Naval battles need to be way more decisive

**andrewt** · 10-20-2004, 03:12

I'm getting tired of chasing single ships disrupting my trade. I attacked a Brutii 34-unit quinquireme with a 100-unit quinquireme, 8 casualties for him, 7 for me. This could go on forever. It's getting annoying seeing the AI with 1-2 big stacks of ships and tons of stacks of 1-3 ships. I need to keep my ships together because of the big stack, but having ships together makes it much harder to chase all those small stacks. You need to attack them around 5 times to sink one.

2 suggestions:
1. Make naval battles more decisive. Maybe double attack power and halve defense power or something along those lines.
2. Armies and navies should only be able to withdraw using movement points they could spend in one turn. Every time I defeat an army or navy or have it withdraw, it moves using a whole turn's movement points. It makes chasing ships especially difficult at sea.

**therother** · 10-20-2004, 03:17

Originally Posted by andrewt

I'm getting tired of chasing single ships disrupting my trade.

Have you tried splitting your fleets up and attacking from multiple directions?

**andrewt** · 10-20-2004, 03:22

Yup. It's easier when the ships are near land as I can trap them more easily. I have to be extra careful so that they all end their turn in a single stack. Otherwise, the large AI stack would kill them.

**Jacque Schtrapp** · 10-20-2004, 03:25

What I don't understand is how I can attack with 20 ships against the enemy's 9 ships and I will win without sinking a single one of their ships but they will sink 8 or 9 of mine. Excuse me?

**Red Harvest** · 10-20-2004, 03:35

Agreed, we need sinkings! One of the reasons the naval strategy component is lacking is that the battles are almost never decisive. Unused boats stack up...

**LordKhaine** · 10-20-2004, 03:43

I'm in mixed minds about this. In a way I'm glad they arent so decisive. But I suppose they do need to be a bit more decisive than they are currently. Still... I'd say it's better than in MTW.

I remember in MTW how I'd take an enemy ship on, and be killed. The enemy ship (which is the smallest type) would get a star in command. So I send a larger ship to defeat it. The star in command means this little enemy ship beats me, and gains another star. I now send a big fleet of a few ships against this one ship... and it beats me again! Now I have an enemy ninja ship, able to take on entire battle fleets alone, and it was fast enough to flee from my large fleets. I don't care how many stars that tiny ship has, he shouldnt be able to sink several other ships in a single battle!

**therother** · 10-20-2004, 03:40

Originally Posted by andrewt

Yup. It's easier when the ships are near land as I can trap them more easily. I have to be extra careful so that they all end their turn in a single stack. Otherwise, the large AI stack would kill them.

Trapping them is the way to go. If you win the battle, they've nowhere to retreat and are all sunk.

Thing that annoys me is that even when you win the first battle, and the fleet retreats, if you have another of your fleets attack it, it can still retreat just as far. Quite how it manages this feat is unknown.

My suspicion about naval warfare is that there is two factors going on: the number of men in each ship and the combat rating of the ships. The combat ratings determine the casualties, both in men and in ships sunk during the battle itself. But the number of men left determines is the ship is still able to function properly. Similar to the land battles, if a unit retreats (or enters) a battle severely depleted, it will not come back again.