Community call to arms: Naval guide

[Peasant Phill]

True, to a point, but that's where strategy comes in. One fleet to make them run, one fleet to send them to the bottom.

... one fleet to rule them all?

[Vladimir]

... one fleet to rule them all?

Rule Britannia!

Yes, even though I declared a Republic, I still sided with the British to get that wonderful Warrior.

[Voigtkampf]

The other night I went to conquer the small islands around Kyushu and found that I couldn't disembark my army; the assumption is that a port has a defense radius and one can't disembark the arm within that radius as long as the port is fully functional with coastal defenses? It was the first time I actually tried a beach landing so this came as some surprise to me. Can anyone confirm this?

[frogbeastegg]

Can anyone comment on ships and auto-calc? Are there any ships which perform particularly well in auto-calc, or particularly badly? I've mainly been using the ... ah, nihon maru I think it's called. The biggest ship you can build in a single turn using the starting docks, it's got 16 guns and a similar name to a 12 gun ship. I'm not at my desktop and can't look the names up in the encyclopaedia, gah! They are ok, not that good but I haven't found anything better so far.

I noticed that the American ironclad is a bit poor in auto-calc. I sent a fleet with 1 ironclad and 4 copper hulled nihon marus(?), all at full health, against a 3 ship fleet of 12 gun wooden hulled marus(?). All of my cheap ships survived, the ironclad sunk, and I captured the enemy ships. Not so impressed considering how much that thing cost! The British and French ironclads seem to fare better.

[Greyblades]

I noticed that the American ironclad is a bit poor in auto-calc. I sent a fleet with 1 ironclad and 4 copper hulled nihon marus(?), all at full health, against a 3 ship fleet of 12 gun wooden hulled marus(?). All of my cheap ships survived, the ironclad sunk, and I captured the enemy ships. Not so impressed considering how much that thing cost! The British and French ironclads seem to fare better.

Eh, can't take a pounding like a Victory, not enough cannons to be all that effective against ironclads, cant ram like l'ocean, no gattling guns, last one I used got shot up by wooden hulled corvettes without armour piercing rounds before it could sink one. It has a habit of dying a slow death on its own, it cant kill an advanced or numerous enemy quick enough to save itself but takes a long time to lose. My verdict is it's a glorified bullet sponge. Late game, it's best used to distract the enemy while you use your frigates and corvettes try and cross the T.

Not what you asked but I'm not sure what auto battle has against it.

[andrewt]

I believe auto-calc drastically underestimates the power of all ironclads. It's similar to what the Black Ship endured in vanilla Shogun. If you have one of those top of the line ships, you're better off fighting the battles directly.

[Sp4]

Can anyone comment on ships and auto-calc? Are there any ships which perform particularly well in auto-calc, or particularly badly? I've mainly been using the ... ah, nihon maru I think it's called. The biggest ship you can build in a single turn using the starting docks, it's got 16 guns and a similar name to a 12 gun ship. I'm not at my desktop and can't look the names up in the encyclopaedia, gah! They are ok, not that good but I haven't found anything better so far.

I noticed that the American ironclad is a bit poor in auto-calc. I sent a fleet with 1 ironclad and 4 copper hulled nihon marus(?), all at full health, against a 3 ship fleet of 12 gun wooden hulled marus(?). All of my cheap ships survived, the ironclad sunk, and I captured the enemy ships. Not so impressed considering how much that thing cost! The British and French ironclads seem to fare better.

In my experience, auto calculation seems to apply damage to your ships going by price, or size or whatever else there is that makes the biggest ship appear first on the unit scroll when you select a stack.

When you auto calc huge battles, it isn't unusual for a lot of large (first) ships to take a lot of damage or die, at least in my experience.

Also.. I think for what the ships can do.. the naval battle maps are far too small =S

[frogbeastegg]

Hmm, it may be worth testing some of the mid-range ships then. The ones which take 2 or 3 turns to build. I don't like naval battles in any of the games, and have previously managed to do better with auto-calc than I'm managing in FotS. I'm having to repair after every battle and that's not great when combined with the AI's habit of building loads of ships.

[Sp4]

At least repairing a navy no longer takes up a slot in your recruitment queue anymore.

I too rather dislike large naval engagements, I am absolutely horrible at them lol. In my current campaign, a friendly harbour came under blockade from a full stack fleet from our enemies and I decided to scrape togerther all my defensive navy and get rid of that stack..

I ended up attaking with 1 1/2 stacks of ships, consisting of 4 of the 200 crew frigates, a large number of ships in the medium range, with 70 something crew and a few gun and torpedoe boats.

The army power bar was hugely in my favour, at least 80:20 and the enemy had largely wooden hulls, while most of mine were copper plated..

I decided to fight it on the map anyways, because epic huge sea battle and all. I ended up nearly losing and only 4 of my ships survived that (3 medium and 1 heavy), the rest just diaf xD
The main problem with the battle imo was that (other than me being terrible at naval battles) the naval battle map is far too small to have 2 1/2 stacks of ships rampaging through it imo.

[andrewt]

Hmm, it may be worth testing some of the mid-range ships then. The ones which take 2 or 3 turns to build. I don't like naval battles in any of the games, and have previously managed to do better with auto-calc than I'm managing in FotS. I'm having to repair after every battle and that's not great when combined with the AI's habit of building loads of ships.

I have 2 roving stacks currently in my game (one had a 200-unit Kasuga, another 80-unit ship and 3 gunboats; the other has a 132-unit, an 80-unit and 3 gunboats). Both of these fleets are able to sink the 80-unit or so single ship stacks the AI likes to send to harass your ports and trading lines on autocalc while taking no damage. My generals were rank 4-5 already so I don't know if that affects it.

[Peasant Phill]

The other night I went to conquer the small islands around Kyushu and found that I couldn't disembark my army; the assumption is that a port has a defense radius and one can't disembark the arm within that radius as long as the port is fully functional with coastal defenses? It was the first time I actually tried a beach landing so this came as some surprise to me. Can anyone confirm this?

At Goto island, you also have to land your army within the radius of the port but I had no problem then. Perhaps this comes in play after the port has been upgraded to military port or trading port?

[Vladimir]

I've stopped using autocalculate for ship battles because I always get a much better result. Even against vastly inferior fleets at least one of mine takes moderate damage with slight damage to others, as opposed to slight damage to some.

I'm getting a little bored with the process, really. I shouldn't have tried domination in my first game.

[Voigtkampf]

Perhaps this comes in play after the port has been upgraded to military port or trading port?

My assumption as well, just not certain which upgrade exactly.

[quadalpha]

My assumption as well, just not certain which upgrade exactly.

It's military port. I know this because I always went with trading port and didn't get it. Enemy ships that end a turn in the radius of control also get attrition damage.