I think in the case where there is absolutely no chance of winning an engagement, while at the same time it is unlikely that a frigate will catch your two or three sloops, an auto resolve option for flee would be real nice. In all likelihood you are going to be able to flee successfully, but why go through the hassle if you know a head of time that is what you would want to do. This is a game after all and fleeing is not the most exciting use of your time. The problem is the current auto resolve forces you simply to loose your ships, unless I am missing something.
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Yup, I'm for this as well, it'd be a nice option where there is obviously no way your fleet will stand up in a toe to toe fight but its also obvious they can evade the aggressor with their much greater speed advantage as well.
Indeed, it would help a lot. It probably wouldn't be much trouble to do, placing one more button (there's space there) and doing a dice roll basing on speeds of both fleets. Disengage them upon success, go to battle screen upon loss.
We actually had Flee-button on pre-battle window at one point. Ship speeds were taken into account when determining if flee was succesfull or not. There was even commander skill "flee" that gave extra bonus to the dice roll, with very cuddly running rabbit-icon. This resulted in players ALWAYS fleeing (or trying to at least) in pre-battle if they were not 100% confident on winning the battle. It kind of made the whole thing very lame.
By having to fight tactical battle if you are attacked, you are more mindful of what kind of fleets you send out and build in the first place.
If you want to completely flee from battle, just click corresponding icon (red arrow) for all your ships and then give waypoints away from the enemy. If single ship gets far enough from the closest enemy, it will be removed from the battle. If all player ships are on flee-mode and AI does not get a shot at them for 30 secs, then AI will give up the chase.
Update: Just tested tactical battles with increased range for start. It's almost the as long as the flee range, so fleeing right away will be easier as a side effect.
By having to fight tactical battle if you are attacked, you are more mindful of what kind of fleets you send out and build in the first place.
If you want to completely flee from battle, just click corresponding icon (red arrow) for all your ships and then give waypoints away from the enemy. If single ship gets far enough from the closest enemy, it will be removed from the battle. If all player ships are on flee-mode and AI does not get a shot at them for 30 secs, then AI will give up the chase.
Update: Just tested tactical battles with increased range for start. It's almost the as long as the flee range, so fleeing right away will be easier as a side effect.
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How about catching up the fleeing party in the strategic view? Are the fleet symbols now farther apart after one of the parties has fled from the battle?
That's the way I always play it anyway, I run if I'm not 100 percent certain. The only difference is that without an auto-flee option I have to waste a few minutes watching myself run away.
Call me a cowardly rabbit if you want, but the way I see it my cargo is too valuable to risk. Battle mode is for fighting, campaign mode is for making money.
There is cool down so that AI cannot immediately attack same player fleet again when returning from tactical.
Also note that setting fleet behaviour to cautious will reduce the risk of being attacked. In a way, this IS the pre-battle flee, it's just automatic. If it does not go well, you have go to tactical.
How about the other way around? Players pounding faster fleeing AI ships and then immediately re-attacking the remains of the fleet from the strategic view to get closer to them and keep pounding for the final blow?
Thank you for your response, and I suspect that the increase range will go along way in resolving the issue. But let me suggest a compromise. The flee option only show up if there is a sufficient spread between how fast your slowest boat is and how slow the enemies fastest boat is. That way, once again, it would only be there in the no brainer scenario, i.e. you would be an idiot to fight and would loose all your ships. Or alternatively the flee option only shows up if there is a sufficient spread between not only speed but also firepower between the weakest enemy boat and the strongest boat you have.
I just want to avoid the no brainers. I don't mind considering a fight even when the odds are marginally against me, but not when I am guarranteed to loose.
That's a good point, but I have not used that command yet becuase I read it slows you down... but it didn't say by how much? Or is that guarded info?
I don't use Cautious at all. Here's why:
I made a race, two newbie captains with two inexperienced crews, both in Schooners. Race was between Lisbon and Cape Town. Arrow on the left is Cautious fleet, arrow on the right is "Will defend ourselves when attacked" fleet. You can see normal fleet reached desitation while cautious one was still on the way to St. Helen:
That's how much speed you lose. I think it's at least 20%.
I made a race, two newbie captains with two inexperienced crews, both in Schooners. Race was between Lisbon and Cape Town. Arrow on the left is Cautious fleet, arrow on the right is "Will defend ourselves when attacked" fleet. You can see normal fleet reached desitation while cautious one was still on the way to St. Helen:
That's how much speed you lose. I think it's at least 20%.
Yeah, it can pretty much bankrupt you if you have huge fleets slowed down from 8 knots to 5-6 by that setting...
Thanks, Delra. Rereading Kim_Soares post "setting fleet behaviour to cautious will reduce the risk of being attacked" I concluded that was roughly the equivalence of an auto-flee, at least in terms of intent on the part of the developers. That there should be a cost associated with it is not a surprise. But that much of a cost across all your weaker merchant fleets is way too steep. Better to put up with the hassle of manually fleeing.