Ruling the High Seas

[ferndaleguy]

Have been playing a few campaigns as the Danes. It's very easy to build a network of trade with longboats or other ships. However, the second I start to put multiple ships into a single section of water, the friggin' English are all over me. Call it envy or what have you, but am I doomed to a fragile economy? I can never seem to hunt the buggers down to clear the oceans.

I just started a new campaign and I'm ready to start building my fleet again - hopefully to build up my keep/castle/etc in a province to create more powerful warships that can wipe 'em off the map.

My plan is to get some of the high income Baltic states and then build a fleet and start a trade chain all the way down to Spain.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

[Doug-Thompson]

In real life, you have to concentrate your fleet to get control of the sea.

Well, MTW is not real life. You're far better off dispersing your ships.

If you get into fights, you can attack the rascals wherever they are, if you have a fleet in each ocean.

[Copperhead]

What I do is have three or fours ships in each sector of water, that way you are strong enough to destroy most enemy fleets that may appear.

[katank]

3 or 4 in each zone? that's way too expensive.

I like to use 1 in each zone with spare deep water fleets of 4+ that can fill in gaps from storms.

they also become hunter/killer groups or fire brigades when naval warfare starts.

[Ragss]

In my turkish campaign I got lucky and was able to build a dozen Baggalas before I go in a single fight. Then by the end I had 2 ships in every single peice of water on the map. Including about 15 Booms.

But on my Byz campaign I have at least 3 sicillian ships sitting in Constanapole harbour, so every ship I build has a 3 on 1 to contend with...none of my ships have gotten a kill, or lived to the second year.

What im going to do, and something you could do, is concentrate on getting about 4-6 coastal provinces and build 4-6 ships at the same time, then I might have a chance.

[PseRamesses]

As the Danes you can´t survive without trade so you simply must control the seas. I always crank out multiple ships in a seasquare at the same time. My seaborders are always protected by 2-5 ships in every square. Pump away those ships to fill every square THEN build fleets. Never mind the eventual losses from wars or storms. You have to hit the Egyptian coasts to gain thoose much needed florins.
Then I take on, in your case the English, with a fleet of 5-8 ships one by one. Good luck

[Red Yak]

Quote[/b] ]My plan is to get some of the high income Baltic states and then build a fleet and start a trade chain all the way down to Spain.


Yep, get the high income baltic coastal territories. Build as many ships as you can (have at least a couple of territories dedicated to it). And stretch you ships out as far as you can. Try to stay allied or at least avoid war with the English and other powers with fleets in the North Sea and Atlantic for as long as possible, at least until you have an advantage.

You can never have enough ships - once you get a decent trade network up and running the money coming in should far outweigh the cost of upkeeping the ships. Consider capturing a coastal territory further south to reduce the upkeep cost of ships a long way from your homelands (ships cost more to upkeep the further away they are from your closest territory).

Keep 3 or 4 ships in the waters between you and England (the North Sea and English Channel) - if you are at war you should blast him out of the water when ever he launches a ship.

Or launch a couple raids against his shipyards (will be difficult if he has naval superiority). That's what I did in my current Aragonese campaign. The English kept attacking my trade route up to the Balkins, but as a result got excommunicted. Quickly set up a Crusade and sent it against Wessex. It sucked up all the ultra pious French zealots and by the time I got to Wessex it was big enough to take everything south of Nothumbria. With most of his shipyards gone I quickly won the battle for the seas. Hmmm, not really applicable to you as the Danes can't lauch Crusades. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

[ferndaleguy]

One thing I've noticed is that I can have longboats or Caravels or other ships and I can never seem to catch up with the guys who are in my waters. Is it just a function that the computer is endlessly moving fleets back and forth?

My main goal is to try to build up enough wealth to afford ships that have enough speed and firepower that I can dominate on the high seas. Early for the Danes, that likely means longboats strung from the Baltic to Tripoli (for some huge florins). However, should I go to the slower/stronger Caravels or try to upgrade past that as quickly as possible?

Also, is the strategy better to have lots of ships stacked into a fleet? Or, as I find with the english, they have lots of individual ships within a given region? I assume they do it so they can't lose the foothold they have in the area - it's easier to keep control by having lots of smaller targets rather than one big fleet.

On the flip side of that, is there a good strategy for going after a ship? Should it be one on one or is it better to have a multiple ships stacked together for combat?

I know from experience that no matter what I do, the English will come after me, and the blockade hurts my ability to trade and produce florins to the point where I'm going to focus on getting a leg up on them the next time I play.

[Doug-Thompson]

Somebody had an excellent post recently about the effect of ship speed. The speed of the whole stack is determined by the speed of the slowest ship in it. Fleets trying to catch an opponent of equal speed have a 50 percent chance of interception and battle. Obviously, the chances are less if the fleet is slower than its intended victim and better if the victim is slower.

I wish I could remember which thread that was in. It was recent and the author had really done his homework. Anyway, that was the gist.

Longboats don't have any speed advantage and their defense is weak. Their big advantage, though, is a really low maintenance cost. They can spread out all over and not break the bank.

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I got the impression that speed determined whether there was an interception or not, but that combat is determined by the number of ships in the sea zone where the interception took place.

If I read that post correctly -- big if -- then perhaps the way to go is to keep you ships in separated. Just be sure to attack with each of them.

For instance, if one stack has two ships, their chance of an intercept is 50 percent against a target of the same speed. However, the same two ships would each have a 50 percent chance if they were separated and launched their own attacks, making a 75 percent probability of an intercept. For combat, the odds would be the same as if the two ships were in the same fleet.

I can't emphasize enough that I have not confirmed any of this. I'm repeating what I understood from somebody else's recent post, and haven't experimented with this on my own.

[Lord DeVeau]

Hey, How is everyone doing?

I'm new to MTW. Previously I played Lords of the Realm 2 until I got Lords 3 and well, it's not even as good as the old Lords 2.

Anyway, I started with German French and English campains but when I down loaded the VI info by accident I couldn't get access to those games anymore so I started a new English one. I took over England and took over about 2/3rd of the world but now my allies have turned on me the French (sound familiar & my ancester's are from there as well as many other places) but I am getting slammed in sea battles loosing many ships and there is a new threat to the east with a massive well trained and equipted army of double anbything I have. What do I do pull back and punt, I guess, until I can build up more help?

Anyway, thanks for any advice.
Mike

There is one thing worse than fighting weith allies and that is fighting without them Winston Churchill

Peace, I mean War total out. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-help.gif

[motorhead]

Fleet Actions:
To catch small fleets you need to break your larger fleets into smaller pursuit groups. Naval battles are in two phases: pursuit and combat. Equal speed fleets have just a 50% chance of making contact (pursuit phase). The speed of a fleet is based upon the _slowest_ ship in that fleet, so a stack of 9 barques(speed-3) and 1 caravel(speed-1) has a speed of 1. Break your large stack into smaller groups, each having at least an equal chance of defeating the enemy ship if they can catch them.

For example: you have a stack of 12 caravels, your enemy has a stack of 2 caravels. I'd make 6 stacks of two ships, now you've got 6 fleets, each having a 50% chance of making contact, an average of 3 fleets will make contact, each having roughly even odds of winning. A single stack of 12 has only a 50% chance of making contact, but an overwhelming chance of winning.

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I always try to move my ships in pairs, the AI has a strong tendency to snipe single ships sitting off their coasts. I can't count the number of times the Sicilians and Italians did this to me. It's still a good idea to try and build up a larger hunter/killer group, especially when you see the AI is wandering around with large fleets.

[Xiphias]

@ Lord Deveau

Once you grow big then everyone will attack you, it's part of the game. Once you hit the 60% of the map conquered then you get a big one-time hit in province happiness too.

The Golden Hoard has lots of cavalry and archers. I find the easiest way to deal with them is just to send spearmen over and autoresolve. If you've got strong generals and use good quality troops (Halbaders, Chivalric Sergents) then a few stacks is enough to drive them back. I find they usually like to stay in russia though so unless you're border is right up against them I would just ignore them for now.

For sea battles you can either build lots of cheap ships or build a cannon foundry to get access to the better shipyards.

[katank]

intentionally send some stupid peasants on suicide mission in same turn you attack with ships.

game engine likes balance and makes losers on land win at sea.

as long as you autoresolve and lose a battle horribly, you will likely win all naval combat that turn or very close to all including many undeserved ones with low star commanders, fewer ships, and less advanced ships vs. superior forces.

take your pick to losing 50 florins of peasants or potentially thousands in sunk ships.