Being boarded by 7 men

[Sheogorath]

Boarding is another area where I've noticed the AI seems to have an advantage, even on normal. If you try boarding between two roughly equivalent vessels, yours will almost inevitably end up surrendering/routing. I tried, when I heard about how great xebecs are at boarding, to use one to take over a greatly weakened fluyt, only to have my 80 or so men routed by the 70 on the 5th rate.

Eventually I gave up and had my galleon unload into the side of the fluyt while the xebecs crew were trying to flee. THAT FOR YOU, COWARDS!

[Mailman653]

Whats your strategy for boarding? I'm curious since I've never experienced any of the problems I've seen on this thread, then again I've never fought the super pirates....maybe they have higher stats than other nations?

Something I noticed from 1.2 that isn't in 1.3 anymore is being able to fire a full broadside when your alongside a ship.

I used to be able to load up all my guns with grape then right as I send my hooks across to the other ship I fire my broadside right into them. Now I can't do that anymore and the AI just fires the guns automatically one by one untill both ships are locked in place.

[Sheogorath]

I usually try to demast them first, for the morale/speed penalties. If I have the ships, I then have two ships with lots of guns make a pass with grapeshot, then have my boarder draw up alongside.

That's the ideal situation. Oftentimes I end up just having to send my fastest ship off to nab the guy who's running away.