This is Just Not Cricket Chaps - (or Help! What's with Sea Warfare?)

[Tomcat]

Would some kind soul please explain to me the nuances - if there are any - of Ship battles in MTW ?

As English playing in Early (my first Campaign in MTW) I recently annihilated the Spaniards and the Almohads and control western Europe from the mountainous Alpine borders with the Italians all the way south and around N Africa to Algeria. I have a nice fleet of ships, mostly 1 Barque per sea Province, all the way round to the Adriatic. I am Allied with Italy and Sicily who are also Allied with each other. Many of the sea Provinces I am in around Spain and the western Med also have Italian and Sicilian ships present. All nice and quiet and peacefully trading!

Then at the end of a turn, with no declaration of war from anyone and nobody getting uptight with anybody, I am suddenly told I have achieved Victory in the Straits of Gibraltar - I am not told against whom and there are both Italian and Sicilian ships in the sea Province with me - which I miraculously win. Then there are sea battles in two or three other sea Provinces in the Med which I also win somehow - one sea province has both Italians and Sicilian boats in it, the other only Italians.

So I guess I am fighting the Italians , but nothing/no one tells me as such and there has been no declaration of war or aggressive acts from anybody. At the end of the turn, I am told the Sicilians have cancelled their Alliance with me because I am at war with the Italians and I lose another Ally who is also Allied to the Italians through no fault of mine .

Now, who is the guilty party who started this little fracas at sea then? I am bordering several Italian land Provinces and am Allied to them. I did not move into any of their land Provinces and after the turn end they have not invaded any of my land Provinces . We are friends and Allied. I know this because I saved the turn before clicking "End Year" and have re-checked the Alliances. So can the Italian ships just attack my ships without the game telling me they have declared war? I mean this is just not cricket chaps! (For the non-English, this means it is simply not the proper way gentlemen go about these sort of things!)

I replayed the saved turn, this time moving my 1 Barque out of the Straits of Gibraltar into the Gulf of Cadiz to see what would happen. Lo and behold Cordoba (my Province) launches a Barque which was being built - without a port I hasten to add since it had a Shipwright in it when I "acquired the Province" from the Spanish but the port was destroyed along with the castle - and the sea battle ensues again in the Gulf of Cadiz, Straits of Gibraltar and Gulf of Valencia - which again I miraculously somehow seem to win!

So I replay again, this time moving my 1 Barque from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Cadiz and I destroy the about-to-be launched Barque from Cordoba to see what will happen. Again I am just told of miraculous Sea Victories in the Gulf of Cadiz, Straits of Gibraltar and the Gulf of Valencia.

Is this how sea warfare is supposed to be in MTW? I know you cannot control the battles in any way but who started this fight because it most certainly was not me and the Italians never declared war before attacking my ships (mind you that is probably typically sneaky Italian! ) - although I never even knew it was the Italians until the Sicilians told me they had broken their Alliance with me because I was at war with their friends, the Italians! But then we were all a nice happy, friendly mediterranean family before things got a little bit out of hand.

Can someone please explain the "Rules of Sea Warfare" for me please and was what happened, uhmmm, "normal" MTW? Thanks.

Tomcat

[The Grand Inquisitor]

Declaration of war? All factions are pretty informal about this. You find out your at war when someone attacks you.

If you not sure who you are at war with, click the little handshake icon (bottom left).

[Adrian II]

Hi Tomcat. Well, of course their attack was unprovoked. All you'd done up to that point was 'annihilate the Spaniards and the Almohads and control western Europe from the mountainous Alpine borders'. Oh, and you didn't send them warnings either, I assume, since the game doesn't provide the appropriate buttons for it. And correct me if I'm wrong, but did you by any chance happen to conquer lands that they would need to meet their Glorious Achievement goals such as their 'historical' homelands? Euhh, bad luck!

I'm sorry, I don't want to seem rude at all, but you're right: this isn't cricket and you better get accustomed to the 'rules of engagement' of MTW. Expect to be attacked as soon as you've become successful, and don't expect any tea at halftime. You'll survive.

[Doug-Thompson]

Your surmise is correct. The Italians attacked you.

Sea warfare is the weakest aspect of MTW, even weaker than the diplomacy.

You're about to have some real fun. You'll start attacking Italian ships (if there are any left) merely to defend yourself from their attacks or to clear a blockade — and then get warnings from the Pope to stop attacking the Italians.

Yes, that's right: They can attack you at sea all you want and block your trade and communications, costing you thousands of florins in revenue and possibly causing rebellion. If you counter-attack to clear the sea lanes, you get excommunicated.

Did I mention that I almost always play Muslims?

[lars573]

Yes you have how boring. They was around the papal waring is to attack someone else first and get the waring about attack them then go after the italians. Or do what I would do posses the italians and get them to attack the papacy thus putting them on the popes shit list and leaving you free to attack them. I your lucky the pope will excommunicate them and you can crusdade agin them. I situations like this you have to use Batman's logic, the ends justify the means.

[English assassin]

And no one has even mentioned the uncatchable ship "feature" yet either...

There doesn't seem to be any way to avoid the first attack in this situation. Once it comes in, check the handshake to see who you are at war with. Then smash every single ship you can find of the enemy, because in sea warfare the attacker almost always seems to win. (You can make this even more likely by invading a province with 100 peasants and managing to lose a land battle the same turn, I suppose this is cheesy but to be honest naval warfare is such a pain I think it is justified (see "uncatchable ship feature" above).

You could do what Lars suggests to avoid being excommunicated. Depending on what provinces you hold you could maybe get an automatic cease fire (by not having any provinces ajoining or ships in the same sea zone). Or you could get excommunicated. If you especially care about that, if either your king or the pope dies the excommunications are canceled as you probably know, so you know what to do don't you...

[Qilue]

And no one has even mentioned the uncatchable ship "feature" yet either...

Uncatchable ship feature.

Remember the 'move' stat on ships?
Dromon - 4
Barque - 3

In a ship battle, the ship with the highest move stat goes first. So, if that ship is moving to the sea region next door and your attacking with any other ship, guess what?

It gets worse. You will notice there's still a single dromon interferring with your trade. Yes, boys and girls, they swapped positions. Following turn, they'll swap again and they'll keep doing this until they accept peace *snickers* or the war ends in some other way.

Now there is a way to prevent these preemptive strikes (apart from exterminating all italians (that is Italians, Sicilians and the Pope), is to always have more ships than the enemy (enemy being all Italians). Also, never send a single ship into any region where there's italians and always make sure your stack of ships outnumbers theirs.

[HopAlongBunny]

You will find the Dromons your largest problem. I once chased one for about 20 years; this was with massive naval superiority too.

Seems you do not have 2+ ships per sea region so must be early in the game; dedicate at least 3 provinces to building ships with production staggered; this way you get one ship per turn and avoid the cash crunch of trying to build them all at once. As said earlier, attack! attack! attack! Once a faction starts a naval war I rarely let up until every ship is sunk.

The Pope?
His influence can be lessened somewhat by using assassins. When playing a Christian faction, I always have one province pumping out assassins for this reason; once you have all the assassins you think you need use the same province to produce spies.

Have fun

[Adrian II]

Yeah, fleets in MTW are all barque but no bite. I believe nobody mentioned the "splitting up of fleets" feature either.

Thus: splitting up of fleets.

If you want to sink a single enemy ship, concentrate two or more of your own ships in the same sea and preferably in all seas adjacent to it (since these are his possible escape routes). Split your fleet into separate ships and give them all the order to attack. Even if the enemy is a dromon and yours are slower barques and caravels you still have a chance of catching him. If the enemy commander has 3 stars or more, even this won't work as long as he keeps moving his dromon about. Not much you can do then. Have a good cry. Take a balloon trip around Mexico. Consult a voodoo priest. Whatever.

[Doug-Thompson]

Yes you have how boring.

Better to be bored than aggravated, then excommunicated for defending yourself.

[Tomcat]

Hehe! Well, I did get a warning from the Pope re a slight tiff I had with the Spaniards but I did crush the Spanish within the necessary 2 turns of the warning - probably because I attacked 4 of their provinces at once - and thanks to my then Allies, the Almohads who joined battle with me in Morocco against the Spaniards.

However, I then decided to Ally with the Egyptians, whereupon the Almohads stupidly cancelled our Alliance since they, by chance, were already at war with Egypt and this allowed me to attack them in Grenada and then the Egyptians kindly helped me annihilate the Almohads in Algeria - such a shame !

Now since the Italians - who have so far been completely unprovoked by me since I like Italians and am Allied with them , though I do hold Provence, Burgundy, Tyrolia and Austria around their northern borders - attacked my harmless trading fleet in the Med and suffered severe casualties as I won every sea battle for some miraculous reason . So as well as the Sicilians cancelling their Alliance with me, so did the stupid Egyptians so they have now given me the opportunity of pressing on into their lightly held territory of Tunisia .

Hmmm! Interesting above about the attacker always winning. The Italians attacked me in 3 sea provinces and lost all 3 battles with Dromons against my Barques but they have given me some nasty, costly red sea Provinces for now for which they will pay dearly !

Is there any way of knowing if the Italians have been warned by the Pope for their unprovoked attack? They were fighting the HRE for a long time earlier in the game but I was never told the Pope had warned either side in that conflict. In fact I even came to the assistance of the poor Italians by fighting the HRE and got my Papal warning for it pretty damn quick! However, the HRE then had internal rebellions so I was able to attack the rebels and pretty well knock out the HRE and finish them off 10 years later. But are the Italians grateful to me for this assistance in saving their lands? No way! They even took one of my Princesses away from me! Such gratitude from those you help in this game !

I think I will be able to take on the Italians at their own game though. I have been eyeing up the 1-Province Danes for a while and if I go for them for my Papal warning, the Italians are highly unlikely to see more than a few years into that 10 year "restraint" period against the Danes.

It's 1132 btw. I only have single Barques in most sea provinces, although a couple have 2 since I was extending my trading peacefully as far as I could to get maximum trade income in the shortest possible time. Yes, I have between 3 and 5 Provinces building ships for all they are worth!

Thanks for all your assistance !

Tomcat

[Adrian II]

I think I will be able to take on the Italians at their own game though.

Yeah, you'll get the hang of it. Did you figure out the Pope is really a girl yet? Or why Highland clansmen get the attack bonus for raising their kilts?