Naval Tips

[Marquis of Roland]

I've found that if you get the AI fleet to bunch up and ruin their formation, things become very favourable for you quickly! It's a bit tricky to get it to do that though.

All you have to do to get AI to bunch up is to sail for the last ship in his line, and away from the first ship in the line.

I just fought an uneven battle where I used that tactic. I had the USS Constitution (7exp) versus 2 galleons, 2 fluyts, and 2 race-built galleons (pirate faction, all 2exp). Difficulty medium, clear weather and moderate westerly breeze.

I started off with the weather gage and sailed in a wide arch towards the rear of their fleet. their lead ships started tacking into the wind, slowing their speed to a crawl. With the new patch, ships will adjust speed according to the lead ship and whats immediately ahead of them, so their entire line was basically immobilized.

To simplify, once I balled them up, I just kept picking at them with long-range chain-shot salvos, periodically sailing in closer for a raking broadside whenever I saw opportunities where their guns won't be aiming at me for a couple seconds (or only 1 or half a broadside could be brought to bear on me in time).

End result: USS constitution - 12 guns out of action, 44 casualties. Pirates - both race-built galleons sunk, both fluyts struck their colors with 1 sinking, 1 galleon exploded and the other captured. To the AI's credit it did break up its formation to try to cut me off and surround me.

For those who don't have USS Constitution, it is a slightly slower 24-pdr frigate with about 50% more hull strength.

[Kraxis]

The AI is definately a slave to the formation, or should we say the flagship.

My best example of it was a battle I should always have won, but one that could have been costly.
A mess of brigs, sloops and a 6th rater or two faced my fleet of two 4th raters, two 5th raters two 6th raters and a brig.

Knowing the AI would stick to it's line and try to cross my line of advance I put my big ships in one line and the three smaller ones in another. I kept my big ships in good wind so I could dictate the direction the battle would take, while I kep the smaller ships behind and a bit to the leeward. The plan was to rake both sides or hold the enemy with the big ships while the small ships crossed the T.
Well the AI was fast, and as soon as we passed each other it turned into the wind behind my big ships, in turn I did too to present the unharmed side. The AI continued the turn (what else could it do), at this point my small ships came down the other side, so the AI flagship now responded to them and once more turned, more or less back onto the original course... trouble was just that it got tangled with the last few ships in it's line.

And so there I had them, completely tangled up, ships turned this and that way close to each other. Firing was very hard for them as a friendly ship blocked a lot of it. Meanwhile my ships played indians on horses and circled the wagontrain. Superior firepower obviously ended the encounter pretty soon, but it was in fact the control of the battle that had beaten the enemy.

And I must admit I enjoyed the view when the battle was over I had seen several ships explode, a couple surrender to be captured, but otherwise it looked like a shipgraveyard with masts and hulks lying in a big mess. Especially the explosions had created awesome results. One in particular sinking at least three others. It looked like my sailors could have walked dry from one squadron to the other. I really should have made a screenshot.