Some more tips:
- Crew experience is a difference between 20 damage per shot and 200 damage per shot. So level up your combat ships.
- Patrols. Your combat ships should be on constant patrol from your Shilpyard level 1 to hostile waters. This way they will see a fair share of fight but also repair automatically upon docking back at the base.
- Captains. A good captain can easily double your fleet's strength. Unsinkable, Feared, Rout are must-haves. Also pick Repair Sails and Repair Hull later to keep your line leader in shape.
- It's easier if all ships have similar speeds. Having Schooners in a Flleet with Fluyts seriously jeopardizes your capability to form a successful line.
- Be flexible. If your line falls to cracks don't struggle to resurrect it. Send each ship its own way and play it old-style.
- Your ships can shoot effectively on a much longer range than you think. Don't sail at point-blank range if you have very experienced crews and a captain with accuracy skills, sail at the edge of cannon range. You will have a very good chance to come out of it undamaged.
- Formation is called line but it doesn't mean you should sail straight forward. To increase the area your ships can cover with cannons sail in a serpentine. This way they will constantly move right and left allowing them to shoot at an angle at enemy fleet.
- Don't turn your line before your flagship shoots, turn it after that happens. This way all ships in your line will get a chance to fire before they make the same turn. If you turn too early, they also will turn too soon and almost none of them will fire.
- Sailing through enemy line at full speed is devastating for him because it allows you to fire both broadsides while his ships can use only one but it can easily turn into a clusterf*ck so if you aren't sure your ships can withstand heavy fire, don't go in there.
- The easiest way to beat a single tough enemy is sailing around his ship in a serpentine pattern. Let's call it the Phormio tactics.
- You can use Phormio for whole fleets if you can make enemy crowd his ships in small space. This will make them shoot at each other, ram each other and also your shots will often hit multiple ships at once, usually damaging sails of those who aren't your actual target. Chaos with a snowball effect.
- Finally, boarding isn't always the best thing to do. Better leave ship-building to your shipyards and sink everything you see than risk losing experienced crews and paying hundreds of thousands in repairs. Here's me spending 160k to get a ship worth 100k:
- Crew experience is a difference between 20 damage per shot and 200 damage per shot. So level up your combat ships.
- Patrols. Your combat ships should be on constant patrol from your Shilpyard level 1 to hostile waters. This way they will see a fair share of fight but also repair automatically upon docking back at the base.
- Captains. A good captain can easily double your fleet's strength. Unsinkable, Feared, Rout are must-haves. Also pick Repair Sails and Repair Hull later to keep your line leader in shape.
- It's easier if all ships have similar speeds. Having Schooners in a Flleet with Fluyts seriously jeopardizes your capability to form a successful line.
- Be flexible. If your line falls to cracks don't struggle to resurrect it. Send each ship its own way and play it old-style.
- Your ships can shoot effectively on a much longer range than you think. Don't sail at point-blank range if you have very experienced crews and a captain with accuracy skills, sail at the edge of cannon range. You will have a very good chance to come out of it undamaged.
- Formation is called line but it doesn't mean you should sail straight forward. To increase the area your ships can cover with cannons sail in a serpentine. This way they will constantly move right and left allowing them to shoot at an angle at enemy fleet.
- Don't turn your line before your flagship shoots, turn it after that happens. This way all ships in your line will get a chance to fire before they make the same turn. If you turn too early, they also will turn too soon and almost none of them will fire.
- Sailing through enemy line at full speed is devastating for him because it allows you to fire both broadsides while his ships can use only one but it can easily turn into a clusterf*ck so if you aren't sure your ships can withstand heavy fire, don't go in there.
- The easiest way to beat a single tough enemy is sailing around his ship in a serpentine pattern. Let's call it the Phormio tactics.
- You can use Phormio for whole fleets if you can make enemy crowd his ships in small space. This will make them shoot at each other, ram each other and also your shots will often hit multiple ships at once, usually damaging sails of those who aren't your actual target. Chaos with a snowball effect.
- Finally, boarding isn't always the best thing to do. Better leave ship-building to your shipyards and sink everything you see than risk losing experienced crews and paying hundreds of thousands in repairs. Here's me spending 160k to get a ship worth 100k:
