Central Mediterranean: Can't Sail?

[ArtistofWarfare]

Quick question guys:

At 1106 in my Italian campaign, beginning to just dominate the eastern and central med , working on the western with a shipwright/dockyard going in Genoa now...

One issue: I have ships in every marine tile (water tile) in these waters except for the Central Mediterranean, because I can't seem to find a way to get a ship in there. No matter what tile I have my ship(s) positioned on during the prior turn, it still lets me go anywhere around it but not onto/in it.

Does it have to be approached from the bottom near east africa/middle east? That's the only approach I haven't tried yet, due to the fact that my ships are strung toward all of the ports which are to the north of where I'm talking about there.

I'm going to catch some sleep, will be back around tomorrow afternoon/evening so no extreme rush on the answer tonight...but any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[caravel]

Central Mediterranean is a deep sea zone so your ships will never be able to enter there, as the Italians, Sicllians and Byzantines ("Galley" factions) don't have any deep sea vessels.

[macsen rufus]

Any sea regions without a land neighbour will classify as deep sea, so you will also be unable to access the Atlantic Ocean region and ... oh, dear, what's it called - the one just east of Sicily, anyway. You're a coast-hugger as an Italian, as caravel says

[ArtistofWarfare]

Any sea regions without a land neighbour will classify as deep sea, so you will also be unable to access the Atlantic Ocean region and ... oh, dear, what's it called - the one just east of Sicily, anyway. You're a coast-hugger as an Italian, as caravel says

Interesting...I never knew this before...

Or did and forgot...

Well, I'm assuming that this really doesn't effect things too drastically as I can still access most of the tiles I need to...

Still, this begs the question: Who has ships that can go anywhere?

Italian Galleys get a +1 morale...but they can't go into deep waters? That just seems off to me...

edit: Nevermind- I looked up at Yas' Tools regarding the ships...

This is the ONE thing I overlooked when picking the Italians...

Although I don't think it would have changed much, I still love their infantry, and their location to begin with still allows a Naval/Mercantile empire to be built rather quickly.

Thanks for the answer though guys...saved me some time today ...I see why the give and take exists now. Nations most set to control the seas are given slightly less capable ships than nations that would have to do some significant conquering before they'd have access to the regions that would give them maritime control. It's not bad...

[Musket]

Ships as small as galleys would not go into deep waters, due to the risk of being sunk or foundered by a storm. A one-sail Galley could take weeks just to cross the Aegean Sea from Greece to Turkey in real life. The chances of a fleet of ships going from Italy to say, north Africa was unlikely, unless they were deep-sea vessels such as ..... Cogs I believe?

[caravel]

Well, I'm assuming that this really doesn't effect things too drastically as I can still access most of the tiles I need to...

Still, this begs the question: Who has ships that can go anywhere?

It's not much of a handicap, you do still have have the fastest ships on the map and two types of light vessel available to you. You also get some fairly potent ships later on. All of the other factions (excluding Byzantine, Sicilians and Italians) have ships that can travel into deep sea zones.

Italian Galleys get a +1 morale...but they can't go into deep waters? That just seems off to me...

Ships don't have a morale stat so I'm assuming you mean "command"? Galleys get a command bonus in Venice.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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My incomplete/unreleased Modlet

internally consists of phases. Phase 001 (coming after Phase 000) deals with ship availability. IIRC, Phase 000 (Basic Modifications) includes minor unit stat tweaks suggested by frogbeastegg in her guide and the removal of land bridges. Again IIRC, the phases are cumulative; that is if you get Phase 001, you get Phase 000 too.

So, if it's good enough for you, here is the CRUSADERS_UNIT_PROD11.TXT, which is internal Modlet Phase 001. Extract the archive to your MTW root directory after making a backup copy of the original.

Rationale:

Historically, naval technology has been related more to a region than its rulers. People often adopted it when they controlled a region, or failed. In MTW time frame adoption was more common practice than failure. On this basis, I've reorganised ship recruitment regionally. Roughly, Mediterranean/Black Sea sector gets Galleys+, North Africa Dhows+, Atlantic Barque+ and the Baltic Longboat+; yet there are finer points.

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[caravel]

the removal of land bridges

There was a time when I used to shout land bridge removal from the rooftops, nowadays I actually think they're pretty much vital and in fact there's probably not enough of them. Looking at it historically it's great to have islands that are actually islands, but in practice it doesn't work. Dividing the straits of Gibraltar causes havoc with crusade routes and splitting up Sardinia and Corsica and dividing Sicily from the mainland creates three useless Islands that the AI cannot handle, and this brings me to islands in general. Islands are death traps for reappearing factions. How many times have you groaned in dismay at a large Byzantine force reappearing on Cyprus, Crete or Rhodes, the Italians turning up in Sardinia/Corsica or the Sicilians reappear on the island of Malta? Trapped without ships and economically crippled they will be stuck on that island until 1453 or until conquered. I've seen the English and even the French reappear, in total isolation, in Ireland! In any of these cases - add a land bridge to the mainland and you have a wholly different scenario.

The best method I have found for Vanilla is to link Cyprus to Lesser Armenia, Crete to Greece, Malta to Sicily, Rhodes to Nicaea, Corsica to Genoa (this also gives nice contiguous territory for the Genovese faction included in some mods) and Ireland to either Scotland or Wales. (preferably Wales as it would be totally unrealistic for the English to first have to conquer Scotland in order to get to Ireland). The one possible exception is the Flanders/Wessex land bridge, this is a viable one to remove as the resulting cut off region numbers a total of six self sufficient provinces and is easily bridged by shipping - it is not a single Island with a poor income with no hope of maintaining a reappearing faction. It may give the English an unfair advantage over other factions however.

Relying on the AI to bridge land masses with ships is not too reliable as the AI simply cannot manage it's shipping effectively and also fails to maintain decent trade routes let alone links to islands. This is why I feel that ships should not be looked on as a means of linkage but instead as a means of traveling somewhere quickly. IMHO the player and especially the AI should still be able to get anywhere on the map using a land route.

[ArtistofWarfare]

It's not much of a handicap, you do still have have the fastest ships on the map and two types of light vessel available to you. You also get some fairly potent ships later on. All of the other factions (excluding Byzantine, Sicilians and Italians) have ships that can travel into deep sea zones.


Ships don't have a morale stat so I'm assuming you mean "command"? Galleys get a command bonus in Venice.

1) Indeed, regarding it not being much of a handicap. I spent some time researching/reviewing ship capabilities and I'm finding the Galleys to be perfectly suited to my mercantile approach.

2) Sorry, indeed again- I mean unit command for the ships, not morale. And yes, that's specifically what I was thinking of- the +1 command Galleys trained in Venice receive.

Thanks again...this thread has been very helpful to me...

[Mouzafphaerre]

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me for not keeping a ship recruitment only version.

But it's easy to do yourself. Just get the Gnome Editor from ORG's downloads section, load the file and reassign the regions and factions for the ship units to your liking. Be careful with the syntax and all. It's merely a copy/paste fest.
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[ArtistofWarfare]

Relying on the AI to bridge land masses with ships is not too reliable as the AI simply cannot manage it's shipping effectively and also fails to maintain decent trade routes let alone links to islands. This is why I feel that ships should not be looked on as a means of linkage but instead as a means of traveling somewhere quickly. IMHO the player and especially the AI should still be able to get anywhere on the map using a land route.

This begs a question:

I'm in the middle of building a naval/mercantile empire with Italy, centered across the Med (obviously), west to east.

Can I expect the AI to be less of a threat at sea as it would be on land?

In other words: Enemy ships= cannon fodder if you're a maritime nation?

[Etym]

Looking at it historically it's great to have islands that are actually islands, but in practice it doesn't work. Dividing the straits of Gibraltar causes havoc with crusade routes

I could be wrong, but weren't the crusades ALL launched overland through Constantinople (another land bridge actually, if not depicted as one on the map)? The only other route I think I've ever heard of was by ship from Italy but I think it went to France or the Balkans). So the crusade-across-N Africa that we all love would seem to be ahistorical, to say the least - can you imagine all those peasants and knights trekking across the edge of the Sahara? They had enough trouble with tiny Tripoli (Lebanon)!

[Etym]

This begs a question:

Can I expect the AI to be less of a threat at sea as it would be on land?

In other words: Enemy ships= cannon fodder if you're a maritime nation?

Not exactly. You can expect that any neutral or ally of yours that has a fleet will eventually launch a surprise attack on your shipping, and will typically take out several of your units. After that, when you counter-attack, battles tend to resolve in your favor a bit over half the time, in my experience. You can improve the odds by ganging up on them (2 ships to 1, etc.) and by maneuvering your best captains (1 star or more) into battles with lower ranking enemy ships.

In short, while they are not "cannon fodder" by any means, enemy fleets are more a nuisance than a real threat, always assuming you've got (or can build) a good-sized navy and can withstand the drop in trade income during the contest for the seas.

[ArtistofWarfare]

understood...thanks.

At 1113 now and still, no battle for the seas...

However, the Byzantines are looking like who my first grapple for control of the Med will be with. Even still, right now, in 1 turn I could have them with zero ships on the waters.

I intend to keep it this way

[Martok]

This begs a question:

I'm in the middle of building a naval/mercantile empire with Italy, centered across the Med (obviously), west to east.

Can I expect the AI to be less of a threat at sea as it would be on land?

In other words: Enemy ships= cannon fodder if you're a maritime nation?

Not necessarily, no. Naval battles in MTW tend to be rather unpredictable, with no firmly-established patterns indicating how they work. (Several quite lengthy -- and occasionally heated -- threads have been devoted to the topic, but no consensus has ever really been reached as to how ship combat works in MTW.)

Still, there are things you can do improve your odds. As Etym has said, having a numerical advantage in battle -- whether attacking or defending -- seems to help, as does having the superior commander. The key word here, however, is seems. I've heard tales of a fleet of 4 wargalleys losing to 2 barques, and of a single dhrow somehow managing to escape from an armada of 20 caravels.

My point being: Don't take naval battles for granted! You'll still win more often than not if the advantages are in your favor, but not always.

I could be wrong, but weren't the crusades ALL launched overland through Constantinople (another land bridge actually, if not depicted as one on the map)? The only other route I think I've ever heard of was by ship from Italy but I think it went to France or the Balkans). So the crusade-across-N Africa that we all love would seem to be ahistorical, to say the least - can you imagine all those peasants and knights trekking across the edge of the Sahara? They had enough trouble with tiny Tripoli (Lebanon)!

Quite true. I believe, however, that caravel was simply referring to the fact that in MTW, a lot of Crusading armies -- particularly those from England, France, and sometimes the HRE -- tend to march through Iberia & North Africa to reach their destination. (Apparently, the AI doesn't care for historical accuracy that much.)

[caravel]

I could be wrong, but weren't the crusades ALL launched overland through Constantinople (another land bridge actually, if not depicted as one on the map)? The only other route I think I've ever heard of was by ship from Italy but I think it went to France or the Balkans). So the crusade-across-N Africa that we all love would seem to be ahistorical, to say the least - can you imagine all those peasants and knights trekking across the edge of the Sahara? They had enough trouble with tiny Tripoli (Lebanon)!

As Martok said the historicity is not the issue. The issue is a crusade launched from Castile going via Constantinople in order to get to Morocco.

This is what happens if you cut the Straits of Gibraltar land bridges.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Not necessarily in history either. Part of the Third Crusade went by the sea to Cyprus, usurped the island and then embarked on the levant.
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[ArtistofWarfare]

Well, I have some errands to run around town in a bit but I'll be grinding out a very lengthy session tonight.

I'm at 1115 now...Just need a ship in the Barbary coast, and one next to Constantinople and then all the trading fleets are connected around the entire mediterranean, up through the Agean to Constantinople.

My global map already indicates the direction I'm going with things (I'll try to post it later before I start playing) as the entire area of the map around the med/agean that is visible to me now clearly resembles the original Roman Empire.

As it is already, I could have an army land at virtually 98% of the most worthwhile provinces on the map in 1 or 2 turns tops due to my naval dominance. Tripoli, Palestine, and Antioch could are all directly reachable, and I have total intelligence of these provinces (and pretty much everything around them).

Doge Vitale II is still alive...I believe he's 67 years old now. The majority of the other original leaders have died, including Pope Urban II.

As I continue to climb the economic/war machine tech ladder and approach "operational" status for a war climate I'm also aligning things in my young nation to withstand the imminent death of my King.

The plan right now, and how things are unfolding, is that my Heir will take over and shortly thereafter, our technology/economy will be just in the right place to begin expansion.

Hopefully, Sicily will do something to get themselves excomm'd by this time and my first campaign can include Sicily/Malta. If not, I have to believe that I'll be crusading into the Holy Lands first, simply because a) this does not effect any alliances with Christan factions, and I have refused to ally myself with any non christian factions (even orthodox) and b) simply put, these are the most lucrative provinces I can see on the map right now. On top of this, this can be accomplished via crusade...killing several birds with one stone.

I've balanced military/economic upgrades nicely...

Have about 20 Galleys out on the seas, total garrison forces are still very low...with very high loyalty and zeal in all provinces (due in large part to Magnificent and Great Builder Virtues) Even with this large Navy and an average building expenditure of around 2700 florins per turn, I rake in around 3700 profit right now, and very soon...this should boom to well over 4400...even with no expansion yet. Total treasury stands at around 29,000 florins currently.

I'll be back in a bit...

edit: I just want to add- As of right now, I just don't see how Egypt (who obviously holds all of the Holy Lands) would be able to successfully counter attack me. I could easily produce a nice 1.5 - 2 stack crusading Army (probably more if I dragged it through Christian provinces first) and support a long term garrison...even war in the middle east. It looks like, in total (as far as I can see right now) the Eggies only have about 2 stacks total, in all provinces. Of course, there could be ...who knows how many stacks I'm not seeing...but I don't think they have that large of a standing army. After my initial attack, and them losing Antioch or Tripoli right away, I don't think they could reinforce and sustain any counterattack. Of course, by the time I get there, things could change...but I should still be able to keep my capabilities just enough above theirs to prevent anything from going drastically wrong.

And again, things are extremely early in the game yet but still- Perhaps I can get a nice little jump to things in the next few decades.

[Etym]

(Apparently, the AI doesn't care for historical accuracy that much.)

And it's a more interesting game in consequence, no doubt.

[Etym]

The issue is a crusade launched from Castile going via Constantinople in order to get to Morocco.

This is what happens if you cut the Straits of Gibraltar land bridges.

No argument there, and I have to agree that land bridges are necessary to enhance playability - not to mention giving the dunderheaded AI some useful (and obvious) way to get around. I also appreciate your point that sea routes are an unreliable means to link provinces/landmasses. Odd thing is, though, that while the AI is notoriously incompetent at maintaining it's own trade and communication links at sea, it's devilishly clever at interfering with mine at the most inopportune moments. Too many times I've floundered about chasing a single AI ship from one sea zone to another, trying to kill it, while it keeps running away to another zone, interdicting my sea link but never hanging around to fight it out. Guerilla war at sea . . . .

[caravel]

Odd thing is, though, that while the AI is notoriously incompetent at maintaining it's own trade and communication links at sea, it's devilishly clever at interfering with mine at the most inopportune moments. Too many times I've floundered about chasing a single AI ship from one sea zone to another, trying to kill it, while it keeps running away to another zone, interdicting my sea link but never hanging around to fight it out. Guerilla war at sea . . . .

The AI cannot position shipping where needed. It simply spams ships and sends them piecemeal on a luxury cruise of the med. The only time you will find large AI fleets is where the AI has been producing heavily and a few ships just happened to be in that zone at that time and got auto-merged as a result. The AI will not maintain shipping links, trade routes, nor protect it's coasts. The AI's ship spam travelling through your waters is what causes this problem and disruption of your trade routes, though there is another problem...

All ships have a speed rating. Generally faster ships are able to escape from slower ships and this leads to the chasing because unlike the player the AI knows when you're attacking it's ships (in fact the same goes for land battles) and has the chance to react to it by moving the ship/fleet away to and adjacent sea zone. This is where the speed calculation occurs at the end of the turn. If the ship escaped then it doesn't engage in battle, if it failed to escape then it does.

If you do a search the details of shipping, speed, 'catching', stacking or not stacking, AI advantages and disadvantages have all been discussed at length.