Pirate Galleons

**Prussian to the Iron** · 06-20-2009, 16:07

word for the wise: early game, galleons are god. you leave them alone, and you're fine. the only real way to sink them before you get 5th and 4th rates is to spam fluyts or 6th rates. they are more maneuvarable and can pack a punch when spammed.

**FactionHeir** · 06-20-2009, 17:48

you can easily take out an AI galleon with 2 light galleys. Just attack click it and the enemy will not even close in but shoot you at long range - where you have the advantage as a tiny target with huge firepower.

**Fisherking** · 06-20-2009, 18:28

Originally Posted by FactionHeir

you can easily take out an AI galleon with 2 light galleys. Just attack click it and the enemy will not even close in but shoot you at long range - where you have the advantage as a tiny target with huge firepower.

Very true! When I have played factions who start with galleys I have found that 3 or 4 are great in a battle so long as you have other ships at hand to take some of the pressure off them.

Use all to target one ship at a time until they kill it our you get sunk. The loss of a galley is no big deal but if they are well used they can be real bad boys.

...now if you are talking about a behavioral exploit, I have not seen that one but it is not the best idea to close on a galley unless you can do it outside of the line of fire.

**FactionHeir** · 06-20-2009, 18:49

I think its probably behavioral as in the AI just drops anchor as well and shoots at you rather than moving towards you when you stop your galleys and just fire at them. Only seems to work when fighting 1 or 2 enemy ships, not more (then they actually (almost) always move towards you).

So I effectively managed to stop Spain from fielding any sort of decent navy by just parking 2 light galleys on the west coast - it'd send a galleon (sometimes two) right at me whenever it finished buiilding them rather than field a larger naval force.

Galleys are simply great at long range because they are small targets and don't suffer the morale penalty of being next to the enemy ship.

**antisocialmunky** · 06-20-2009, 18:58

They also have a nasty tendency of hitting below the water line due to their smallness and shallow ballistic arc.

**Zarky** · 06-20-2009, 23:03

Not to mention the fact that wind on your side you can easily flank them without once going to their line of fire.
And yes they are so damn small target that I've survived dozens of battle without any damage taken, but had much problems with Barbary light galleys :D