The final & only discussion thread for naval battle mechanics

[Agent Miles]

I still think that stacking ships together is a bad idea. One ship can sink the whole stack. In my last campaign as the HRE, I had about 81 ships (barques and caravels) and the Byz had a total of 43 ships (dromon, galleys and fire galleys). The command star distribution was about equal. I only attacked with about 60 of my ships. Although the AI ships were often stacked, none of mine were. I had 3 to 5 ships in a sea zone and launched multiple attacks against the stacks. I slaughtered the Byz navy in about 5 turns with fewer losses than what I inflicted. An advantage of one or two per sea zone is enough. The last attack was 5 separate caravels (speed 1) against a stack of 4 dromon (speed 4). I sank all of them with no losses. This implies that if the first attack wins, then the whole stack goes and that great speed can be overcome. I think that the greater movement radius of deep water ships gives a strategic advantage over coastal ships and I can beat them with massed attacks.

[caravel]

I still think that stacking ships together is a bad idea. One ship can sink the whole stack. In my last campaign as the HRE, I had about 81 ships (barques and caravels) and the Byz had a total of 43 ships (dromon, galleys and fire galleys). The command star distribution was about equal. I only attacked with about 60 of my ships. Although the AI ships were often stacked, none of mine were. I had 3 to 5 ships in a sea zone and launched multiple attacks against the stacks. I slaughtered the Byz navy in about 5 turns with fewer losses than what I inflicted. An advantage of one or two per sea zone is enough. The last attack was 5 separate caravels (speed 1) against a stack of 4 dromon (speed 4). I sank all of them with no losses. This implies that if the first attack wins, then the whole stack goes and that great speed can be overcome. I think that the greater movement radius of deep water ships gives a strategic advantage over coastal ships and I can beat them with massed attacks.

I know what you're saying. I always unstack my ships when attacking and always have better results than if I had stacked them. In my current egyptian campaign I'm practising stacking ships, as a result I'm losing alot more. My ships were all over the mediterranean and black sea, as were the byzantine ships. One year I decided to nip the byz in the bud and attacked all of their ships at once first. I lost about 1/3 of my ships, including entire stacks of 4 baggalas. I decided to load and try again doing the same. The result was much the same. Then I reloaded once more split my ships up and attacked with individuals. The result was that I lost two ships and wiped out probably 90% of the byz ships. The only ones left were one in the straits of sicily and another one in the black sea. A much better result. Since playing the game I've always found this to be the best method, others don't think it makes any difference. So I suppose the jury is still out on that one.

[Agent Miles]

I never leave my ships stacked, not even to move them. If I can take out a 4-stack of AI ships with one attacking ship, why would I ever let the AI do this to me?

[caravel]

I've never seen the benefit in stacking either for defending nor attacking. I tend to only unstack mine when I'm attacking though, for the sake of tidyness. The largest stack i ever use anyway is a three ship stack. I always try to keep more than 1 ship in a sea zone, otherwise the AI tries to pick them off (starting a war). Having unstacked ships means that if an AI stack attacks, only one of your ships will be engaged, meaning that you'll only lose one ship, if you lose any.

[Vladimir]

Use 3: One of your fastest and 2 of your best attack ships. I always leave them together when not attacking and never get attacked. When attacking, attack with your fastest first then your most powerful. I think ship combat is too random to know for sure wether or not single ship raids are more powerful than stacks.

[Enigma13]

While I have certainly seen the defensive advantage to not attacking (i.e. you do not lose whole stacks), I have had a much higher success rate on attacks using stacks, especially if the opponent was stacked. I tried the suggested methods for a while of separating my ships for attacks and was losing about 70% of the time. Using stacks (small stacks-3 ships) I have seen a much more balanced result. About 50/50 generally, and a small advantage (60/40) to me when my stack is larger than theirs.

[Sensei Warrior]

I have pretty good luck with stacks. For some reason I have very poor outcomes when I use single ship stack attacks. The only rule I hold to is I keep ships stacked together by type. All the barques in one stack the caravels in another.

The lack of consensus seems to point at how random naval battles are. Once I get my ship producing provences up and running they never stop producing ships of one kind or the other just to ensure I'm not on the losing end of any naval confrontations. It's worked for me so far.

[gaijinalways]

I also don't stack, and I have found generally it works well. I often use a mix of ships, and generally manage to eventually rule the seas. Pumping out ships and always spreading out your ships, though for keeping costs down, you should try to keep ships close to their origin ports (where they were made).

[Agent Miles]

Ship combat may be random, but it is not voodoo. I think that we can look at what we know and make some conclusions.
The combat has two phases. When you attack the AI, either they get away or you fight. I do not know of a situation where several ships attacked one AI ship and one of the attackers was lost but then the AI ship escaped. So the AI’s decision to fight is irrevocable. Also, if you fight a battle, it’s all or nothing. I have no knowledge of two stacks fighting and nobody being sunk.
The Decision to Run:
The AI makes a calculation and a result is applied. That’s how software works. I see three possibilities.
-The AI generates an entirely random number between 0 and 9 and either fights or runs away based on this number. If this were the case, then we would read of examples where a stack of ten AI ships fled from one attacker. Any combat at all should only happen about half the time. I submit that common experience shows that this situation is not the case.
-The AI cheats and knows that it will lose a battle and just runs away. I submit that one ship attacking a stack of four would appear less threatening than a five ship stack attacking, so single ship stacks would be better in this case.
-A percentage chance to escape is determined and applied, perhaps based on relative speed values. The AI gets away or they don’t, something like a 50/50 chance. In this case, many separate attacks win over one big attack. In the case I gave where five Caravels attack one stack of four Dromon, that would be 1/2*1/2*1/2*1/2*1/2=1/32 or about a 3% chance that the AI gets away compared to the 50/50 chance with one attacker. Even if it were a 90% chance to get away, five attackers would reduce this too. Also, a fast ship was not needed to catch the stack of Dromon, just lots of slow ships. Again, many single-ship stacks are better than one big stack.

The Fight: Stack A attacks stack B. Again, I see three possibilities:
-A number between 0 and 9 is generated and one side loses. If this is the case, then all ships are the same and there should only be generic coastal ships and deep water ships. Discussions of tactics or skill are worthless, as you would be just as well off taking advice from the Easter Bunny.
-The first attacker fights each defender in turn until it is destroyed and the next attacker continues this process until the battle is resolved. I have never destroyed only part of a stack, nor have I ever lost part of a stack of attackers (long ago when I stacked my ships) in a battle. Thus, I have no evidence to support this possibility.
-The number of ships in the stack is irrelevant. The best ship fights the best ship and it’s a one shot, one kill deal for the whole stack. This is what seems to be happening to me. No benefit accrues to stacking ships, as one attacker can sink them all.
This is my reasoning and is why I do not stack my ships, nor do I recommend doing so. Of course, I could simply out-produce the AI and win by sheer numbers. I think that, given the choice, people would rather build the right force and do the right thing, than build a large force and not know what to do. If I do the right thing with the right force, I may still occasionally lose. Such are the fortunes of war, but I won’t lose for lack of trying what is right.

[Sensei Warrior]

A good theroy, Agent Miles. Some other things to consider:

On the escape thing. I have never noticed a ship escaping combat, but staying in the same region, it always moves to an adjacent region. Which could mean that the fleeing formula might only be applied if the ship you were attacking was just moving through the region.

Since I always stack I can very easily say, I have had taken ship losses, but have not lost the whole stack. I can also say I have destoyed whole stacks (albeit small ones) when attacking as well as destroyed partial stacks while having part but not all of my stack survive.

It's always humourous to watch some advocates of single ship stack assume that only one ship in a stack fights or only one calculation is used, and its an all or nothing deal. Since I have seen every general variation of stack survival I can easily say (although not prove since I am not actively taking screen caps of my naval battles).

I am pretty sure in one of the other threads I pointed to also brought up another theroy. I will sum up the part of naval battles. A stack is ordered from most powerful (meaning valour) to least, the most powerful being the stack's 'general'. In the case of single ship stacks, it works exactly the same simply because there is only one ship. When attacking the lead (aka the most powerful) ship attacks and either wins or loses. If this ship wins then its part in the battle is over and the comp moves to the second ship in the stack if their are other enemies present. If the first ship loses then it is sunk and the process is repeated with the second ship.

In this case the attacking stack can lose all ships when the defenders don't lose any ships by failing to sink the first one. The attacking stack can also wipe out the defending stack while not taking any losses. And the attacking stack could lose some of its ships while the defending ships lose some of their ship as well.

The above outline seems logical and statistically random, and without CA telling us how they programmed ship combat, we could easily come up with 20 different ways on how they might have done it.

With that said, if you found a method that works for you then great, and you should use it.

EDIT: Cut out part of last paragraph.