Ruler of the Seas

[krc]

On a whim, I decided to spend some time getting the "Ruler of the Seas" achievement. After slogging through several games as the English, I finally tweaked the starting options to maximize the number of enemy ships I could sink. Just in case anyone else develops the same obsession, here's how you cure it:

Raging barbarians.
Continents, small world. Reduce the number of players to 2. This leaves lots of room for barbarian camps.

Build your own ships. Park them off the coast next to barbarian camps. Sink barbarian ships as they spawn. Repeat (many times).

In the last game I played (and finally got the achievement), I sank more than 100 barbarian ships. Including (on several occasions) having a ship-of-the-line one-shot a barbarian destroyer.

 

[joncnunn]

I'm thinking the following setting would be even better:

Raging Barbs

Archepello, high sea level, HUGE world. Cut # of real players down to 2.
Perhaps trim the City states as well.

same tactics as above

 

[krc]

Maybe. I tried archipelago first, but couldn't find any iron nearby. With continents, there is (probably) a better chance to find some easily accessible iron and build some ships-of-the-line.

 

[RD-BH]

Have you tried this on a ring map?

 

[krc]

Have you tried this on a ring map?

No, I haven't. The real point of the map is that it needs to have plenty of coastal tiles for barbarian camps. And having multiple land masses helps make sure that the AI civilizations (or city-states) don't send troops to wipe out all the barb camps.

 

[timtofly]

Are you sure that taking out barb ships will allow the achievement? I sunk hundreds of them and never got close. I was only able to get it after taking out several hundred AI ships also.

 

[krc]

Are you sure that taking out barb ships will allow the achievement? I sunk hundreds of them and never got close. I was only able to get it after taking out several hundred AI ships also.

Yes; I was at peace with the only AI civilization during the entire game in which I got the achievement.

Were you using a mod at the time? (Mods prevent achievements.) Or were you offline? (I think that also prevents achievements from registering.)

You can activate logging in the config.ini file and then read the "achievements_debug.log" file before and after a session where England sinks barbarian ships. (You may have to restart the game to get the file to update completely.) The line
[591016.063] DBG: Steam Stat: ESTEAMSTAT_BRITISHNAVY = 360
tells you how many ships England has sunk. It changes even if you only sink barb ships.