Comments on Naval Warfare

**SpencerH** · 10-25-2004, 11:57

Why have a pop-up for a naval battle when you cant retreat anyway? And why is it that you cant retreat? If you lose and survive you automatically retreat anyway.

The current retreat after a losing naval battle needs to be fixed. The losing force will often retreat a huge distance so that it cannot be pursued by the winning fleet. At times this gets so bad that you can play ping-pong by sending a fleet back and forth across the Aegean with different attacks.

In addition, the retreat is usually in precisely the 'wrong' direction (ie the move is not toward home cities). Whats the point of me attacking an enemy fleet and winning if the losing fleet gets magically teleported to the area I was trying to prevent it moving to?

For the most part naval war in RTW is much better than MTW (IMO). An option for tactical battles, might have been nice

maybe it could be included in the inevitable expansion?

**lancelot** · 10-25-2004, 12:39

Comments on naval warfare...its poop,...nuff said

You can retreat if you are the attacker and then decide not to attack. How can a navy not withdraw anyway!?!?

Considering the time between games, I am very dissapointed CA could not come up with something better.

**powdermonkey** · 10-25-2004, 13:26

Have you also noticed that sometimes the AI ships look broken? The hull and the mast don't meet, which looks really odd.

It happened to one of my stacks of ships once, so I moved all of the ships out of the stack apart from the one with the broken graphics and then disbanded that one.

I'm currently playing as the Scipii and the Egyptians have a huge fleet in the Red Sea (don't ask me why - there's nothing for them to do there) and the picture of their fleet on the strat map has this 'floating mast' thing.

I will post a screenshot later if I have time.

**Akka** · 10-25-2004, 13:32

Powdermonkey : that's a known bug. I think it's being deal with :)

I agree that the naval warfare, though much better than in MTW, is not really top-notch yet.
Battle are far too undecisives (you often have to fight times and times a fleet to sink a single ship), and the retreat is simply ridiculous. Fleet should not get movement bonus when they flee.

**Prodigal** · 10-25-2004, 13:48

It would certainly be better if they retreated along the path they took to get to the battle, so at least there's some benefit to the victor. The ping-pong thing really is a pain.

I can't often speak calmly about the undecisive sea battles, but it would be good to be given some token of victory in the form of a captured vessel from the fleet you just defeated, for example, or even "ships captured you have X denarii". I don't imagine that the ancients sought simply to sink every ship, especially if they boarded & took them...

**SpencerH** · 10-25-2004, 14:21

Yeah, the possibility to capture enemy ships should be easy to implement as a component of the autoresolve.

And what about pirates? Didnt they abound in the med during these times? Wasnt Marc Anthony or Augustus captured by pirates at one time? We've got rebels on land, where are the corsairs?

Does it seem like the AI 'knows' which of your fleets is carrying armies and targets them?

***Ringo*** · 10-25-2004, 17:30

Originally Posted by SpencerH

Why have a pop-up for a naval battle when you cant retreat anyway? And why is it that you cant retreat? If you lose and survive you automatically retreat anyway.

I was under the impression that you can retreat as long as you haven't used all you movement points in the previous turn, and your not trapped in of course! I may be talking rubbish (one of my favorite pass times

) but i'm sure i've been able to save face and run away a few times.

*Ringo*

Nestor II · 10-25-2004, 18:19

I don't think you can retreat if you park right next to an enemy fleet.

And I think that I can see which of the AI fleets carry an army. I'm not sure though if that's happening all the time or my spies are helping in certain cases. If I always know the AI should know too!

On another note, did anyone notice that you can have a clear victory and still have more losses than the loser AI? It seems that you won simply by percentages! You attacked with a big fleet, you lost 20-30 men or more and the the lone ship you attacked:

a) didn't sink, b) lost less men than you did, c) went somewhere you cannot reach it, d) it's new position is bad news for you

No matter, you are still the winner!!!!!!! Can someone explain, please?

As for now I found that sometimes the best way to attack is with a force arround two or three times the size of the enemy. At least I don't get those pyrrhic victories!

**CGS** · 10-25-2004, 18:21

Julius Caesar was captured by pirates. He told them to double the money they wanted for him, and after he was liberated he come back with an army and killed them all. I pretty sure it happened like that

**SpencerH** · 10-25-2004, 19:26

I thinking more about the pop-up after you click to attack. A screen pops up to tell you how many ships and then you have to click autoresolve since there is no retreat. Why bother with the pop-up at all?

**SpencerH** · 10-26-2004, 14:38

Originally Posted by SpencerH

I thinking more about the pop-up after you click to attack. A screen pops up to tell you how many ships and then you have to click autoresolve since there is no retreat. Why bother with the pop-up at all?

Just to clarify, for some naval and land battles you may not have any movement points left and therefore cannot retreat. Therefore, why bother with a popup for naval battles. Resolution should be automatic since there is no choice of tactical combat (yet).

**lancelot** · 10-26-2004, 16:06

Originally Posted by CGS

Julius Caesar was captured by pirates. He told them to double the money they wanted for him, and after he was liberated he come back with an army and killed them all. I pretty sure it happened like that

Yea thats about right, he also promised them he would eventually get them and execute them mercifully (I think) They laughed at his bragging.

He did get them and had them crucified but kept his promise of mercy by slitting their throats.

**Sin Qua Non** · 10-26-2004, 16:34

Has anyone ever lost an army at sea without the entire fleet being destroyed? I'm now rather lax with some of my overseas army movements because if they get attacked, I know that my entire army will always teleport to the last boat in the stack. In other words, you must sink all ships in the fleet (usually involving a naval Benny Hill sketch), whereupon the entire army goes down with the last ship. And I had just dismissed the idea of a "bridge of ships" across the sea, figuring that armies obviously couldn't transfer from ship to ship.

I'm pretty much OK with the 20 units or 1 army per fleet allowance, but I would like to see them somehow spread among the fleets. I get depressed thinking about 2000+ men going down with the last ship.