FYI - GamesRadar.com hands on preview

[Zenicetus]

The speed bonus is really what you get from donig tacking, if you move your ships in a tacking way up wind you'll see them move faster than just sailing upwind. However we've not made tacking necessary.

This is what I've been afraid of, all along. Square riggers sailing directly upwind? You've got to be kidding us! That will be an arcade game with pretty graphics, not a representation of sail combat during the historic period.

You expect gamers to be sophisticated enough to appreciate flanking tactics and the use of cavalry in land combat, but you think they're unable to grasp the concept of tacking in sail combat? Or is that CA just couldn't develop an AI that could handle it? Other game developers have managed it. This might as well have been a WW1 game with propeller-driven ships, if you're going to disregard the way sailing ships actually move on the water!

Bah, humbug.

This is very disappointing, but maybe I'm the only one bothered by this. I'll definitely have to read a bunch of user reports after the game is released, before I think about buying it. I'm not that interested in gunpowder combat, and naval combat was the big selling point for me. Until now.

[Wandarah]

This is what I've been afraid of, all along. Square riggers sailing directly upwind? You've got to be kidding us! That will be an arcade game with pretty graphics, not a representation of sail combat during the historic period.

You expect gamers to be sophisticated enough to appreciate flanking tactics and the use of cavalry in land combat, but you think they're unable to grasp the concept of tacking in sail combat? Or is that CA just couldn't develop an AI that could handle it? Other game developers have managed it. This might as well have been a WW1 game with propeller-driven ships, if you're going to disregard the way sailing ships actually move on the water!
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I'm sorry but I for one wouldnt find *having* to tack remotely enjoyable. I would find it an incredible pain in the ass. I'm willing to bet the vast majority of people would feel the same way.

I think CA have provided an excellent compromise. A speed bonus for bothering is a great way to manage it.

[Husar]

I'm sorry but I for one wouldnt find *having* to tack remotely enjoyable. I would find it an incredible pain in the ass. I'm willing to bet the vast majority of people would feel the same way.

Like I tried to say before, fine if you control one ship in an RPG or so, horrible if you have to manually tell it to 20 ships.

[Polemists]

There are alot of games like Sid Mieier's Pirates and Pirates of Burning Sea that already have semi accurate and enjoyable ship battles. That are not OVERLY historic or UNDERLY historic, hopefully Empire will have a similiar idea.

Your right telling 20 ships individually to all do different actions at once is a bit much, but then again so is trying to figure out 8 different sail and wind variations per battle for new people.

We'll see when the game becomes playable, and since CA always releases the demo late and it leaks out early that will probably be Jan though Ca would like it to be feb

[Lord of the Isles]

Like I tried to say before, fine if you control one ship in an RPG or so, horrible if you have to manually tell it to 20 ships.

That's just a user-interface issue. It should be simple to group ships into squadrons/fleets then give commands to the group. If I remember Man of War II or III (an old but good Naval game covering the same period), you selected a flagship for every group, gave it orders then set a signal (orders) for the rest of its squadron. There were only a small number of signals, but they were perfectly adequate and produced quite a realistic feeling effect - since in real life each ship's captain would interpret signals with much these same constraints as in the game. Wanting exact control over every ship's actions isn't very authentic.

Anyway, some more general points, having just come to this thread:

Firstly, thanks CA for the trailer. The eye candy looks wonderful and some of the rest also encourages me to hope that Empire will be good to play.

Secondly, thanks Sidekick & Lusted for your comments. It is really appreciated when you contribute to threads and give us info - even when the info isn't quite what Zenicetus & I wanted to hear.

Thirdly, as you can see, like Zenicetus I'm really disappointed that such a basic thing as wind isn't going to work realistically in naval battles. I do take the point that a lot of casual gamers might find sailing ships of this period tough to understand and when it comes down to game play v realism, going for the former is almost always the best choice (are they really so stupid though? sigh).

I do see a possible resolution though. If I've understood the thread, the AI knows about tacking. Since tacking is going to be overall a faster way to reach a point upwind of where we start, make the AI always use it. Then, if the game options provide a "realistic wind in naval battles" setting, there doesn't have to be different AI to cope with that. Some code changes of course but these could be kept to a minimum.

It is worth noting that something like the above is already quite a compromise for those of us wanting realistic wind. We should be discussing how to model failed tacks, when the ship gets taken aback, and in a similar vein, when to wear the ship when its type/speed/available crew/damage is such that it has X% chance of missing stays if it tried to tack. Realistic wind adds quite a bit to the tactical considerations that a commander would have to juggle, but I guess that a lot of this will have to be dumped in the interests of ... um ... attention span challenged potential buyers of the game.

[Zenicetus]

It is worth noting that something like the above is already quite a compromise for those of us wanting realistic wind. We should be discussing how to model failed tacks, when the ship gets taken aback, and in a similar vein, when to wear the ship when its type/speed/available crew/damage is such that it has X% chance of missing stays if it tried to tack. Realistic wind adds quite a bit to the tactical considerations that a commander would have to juggle, but I guess that a lot of this will have to be dumped in the interests of ... um ... attention span challenged potential buyers of the game.

Right, that's the kind of thing I was trying to get at, without getting too technical. Swinging your bow across the wind is a very dangerous maneuver in real-world sail combat, even with a ship whose sails haven't been shot to shreds. If the game engine allows sailing upwind with no penalty other than reduced speed, then it seems to me that it will allow some very dubious and silly tactics like circle-strafing the enemy.

[Sir Beane]

Right, that's the kind of thing I was trying to get at, without getting too technical. Swinging your bow across the wind is a very dangerous maneuver in real-world sail combat, even with a ship whose sails haven't been shot to shreds. If the game engine allows sailing upwind with no penalty other than reduced speed, then it seems to me that it will allow some very dubious and silly tactics like circle-strafing the enemy.

This is a very good point that I hadn't considered. Allowing ships to circle each other will take all the tactics out of positioning your fleet before attacking. I really hope they find some way of discouraging players from this kind of approach. It will be awful if battles consist of one side having a wind advantage, reaching the other first and then the lines meeting and the wind advantage being completely cancelled out.

On a side note, but still related to naval realism, I wonder if CA have modelled different depths of water? If reefs, sand bars and other obstacles are in the game it will provide a good excuse for the use of smaller vessels with a shallow draught. It will also add in a bit more tactical variety.