View Full Version : lib Pinning naval units?
First off, sorry this is my first post and I know it's rude to post a topic on your first post etc. but I've searched on this and found very little.
The problem I'm having is that it seems impossible to pin AI naval units on the strategy map. On land, although it is possible to withdraw from a province (i.e. run) when it's invaded, it is also possible to (eventually) back a army into a "corner" (i.e. so that he's surrounded by other provinces with garrisons and can't withdraw). The enemy army is then forced to fight.
However, with naval units you don't seem to be able to do this - a naval unit can move to any adjacent sea area whether or not it's occupied (either by your forces or another) and so you can never force it to engage.
The main scenario is this:
I'm trying to kill two Italian ships in two adjacent sea "provinces". I have two navies, one in each sea "province" ready to attack. So, I attack each Italian ship with each navy. Only they don't engage. Next turn, the Italian ships have swapped places - i.e. moved away. My ships haven't engaged them. So, I attack again. And again, the Italians swap places again without my ships engaging them. Repeat ad nauseum. The Italian ships just keep swapping places and "dodge" being attacked. Basically, it's impossible for me to attack their ships unless the AI is stupid enough not to move them.
I've also seen this problem trying to attack the French arond the North sea, where essentially I'm just given the "run around" despite controlling all the surrounding waters.
It's highly annoying because while you're at war with them, they blockade also so you can't invade or move units by sea but yet you can't engage and kill them either.
Has anyone else seen this at all or am I missing something fundamental here (probably more likely)? If this is the case then surely naval warfare is pretty much broken as the AI has a stupid advantage?
Any help/comments appreciated.
de la Valette
09-23-2002, 17:29
Could be that the Italian ships are faster than yours so escape the attack (do you get a message if this happens?).
I tend to put three fast ships in a hunter/killer group and have never had a problem sinking ships.
May well be, I'll check.
I'm just quite surprised that even though they are surrounded, they can still run. It was odd because I managed to take out a load of Byzantine ships in the same region with no problems, but I just couldn't engage the Italians.
I know that in my encounter with the French, I was using Danish Longboats (speed 3?) which I would have thought to be good enough.
Thanks for the pointer, I'll have a check and try again.
I don't know for sure, but ships have a "speed" value - maybe if the defending ship has a better speed than the attacker it can escape ?
Arkatreides
09-23-2002, 17:57
As far as I know the relative speed determines whether a ship can escape or not. The best way to hunt down enemy ships is to split your navy into single ships. That way each one has a chance of sinking the enemy.
de la Valette
09-23-2002, 18:09
I find that i loose too many ships if i go one on one, but two or three on one wins every time with no loses.
A case of "whatever works of you" i guess.
Couscous
09-23-2002, 18:09
Ship speed is important & it's not explained in the manual. Even if the enemy ship stays in the same province it seems there's a chance you won't engage it if your fleet is slower.
The devs have said that naval AI will be improved in the coming patch. Not sure what will be changed, but it should make things less of a chore.
Arkatreides
09-23-2002, 18:11
BTW: Has anyone else noticed that ALL the ships have a zero strength rating (though nobody knows what exactly strength does anyway)??? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif
Just to clarify a few things.
I think this speed thing sounds right to me. I'm at work at the moment (!) so I can't verify it but it does make sense to me.
The real "problem" I'm having is that you can't just pin a naval unit by surrounding it (unlike an army) - naval units can always move. Because you can't pin and because the AI has the initiative, it can always keep giving your naval units the run around?
How does speed affect this scenario? Does speed equal some chance of intercepting the enemy (per attack) or is it simply "if my speed is greater than his, I catch him, else he escapes"?
I'm just finding it really annoying to have to chase ships around waters I clearly dominate!
I'll experiment with speed tonite and see how far I get. Thanks for everyone's comments.
On a related note, am I the only one also craving for proper tactical sea battles too? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif Now /that/ would be a patch http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
DarknScaly
09-23-2002, 19:28
Speed affects chance... faster ships have a % chance to escape to the neighbouring sea area.
Solution is not to use big fleets. A fleet only has one chance at getting an enemy ship.
So 16 ships in a fleet only get one shot at it.
8 fleets of 2 ships each will have 8 chances to get it and 116 individual ships 16 chances.
Also remember that fleets are only as fast as their slowest ship.
- - -
Whilst thats the solution it would be nice for this to be done automatically by the game engine - having to breakdown ships into individual ones can be a pain and fleet size should impact on the chance to get enemy ships.
LittleRaven
09-23-2002, 21:04
I know all about ships speed and how things are supposed to work, but I swear there's still something funny going on.
In my latest game, I often found myself unable to sink the last ship of a particular faction. Take the Italians for example. They had a huge fleet in the Mediterranean, as did I. (I was Turks) When we went to war, our navies collided, and mine eventually won out. I sank ships left and right.
Until the last one, that is. Now, granted, it was one of those really fast, tiny ships. But even so, this thing was ridiculous. I separated out my ship stacks into individual ships (many of which were Dhows) and painstakingly assigned three or more ships (individually) to attack this guy every turn, for at least ten turns. They never caught it. Finally I resigned myself to just killing off the faction to get rid of it. The same thing is currently happening with the Poles. (this time it's a barque) I just can't catch that last ship no matter how many guys I put on it. This only happens with the last ship. As long as they have more than one, I can sink them. If they're down to one...I figure the best I can do I keep them moving till I kill off the faction. Annoying, it is. I'm hoping the patch improves things.
Couscous
09-23-2002, 21:51
Rid, I too would love tactical sea battles. I used to love playing Pirates! back on my old Amiga http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif Unfortunately the devs have said it's just not gonna happen with the current game engine http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif
DarknScaly, are you sure fleets only move at the speed of the slowest ship? Although that makes sense logically, I've had good success stacking Longboats with Caravels & still catching faster ships.
LittleRaven, was the 'last ship' issue caused by the ship changing provinces every turn? I think that the AI gets confused about where to put its last ship & keeps moving it. I'm hoping that will be tweaked in the patch.
Beelzebub
09-23-2002, 21:52
The speed isn't the problem. This is a bug and a damn frustrating thing when the computer has a ship and just keeps moving it around each turn. You can't attack him at all, no matter how many ships you have in the ocean or what speed they are. If he moves territory the ship that was attacking won't follow and attack, and you can't attack him with a ship in another territory (guess he where he will move). You can use this tactic also if you really need to be lame and cheat lol http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif.
Hopefully this will be fixed in the patch, it is a huge annoyance.
AgentBif
10-10-2002, 01:56
Quote Originally posted by Beelzebub:
Hopefully this will be fixed in the patch, it is a huge annoyance.[/QUOTE]
Anyone know whether or not this is actually gonna be in the patch?
I'm just now trying to track down some annoying peon vessels that keep blockading my troop supply routes. I don't want to kill off the danes cause I don't want them coming back, but I MUST have those ships dammit!
Argh matey!
bif
Hakonarson
10-10-2002, 04:02
The patch includes:
10) Fleets escaping from a sea battle do so at their own speed.
11) Fleet AI has been tweaked to increase number of trade routes.
I dunno what 10 is fixing, but it looks like it's relevant??
AgentBif
10-10-2002, 04:06
Quote Originally posted by Hakonarson:
The patch includes:
10) Fleets escaping from a sea battle do so at their own speed.
11) Fleet AI has been tweaked to increase number of trade routes.
I dunno what 10 is fixing, but it looks like it's relevant??[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that sounds right. Where did you find that patch list?
bif
Hakonarson
10-10-2002, 04:32
www.totalwar.org (http://www.totalwar.org) !!!!!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
Jo_Beare
10-10-2002, 05:23
I was having the same problem with a couple of French ships. They kept on swapping places between two sea areas. I moved naval units to the adjacent sea area and then moved my navel unit back to attack the French naval unit. When the French ship moved to the new sea zone, my ship followed and attacked them in adjacent sea zone. I only did it once and it worked, so I don't know if it was a fluke or not.
JoBeare
Jo_Beare
10-12-2002, 08:40
Did anyone try my suggestion in the above post? I've been too busy with things like work to play, but not too busy to post on the forum.
JoBeare
shokaku76
10-14-2002, 13:11
Ehhh... I did manage to beat down those bloody bastards... How? I had 10 + ships go after the damned fool. AUre, my ships were slower, but guess one of 'em slow ones caught up tot he bloody bastard and managed to sink it. I think the threshhold is 7 ships. With 6 ships attacking the fast enemy ship, they were still able to escape. Actually, they escaped everytime. But, on the first try with 7 ships, the sucker went down!
MajorFreak
10-14-2002, 14:18
i find that matching fleet speeds and separating my fleets for speed makes things a heck of a lot simpler.
you know what? We haven't stressed the biggest problem: enemy AI can blockade a sea on the turn they move into a province. now this SHOULDN'T be. it's just ridiculous that a flying squad can intercept your "invisible" logistics trade/transport infrastructure just by cruising in a circle. personally, i'd call for the NEXT NEXT patch to force a fleet to stay in a sea province for at least one turn to blockade...on the SAME principle that you can't set up a trade/transport on the turn YOU move into a sea province.[/list]IT'S JUST BASIC COMMON SENSE
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Hiroshi-O'Duff
10-14-2002, 21:41
I saw the same thing as Jo_Beare on several occasions. I have found that this is the ONLY way to kill off a faster ship, though it's still not guaranteed.
It kind of makes sense, since you're trying to attack "en passant". http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
Duffer
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