Ahh... Naval Battles.

[CaptainCrunch]

Of course, it's already a well known fact among the community that naval battles in R2 need serious attention, but I thought I'd point out another bug/problem that affects the boarding/melee mechanic. This particular comedy happened immediately after I totaled a troop transport with a full speed ram (meaning that the ships immediately separated from the force of the impact). The problem isn't only that men can leap like the Hulk from ship to ship after their crate has been consigned to the bottom, but even when a single man is left on-board your ship, the game still calculates the combat like you're fighting the complete unit (as the last screen can attest).

In this example, 151 men went into the drink. Of the 9 that superjumped onto my ship all but one were killed, but those 9 fought as though they were an entire unit. Without going into the obvious problems this causes, it also means that now your ship is tied up and can't move until this battle is over making it a sitting duck for any other enemy troop transports looking to board you.

Which brings me to something I think is a serious oversight when it comes to naval battle balancing. As it is now, you can defeat any AI super navy by simply putting a competent infantry out to sea. So why spend money developing a navy? Troop transports have enough speed and maneuvering ability to chase naval ships around the battle map until they get close enough to suction themselves onto it. Once that happens it's over and done with, cuz all but the most powerful melee ships can't survive a boarding by even militia heavy infantry. Most are missile infantry and their unit numbers too small. They don't even have to make contact most of the time, as soon as they approach it they just get drawn together and melee mode ensues.

In my campaign AI navies are almost powerless when there are enough troop transports present.