Who said the AI couldn't do naval tactics?

**Fwapper** · 04-09-2009, 03:48

Check out this beautiful Crossing of the T:

**TinCow** · 04-09-2009, 04:03

I find naval battles to be pretty challenging in ETW unless I have significantly more firepower than the AI. Perhaps it's just the style of the battle that is more forgiving than the land battles, but the AI seems to do a pretty good job of orchestrating its forces at sea. The only problem I see it have regularly is ships bunching up and running into each other, but I also have that issue on occasion, so it goes both ways. If I'm outgunned in a sea battle, I tend to be far, far more concerned about the results than I am if I'm outnumbered on land. For this reason, I think I currently enjoy the naval battles more than the land battles.

**Callahan9119** · 04-09-2009, 05:56

I totally agree with you. The only time on land I am worried is when I lazily send a new general and maybe a new elite unit to an awaiting army and get caught unawares. On the water I can only recall Napoleon commenting that "wherever there was water to float a ship we were doomed", or something in that vein.

I am Awful at naval battles, yet I typically only play smallish coastal factions. Get everyone in the boats and pray you make it to the other side I guess. You would have to assume with less variables to consider the AI would perform more ably.

**Dayve** · 04-09-2009, 06:27

There is no challenge in naval battles... If the enemy has bigger ships than you in even numbers, you will lose. If you outnumber the enemy 10-1, but you have sixth rates and he has 2nd rates, he's going to win, tactics or no tactics.

It's still a god damn hell of a lot of fun watching those ships fire at each other though, naval shortcomings be damned.

**Fisherking** · 04-09-2009, 07:25

Originally Posted by Dayve

There is no challenge in naval battles... If the enemy has bigger ships than you in even numbers, you will lose. If you outnumber the enemy 10-1, but you have sixth rates and he has 2nd rates, he's going to win, tactics or no tactics.

It's still a god damn hell of a lot of fun watching those ships fire at each other though, naval shortcomings be damned.

I don’t find that at all.

It seems that I am always out gunned and out numbered. I find speed and maneuverability are much more important than size or even numbers.

Of course these situations are when the enemy attacks you

Don’t become decisively engaged. Use chain at long range to slow the enemy. Concentrate on their faster ships first to reduce the threat to your self. Stay long and play keep away until they are nearly helpless. Then you can change to round shot or even grape shot if you get that chance.

I have found that sloops are the best light ships. Brigs and even 6th rates don’t seem to be able to last as long and tend to be holed easier then them. Also the loss of a sloop is no major defeat.

The enemy is the attacker and must come to grips and defeat you. If you out last him it is your victory. He will be back, make no mistake about it, so don’t just hang out.

Rigging damage is always repaired between battles but hull, crew and guns are not.

**Namarie22** · 04-09-2009, 09:00

I just always position my ships facing broad side towards enemy at start.. they WILL sail straight into it, or slightly to right, in which case you just move the left most ships a little.

**SpiritFox** · 04-09-2009, 09:05

I think the closest thing I ever got to a victory against uneven odds was a 6 - on - 4 pile on by the 5th rates of the Swedish fleet against my four Light Galleys. I Managed to sink one 5th rate before they pummeled me into submission. One of my Galleys escaped.

**AussieGiant** · 04-09-2009, 09:07

I'm still getting my ass handed to me in land battles on Medium, but I've found a good balance on the naval side of things.

Actually, I'm doing well on land but only in Europe where the fighting is civilised and done at range. As I've just invaded the Cherokee nations they just do an all out rush at me and it's pretty ugly at the moment.

I've always retreated from naval engagements where I am at a disadvantage though. With even or better ratios of guns, then I give a good account of myself against the AI.

I had one naval battle where I had four 4th rates v 8 smaller French frigates and brigs. My bigger ships were split with 2 of the 4th raters as reinforcements.

The French tactics were very good. They closed quickly using the wind and got in behind my bigger ships and started sniping the trailing ship in the two ship line. I had to fight a reguard action until my other two 4th raters arrived.

By that time they had cornered me by the side of the map. Then all hell broke loss as my heavy broadsides start causing those nuclear detonations against the smaller ships...it was like World in Conflict all of a sudden!!

Luckily I remember just in time and turned my four big ships away before they caught fire.

In the end I was lucky, they didn't have anything higher than a 32 gun frigate in the 8 ship fleet and I was lucky to survive at all given how well they used the wind and tactics.

**maestro** · 04-09-2009, 09:59

I have to say, I have much more success in Naval battles against uneven odds than on land. I relish the thought, early in the game, of being attacked by a bunch of galleons, manned by pirates cause it's just a load of free, powerful trade ships to add to mmy repertoire

I've taken on 4 galleons with a single 6th rate and won, only last night. You just have to be very careful and patient. The only way to go up against ships where you're outmanned and outgunned is to demast them fromm as far away as you can. I tend to fight from downwind cause that way it's easier to run away. I try to travel away from the lead ship in tights esses, leaving the guns on chainshot anf fire at will. You'll soon enough knock the masts off. Once you've done that, you just carefully manouvre to the back of each ship in turn - making sure not to get in line and range of their guns and then pepper them with canister shot until they surrender. Last night I managed to end the battle with all four surrendered and got three of them to join my fleet! Free ships!

So I, for one, am really enjoying all the different tactics one can employ on the sea. I'm playing on VH campaign and H battles, for those who care

**TinCow** · 04-09-2009, 14:01

Originally Posted by maestro

I've taken on 4 galleons with a single 6th rate and won, only last night. You just have to be very careful and patient. The only way to go up against ships where you're outmanned and outgunned is to demast them fromm as far away as you can. I tend to fight from downwind cause that way it's easier to run away. I try to travel away from the lead ship in tights esses, leaving the guns on chainshot anf fire at will. You'll soon enough knock the masts off. Once you've done that, you just carefully manouvre to the back of each ship in turn - making sure not to get in line and range of their guns and then pepper them with canister shot until they surrender. Last night I managed to end the battle with all four surrendered and got three of them to join my fleet! Free ships!

I've also had some success with single 'light' ships. If you concentrate exclusively on controlling one ship, you can pull off some remarkable stuff if you have superior speed. I defeated 4 xebecs with a single sloop once by keeping in front of them, dismasting them, and then grapeshotting the crew until they surrendered. The problem with this is that it requires so much concentration and timing, that it's very difficult to do with more than 1 or 2 ships. If you have other ships in your fleet, they're going to be ground to dust while you play around with your single sloop. With the above xebec battle, I only ended up controlling the sloop because it was the last survivor of a 5 ship fleet and was luckily relatively unscratched when it became my last resort. For this reason, I tend to sail around only with large fleets or with single ships, the latter usually in the early part of the game when I can't assemble the former.

**maestro** · 04-09-2009, 16:19

Aye - tis true. Winning a 1 Vs 4 is probably easier than winning a 6 Vs 10 when you're outgunned

**AussieGiant** · 04-09-2009, 16:22

Good points to here about guy's. I have not done this yet so I'll give this 1 on 4 stuff a try.

**Kraxis** · 04-09-2009, 16:32

Tactics and control can even help you with slower ships.

I had an Indiaman get mugged by three Brigs on it's way to the transit zone. Of course I tried to retreat, but they chased it down and so I had to fight.

Three Brigs aren't very tough, but when you have very few guns and a slow-mo ship they tend to get quite dangerous. The Indiaman however is much stronger, so I decided to not to try and keep my distance, it would only provoke them to do the same and the battle would soon en in my defeat as all three ships could fire on me (the cones overalapping at range). Instead I crossed their T and gave the first one a pasting as they tried to get closer. Then close in I changed to grape and weaved and juked my lumbering hulk. I got off several nasty dual end-to-end broadsides with grape (getting between two enemies). The results were devastating.

In the end I had not chance, but to my surprise my ship managed to escape. And the three Brigs were utterly ravaged, while my Indiaman was overall fairly well off, save in crew and guns. The repaircosts to the enemy would have been many times that which I would have had to pay... if they had reached port that is. I finally sent a privateer hunting fleet to deal with these Brigfleets (this was the third interception, the other two I had lost), so they never made it home.

Overall I enjoy naval battles a lot. I'm really looking forward to some really big ones between 3rd raters and upwards. Line battles for the win... though I doubt I can keep my cool for that.

**maestro** · 04-09-2009, 17:01

I've had only one really big battle - it was with GB and I had my "uber fleet" with nuff heavy first rates against Spain's bunch of 2nd and 3rd rates. Man, do those heavy 1sts pack some punch

It's ace - just get like your 3 ships to fire at will chainshot at the eneemy's lead ship and hey presto - NO masts left and it buggers up the rest of the enemy formation - lotsa fun