Boarding (?)

[JanIv]

How do you board? I know it consists of sailing close to the enemy ship and then your boarding icon should light up. I have not yet made it happen, though. Are there any useful hints?

Then, in what situation would you board at all? Several people seem to think boarding is never a useful option. Opinions?

 

[delra]

Do it in Direct Command mode. Sail along the target ship and wait for the boarding bar to load. When it does, you push boarding icon and voila.

 

[JanIv]

I see, I never tried in Direct Command mode - so thats the trick!

What about the usefulness of bording in the first place? In what situation would you board a ship?

 

[delra]

Whenever I can. Even sloppy Sloop will have 10k pounds on board plus 10-20k in cargo if it's coming from India or Africa (I always attack ships that are coming back).

I have a guide on this forum about pirating AI factions. It starts with words "Achievement: You have captured 50 ships!" has just popped up on my screen. The year is 1621.".

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=420901

 

[unmerged(149566)]

how does that compare with sinking the flagship and making the others surrender?

 

[delra]

I wrote: "Whenever I can."

If you fight against odds (Brig and two Xebecs against Galleon, Brig and three Flutes for example) and flagship has 120 crew members and heavy cannons it's close to impossible to try and board it. Lining up for a boarding operation with Simulation level type of turning arcs requires lots of time and free space. Doing it in a Brig which is shot at by four or five ships at once isn't very practical even if possible sometimes.

Still, I prefer Spanish doctrine of boarding over British one. Nets me whole fleets of free ships. I even thought about modding truce to 1602 and playing a game in which I won't build ANY ships at all.