Naval Battles

[Morindin]

Anyone else feel naval battles are just, well, crap?

Im not asking for a 3d battlefield or anything like that, but I seem to lose about 90% of my naval battles regardless of quality or quantity of my ships.

Also the fact its near on impossible to destroy ones fleet makes naval battles for me more irritating than fun.

At least the AI builds LOTS of ships.

[Doug-Thompson]

Apparently, having troops in your ships makes a difference. The battles are calculated on number of men, not number of ships.

I really am going to have to read the maual someday. I don't know if archers or melee troops, for instance, are better for naval combat.

[Morindin]

That would make sense, but clicking on most naval fleets reveal nothing (not even ?) in the "unit" section, so I suspect they're emtpy. Ill give that a go though.

[Red Harvest]

Apparently, having troops in your ships makes a difference. The battles are calculated on number of men, not number of ships.

I really am going to have to read the maual someday. I don't know if archers or melee troops, for instance, are better for naval combat.

I thought this might be the case, but last night I destroyed a single enemy boat stacked with nearly 20 units. It fought "normally." First engagement I hit it hard with a big force, second engagement killed it with a small force of a few boats.

[Blodrast]

I thought this might be the case, but last night I destroyed a single enemy boat stacked with nearly 20 units. It fought "normally." First engagement I hit it hard with a big force, second engagement killed it with a small force of a few boats.

uhm, ok, I'm not sure I'm getting this: so if you hit it with a "big force" the first time, doesn't that imply that there were a lot of men in there as well ? Wasn't that succesful ? (i.e., does that not confirm the fact that the battles are based on the number of men rather than ships ?)

I'm just asking, because I haven't got to a conclusion as far as naval battles are concerned yet.

[Red Harvest]

Bloodrast, yes there were a lot of men on it which was part of the reason for hitting it with a large force. (That and the fact that you need a huge advantage ship-to-ship to beat the AI in naval on "very hard.") Their crew took a lot of casualties, but the army took none. I hit with a smaller force the next time (3 or 4 boats) and it went to the bottom easily with few casualties on my side. The "feel" was the same as if there had been no army on board. I knew I needed to kill this boat to prevent them from taking Sicily.

So far I'm finding it too expensive to conduct naval warfare. Part of that might be that I've got so many enemies that I run out of boats too quickly.

[desdichado]

Playing as Scipii have been fighting the carthaginians and have lost count of the Denarii that have been sucked up by my navy. I keep getting smacked but my navy has less experience than the carthaginians so for me it seems right. Also historically correct if I recall - the Romans initally lost badly at sea but finally got the upper hand through attrition - which is how I am doing it.

I agree the battles don't seem right - major engagments and not a single ship lost on either side but all ships lose men. Does not seem right but i don't think the engagments are "Bugged" like in MTW where a single ships constantly smack bigger fleets.

Also, I don't agree with being able to attack enemy fleets while there in port. From the reading I have done it seems that fleets that were outmatched by the enemy quite often took shelter in a friendly port while the enemy fleet could blockade them but was generally unable to attck them. At least this happened a lot during the Greek/Sparta war.

This gives you the option of being able to save your fleet but also unable to do anything with them if the enemy is stronger.

Still I like the new naval system much better than previous.