directly attacking enemy ships and quite easy to get shot down, but has a very large sight radius and can be carried by most battleships, where they are absolutely essential as all battleship guns vastly outrange the ship's own sight radius and require scouts for maximum efficiency.
- Cool Boat: All the end-game battleships.
- Glass Cannon: Ships that are all guns and engine, and no armour. Very fast with plenty of firepower, but will often die from the first salvo fired at them. Many players go so far as to completely neglect armor and just go with Bulkhead and Bulge, which are Endurance and Toughness respectively — one lets you keep fighting no matter how badly you're banged up, and the other lets you soak up torpedoes before you actually die.
- Mighty Glacier: Most battleships, with exceptional armour and heavy guns, but a large turning circle. Surprisingly, not all that slow either, capable of short high-speed dashes. And improbably maneuverable, as they can roughly turn on a dime.
- With appropriate crew, battleships can maintain the said high-speed dashes for several minutes before having to slow down, making them temporary Lightning Bruiser when it is active.
- It is played more straight by players who install massive amount of extra deck armor on their battleships, a process that requires sacrificing speed and sometimes firepower to achieve, but results in a ship so tough that most normal shells fired by other battleships hardly scratch off its paint.
- Macross Missile Massacre: But with torpedoes; see
Game-Breaker. Not only can the Japanese Kitakami do this, but the Russian destroyers can too. - Point Defenseless: Dependent on the ability of the sailors and pilots involved — an elite AA gunner on a battleship can take down a full squadron of rookie torpedo bombers in seconds, while a rookie gunner on a destroyer will probably not even get a hit against low-flying elite fighter pilots.
- Sea Mine: Players can set them.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Some surface ships take out their aggression on a submersible.
- Water Level: Duh!
