In our current first game, Germany hit the starting British navy hard, and some small naval purchases by the Austrians and Ottomans in the med forced France to send most of it’s navy to the med to cover the Indian and Italian navies there. With the UK covering Italy in SZ17 you really have to worry about Ottoman cruisers and their ability to get down to SZ27. Austrian naval purchases have kept the allied med fleet performing containment duty in SZ17.
German cruisers are sitting in SZ11 behind the safety of the Kiel and Berlin minefields (and some German battleships and subs) preventing UK from sending transports to Karelia because their longer range allows them snake around behind without UK leaving a cruiser to block in SZ5 (which will of course have to happen).
UK has been trying to balance rebuilding their navy with fighting off a very offensive-minded set of Ottomans in India. The German navy has absolutely save the Ottoman Empire since the UK has had to devote 70+% of it’s resources into London. France has been down to building a cruiser a turn out of Marseilles because they can’t spare the IPCs from the fight on the land but they need something a little bigger than submarines to deter a sizable Austrian navy.
Of course it’s turn 4 now, and unless Germany wants to continue to try to match UK’s naval buys (which they can’t keep up with now) it looks like in another turn the UK will be able to drop the hammer on Germany’s fleet or at least neutralize them. The US looks to be itching to get into the fight in the med, which will help tremendously, so the Central Powers have been going heavy on land buys.
While battleships have definitely been the favorite buy, sometimes a cruiser is worth it just that one more infantry worth of IPCs into the fight. The threat of a long range cruiser strike can lock down ships and when you need block you don’t really want to throw away a battleship for it.