Naval Battles: What could work better in the demo

[Tsavong]

I find the Naval battle on the demo quite diffract from the land battle, which is probably true in real life I doubt many generals from the 1700s could be put on a ship and sail it to glory. Which is probably a problem France had in the 1800s if we assume some the officers were royalists.

I find the best strategy early on is to sail in a line past the 1st French fleet then stop the fleet when I'm in a position to cross the T of the 2nd fleet which allows most/all of my ships to fire into the disorganised mess of French ships. After that I then have to move the ships around 1 at a time to react to the damage they take and to where the AI sends it ships.

The sea battles are much batter then the ones in Imperial Glory. I like that in ETW you can put your ships on fire at will in a large fleet but in a small say single ship action you could get in and micro a bit hopefully it will be fun in the full game.

[Zenicetus]

I find the best strategy early on is to sail in a line past the 1st French fleet then stop the fleet when I'm in a position to cross the T of the 2nd fleet which allows most/all of my ships to fire into the disorganised mess of French ships. After that I then have to move the ships around 1 at a time to react to the damage they take and to where the AI sends it ships.

The mind boggles... you can just stop your ships at will, in the middle of the ocean.

That isn't a tactic, it's an exploit of a silly arcade game design. I'm still holding out a remote hope that the actual naval battles in the game will be something different from what we're seeing in the demo. If not, this game had better include an auto-calc'd sea battle that doesn't penalize the player for bypassing sea battles, in order to enjoy the rest of the game.

[Fisherking]

Zenicetus, you seem to have some knowledge of naval tactics.

Other than the sailing into the wind part, what recommendations do you have regarding the sea battles?

Are there other fleet maneuvers that have been overlooked?

[Tsavong]

From what I know of naval battles of this time the two sides would line there ships up and sail past each other shooting there guns. There was the tactic of braking the line which Nelson employed at Trafalgar I believe it works by cutting the line isolating some ships down wind of the others allowing the attacker not to fight the whole enemy fleet at once. It also lets the attacking ships fire into the bow and stern of enemy ships as it passes though the line. The downside is your lead ship or ships has to endure the fire-power of the enemy fleet as you close in with only your bow guns shooting back.

You can try this in the demo if you just leave your Royal Navy fleet alone and let it sale on at the French and it dose work well you just have to react right after you pass the French fleet. It is quite nice to see the 100 gun flagship fireing at close range into the two smaller French ships on each side.

The Royal Navy web sight dose have some info on battles in the age of sail

http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/server/show/nav.3926

[Zenicetus]

Zenicetus, you seem to have some knowledge of naval tactics.

Other than the sailing into the wind part, what recommendations do you have regarding the sea battles?

Are there other fleet maneuvers that have been overlooked?

Well see, that's the problem.... anything I know about naval tactics and real-world sailing (and I've never sailed a ship "in anger" other than water balloon fights)... is basically useless in the current game engine. Apparently there is no tactical advantage to the weather gage (attacking upwind from the enemy), and you can't force the enemy into disadvantaged positions because they can steer and move in any directions. That results in a chaotic "anything goes" battle, where you might as well just use game exploits like that anchoring trick. Why bother trying to learn real naval tactics when the game doesn't support it?

From what I know of naval battles of this time the two sides would line there ships up and sail past each other shooting there guns. There was the tactic of braking the line which Nelson employed at Trafalgar I believe it works by cutting the line isolating some ships up wind of the others allowing the attacker not to fight the whole enemy fleet at once.

And see, this is what I mean. Take a look at this tactical map of Nelson's famous "breaking the line" maneuver at Trafalgar:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...gar_1200hr.svg

The wind direction isn't indicated here, but it's blowing from the northwest. Nelson wanted to avoid the kind of indecisive battle that resulted from ships passing each other in parallel lines (wind abeam). He wanted a dust-up in close quarters where the enemy couldn't escape. So what did he do? He used his weather gage advantage to approach from a roughly upwind direction, which forced the enemy fleet to either remain in a line (because they couldn't turn towards him) or flee the battle. The enemy battle line doesn't have the option of an envelopment, with the lead ships and tailing ships turning to the left and trapping Nelson's fleet in the middle. They can't do that, because they'd be sailing directly into the wind! They would be forced to come about (move their bow across the wind) which is a dangerous maneuver in battle because you lose forward speed and you're an easier target for cannon fire. That's why Nelson was able to break the line and force close-quarters combat on his terms. The enemy fleet was forced, by the wind, to remain in that fixed line of battle.

By the same token, Nelson's tactic here would not have worked if he had approached the enemy battle line from the right side of that map. Then the enemy fleet would have the weather gage, and Nelson's only options would be to form another parallel battle line for a traditional battle, or flee the scene (being downwind is an advantage if you want to cut and run). The wind determines the available tactics, period.

None of this would work in the current game engine. The AI will just point upwind whenever it wants to, in order to get its cannons on the targeted ships. So what you get is just a chaotic hodge-podge of a battle with no structure imposed by conditions. It's exactly like having a land battle where there is no tactical advantage to being on high ground. Land battle enthusiasts would howl in protest, if CA modeled land battles without that feature.

[bscssc]

I'd like to think that if they removed weather gage to make it simpler, that one might be able to mod it back in. Somebody smarter than me will have to work on that.

[Zenicetus]

It might be possible to mod the weather gage and enforced taking back in, since they apparently started with a more realistic model. But it would just be a massive player exploit, if the AI can't handle it. I don't know if that can be modded. I guess we'll see. Maybe the final game will be different from the demo, but from CA's posts on this, it seems this is the direction they wanted to go.

Right now I'm mostly interested in finding out whether there is a penalty in the campaign game for bypassing (auto-calculting) the sea battles, so they can be approached on a purely strategic level like the earlier TW games.

[A Very Super Market]

Auto-calc usually results in a lot of the enemy getting away...

[Calmarac]

@ Zenicetus - very nice explanation of the tactics at Trafalgar, and how they were dictated by the wind factor.

There are a couple of good accounts here and here

This animated map of Trafalgar is quite good fun too.