The Zara has weird angles but the high angle shots at max range (35-50) remind me of playing SY, so if you are not in hobbit war or are able to stay back in that map, you can with some guesswork be effective, but as sub said they reload so fast that once you get in close it is all owver for the other guys.

the BB regina marherita, now this is a funny ship, cant see the shells land on main guns, but the spread seems nice with bve sailors. switched to a single 6 inch set up (the EOC guns) and put armor on (10 inch belt with a little bulge and bulkhead) and can work 33-34 knots. The reload is nice and the power is great (7 T slots per side), but the range is a little low after coming from zara and trento.

Did i mention its hard to sink that set-up, only thing is Cvs Dbs, you are too slow to dodge.

I have played through the italin BB line up the the pre-caio/conte remodel ships and stopped it got way too easy at that point.  Now for early on i loved most of the ships but as soon as i could use the single 10" EOC R guns i used them.

If your doing so in blitz they have extremely good range and damage, you can if played right beat any and all ships in a blitz room.  Although the spread will sometimes suck the wind from your sails but it can still be easy enough to get 80-100k with them in blitz or GB's.  Stick with the single 10" EOC guns with light to normal shells in GB's they have good enough range and damage to provide a bit of chuckles to you when you engage enemy BB's.

Played both lines early BB's, since every ship knows italian now they get chewed first even if you have a bb5 next to you.  However if you play smart stick to the middle/north you can still smack an enemy ship or 2 and get good attack not insane but good solid attack.  If ya want better attack the AD has extremely high damage output atm per shell so you can 2-3 shot a bb5 with a good hit.

Now the BB2's on both lines are a bit of an improvement but with one only firing 2 triples it seems somewhat lacking but can still do well on it's own, the dante has decent range with moderate damage a good all rounder on the top line and fun to play.

The Caio and Conte dreadnoughts are out in the relm of being way better than the BB 2.5/3 tier they are set in, they have enough guns and firepower to decimate ships in range fairly easy and once you reach them your BB speed will be much better, Caio goes about 40 While the Conte goes about 42 knots with near or above level 76/77 range. 

I have seen and used the bb3 and above on the test server and i must say they have a bit up in the high damage relm with range jumps since they are all mostly angle 25 minus the bb6 at 30.  Sadly as have mostly finished work on them but have thus far been unable to get the next test server patch so we can finish the work so they can be balanced right to the live server. 

I will say this, despite the size increase to the italian BB4 if it gets in range of something expect it to die in 1-2 salvos even if most of the shells miss.  The BB5 has high damage a shell but it also has range jump issues. 

My advice, stop playing italy once you get to Caio/conte dreadnoughts, otherwise you may get too used to how they play and will more than likely not enough them being balanced, myself im not bothering in NF and am mostly doing test server balance work with a few others in hopes of fixing italy. 

In the end it's up to you if you want to or not but as italy is they are still more powerful than the other nations until you reach bb6 which is a bit more balanced than the rest.

Thought I'd update this thread in case someone else has the same questions later on. I'm in the Conte (lvl 77) dreadnought) now. I played the BB1 just long enough to get into the RM pbb since I thought the first 2 bb's on the south line were really bad. I'm sure that's the case on any other line you take. I do love the Conte though. You get 3 triple 12'' guns and 2 duel 12'' guns. It hits hard when it hits.

The Conte is one of the better ships I've played at that level. I think you don't get the Bizzy until something like lvl 80, it's just as good, if not with less range. I also noticed you get a decent speed bump from the earlier bb's when you get to Conte so make sure you have enough engies. When I get to the lvl 82 ship I'll update this again.

So far the RM line has 2 of my favorite ships I've played at that level the Romani CL (a beast and probably my favorite under lvl 52 ship ever) and the Conti. 

Well in a little over a month I've made it to the lvl 89 ship. I remodeled the Conte, but sold the ship and went back to the Conte so I could lvl to the 91 lvl guns. 

My take on the line so far is that it's very easy to lvl this nation, actually as a beta player I laughed at how easy lvling is now. I also started a French line around the same time, which is extremely painful compared to this one. But, after playing the 14+'' guns on the lvl 89 RM ship, it's just not worth it until you get the next gunset at 91.  

Given the advice I've got here so far..I'll get to 91 see what the range is on them and may just stay in the Conte. No joke with good gunners, engies and repairers (even with the patch nerf) I've had games where I've sunk a L1, L2 and a CV4 and 200k attack. It's just that good.