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unmerged(137907)

unmerged(137907)

Lead Designer -Nitro Games
Mar 21, 2009
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www.nitrogames.com
What kind of tactics have you come to use in naval battles?

And related to this, what kind of combat affecting skills do you take for your commanders?

One skill combination I always use is feared+rout. This way, after enemy has already suffered some casualties, it's easier to make them surrender.


Note that when AI (or you for that matter) loses a ship, that will reduce morale of all the rest of the ships still fighting. The larger the ship lost was compared to the start make up of the fleet, the greater the impact.

Example: 4 cutters + 46 gun. If one of the cutters goes down, the rest of the ships will have their morale reduced only lightly. But if its the 46, then all the cutters get huge reduction. So it pays to try and take out the biggest ships first.
 
I agree that feared+rout is a great combo for a combat commander. During campaign, I attacked a pirate convoy composed of 2 frigates and 3 galleons. My convoy was 5 frigates. After destroying just one of the galleons, clicked on rout and, voila, all other 4 ships surrended. A pity that can't be made two fleets when capturing other ships. But great combo, yes.

As for tactics, if enemies are faster ships, attack sails and later my ships sail in circles around them to finish with crew. I don't board them. I have made some practice in boarding in battles out of campaign, but I can't manage with it. So, attack crew from distance. Result is the same.

If enemies are galleons or better and we have the same numbers, go for the hull. If I have superiority in numbers, I also go for sails. Later, again, I sail in circles and attack the crew.

I also try to keep a line, but I find it difficult with the command. So I try to give ships the same direction, which helps them to keep them in line, at least for some time. Later, when battle progresses, line is always broken and battle starts to be more chaotic.

By the way, I have also modified the parameters so that now a frigate can sail at 9 knots with calm, 11 knots with strong wind. In storm, it even sails at 12 knots and, if commander has specal ability to sail faster, I have even reached 15 knots! Looks like Surprise in Master and Commander when sailing around Cape Horn.
 
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- I avoid using "line" formation, it doesn't seem to work, just causes chaos among my ships. Maybe when we have speed up button and when fleets start further away from each other it will be useful, now it isn't.

- I tell my ships to gang-kill the toughest enemy ship, then I sweep small stuff with what I have left. I always go for hull, boarding never shows up as available and positioning a ship correctly for it takes half a day in real time so little gain and tons of work, simply not worth it.

- My captains are always hagglers and navigators, and if it's invasion fleet, guys who support bigger Marines amounts per ship. I don't spend slots on active combat skills.

- I always control the toughest ship of mine trying to sail between enemy ships and cuddle them using left and right side cannons.

Still, I prefer to evade combat if it's possible by building strong convoys (1x Frigate, 4x Galleon for example) which enemy simply doesn't want to mess with. I also over-upgrade defences in my ports and always try to lead in amount of ships, especially warships so AI isn't tempted to wage a war against me. My convoys are safely delivering hundreds of tons of goods and AI companies whom I'm friends with fight against each other and try to buy my support with gold and goods at good prices. It's better arrangment than watching my Frigate chase 2 Xebecs from 18:00 to 19:30. :)

I can't wait for that patch NG guys are cooking.
 
About line formation, I start to manage it. I have found that my problem was that, while in formation, sometimes I liked to control my flagship, turning the ship for better accuracy when shooting. Doing so, breaks the line and chaos starts. This afternoon I have formed a line but not control my flagship on DC Mode. I have given orders to the flagship only in RTS and the lined hasn't broken. Maybe this is the same case for others.
 
Cranky pirates fail to take over the cargo!

In general I try to get an early shot at the enemy, but I find it very difficult to overcome an enemy if I have a smaller vessel. However, I experienced a situation where my small vessel was being shot at by a pirate: I'd lost all my sails and and it would appear that the pirates were coming in for the kill. I decided not to surrender and managed to keep the ship floating while firing at them, but I dropped all the cargo. The pirates circled behind and killed of most of the crew, but it seemes like they had lost interest in me and left the vessel floating without sails or mast. Maybe no a good tactic, but I thought the ship and captain was lost completely. My vessel survived however and the captain got his increase in skills and lived to fight another day and the pirates officially fled... Okay, I admit I tried that round in easy mode, but I'll consider dumping the cargo next time to see if it discourages the pirates again:rofl:.
 
Just to clarify. My main grudge against the "powerful" line formation is that it takes ages for my ships to form it and enemy is shooting at them all that time. So when line is ready... battle is halfway through already.

Maybe it would be good if we could form the line before we press "start battle" button?

Also, do you just CTRL+A -> Line your ships or do you also give them and order to attack something?
 
I select all ships, click on line formation, then select only the leader and right click a destination on water, not a target. I never right click on target. Right clicking on a target... well, I don't know if ships will make the best approach to target. So, I prefer to make approach by myself and let them fire at will. By the same reason, I don't allow the captains to choose the best ammunition, but choose myself cannon balls, chain or grape shot according to situation.

About the firing arc, I always choose the narrowest one because of its accuracy. Till now, I haven't lost a ship in battle in normal difficulty level, with parameters changed so that frigates really can reach 11 knots as described in misc.txt. Thus, speed and manoeuvrability is really a factor.

I still don't know here, but at least in ETW, it's better not to change every five seconds a destination for a line leader. Otherwise, it's easy line gets broken.

Even though it would be better to be able to deploy our ships at will before pushing Start battle, usually they are already in line. Last battle, for instance, they were side by side, facing enemy. Just select all, line formantion and right click to the right, since in that battle wind came from the West.

Of course, not always it's so easy to take weathe gauge. Even sometimes flagship is on the middle of the formation. I have some fleets composed of 3 galleons and 2 xebecs. Well, sometimes galleons are in the middle, so forming a line is difficult. The first xebec will sail too fast and line will break. The other on the tail of the line... well, frankly I need to give this last one some other order, because otherwise it will be in the firing arc of the galleons at some point being a faster ship.

So, I agree that I would be nice to be able to deploy our ships before battle to make a formation and to try to get the weather gauge. A naval battle isn't just shooting side by side. We can consider there are sailors scouting for enemies and, when they are spotted, we can maoeuvre. Right now it's as if, oops, some pirates at starboard, 50 yards away are approaching us! How is possible I haven't noticed before!
 
delra said:
Just to clarify. My main grudge against the "powerful" line formation is that it takes ages for my ships to form it and enemy is shooting at them all that time. So when line is ready... battle is halfway through already.

Maybe it would be good if we could form the line before we press "start battle" button?

Also, do you just CTRL+A -> Line your ships or do you also give them and order to attack something?
Click to expand...

Yeah, being able to lign up BEFORE the battle would be great. That's exactly how ETW does it, btw.
 
I also don't like how the game picks line leaders. It's always the slowest ship that's picked for that job, not the flagship and not the strongest ship. So basically if you have a Fluyt in your fleet or a Galleon, it will be your line leader no matter what. Even if it's 3rd ship in the line when battle starts. And when line leader is 3rd ship, it means ships number 1 and 2, usually your Frigates or Galleons have to manoeuvre to line up behind the line leader wasting many minutes and causing lots of chaos.

It would be good if we could rearrange ships in a fleet (drag and drop on fleet screen maybe?) so they start a battle the way we want it. I would always put my slowest ships as first ones in my fleet so they start battles up front and can be effective line leaders right away.
 
Yes. And it was a damn third ship in my whole formation which was very problematic. Maybe this particular fleet combination is flawed somehow? I will test it in custom battle and see if I can reproduce. :)

Hmmm, now that I think about it, it's possible my Frigate and Galleon were messed up from a previous fight...

EDIT: I couldn't reproduce so it must have been damage indeed.

Going back to the topic, I kind of figured out the line by now and my favourite tactic is encircling enemy ships and fleets:



Xebecs are perfect for that and they have no trouble with bigger ships, even Frigates when deployed properly. You shouldn't try to set ships to attack any targets, just tell tehm to form a line and tell them where to sail. If enemy has multiple tough ships, try to get between them at full speed. If he has one strong ship and some small ones, try to encircle the big one. And if it's a bunch of small ships, try to spread them all over the map by cutting them off from main group by sailing behind them when they go with wind.
 
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LoL.
The circle of death reminds me of those old western movies where indians ride around the settlers and make funny noises :)

Kim, especially in rough weather my ships tend to collide with each other when doing line formation. Is this made on purpose or is this a pure accident? I believe that in real world bad conditions it would be hard to maneuvre the big ships and collisions happen.
 
This is something you can read about in Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. Athenians there would circle around twice stronger Spartan fleets until wind, lack of experience and discipline would cause crowded on small space Spartan ships to start bouncing off each other... and only after chaos ensues attack them and destroy. :)

I kind of figured out naval combat in EIC by now, using line formation and so on. I even boarded a bunch of ships so far (destroy sails, grape shot them until their cannons stop firing and approach with a ship carrying marines). I withdraw all the previously posted "grudges against naval combat in EIC" as they were caused by my ignorance not flawed game mechanics. :)

There's one thing left though. 1 out of 10 battles, my ships don't start together but instead are spread into two or more groups. This is extremely frustrating and I see no remedy to it since it's unrelated to captain skills or ship types.
 
delra said:
This is something you can read about in Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. Athenians there would circle around twice stronger Spartan fleets until wind, lack of experience and discipline would cause crowded on small space Spartan ships to start bouncing off each other... and only after chaos ensues attack them and destroy. :)
Click to expand...

Put in practice by Athenian estratego (or general, I don't know how to translate) Nicias. Pity that later same general fail in Siracusa campaign. Good sailor but bad soldier.

About ships in different groups is unpleasant. Usually, three of them appear on the left, which I can put in line. But those two on the left, the flagship and other, they are too close to be able to form a line.

I don't see the logic behind this behaviour. If I would have ten ships, maybe I would make two groups of five, like in ETW. But with ships, divide them don't seem the best tactic to attack, mainly when those defending are already grouped.
 
To be honest I don't remember this particular guy taking part in Sicilian fun but the book is so big and full of people that it's easy to mistake one for another. The battle I meant happened early in the war when Phormio guarded Corinthian gulf and Peloponesian fleet tried to sneak out.

(If you have no idea what we're talking about here, try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phormio) :)

Anyway, I hope the patch will allow us to position ships before the actual battle starts. I could even try and sometimes spread ships in case it's pirate hunt.

But in a real 5vs5 battle I would never split my ships. Never ever.
 
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So far my primary battle tactic is to have enough advantage in numbers that I can hit "resolve battle" and win. :)

If battles happened less often, or it wasn't a 150 year game, I'd spend more time in the tactical battle, but there's money to be made, and not enough time in real life to lob every cannonball myself.
 
This is a huge mistake what you are doing, sir moltobenny. Your captain gains level per each won battle so quickly you could have a bunch of guys who are Navigators, Organizers, Hagglers and Salesmen all at once. This would boost your trade income immensely.

You get no experience whatsoever on autoresolve... so you waste an opportunity to level your guy up!
 
Once there are time controls in the battles, I'll consider it. I just won the campaign game pretty easily and didn't have to bother with it. I understand there are benefits, but they pale in comparison with 1000 ton shipments coming in from Jolly Olde India a half-dozen times a year.
 
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