Naval battles

[Rub'Rum]

I can't win a single (fair) naval battle yet. I read all of this thread here;

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=233651

I was psyched with my new powerful knowledge. I tried three battles. I failed. Unless I significantly outnumber the enemy, I fail. And even then, clicking "autoresolve" usually gives me better results

I feel like I'm shooting a BB gun at mount Everest. Their ships can take such a beating! Mine just give up and start sinking even though they're barely damaged. Waaaaah And yeah, they're the same ships.

But even then, I try to cut their line or do something nifty that puts me in a position to shoot them from both sides of my ship... Aaaaaand my line of ships ends up all bunched up somewhere and screwed.

I shoot chain shot to demast them and it doesn't do anything. I shoot shrapnel rounds to kill the crew and it barely makes a dent in their numbers. I don't understand. At the same time my boats get insta-exploded by their cannon shots hitting my ammunition boxes, and they get de-masted within seconds of the battle starting. ACK.

 

[Leonel]

Are you fighting fourth rates with sloops?

 

[Rub'Rum]

Are you fighting fourth rates with sloops?

Answer

And yeah, they're the same ships.

In any case, let's not focus on the huge amount in my post and let's try to explain how people manage to maneuver and win. Do you use formations? I only use the line one. Sometimes I split in groups. Still... I always feel everything I do is pretty ineffective. At this point I even pretty much stopped using the "focus broadside" shots as they seem pretty useless, unless it's reaaaally close and easy shot.

 

[Leonel]

Answer

In any case, let's not focus on the huge amount in my post and let's try to explain how people manage to maneuver and win. Do you use formations? I only use the line one. Sometimes I split in groups. Still... I always feel everything I do is pretty ineffective. At this point I even pretty much stopped using the "focus broadside" shots as they seem pretty useless, unless it's reaaaally close and easy shot.

Reading is for Yuropeanz! :crazyeyes:

But yeah I've been wondering how to do ship formations. Do you just group them up and they'll follow the ship in front of them?

 

[Rub'Rum]

Reading is for Yuropeanz! :crazyeyes:

But yeah I've been wondering how to do ship formations. Do you just group them up and they'll follow the ship in front of them?

Select the ships you want to group, click the "group" button at the bottom right (or go CTRL-1 .. or CTRL-2 or whatever you want to assign it to). Once they're in a group, you can select that group and a new icon (bottom right) shows up for you to pick formations. The same thing happens with land battles by the way. If you choose line formation, the will move like a millipede and they will clone the first ship's movements instead of bunching up to a common destination...

 

[Leonel]

Select the ships you want to group, click the "group" button at the bottom right (or go CTRL-1 .. or CTRL-2 or whatever you want to assign it to). Once they're in a group, you can select that group and a new icon (bottom right) shows up for you to pick formations. The same thing happens with land battles by the way. If you choose line formation, the will move like a millipede and they will clone the first ship's movements instead of bunching up to a common destination...

Awesome! I'll have to try that.

 

[Kal'thzar]

well canister shot I THINK only works after the hulls taken a beating and the crew vunrable, i.e. letting the canister shot in!

I usually line my ships up in two lines faster ships in the first line and slower ships in the second line. Use the faster line to nip off the head of the enemy line and the slower line to bisect the bits trying to manouver out of the way of your first line, the enemy should get muddeled up inbetween and depending on the wind the other first bit could take a while getting back, whilst you have surrounded the middle bit and gave it a beating and then turn on the last bit.

This has worked for me, fully wiped out pirates with galleons, when I have a third rate, brigs and sloops it depends if I am able to MM the ships enough when they get to bisecting the line. Otherwise all MY ships get confused and it devolves into a brawl.

I usually just stick to cannon though, and if an enemy is left over I toy with it especially since its likely to be a big ship, I try to capture then (havn't done it yet though :/)

 

[Rub'Rum]

One of my biggest gripe is how easily my ships become stuck on each others or on other ships. I had ships sort of touch enemy ships and become entirely frozen there for the remainder of the battle. That happens so often when I try to cut through a line. There's a cluster of ships stuck together and somehow I always end up on the losing side of that.

 

[Kal'thzar]

yes thats the tricky bit, if you accidently ram an enemy ship you can stick and it becomes very bad :/

I got better at timing it though

 

[Leonel]

I tried the line of battle for naval combat. It helped SO much. Just formed 3 lines from a full fleet, brought them alongside the Moroccan navy, plenty of explosions of their galley's, not a single loss on my side. But then it is the Moroccan navy.