Community call to arms: Naval guide

**Madae** · 03-28-2012, 14:30

The British Warrior is one epic beast of a ship. I figured they would have a great ship to loan me if I sided with them, so I did and I was happy with that arrangement.

**rogerman** · 03-29-2012, 08:38

The japanese version of the ironclad has the ramming ability and one potent forwardfacing gun. Ive seen large enemy frigates explode after 2-3 hits. Accuracy is unparalleled but they are slooow, can easily become swarmed with enemy ships. The american gun turrets do not turn, one big turnoff. I have yet to experience the mighty HMS Warrior!

**SalmonSoil** · 03-30-2012, 02:59

I have not yet seen a ship survive a ramming. It seems the Kotetsu (Japanese Ironclad) is a good ship for this role as all of it's guns other than the forward facing one are gatling guns, allowing you to devastate enemy decks at close range, and of course the forward facing cannon can fire whilst you speed towards the enemy boat.

Explosive shells seem to be the best option against wooden boats, while I'm assuming armour piercing should be used on Ironclads?

**Peasant Phill** · 03-30-2012, 09:31

I haven't done a lot of naval battles but the lowly gun boat does seem to have it's uses even when it's facing far superior ships.
With it's decent speed and it's forward facing gun it can fill in the role that light cavalry does on land. Harrass and chase off routers for a very low cost.

Especially the chasing off routers seems to be a role that needs filling. Ships seems to rout relatively fast but rally easily when out off combat for a little while. Keeping bigger ships from reentering combat with a dirt cheap vessel seems a very cost effective tactic.

**jepp21** · 03-30-2012, 10:33

The warrior class is not worth 18000 in my opinion. Its range is poor and i believe the French L'Ocean is more effective here.

Anyway never get your ships caught facing their broadside away from the enemy ships, and remember to turn the other side when one side gets severely damaged

**Madae** · 03-30-2012, 16:49

Originally Posted by jepp21

The warrior class is not worth 18000 in my opinion. Its range is poor and i believe the French L'Ocean is more effective here.

I believe its range is 800, which is 50 more than most ships, and only behind the Kotetsu, which has a range of 1000, and L'Ocean, which is 850. They also have 10000 armor, which is, I think, 7000 more than the next best, non-faction ship (again, the Kotetsu). I forget how many cannons it has, but I know its at least twice, if not three times more than a similar japanese vessel.

The only problem with the Warrior is that it's very slow... But, there is not a single ship, other than maybe L'Ocean, that could take its broadside and survive. I guess you could argue that the L'Ocean could do the same with a ram (and even sink a Warrior with it), but it's a totally different style of play. L'Ocean has to close the gap quickly or get chewed up by a Warriors' cannons.

Personally, I'll take the Warrior, because I love massive ships with dozens of cannons.

**Nelson** · 03-30-2012, 13:50

Originally Posted by Peasant Phill

I haven't done a lot of naval battles but the lowly gun boat does seem to have it's uses even when it's facing far superior ships.
With it's decent speed and it's forward facing gun it can fill in the role that light cavalry does on land. Harrass and chase off routers for a very low cost.

Especially the chasing off routers seems to be a role that needs filling. Ships seems to rout relatively fast but rally easily when out off combat for a little while. Keeping bigger ships from reentering combat with a dirt cheap vessel seems a very cost effective tactic.

Yep. Sometimes you just need a ship to ferry troops or agents around or to block a choke point/crossing. Gunboats fill the bill.

**Sp4** · 03-30-2012, 15:28

Torpedo boats are fun. They ships themselves die as soon as anything looks at them, the torpedoes are really slow, so you need to either be close or box in a ship to hit them.

One thing I tried with some success:

Send of a small fast ship (gun ship for example) after a big target (so it is behind the target and out of the way of its guns), all while the target is busy shooting one of your big heavy ships (ideally =P ). Get your torp boat closer and when you feel comfortable, tell your gun ship to board the target. The target will sit still for 20-30 seconds, no matter what happens, so happy torpedoing =D

2 Torpedoes that hit at the same time turn the Warrior into a ton of rapidly sinking scrap metal btw. (I tested this in custom battle, no idea how campaign difficulty affects this).

-E- One more thing... do not fire torpedoes into a bunch of ships that includes your own ones =p I didn't make any painful mistakes myself but I had one of my ships board an enemy ship and started losing the boarding, so I turned one torp boat to launch a torp that way while I still could but my own ship was between the torp boat and the actual target.... No matter.. my ship is going to surrender anyways >:D So the 2 torps slam into my surrendering ship that is right next to the enemy ship, blow up in an epic explosion and the last thing I saw of the enemy ship was a load of blood splattering out of the smoke from the explosion of my own ship XD

The enemy ship surrendered with 4 our of originally 70 some people left. Bit expensive for a naval shrapnel bomb but hey, it works really well. =p

Torpedoes have a potential to cause a lot of pain if stuff ever gets disorganised.