Awful, awful naval battles......

[AussieGiant]

@ Dogfish,

Please don't quote Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh as something of a counter point to my comment.

I said you don't accomplish too much, not nothing...but the consequences of their behaviour are clear for most people to see. Because, even if you do agree with a point they raise, their delivery and behaviour can be so ridiculous that it put most neutrals off to a greater degree.

As to the main point:

I certain don't think we should swing to the opposite position that you quote as an example.

"This game is awesome and I love CA, but I beg them to please bless us with a working game. Thank you o mighty CA pleasedonthurtme." That was certainly not my point.

You're quite right, some things are big face slappers, but as long as CA is acknowledging things and is moving in the direction of addressing the issues, then constructive conversation to highlight and provide meaningful assistance seems like a better contribution.

[Fisherking]

At Ease! Gentlemen,

No personal arguments please!

It gets emotional when things aren’t going well, I know.

Some of us take the problems with the game a bit harder than others.

CA knows there are issues and there is another patch due next week.

There may be some other things in the works on some things….

Stick to the game discussion and no personal attacks or the thread could be threatened.

Try to envision the problem and what reasonably should be done about it, and give it some thought.

Not…Its broke, fix it!

Now take a deep breath and carry on.

[NagatsukaShumi]

As I have stated before, numerous times, generally CA get stick for things which aren't necessarily CA's fault.

Publishers set deadlines which are expected to be fulfilled, CA have to get a game as playable for that date as is humanly possible, which is probably why so many patches are forthcoming at such short notice.

It is the same on every fansite for every game though in fairness, the publisher normally recieves far less flack than the developer.

[Dogfish]

@ Dogfish,

Please don't quote Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh as something of a counter point to my comment.

I said you don't accomplish too much, not nothing...but the consequences of their behaviour are clear for most people to see. Because, even if you do agree with a point they raise, their delivery and behaviour can be so ridiculous that it put most neutrals off to a greater degree.

Sorry about that... I just thought they were two really good examples of people whom are considered successful by doing nothing but panning other people and cultures. But that's really irrelevant to this thread or ETW.

As to the main point:

I certain don't think we should swing to the opposite position that you quote as an example.

"This game is awesome and I love CA, but I beg them to please bless us with a working game. Thank you o mighty CA pleasedonthurtme." That was certainly not my point.

You're quite right, some things are big face slappers, but as long as CA is acknowledging things and is moving in the direction of addressing the issues, then constructive conversation to highlight and provide meaningful assistance seems like a better contribution.

I agree, it is more constructive. To some degree, however, threads like this aren't as much about helping CA move in the right direction (they probably will not read or see this thread) as much as a little bit of venting about a game that many feel is unfinished (with other people having similar frustrations), which is at least a small part of what communities like this are about. Sharing joys, sharing pain, sharing stories.

Anyway, hopefully CA will be able to get the naval battles up to ours, and probably their own, expectations. They are but a little zygote at the moment, and need much development before they are ready for battle.

[Malkut]

I just thought they were two really good examples

I'd consider them more warnings than examples.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Do you find that your Admiral picks up negative traits for withdrawing, even from an unfavorable matchup?

[AussieGiant]

Dogfish,

I agree with you mate. "Stick" (Australian for constructive criticism) needs to be given to CA but at the moment it's tough to read the general level of negativity sometimes.

On occasion I just try to ask for a little more balance as I'm sure CA people do read through these threads. When they do, a good solid level of information and a critique that's well thought out and gets to the meat of the issue will solve "our" issues much better.

Apologies if we got a little side tracked

I'm just hoping they get through their stability patches as fast as possible so they can get their resources focused on the naval topic as a whole. It's the first time they've done it so it's clearly an area they need to focus on.

I just hope we are "careful for what we wish for." Because if they get a patch out that solves most of the naval theatre issues at one time we could all have our hands pretty full.

I can see the following list in my mind from reading all the posts to date:

In-theatre troop distribution
Intra-theatre troop distribution
Trade route issues
Trade region issues
Invasion possibilities
Battle tactics and ship balancing

If all that was handled in one patch we might all wonder if a nuke just hit us.

[Dogfish]

I can see the following list in my mind from reading all the posts to date:

In-theatre troop distribution
Intra-theatre troop distribution
Trade route issues
Trade region issues
Invasion possibilities
Battle tactics and ship balancing

If all that was handled in one patch we might all wonder if a nuke just hit us.

If all that was in one patch I would probably hurt myself with as many celebratory backflips as I would be attempting. Mind you, I've never done a backflip. But that's just how excited I would be.

Good list summary of the major naval issues.

[Maleficus]

Dogfish,
On occasion I just try to ask for a little more balance as I'm sure CA people do read through these threads. When they do, a good solid level of information and a critique that's well thought out and gets to the meat of the issue will solve "our" issues much better.

Well, IMO all they need to do with regards to naval issues is:


1. Adjust certain ships to make them more historically accurate in terms of firepower, speed and maneuverability. (trade ships, mostly).

2. Tweak the combat system to make it actually possible to hit the enemy when you shoot at them.

3. Tweak the ships' crews' abilities so that crews of trade ships skills in melee are inferior to naval personell.

There's also some more cosmetic changes that I would like to see, but as long as they make the three I've listed, I'll be a happy bunny.

[Dogfish]

I hope either by mod or patch that we get the ability to have more realistic naval battles. That's really my biggest hope. No sailing upwind, no anchoring in open ocean, no stopping and turning on a dime. No turning into the wind.

Maybe make the "rotate" functionality control rudder instead, and it sticks at the angle that you leave it at.

Allow the user to set the speed of grouped formations with the sail +/- buttons like you can with individual ships.

Sid Meier's Pirates feels more realistic than ETW at times, especially with the effect of wind.

[andrewt]

Good thing I'm on turn 11-12 of my United Provinces game so far. I've been building brigs and now starting some 6th rates after capturing Flanders.

Guess I should just build fluyts since I'm having problems with Spain's galleons. I've been kinda cheesing them so far. What I do is sail all my forces quite a bit away from the galleons. Then I sink the accompanying sloops and brigs since the galleon is so much slower than them. The galleon usually arrives when the Spanish sloops and brigs are almost dead. Then I kinda cheese the galleon as much as I can. I'm running away in front of them, turning to fire, then turning to run away again. Since the galleon is slower, I'm always outside its range. Of course, it takes forever to beat one this way.

As for fluyt spamming, I'm already getting close to where using a fluyt as a trade ship is not worth it. I'm getting diminishing returns now, and the next ones I make are barely worth more than 150.

[A Very Super Market]

Ignoring the more important arguments here, I want to tell you guys to just stop using manual broadsides.

Honestly, the auto-aiming does a much better job of it, and it takes SO much micromanaging that you'll get carpal tunnel if you keep using it.

[Maleficus]

I just tried using the auto fire in a battle only to find that it didn't actually fire at all.

[A Very Super Market]

When the field of fire cone passes onto an enemy ship, they will fire. Or not, if they're reloading.

[Dogfish]

Ignoring the more important arguments here, I want to tell you guys to just stop using manual broadsides.

Honestly, the auto-aiming does a much better job of it, and it takes SO much micromanaging that you'll get carpal tunnel if you keep using it.

The manual broadsides just seem gimmicky to me. Even the intro video doesn't show ships doing broadsides as they are in-game, it was a linear progression down the ship.

So many times I've raked an enemy line, tried doing the manual broadsides, and just the middle 20% of the shot will hit the ship due to how it fires off in a perfectly spaced line along the full length of my ship, which is obviously longer than the enemy ship is wide. With the auto-aiming they would point inwards focused moreso on the target.

My question with it at this point is if there is some sort of a damage bonus applied if a cannonball hits when fired from a manual broadsides in order to encourage use of that feature. I hope not, but I can't rule it out, either. I'm starting to feel like they made some poor concessions in gameplay in the name of "accessibility", as Empire is one of CA's most "mainstream" releases. Just look at the marketing behind it, those banner ads were everywhere. Design choices based on "accessibility" often turn off the hardcode fanbase to which the success of a series like Total War is founded upon.

[Zenicetus]

You never know what you'll get. I try to use legitimate tactics (holding the weather gauge etc.) and sometimes win, sometimes loose without really knowing why. Combine that with the loading times and the result is that I'm over naval combat in this game.

There's no point in trying to use the weather gage when wind and sailing are modeled as an arcade game, where ships can sail directly upwind, use 360-degree circling maneuvers, etc.. CA removed the one thing that would have imposed some order on the battle -- the "no go" zone of sailing directly upwind (or even at a modest angle to the wind direction with a square rigger), which would force both the AI and the player to use actual sailing maneuvers instead of steering around like powerboats. It sounds like there are some other glitches happening with respect to gunfire and so on, but that's the main reason the battles are so chaotic and unpredictable.

I auto resolve every time now.

How is that working? Do auto-resolved battles seem reasonable, based on stats comparison of forces? Or is there either a penalty or exploit for the player when sea battles are auto-resolved? I've been waiting to hear about that before buying the game, since I'm not interested in arcade game sea battles, and it's too early to tell if either CA or the modders can improve them.

[A Very Super Market]

Auto-resolve is surprisingly fair. There is the occasional upset battle (I've only seen one happen, and it just meant that I took slightly more casualties than they did), but it is completely intentional.

[Callahan9119]

how do you have like 90 posts in less than 10 days

[Dayve]

2. Tweak the combat system to make it actually possible to hit the enemy when you shoot at them.

Or at least take the ship-homing cannon balls away from the AI. I find when you sail right next to a ship and fire a fully loaded broadside the accuracy is quite satisfactory, but the damage is extremely lacking, especially when galleys only lose 1 crew member and 2% hull damage from a full point blank 4th rate broadside rake.

The AI doesn't have that problem however, when they give you a full broadside volley from point blank range they savage your ship, even if their ship is inferior in quality to yours, or of the same quality.

Combat from further away, the AI ships definitely have accuracy boosts against you, and more of their cannon balls will hit your ships than your cannon balls theirs, even if your ships have a higher accuracy stat than theirs.

So, the two most important things there i'd say are to balance the ship stats and take away the accuracy and damage bonuses the AI seem to have.

[Dogfish]

Haha, yeah, the OP is a pretty prolific poster. Most impressive.

I've been posting more since I'm not playing the game for a while. It's almost like the period pre-release, except my hype level is inversed. Actually fired up the game earlier, but quit before I had ended one turn -- holding off till the AI is fixed.

[Sir Beane]

how do you have like 90 posts in less than 10 days

Pfft. Depending on the day you can easily post upwards of 30 posts if you have enough free time .

What naval battles need is a properly functioning weather guage that can add a sense of order into the battle. And prevent silly tactics and motorboat-like movement.

[Gooseman321]

The naval battles are a jumbled mess for sure.
Clicking on enemy ships to attack often sends your own ships crashing into each other.
The broadside system causes too much micro management because you can't queue attacks
for multiple ships at once and it doesn't automatically reload the broadside.

This means (For me at least) that i have to click all the ships over and over again in order
to fire broadsides. This alone is tedious enough for the naval battles to be downright annoying.

The campaign AI is stupid and essentially does nothing but sit there. It seems as though a set script
isn't even worked out for each faction.

[IRONxMortlock]

How is that working? Do auto-resolved battles seem reasonable, based on stats comparison of forces? Or is there either a penalty or exploit for the player when sea battles are auto-resolved? I've been waiting to hear about that before buying the game, since I'm not interested in arcade game sea battles, and it's too early to tell if either CA or the modders can improve them.

It actually seems quite good. Trade ships (galleons especially) are probably still a bit too powerful in auto-resolve but nothing compared to when you try to fight them yourself in frigates. Basically the naval combat stopped becoming fun so auto-resolve saves me a lot of time and frustration. I recommend it to those who are having a similar experience.

[Arifel]

I cancelled my Pirates of the Burning Sea subscription at Empire Total War's release. I love the naval combat here. Pirates of the Burning Sea is all about simulating ship combat but they never simulated structure damage, and instead just used hit point system like a RPG. Here in ETW I get to deal lucky shots that desmast a flag ship even when I'm using ball shots because some idiot gunner aimed too high. I get to blow up a rated ship with a galley because a cannon ball hit the powder room. These things really spice things up. Although I wish the galley/bomb ketch/rocket ship line were reduced in availability.

[knoddy]

Although I wish the galley/bomb ketch/rocket ship line were reduced in availability.

galley fair enough, but im halfway through my grand camp, i only just got the tech to build the dock to train bomb ketchs n rocketships and i still havnt researched rockets? and im ahead of everyone in tech, how are they too available O.o

[PrimeChaosVC]

The naval battle system is the same as the Old Naps game Imperial Glory, it was totally brought over from that game except it has better ai to help minimise micro management, definately better than sids mayers pirates, I think all CA need to do is fine tuning the stats of the ship to make naval battle more playable.

[Graphic]

I can see the following list in my mind from reading all the posts to date:

In-theatre troop distribution
Intra-theatre troop distribution
Trade route issues
Trade region issues
Invasion possibilities
Battle tactics and ship balancing

Also boarding/capturing ships is very iffy. 9 times out of 10 they just surrender, but in order to be in the position to board, they already need to be heavily damaged and probably on the brink of surrendering anyway. And if they surrender during the melee, you don't actually capture the ship.

IMO if you board a ship and they give up, you should get the capture. It seems like you have to kill every last man aboard the enemy ship without them surrendering, and that's a little nutty.

[crpcarrot]

edited cos it was supposed to have a quote but cant be arsed to reply to it anymore

[Fisherking]

Also boarding/capturing ships is very iffy. 9 times out of 10 they just surrender, but in order to be in the position to board, they already need to be heavily damaged and probably on the brink of surrendering anyway. And if they surrender during the melee, you don't actually capture the ship.

IMO if you board a ship and they give up, you should get the capture. It seems like you have to kill every last man aboard the enemy ship without them surrendering, and that's a little nutty.

I agree with that.

If the boarding action caused the morale to drop it should be credited as a capture.

However, you as the winner should receive all ships that strike anyway, and that more than credit for the capture is what is important.

If that area in naval combat is flawed, then that is what needs set to rights.

There are ships which seem very over powered, that much is clear. CA has always made some units almost super human. It could be good if it is addressed. Particularly the galleys being unhitable. It does not have to be easy, just possible, especially with their extreme lethality. With the other ships it may be that they have very strong hulls.

The other issue I see is with the formations not working exactly as they should.

When ships are pulled out of line, by any occurrence, the ships should at least try to regain their stations and spacing in line.

When formations are changed the ships should flow smoothly, or as much as possible, into the new formation and not turn in unpredictable directions.

There should also be a turn about function for the ships to, as a formation change course 180°.

As it stands now, ships in the line ahead formation fair best as long as they don’t become entangled with the enemy or other ships. At that point everything goes to pot. Faster ships in the line do not reposition them selves but leave gaps which could be closed up. Ships nose to tale don’t spread out either and if a ship leaves the line it just leaves a hole which can only be fixed by manually repositioning each ship, and some times when you regroup the line you still get an unpredictable result.

None of this is major when considered point for point, but when combined it can render the naval combat too frustrating for some people.

It need improved upon to make it an enjoyable experience for all. Not easy, just enjoyable.

[HKDDJulker]

I have been having some issues with naval combat as well, not the least of which is a quite healthy ship suddenly sinking. Sometimes, they just sink, sometimes they take 1-2 hits. But its frustrating, because the hull will still be green, then suddenly, Bam, ship is surrendered and sinking. I don't know if its just against fluyts and galleons, but that is typically what I'm fighting against...
This last time, my mostly fine (green hull) Admiral's 5th rate was chasing down a Fluyt and the dang dutch fired 2 aft guns at me. next thing you know, ship is sinking, admiral is dead. You know, since it was sinking so slowly, couldn't my admiral just hop in a life boat? Hell, i'd settle for allowing one of my ships to pull up next to the sinking ship and rescue some crew.

Fluyts kill 4th rates dead. It seems that I'm losing about 1 ship a battle because somebody used papermache on the hull instead of wood...

Perhaps on VH battle difficulty, the enemy has a higher chance of a crazy kill shot? If that is what i'm dealing with, then