Naval nincompoopery

Greetings fellow Total Warists...warriors...warinators?

I've been playing a bit of the demo while waiting for the full game to come out, and when I attempted the Naval battle last night, I got utterly trounced. It probably revolved around my lack of good micro of the ships, but I had a hard time trying to get them all lined up great for broadsides while watching other ships. I tried using the right click attack command to get the 4 lower end ships to go after the enemy admiral ship, but they more or less moved up, sat at max range and traded fire with him. I tried mucking about with my own admiral ship, and the next most powerful ship, but as I could get the admiral ship lined up for a broadside, the other ship would wind up sailing away quite aimlessly. This became even more frustrating once the french ships started dancing between my own, and really annoyed me when one of their higher quality ships hit my 2 main ships I was playing around with using a broadside from EACH SIDE at the exact same time. :oops:

Could anyone provide me a bit of insight as to how to control my naval operations a bit better, so that I'm not running "Dorf runs a fleet" style anymore? Once my Admiral ship was cornered away from the rest of my fleet, the second ship I was fiddling with was jetting off to rolly durham and on fire, and the rest were more or less shot to bits, I decided to raise the white flag and hide my shame.

When I started off I don't think I was doing too terribly, I was able to hit their lead ship with a broadside from all of my ships (all moving in a line, one after the other), but it still didn't sink. After that point I was kind of out of ideas, and then chaos ensued, as the tutorial really didn't give me much to work with in terms of fleet tactics. Sure it told me how to fire a broadside etc, but trying to play Pirates! style with a 1st rate ship of the line and dodge cannon fire just doesn't work. :skull:

Any and all help at making me stink less at naval command would be highly appreciated, especially as I plan to play as England, and I don't imagine their naval prowess would do me any good if all of my captains are down having tea with davy jones. :wall:

The first time I played the naval demo, the same thing happened to me (I still won though :yes:). The second time out, all I did was turn my ship formation to the left, in a line (if that makes any sense), and anchored. None of my ships were captured or sunk, and all but one Frenchy was sunk (the last one gave up and just sat there). I think this worked because the French ships sailed right at the broadsides of each of my ships, most were heavily damaged bofore they even got a shot off. I'll try it again and see if I cant get a screenshot.

So more or less just maneuver them so they're sailing into a waiting line of hungry cannons? That seems so simple that I feel like an idiot for not trying it out. :dizzy2:

Was that just select all, turn group, put group in their path and it's off to the races? :inquisitive:
Doing that I'd really feel like some of the ships out on the end might miss out on combat by not being able to fire, or is that just a rotate button away?

Ok, take this advice with a grain of salt. It worked again, just not as good as the first time (I still won though :yes:). Its kinda hard to get youre ships to do exactly what you want, Ive had ships belay my orders once they get sight of the enemy :wall:). But anyhow, the results were basically the same except I lost one ship and one other ran a bit (the one on the far right).

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Originally Posted by Shadow_Wolf33

Was that just select all, turn group, put group in their path and it's off to the races? :inquisitive:
Doing that I'd really feel like some of the ships out on the end might miss out on combat by not being able to fire, or is that just a rotate button away?

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You could do that, but I positioned my ships individually (they space too far apart selected as a group). But yes, rotate and reposition youre ships as needed, but try to maintain a close line formation, business ends facing the enemy :captain:.

Before I get into the meat and potatos of my post I just want to say, Shadow Wolf33, I love the Tim Conway, Dorf, reference. That made me laugh out loud.

Anyway, back on topic. No, you cant dodge cannon volleys like in Pirates!. It would be nice tho. I love that game and still play it on Gametap every so often. The Empire sailing engine is not as arcade-y as Pirates! but its pretty forgiving, I love the power slides the ships do in the water. Sea Dogs was probably the most accurate engine that I have played but it was so accurate it was frustrating.


Sorry I dont have any answers for naval battles for you right now. I find myself being beaten by the French fleet alot, but just by the slimmist of margins. And one time I crushed their fleet with no losses of my own and fairly light damage. I'm not sure what I did there , but apparently it was the right thing.

Not sure if you already know this, but if you put all your ships into a group the game allows a pretty fluid line formation where each ship follows the one in front of it, and you can easily make small or large changes to their route. I learned it from one of Jack Lusted's posts.

I use this to easily control the whole fleet and create optimal broadside situations. I usually end up circling the enemy fleet once or twice and then turning around so they have to face the undamaged side for the death blow... :2thumbsup:

Don't broadside!
The T maneuver is better because the cannon balls go through the whole ship
not the side!

Well, the trick seems to be not to micro-manage too much.
I played the demo a few times and best results have been with simple selecting the entire fleet, selecting "Line ahead" formation and then turning a bit to the right to welcome the first french fleet.
After the first "drive by shooting" simply cycle your fleet around the french one and wait until they sink.

I think my long term strategy was something along those lines, but I just failed horribly in the execution. I saw all my ships going for the line formation firing off shots at a ship at a time and felt it was a horribly bad idea tactically speaking, so I tried to get them to bunch up a bit more to focus fire, and that just turned the whole situation from bad to worse. That plus I kept trying to focus all my fire on the first ship I encountered, so with all my energies focused on that one, I was probably missing a LOT of opportunities to hit other ships. That plus I kept trying to fire broadsides manually, maybe I should let the professional cannoneers do the firing. That plus once the first pass had gone, I tried to do some quick Pirates! style turning, and that really got my ships into a quandry and made bad turn to worse. I think when I try it tonight I might try and get a large firing line set up like how ljperreira suggested and see if they'll sail right into it. I'm just hoping they'll come at it straight on, instead of from an angle and then more or less flank my ships. Maybe I'll take one of the lower rate ships and fiddle with it as an interceptor style ship as well, or is that a dumb idea?

Also, I have noticed that enemy vessels tend to explode when crossing the t, firing from their stern, so don't be too close when doing this, or your own vessel will catch fire and burn. This happened to me, twice...