Ahh... Naval Battles.

Of course, it's already a well known fact among the community that naval battles in R2 need serious attention, but I thought I'd point out another bug/problem that affects the boarding/melee mechanic. This particular comedy happened immediately after I totaled a troop transport with a full speed ram (meaning that the ships immediately separated from the force of the impact). The problem isn't only that men can leap like the Hulk from ship to ship after their crate has been consigned to the bottom, but even when a single man is left on-board your ship, the game still calculates the combat like you're fighting the complete unit (as the last screen can attest).

In this example, 151 men went into the drink. Of the 9 that superjumped onto my ship all but one were killed, but those 9 fought as though they were an entire unit. Without going into the obvious problems this causes, it also means that now your ship is tied up and can't move until this battle is over making it a sitting duck for any other enemy troop transports looking to board you.

Which brings me to something I think is a serious oversight when it comes to naval battle balancing. As it is now, you can defeat any AI super navy by simply putting a competent infantry out to sea. So why spend money developing a navy? Troop transports have enough speed and maneuvering ability to chase naval ships around the battle map until they get close enough to suction themselves onto it. Once that happens it's over and done with, cuz all but the most powerful melee ships can't survive a boarding by even militia heavy infantry. Most are missile infantry and their unit numbers too small. They don't even have to make contact most of the time, as soon as they approach it they just get drawn together and melee mode ensues.

In my campaign AI navies are almost powerless when there are enough troop transports present.

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Oh yea, naval battles have issues that makes me auto-resolve them at this point.

I tended to autoresolve a lot of naval battles. I used to think hitting transports with actual naval units would end in slaughters but not really. I like doing some naval battles now and then to try and get the feel for it.

I was watching an naval battle where this ship got rammed and sat there without boarding the other ship right next to it till the ship exploded into many little pieces.

I was laughing so hard when this ship was boarding another and half the the infantry was boarding when another ship hit the rest and the ones who boarded jumped back into the water. :clown:

This game really needs some work to be decent by the time it hits Gold Edition. Or some large sale to incite me to buy the game, like I said before.

Hoping CA goes serious mode this time and patches up the game so it becomes a good game.

I haven't run into huge problems with naval battles yet. It's the landings I hate, where sometimes units manage to get stuck on ships and become un attackable. I really should have set the battle timer to less than 40 minutes just to fast forward through this crap quicker >_>

I actually think cheap troops on high hp ships are the best. Ramming is overpowered. 1-2 hits could sink a transport ship. The early assault and missile ships barely have more hp and will sink pretty fast, too.

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Originally Posted by andrewt

I actually think cheap troops on high hp ships are the best. Ramming is overpowered. 1-2 hits could sink a transport ship. The early assault and missile ships barely have more hp and will sink pretty fast, too.

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I do not find ramming over powered. I think it is pretty Historical as it is. I do not think that there are many records of ships having survived multiple rams. These are galleys hsallow keeps, a well placed Ram hole and your done. oarsmen did not run around patching holes with planks etc as was the case in the age of sail. These guys were tied to their seats and prayed not to get rammed.

I think it is all inthe tactics, as for the OP yeah the system may require some tweaking as far as some mechanics are conserbed, but I think not ramming, it is fine as it is, just need to maneuver properly and find opportunities to ram the enemy and avoid being rammed.

Love the game thus far! Very excited about it.

i love to see my navy ships with seasoned marines getting slaughtered by green land hastati because they have 2x more men on their ships. and not to mention its awesome how they can set my fleet on fire with flaming javelins

the best thing about battles is the nice new autoresolve, because fighting battles land or sea... is meh

Even with all these problems, I still like the naval battles more than in previous games simply because of the ramming. I love seeing one of my large ships hit a smaller one at a ninety degree angle and plow right through it almost without stopping while the smaller ship is splintered in two. I also think the naval reinforcing mechanic makes siege battles far more interesting.

It is amusing though, watching guys who have boarded one of my ships realize that their own ship is sunk and go "whelp, guess that means I have to go for a swim".

A good navy can be a great help to take port towns. Take Carthage, for example. The drydock unlocks at technology tier 1. What's at the drydock, you ask? Assault hexeres - sacred band. It's more expensive than the barracks version, but that early in the game?