Naval battles need to be way more decisive

[andrewt]

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]

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

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

[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.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

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]

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...

[therother]

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.

[LordKhaine]

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!

[Colovion]

I don't see how one or two little boats can get away from 20. Somehow they get close enough to kill a bunch of them but not to sink the boats...

[TinCow]

This is a major problem IMHO. Fleets never die because the boats never sink.

[Sinner]

As I recall, the Realism Mod ups the attack rating of ships by 50%, also lowering their defence rating by 50%. This apparently increases the likelyhood of ships actually being sunk, removing the frustration we otherwise can get.

I still play with my ships unmodded, but what I do is instead of a single big stack, I use a number of small-mid stacks that are closely coordinated. I try to surround the target enemy stack, at the very least minimizing its escape routes, by placing my stacks in the target's zone of control, then I send my final stack - preferably the one with the admiral - to do the actual attack. The surrounding stacks get counted as reinforcements, giving me the combat strength I need to win, plus by blocking/limiting the target's escape I increase my chances of an immediate kill or allow for a quick follow-up attack.

[R'as al Ghul]

My observation is that they do sink if they run out of movement points and loose the battle. I frequently sink stacks of macedonian ships.
The experience rating seems to be bugged somehow.
How is it that a dozen fully manned Greec biremes without chevrons cannot win against three undermanned Seleucid biremes with 3 bronze chevrons?
I once tried to win against this fleet by attacking with three stacks of a dozen biremes subsequently. I didn't manage to sink one boat. No need to mention that the enemy's stack has now evolved into a 3 silver or 1 gold chevron stack and is now officially unbeatable.

R'as

[Bob the Insane]

Not exactly realistic, but I think the boats only sink when you kill everyone onboard (or maybe it is when there are less than six men left like the army units) or with they rout from a battle with no place to go...

Add to this that automated battles spread the casualties amoung your units...

So it you have 20 ships but for 10 of them the crews are down to 10 men approx and you then fight 9 fully manned ships (say 40 each so a total of 360)...

You could kill 250 men, lose 200 men and win the battle. You could easily lose your 10 undermanned ships where as the opponent get way with all his ships but with only approx 12 men left on each...

I think this is how it works (roughly speaking)... Thinking out loud I wonder if ships rout during the autocalc'ed battles??

Add to that that manouvering to trap you opponents is definately best and gives us an addition strategic element in the game.

Finally I would not complain that the AI is actually playing well for once, using lots of small fleets to cause trouble and a large fleet or two to protect the small ones and dish out the pain...

[The_Emperor]

What really bugs me is this whole "navies cannot withdraw from battle" thing we get.

I mean if Navies cannot withdraw from battles, why on earth do we get this "ROW FOR YUR LIVES!!" thing after you win or lose? If they cannot withdraw, then they shouldn't be able to row halfway across the Med when the battle goes pairshaped!

[Bob the Insane]

"ROW FOR YUR LIVES!!"

Just had a thought.... How is a boat which normally takes a crew of 100 but is now down to 15 blokes ever going to manage that!?!?

[The_Emperor]

Just had a thought.... How is a boat which normally takes a crew of 100 but is now down to 15 blokes ever going to manage that!?!?

Well its lighter aint it... takes less effort, to move.

[Hurin_Rules]

Part of the problem might be that naval commanders rarely ever get stars.

Their 'generals' are therefore almost never more than 2-star commanders. This means their attack ratings are lower than they should be and that a great commander can't really affect the outcome of battle.

I think this is a bug.

[Maltz]

In the very hard difficulty, it is impossible to become the King of the ocean as highly recommended by many strategy guides. In those forced auto-resolves, the AI always win even if the odds are 1 (AI) : 2 (human).

The way to work around is: building a series of ports along the coast as "jump points" for transporting army. Since the AI never attacks ships docked inside a port, every turn we can move a fleet to the next port for protection. We can also ocassionally drive away a lone AI fleet or two, but the casaulty is very disproportional.

The AI always build tons of fleet and relatively little land troops. I would rather invest the upkeep on land armies to smash out their castle and nullify their navy at once.