Assaulting Malta (or any other small island with a resident army)

Perhaps this is a stupid question, but I seem to be completely unable to assault Malta to fulfil Britain's victory conditions. The Knights of St. John army resident in the settlement prevents me from landing a beachhead on the nearby coast (and the entire Maltese coastline is "nearby"), and the small navy inside the port hasn't moved for dozens of turns (since long before I sailed an invasion fleet in that direction, in fact), so I cannot test to see whether I can unload via the port.

I've tried a few tricks using saved games, such as trying to gift them another territory next to one of their enemies to encourage them to move, or leaving a lone 6^th Rate apparently undefended not so very far from the port, and in the opposite direction from my actual invasion fleet, but cannot find a real solution. As this makes it impossible to complete Britain's campaign, and I am sure other people have managed to complete this campaign, people must have found a solution! What is it?

Thanking you kindly in advance,

Vac

Try blockading them with a single ship. When they attack you have to spend the battle running away. You must have timed battles set, best at the shortest setting, and evade them for the whole battle.

It is a bit of an exploit but it is the only way to get their fleet out of port.

Then you can move in with you own fleet.

Thanks for that suggestion Fisherking,

I'll try that out, on that note, what *is* the fastest ship? A sloop or a brig, I'm guessing...

Anyone else got a solution?

It is the sloop. Brigs are just a bit slower.

Hmm, that makes sense. I have to admit I always scuttle anything under a 6^th rate at the beginning of the game; the maintenance cost just doesn't seem worth it relative to the combat performance.

Sadly, I seem to have lost my saves from my old campaign where I got stuck with this problem, so it's not really practical to test it. :shame: In my new British campaign, I'm a long way from invading anything in the European sphere of operations. I am curious, doesn't the AI just move the fleet back into the harbour after the battle?

If you are attacked and evade battle for the whole time then you win the battle and the attacking fleet has to retreat away from that point.

They may even lose some ships.

So, no, they cannot go back into the port.

Uhh, duh. :wall:

Sorry, I shouldn't post questions after working for ten hours straight, should I?