naval battles, do we know how they're resolved?

[Imperial Buffoon]

I was just wondering what we really know about naval battles, I'll start with a couple of things I don't know and some I do...
My objective with this is not so much finding the best naval strategy but just trying to figure out the predictable part of the battle resolution.


1- battles are between stacks, rather than all ships in a sea region.

2- superiority in numbers matters for the outcome, as does the quality of the admiral (don't really know how, though). Both of these seem to matter more than the actual quality of the ships.

3- How does speed matter? Can a slower ship ever catch a faster ship moving out of the sea region?

4- I've noticed that outcomes can differ when you reload, so the randomness is calculated at the time of the battle and is significant. The cheesy tactic of reloading to get a decent outcome should work (which doesn't make it any less cheesy... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-anxious.gif )

5- Although I tend to attack with good attack ships and leave good defense ships to wait, I don't know whether defense ability matters when attacking and vice-versa...

[econ21]

I'm working in a vacuum here, too. I was shocked in a PBM thread, when one experienced player preferred the most basic level Catholic ship, the barque, to the higher level ship (caravel?). He argued that the speed factor more than offset the better attack/defence stats.

The only useful tip on naval combat I have is from the official strategy guide: when you have numerical superiority, it's best to break up your fleets and make multiple attacks. That way you have more chance of hunting down pesky lone pirates. (They also mention that fleets take the speed of the slowest element, so don't mix ships of different speeds into the same fleet.)

The other thing I have learnt from bitter experience, is that it seems fairly pointless withdrawing an outnumbered fleet from a contested sea - the AI seems to get a free shot at you which is often lethal and so I prefer to let my ships go down fighting.

[Sociopsychoactive]

Ok, the way I see it...

The person with the highest command is the admiral of the stack, obviously, and I always saw it as more valour than command, the same as assassins and emmisary;s and the like.

So maybe it gives the standard valour bonus of +1/+1 attack defence (maybe even speed, but not likely)

With speed, i have several times had one speedy vessel run away for twenty years, killing my trade income in the process. That made me think speed is most important when moving a ship, rather than in the battle.

Didn;t know it took the lowest speed, but the randomness is nevr to be underestimated, I have lost 3 caravels headed by a 3 star admiral (carabvels are attack 3, defence 3) to ONE barque, with two command.

I tend to go with numbers and look at stats, but not rely on them. I've always been the major naval powewr when cannon galleons and the like roll around so I;ve never really known their strengths.

[son of spam]

Numbers matter more than anything else in naval battles, but there is a cheesy tactic that I use quite often http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif .

I think the game tries to balance things out by giving naval victories to the faction that did worse on land. For example, in my recent English game, I got into a war with the Swedes (medmod). They had 3 ships in a sea lane led by a 2 star captain, I had 5 ships led by a 3 star. There was a large battle on land which I fought myself, getting a nice kill ratio http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif then the ship battle screen shows up that goes enemy ships sank: 1, ships lost: 5 http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-stunned.gif . I was like WTF reload (yes cheesy I know). This time, I autocalced and lost on land by a huge margin, and my ships sank all of thiers for 0 losses.

It's not an isolated incident. In the viking campaign, the best way to take out the vike ships seems to be invading some rebels with a one man ballista crew or something the same turn u attack a vike ship. You almost always win.

So that;s my cheesy tactic of the day http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif

[katank]

yep, son of spam's cheesy tactic works very well and I use it too.

naval combat is extremely random.

If you autocalc your battles in the same turn and also make the naval attack, you have far better odds. This way, I have pulled off things like 1 curragh sinking 3 snekkjas. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

still so cheesy though and I stopped after a while although that instance was great for stoppoing pesky vik raids. So now I just build the cheapest, fastest ships I can find and load up a huge stack and then crush my opponents.