need help with naval battles

[Hooahguy]

ok, ive got a big problem. i suck REALLY badly at naval battles. lets just put it this way-
i had a 5th rate, a 6th rate, a sloop, and 6 brigs. i had to take on the Danish navy, which was then just a 5th rate, a 6th rate, 2 indiamen traders, and 2 brigs.

well, i sunk 4 of their ships. all of mine were sunk. 3 of them, in perfectly good shape, because they were too close to another ship, which got a full broadside from a danish ship, resulting in this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

ok, so now the 2 danish ships have occupied my main port. im playing as Sweden btw.
so i assembled a fleet of 8 brigs as fast as i could, and now im about to do battle with a 5th rate and a 6th rate.

in need tips on how to beat a better force with my weaker force.
what i know is this: send one ship to the front of the enemy formation to block off their advance, and slow them down. dont send them to attack a ship, that will just get all your ships confused and there will be big crashes and explosions like above.
only use broadsides when the opportunity allows you to.
use grape shot when close up, to slow down the enemy and destroy his cannons.
also, when the hits the fan, slow down the battle to better micro-manage.

anything else?

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I found it best not to micro manage too much. Just stick to the line formation and let them come to you. If you then wrap your line around theirs in a manner that the lead ship gets to keep it's broadside pointed at the lead enemy, the lead ship will soon be outnumbered, outflanked and severely damaged. The combination of these morale modifiers should lead to a quick surrender, so the next enemy ship in line gets all the attention of your broadsides. That enemy won't like it any better.

Any ship of yours that gets badly damaged can break away from the line in the direction away from the enemy, thus seeking refuge behind his buddies who are in a better shape.Except for the last ship, who can't easily run and hide. Oh well, can't bring everybody home.

[lobo76]

I found it best to have few powerful ships than many weak ships. The AI sent quite a big fleet of ships (filled up 1 row) ...but their most powerful was a sixth rate and a whole lot of sloops and Indiaman. I had ONE(1) galleon. I won.

For multiple versus multiple, usually I line up the ships in a row rather than a column (usually the default is the latter). Sail abreast towards the enemy fleet. As you get in range, turn all your ships sides ways to reveal your broadsides to them, and fire away. Their lead ship will be hit by 2-3 boardsides in the first salvo. The idea is to focus fire and kill the first one as soon as possible.

Remember that you have TWO(2) broadsides....always turn to expose the side that haven't fired. So, after that it is usually enough to just turn around and around (on the spot), constantly turning the side that haven't fired side to whatever enemy that happens to be in range.

[Didz]

My system (which seems to work) is much simpler.

I just form my fleet into a double line ahead (en exchequer) with ships in the second line covering the intervals in the first.

I then position this double line to windward (up wind) and angle ready to run down on the enemy fleet (with the wind behind them).

When the battle opens I head for the lead ship of the enemy fleet, and try to cross ahead of it.

If I don't manage that then I basically manoeuvre my fleet so that my lead ship constantly has their lead ship in its target zone. Everything else I leave to the AI and 'fire at will'.

I only use 'dismantling shot' and 'grape' if I heavily outnumber the enemy and plan to board the enemy and go for some prize money. In any sort of challenging battle the only thing worth firing at is their hull.

[I second Lobo's comment - in naval battles weight is more important than numbers. You idea of swamping a 5th rate with brigs is a long shot and very expensive to boot. The first thing I would do is get a militia cavalry unit into that port and force the enemy to put back to sea. If you are lucky someone else will sink them, if not you need to research 5th rates before trying to take them on, unless you have fluyts or galleons.]

[Hooahguy]

I found it best to have few powerful ships than many weak ships. The AI sent quite a big fleet of ships (filled up 1 row) ...but their most powerful was a sixth rate and a whole lot of sloops and Indiaman. I had ONE(1) galleon. I won.

well, im early in the game, so all i can get is brigs and sloops. ive been using my research time for military techs and enlightenment.

but thanks for all the help. i was able to defeat the Danish fleet with only losing one ship.
i got up close, taking advantage of my speed, and raked them with anti-personnel shot. one surrendered, the other sank.

[A Very Super Market]

I presume you're playing in the Baltic. The answer is, spam galleys.

They are cheap, and easily produced, and completely expendable. You'll have to play each battle personally, because auto-balance will just make you lose. Spread them out in a line, and just move them forward until contact is made, and clear out the loose ones who aren't firing.

[Hooahguy]

galleys? why galleys? an indiaman trader blows them out of the water. i sent a lone indiaman trader to the americas, to scout the areas out, and i was attacked by 3 galleys. i crushed them, only losing 4 cannons on my ship.

[resonantblue]

If you have a mobilkity advantage (eg steamships) then you can effectively take longer ranged pot shots at enemy ships with barely any return fire. Every ship has a blind spot between the bow/stern guns (which are weak anyways, so no big deal) and their broadside.

With a mobility advantage I break my fleet down into squadrons of 2 and micro manage them to stay in the lead ship's blind spot. You'd be surprised how quickly 4-6 steamships can waste a 1st/2nd/3rd rate that can't fire back. If the AI (as it occasionally does) retreats into a giant ball in an attempt to bring more guns to bear, just fall back. They'll steam out again to come after you - if not just take potshots at stragglers until they do or retreat from battle.

If you don't have a mobility advantage, you are going to be forced to fight. If you have a clearly superior fleet, you might as well put everything in line and setup parallel to the enemy fleet and blast them into obvlivion... even if your fleet is not superior but you do have the heavier ships you can use the same technique of isolated the lead ships and concentrating on them so that you destroy the entire enemy fleet in piecemeal.

If you don't have a mobility advantage and you have weaker/smaller ships or the enemy just has too many more ships... the only way you're really going to win is efficient gun utilization. The idea is to keep guns on both sides of your ship firing while limiting the enemy's chance to do so.

[Hooahguy]

update from the front: a danish fleet with 2 6th rates, a 5th rate, 2 indiamen traders, and a sloop attacked my force of 8 brigs.
they captured 2 of my brigs, sank the rest of them, and somehow didnt lose a single ship. im starting to wonder if auto-calc would be better for me. but i did damage them. i think. anyhow, i have my army ready to take on Copenhagen, so thatll put a dent in their plans! [insert evil, but unsure, laugh here]
then i have to move a force to the Danish city on Iceland so i can take them out once and for all.

[hoom]

Brigs are very weak ships.
Indiamen don't have many guns but they are much tougher than brigs.

i got up close, taking advantage of my speed, and raked them with anti-personnel shot. one surrendered, the other sank.

This probably only worked because of the damage they sustained in the earlier battle.

Grapeshot is useless unless the side of the hull has been opened up by round shot first or the ship is open decked like Brigs/Galleys.

[Didz]

I very rarely build Brigs, preferring corvettes (TROM Mod) or sloops. I only really start build ships in earnest once I can construct 5th Rates, and only liners once I can get 3rd Rates. Everything else is overpriced for their performance.

[Fisherking]

Well, now all this information maybe obsolete with the new changes.

I must say I don’t quite get the game play over realism thing. Perhaps I am just missing something.

I just don’t see why sloops and brigs should try to take on a SOL or why they should for game play reasons.

[Didz]

They shouldn't, once again 'Thank God for the modders, otherwise this game would already be down the toilet.'

[Hooahguy]

ok i took Copenhagen (what a hard fight! i hate how all the enemy units kept garrisoning buildings to snipe at my guys!) and i discovered that i can now build all ships up to 3rd rates in the port that i just captured.
im thinking about 6-8 5th rates when i get the money for it.

[A Very Super Market]

Are you playing on a high difficulty level?

Galleys are murderous little devils. The AI doesn't particularily know how to use them, I suppose. One galley versus anything will have a hard time, but in numbers, they can swarm ships far more valuable than they, and let your main fleet mop up. They are dirt cheap as well.

[Hooahguy]

im at hard for campaign and hard for battles.

[A Very Super Market]

Well, that's why the naval battles are harder, because the stats are skewed for the AI. I'm not sure how your indiaman managed to beat back those galleys, but I suspect they were damaged beforehand.

[Hooahguy]

so any suggestions? Prussian Iron said that right before a battle you can edit the battle difficulty, but ill have to test that out.

[Fisherking]

When facing galleys the trick is to close with them outside their firing arc. They rout easily.

There are also changes to the naval game with this last update. Look over the stats in battle.

Brigs are useless. Their guns are too weak to do much and they have a tendency to explode. Sloops have better guns and more speed. They will always take out a brig one on one in the players hands. And if they can’t beat it they can out run it.

5th rates are good in the early game but once 3rd rates are available they are the best all-round ships.

[Didz]

With the small Barbary pirate galleys I found it quite easy to take them out with a sloop.

I had a couple of sloops in Marseilles that specialised in this every time the pirates sent a couple of galleys to blockade Marseilles.

I simply formed the sloops up in a line abreast.

As soon as the battle started each sloop would charge straight at an enemy galley.

They would take a couple of shots from the galleys as they closed by not enough to sink them or do major damage.

Once they reached the galleys they would fire grapeshot straight across their low decks which killed a lot of the 16 man crews. They would then board and finish the job. I usually managed to capture both galleys as prizes, but always one. So, the prize money was between 720 and 1440 gold which was more than enough to repair the sloops (usually about 30). So, a nice profit and two very rich sloop commanders.

The same tactic works with the larger galleys, but you need a slightly bigger ship to do it, mainly because of the relative crew sizes.

[resonantblue]

Are you playing on a high difficulty level?

Galleys are murderous little devils. The AI doesn't particularily know how to use them, I suppose. One galley versus anything will have a hard time, but in numbers, they can swarm ships far more valuable than they, and let your main fleet mop up. They are dirt cheap as well.

This is actually a very good point. If you were a Soviet Red Army colonel (or above) in a past life or otherwise have wanton disregard for the life and well being of your virtual men, using cheap ships as cannon fodder to close while your main ships blast away a bit further away is a useful tactic. I recall one situation where I had 4 damaged 3rd rate SOLs vs an almost full stack enemy navy which included many smaller ships but had 7-8 2nd to 4th rates. The battle strength meter was heavily in the enemy's favour. Fortunately I did have about 5 galleons recently seized from a large pirate armada I just destroyed. I did not repair them so they had barebones crew and what not.. but I used them as broadside bait and after a tough battle, managed to eek out a victory... granted I was down to my last ship by the time it was all said and done. The difference was the galleons, which otherwise did not add much defensive power but did soak up plenty of the early enemy broadsides, which tend to be the strongest given no guns have been damaged yet.