Re: My spies watch movies?
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Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
Well, the ships stuff is very interesting but no-one is ever going to find it again, based on the current thread title. :shame:
Mods: if you can pull off a thread-split, please do.
In fact there is another thread full of naval speculation tactics and other related stuff somewhere I'll see if I can find it. Splitting that one, and this one and then combining the two would be a very good idea. :2thumbsup:
Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
Pity I didn't raise a thread of my own about this, which I had half a mind to do, a few days ago, but I went reading other stuff instead...
Anyway, I have 2 Caravels, with a 2-star leader and (possibly) a 1-star subordinate and move them into a sea region occupied by a lone Egyptian ship.
I always get Dhow and Baggala mixed up because their icons look so similar and only made a cursory inspection of the parchment (preoccupied with army matters). For the sake of argument, lets say it was a Baggala.
While fighting the Almos, immediately before this conflict, I'd had a lot of success with simply sending in Caravels and letting the Almos initiate the attacks - which they'd then lose. Caravels are speed=1 so, whenever it's you who initiates the attack, faster vessels can easily run away (those infernal Dromons are notorious for that), if they want to.
So, I think to myself, I have a defence of 3+3; he has an attack of 2 (at best) and no star rating - I can't possibly lose and I can stop him shipping extra troops into Morocco.
WRONG.
He attacks: Down go both of my Caravels (which were stacked together).
Work that one out?
Well first off, there is a big difference between a Dhow and a Baggala stats-wise, but that doesn't mean that a lone Dhow didn't sink your two Caravels (*sheds a tear at the thought of brethren sinking into the watery depths*). The most important point here is that the Almohad Dhow attacked and in my experience that makes all the difference. The attacker always seems to have the advantage over the defender. I think this must be because the valour stars are interpreted differently in attack and defence situations. The enemy Dhow probably struck it lucky and sank your lead ship or the other one. After this it would have gained valour - this would have assisted it in winning vs the second vessel.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
FWIW, I was already aware of the advice to split a stack and make multiple attacks, for best odds of success and I still do that but, when my intention was to defend, I'd keep the stack together, assuming that the defence scores were, somehow, additive. Until now, that is and I'm left wondering what to think.
I don't know if old threads 'drop off' this forum but, if not, what we need right now is some scuba gear... see if we can dredge up an old one, with an informative, CA-badged, response about it.
The defence stats are not cumulative AFAIK. By stacking your ships you're simply leaving them to be engaged all at once by an enemy fleet. For better survivabilty it is better to use small fleets of 2 ships and place 3 or 4 of these fleets, if necessary, in any hotspots and one in every other sea. Those big multiple ship fleets, if attacked, can give the enemy a field day. Once they sink a few and the lead ship gains valour, the rest of the 0 valour ships in the stack will sink very easily.
Re: My spies watch movies?
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Originally Posted by Ciaran
But on the topic, I´ve found that emissaries make for just as good an intelligence source as spies do, plus you don´t lose them to border forts or counterspies. Oh, the odd one might get assassinated every now and then, but there´s always plenty more where he came from. They´re cheaper and easier to reach in the tech tree, too.
While that's true, they're unfortunately also easy to kill. I switch to religious agents (bishops, alims, & priests) as my main "spies-in-residence" once I'm able to train them in large quantities. I find them to be generally superior to emissaries for two reasons: Aside from converting the population of the province they're in, they're also generally more resistant to assassination attempts. :yes:
Re: My spies watch movies?
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Originally Posted by Caravel
Once they sink a few and the lead ship gains valour, the rest of the 0 valour ships in the stack will sink very easily.
I think the "valour-transference" aspect is very important and simultaneously under-appreciated by many. (I can discuss the innards of battle logs at length but will spare you, unless you ask me... so don't! <G> )
Scenario 1: - The 'stack' player
Each stack leader certainly gains stars from a series of victories but (as you pointed out earlier) his subordinates never gain any stars of their own. Sooner or later, despite slim odds (c.f. assassin success percentages), an AI fleet gets lucky and takes out the admiral. In the next combat round, it is just a string of 'greenhorns' versus a fleet with a leader who has just gained some stars.
Scenario 2: - The 'split' player
Some you win, some you lose... but from winning, you will steadily accumulate greater numbers of 1,2 and 3-star singleton ships. Their survival odds in subsequent battles are obviously going to be improved by this. If you look at things on the macro scale, it becomes equally obvious that, in the case of a prolonged naval conflict, the side which has more ships that carry a star rating of some kind is going to win out, in the long run.
So, when reading through the thread messages, you need to bear in mind that "I won many times by attacking with a stack" is, perhaps, discussing the outcomes of individual battles whereas someone else may be referring to the outcome of the naval war as a whole.
It would be interesting to discover that the combat stats were modified by the command stars, in some way (addition or multiplier) but that would just make the story I related earlier that much harder to understand (my admiral had the stars).
