Fleet Compositions

[Sp4]

I find naval battles to always be a little (so as not to say a lot) more confusing than land battles and I've tried a number of fancy looking and on paper effective fleet setups but in the end, I always find myself going back to something like artillery ships (usually balistae cause they actually fire pretty quickly and I like their range, I've tried some onager ships but they're not as nice imo) and then ships with javelinmen on them. The reason I prefer javelin men over archers is because they have a higher rate of fire (even though not as much range but that's part of why I like javelins)

I've given up trying to micro naval battles, so I always just make two groups, one artillery and one eh... point defense laser javelins from hell (at a ratio of 1:2). Then I send the javelin ships ahead, turn on fire javelins and leave them clustered up so they can support each other. There really don't seem too many ships that can stand up to combined flaming javelin spam from 2 or 3 ships at once.
Then I just micro the artillery ships and shoot whatever the javelins are not shooting.

Upside... I have not lost a battle like that yet but I usually outnumber my enemies in fleets at the point in the game.
Downside... It's expensive. Expect your javelin ships to do a pretty good job at soaking up fire themselves. After every major battle, the fleet needs a turn or two in port.
Another downside: I'm not sure if barbarian factions can build artillery ships. The last time I got my hands on them as the Gauls it was cause I captured a Roman town that could build them and for some reason that let me build them, which was pretty cool. They were even called 'Roman Light Artillery Ship' or something but were all crewed by Gauls.

[Bramborough]

I am experiencing same. Naval battles pretty frustrating for me. I can effectively direct ships and get a good first contact, with rams and so forth, but then it just dissolves into a huge mess. It's counteruntuitive to me that oared ships can't back astern a few strokes to disengage, but instead have to turn completely around. Which means there's often not enough room to do so, and if there is, then they show their sides to the enemy and become very vulnerable to ramming themselves. All in all, the assault ships seem weak in player-controlled battles just because of their clumsiness and lack of responsiveness. I too have had more success with artillery ships and just trying to keep things as simple as possible. I'm going to try your approach of adding javelin-armed ships in place of assault vessels.

The sad truth is that fleets, unlike armies, seem likely to perform better in auto-resolved battles. That's been my experience, anyway.

[Merak]

same problem here I usually auto those but when I do I end up loosing more then I should (probly doing something wrong) whenever I use assault ships combine with different kind of siege I did the best but that were against troop transport and levies and I outnumbered them (still lost 3-5 assault) whenever I ram I get boarded by an other or the very one I rammed whenever I board I get rammed before I can get an other ship there and I feel it is hard to manuver them around to the side to get a side ram I hope some one make a movie on how to use fleet correctly :)

[andrewt]

I do a combination of artillery ships and assault ships with some missile ships sprinkled in. I just have my artillery ships soften up the enemy and have them come to me. Then I have my assault ships counter charge. The artillery ships have decent health and can charge incoming ships that get too close.

After some ramming action, the remaining ships usually get stuck against each other and all the sunk ships. That's where the missile ships shine.

[Sp4]

I do a combination of artillery ships and assault ships with some missile ships sprinkled in. I just have my artillery ships soften up the enemy and have them come to me. Then I have my assault ships counter charge. The artillery ships have decent health and can charge incoming ships that get too close.

After some ramming action, the remaining ships usually get stuck against each other and all the sunk ships. That's where the missile ships shine.

Why not just use only missile and artillery ships? You can build the big 'tanky' missile ships. They're just as good at getting stuck on other ships as the assault versions. If you micro them well enough, you can even get them to more or less deflect boarders by just spamming javelins their way as they come onto your ship and then they all die XD

[Bramborough]

Almost a month and 2 campaigns' worth of playing later, the arty/javelin setup is definitely the way to go. Once I switched to OP's composition, naval battles have gotten quite viable. I won't claim to "never" AR them any more, but I play them out now at least as often as I do land battles. Before I had AR'd almost all sea battles regardless of odds; too many instances where an "inferior" force had caused disproportionately high losses on me because I couldn't get assault ships to do what I wanted them to do. With the missile-heavy composition, the performance difference is startling...almost to the point where I begin to wonder if it's not supposed to be this way. Here's a couple of thoughts:

1. We know there's two broad types of naval vessels; naval and assault. Obviously they have different roles. Rather that just different sea-combat roles, however, my thinking has evolved to different fleet roles altogether. An arty/missile fleet is specialized for at-sea combat, and as such used to establish dominance on water. An assault-ship fleet, on the other hand, is a specialized amphibious force, and is used for capturing ports. One could counter-argue, of course, that an embarked army is better for such a role, rendering an amphib fleet superfluous. That would be true of course, except for the army cap. A specialized amphib fleet can conceptualized as a way to get an "extra" army or two above the cap...with the limitation of course that they're only capable of capturing (minor) coastal settlements. The amphib fleet has additional advantages over a land army afloat. First, if it does run afoul of an enemy fleet, it has sufficient hull strength to put up a real fight if it can't withdraw...it will take losses, but it will not be easily destroyed. Second, an amphib fleet is better able to destroy an enemy land army afloat, than is one's own land army afloat. So, to draw an imperfect modern analogy, an assault-heavy fleet can be thought of as one's "Marine Corps" embarked in an "Amphibious Task Force". It won't stand up to a true land army on land, nor should it seek battle with a true naval fleet...but it offers a kind of sea/land flexibility in coastal regions.

2. All that said, I've come to realize that an arty/missile fleet can capture a port as well, IF the settlement is minor and is defended only by a garrison or perhaps a garrison plus smaller army. The fleet can simply bombard the garrison from the harbor until they all break morale. It won't work against a garrison plus large army because the ships will probably run out of ammunition before breaking all those units. At least, that's my theory, I haven't actually tried to take out a full-size army this way yet.

[Nelson]

I’ve had great fun with the naval battles. The ships look terrific and the ramming/boarding works the way I expect it should. It does take practice to manage a large action well. The fight can be dicey since ships are far closer in combat capacity in the hands of the AI than land units are. Winning when outnumbered is a lot harder to do at sea than ashore. And twenty ships are a lot to micro. Practice won’t make you perfect but it will make you competent. Expect to lose ships. Use warships for sea battles, not transports. They are too slow and ponderous. I seldom use transported armies to fight at sea. It’s just too easy to lose a lot of good men when transports get rammed and a whole cohort goes down with each one. I believe this is the number one frustration with the naval warfare in Rome2. It’s easy to lose a lot of men quickly when you expect the same cakewalk you get ashore.

As Rome, the first civil war I had began in Athens with 6 senate stacks. They immediately sailed for Italy (I suppose) but did not make it because they were all destroyed by a single large fleet of my own in two separate battles, no AR. Two thirds of my fleet was lost but the civil war was over in three turns at small cost.
My fleet composition was the one I use for all purposes; 3 - 5 artillery ships, 5 - 6 missile ships and the rest assault, usually fire pot biremes. This will suffice for naval combat and port attacks both especially after the Marian reforms.

An amphibious assault exploits the artillery you have. It will gut the garrison before you rush the town IF you maneuver the ships enough to avoid line of sight issues. It’s well worth it. Obviously, you must have enough assault ships to get an adequate force across the beach to succeed. If the bombardment went well you won’t need a lot.

In a sea battle vs a combat fleet I bombard any enemies that can burn me first then bombard/ram/burn the remaining foes. Easier said than done when you don’t outnumber the opponent. Concentrate the artillery fire and get all the ships involved once you get to a big pile-up.

The artillery ships offer awesome firepower. Put three of them on an enemy and the target will go down fast. When fighting transports I target the most valuable enemy troops first. I use the missile support ships to keep the transports away from the artillery. When ramming, hit the target with 2 or 3 ships when possible. Generally you don’t want to melee a transport one on one with a warship as you will be outnumbered but this is no reason not to use warships at all! Small quick ships can ram and sink transports with surprising speed. And they will back out and ram again if you micro them.

At some point, when a big scrum occurs, look for any ships you have that are in trouble and try to move them out of harms way or get them some fresh relief somehow. It’s tough staying on top of the fight but having managed nearly all of the sea battles myself I have become much better than I was at first.

[Myth]

Nelson's post actually got me excited about naval warfare