Naval Tips

[anweRU]

The "use smaller ships to defeat SoLs" tips above remind me the good old days of playing Port Royale 1 & 2, especially 2 when Ascaron actually turned the naval combat into essentially an arcade game, allowing only 1 player ship vs 5 AI ships. The best ship in the game was the 32 gun military frigate, which could by itself wipe out 5 SoLs using the above tactics...

[Marquis of Roland]

The "use smaller ships to defeat SoLs" tips above remind me the good old days of playing Port Royale 1 & 2, especially 2 when Ascaron actually turned the naval combat into essentially an arcade game, allowing only 1 player ship vs 5 AI ships. The best ship in the game was the 32 gun military frigate, which could by itself wipe out 5 SoLs using the above tactics...

Sounds epic, I'm gonna try that later in custom battle; 1 6th rate vs. 1 heavy 1st, 1 1st, 1 2nd, 1 3rd, and 1 4th?

[Liberator]

I take the opposite tack and go for the biggest and toughest warships. At the extreme end of the scale, firepower and resilience can compensate for lack of speed. Since Naval Hospital comes before Steam Drydock the AI will always build it and thus never be able to build First Rates and Heavy First Rates, so you can simply overwhelm him with firepower if you have trouble outsailing him. A single broadside from 'El Ponderoso' can demolish anything smaller than a 5th-rate. Just beware of rocket ships.

I also prefer anything better than 4th rate. Take Heavy First Rates - they may be somewhat slower, but they outgun everything and if you have enough ships, the AI just can't outflank you even with the fastest ships. The AI normaly keeps its ships together, anyway

My tip: Take care that both sides of a ship get more or less equally damaged - if one side is significantly more damaged than the other, the ship starts to heel and may sink, even if the overall damage is not that immense.

does anyone know why some ships have a firing range of 400, while others have a range of 500?!

[Marquis of Roland]

does anyone know why some ships have a firing range of 400, while others have a range of 500?!

I'm pretty sure it's a mistake by CA. All SOLs should have the same range.

[Vlad The Impaler]

nobody likes galleons? I am playing with the british and I am trying to capture as much galleons and fluyts as I can

I think galleons are powerful and comparable with the fluyts and can do commerce too

[Unhinged_Loon]

I've been experimenting successfully with a "bait" ship....it's a job for a daring up-and-coming captain of a frigate

I form my main line of 5-6 ships and keep one ship seperate from the group.
Then I sail my line towards the enemy as normal, to engage in a broadside duel. This tactic works best when you expect to sail past each other in the initial exchange of fire, rather than when you expect to engage while sailing in the same direction....I usually find this is down to the wind direction and initial set-up
The single ship sails slightly out ahead, and off to the side of the main group that will keep it further away from the enemy ships. Make sure it is just in range of the enemy ships. As it passes the enemy, they will fire on the single ship...largely wasting their shots at extreme range. Then the main group can engage at close range before the enemy can reload.
You can deal an initial heavy blow to the lead ships...often my two front ships get a free broadside and the third ship cops the second broadside of the leading enemy ship...by which time, the strength is much lower.

The single ship retreats away from the enemy when its damage on one side is around 1/2...but it often sails the length of the line with minimal problems and then turns to present its undamaged side and assist the rest of the fleet

[Didz]

You guys encountered suicide Dhows yet.

Had to deal with a few when taking down the Maratha's Navy, they seem to charge straight at your best ships, or the Admiral's Flagship if they can and then explode right under your guns. Had a couple of near misses when my flagship caught fire, then learned to concentrate my fire on these vessels first, just to remove the threat.

[Slaists]

Tip: never try to "cross the T" when going against a swarm of galleys (of any size). Galley guns (small in number but high firepower) are pointed forward and it seems, a line of galleys can shoot their guns simultaneously...

[Didz]

Personally, I prefer the French strategy and tend to choose the leeward position for my fleet (e.g. downwind of the enemy).

The advantage is that this enables me to maneouvre without having to worry about sailing too close to the wind and without having to tack through the wind to change tack. Ideally, I start the battle slightly to windward and then use the flexibility of having the wind behind me to choose my angle of approach.

I then cross the enemy 'T' sacrificing the wind gauge in the process.

Having passed across or through the enemy fleet I can then deliberately fall back downwind whenever I like to keep the range long and force them to keep running down on me. Also by sailing back and forth across their line I have more flexibility and speed with the wind abeam and can virtually choose how close I want the action to be and at what point I want to breach the enemy line (if at all).

I find fighting the enemy from windward makes it virtually impossible to keep your distance and forces you to fight at close quarters, which is not a good idea if you have the advantage of firepower on your side.

[TinCow]

Unless I am heavily outnumbered, I always split my fleet into two squadrons, both in line formation. The heavier squadron attempts to cross the T on the enemy fleet, then turns down the far side of the enemy fleet and exchanges broadsides the entire way. The lighter squadron aims for the other side of the enemy formation and exchanges broadsides going down that side, usually resulting in the enemy getting hit from both sides simultaneously. Depending on the situation, when the squadrons reach the end of the enemy line, they either reverse course and turn back up the line, once again exchanging broadsides, but this time with their undamaged side to the enemy, or turn the other direction and cross the enemy in the rear.

[Fisherking]

That worked well pre patch.

Now it is a matter of building what you can afford…and for me so far it has not been much.

I do a lot of dancing around them using chain shot and then when they are dead in the water go up and pound them until they strike.

[Marquis of Roland]

You guys encountered suicide Dhows yet.

Had to deal with a few when taking down the Maratha's Navy, they seem to charge straight at your best ships, or the Admiral's Flagship if they can and then explode right under your guns. Had a couple of near misses when my flagship caught fire, then learned to concentrate my fire on these vessels first, just to remove the threat.

You should treat any ship that lights up easily as fireships. Basically anything smaller than a 6th rate falls in this category. Stay away from them, and hope they get caught in each other's explosions.

[Fisherking]

I just finished a tough one! A sixth rate and two sloops vs. a fifth rate and an Indiaman. Savoy also brought an Indiaman to the show, but you know how those things fight. Still it may have done some damage. I have little respect for their guns. A sloop can fight them like it was a 3rd rate.

I shot away the sails from the 5th rate and ended up sinking the Indiaman when I was trying to get the 5th rate to strike. The sloops were lightly damaged…had a fight with a galley before going into the fight also. The 6th rate took a bit more damage but I captured a nice 5th rate out of the deal.

I didn’t think the thing was ever going to strike. It only had 15 guns left and only about 35 men. It was blocking my one and only trade port as Spain. It had to be done…

It really was not easy. The wind was head on to my starting position. I moved the ships to the corner and angled them across the wind to intercept. Staying away from the guns was the main problem and coordinating the two groups was not easy either. The 6th rate did most of the heavy work, staying in front of the 5th rate and giving him pepper. I thought they were going to run me off the map for a while until I could get a better angle on the wind.

[Dead Guy]

I've found that if you get the AI fleet to bunch up and ruin their formation, things become very favourable for you quickly! It's a bit tricky to get it to do that though. Early in my campaign as UP I've had a line with my main ships (Fluyts, fifth rates, galleons I've captured and sixth rates) try to cross the T in front of the enemy line at the beginning of a battle, while a faster small squadron of brigs/sloops go up their broadside, alternatively try to go around them and cross the T from behind as they reach my line. Looks something like this...

X A
X |
X |
X S/B
X S/B
X S/B
X
|
|
V


<-------UP UP UP UP UP UP UP

In this scenario the wind is blowing right to left or northwest.
So I try to get the UP line to go past the enemys flag ship. Sometimes it turns, sometimes not. Sometimes, the enemy turns to focus on the sloops and brigs, and that can sometimes get it to bunch up and slow down or pretty much stop entirely. Then my main line usually starts spinning in place below it (to deliver more broadsides), or simply slowly circles the bunch in a line. The concentrated fire usually does wonders. Sloops and sixth rates chase and board routers if necessary.

[Marquis of Roland]

I've found that if you get the AI fleet to bunch up and ruin their formation, things become very favourable for you quickly! It's a bit tricky to get it to do that though.

All you have to do to get AI to bunch up is to sail for the last ship in his line, and away from the first ship in the line.

I just fought an uneven battle where I used that tactic. I had the USS Constitution (7exp) versus 2 galleons, 2 fluyts, and 2 race-built galleons (pirate faction, all 2exp). Difficulty medium, clear weather and moderate westerly breeze.

I started off with the weather gage and sailed in a wide arch towards the rear of their fleet. their lead ships started tacking into the wind, slowing their speed to a crawl. With the new patch, ships will adjust speed according to the lead ship and whats immediately ahead of them, so their entire line was basically immobilized.

To simplify, once I balled them up, I just kept picking at them with long-range chain-shot salvos, periodically sailing in closer for a raking broadside whenever I saw opportunities where their guns won't be aiming at me for a couple seconds (or only 1 or half a broadside could be brought to bear on me in time).

End result: USS constitution - 12 guns out of action, 44 casualties. Pirates - both race-built galleons sunk, both fluyts struck their colors with 1 sinking, 1 galleon exploded and the other captured. To the AI's credit it did break up its formation to try to cut me off and surround me.

For those who don't have USS Constitution, it is a slightly slower 24-pdr frigate with about 50% more hull strength.

[Kraxis]

The AI is definately a slave to the formation, or should we say the flagship.

My best example of it was a battle I should always have won, but one that could have been costly.
A mess of brigs, sloops and a 6th rater or two faced my fleet of two 4th raters, two 5th raters two 6th raters and a brig.

Knowing the AI would stick to it's line and try to cross my line of advance I put my big ships in one line and the three smaller ones in another. I kept my big ships in good wind so I could dictate the direction the battle would take, while I kep the smaller ships behind and a bit to the leeward. The plan was to rake both sides or hold the enemy with the big ships while the small ships crossed the T.
Well the AI was fast, and as soon as we passed each other it turned into the wind behind my big ships, in turn I did too to present the unharmed side. The AI continued the turn (what else could it do), at this point my small ships came down the other side, so the AI flagship now responded to them and once more turned, more or less back onto the original course... trouble was just that it got tangled with the last few ships in it's line.

And so there I had them, completely tangled up, ships turned this and that way close to each other. Firing was very hard for them as a friendly ship blocked a lot of it. Meanwhile my ships played indians on horses and circled the wagontrain. Superior firepower obviously ended the encounter pretty soon, but it was in fact the control of the battle that had beaten the enemy.

And I must admit I enjoyed the view when the battle was over I had seen several ships explode, a couple surrender to be captured, but otherwise it looked like a shipgraveyard with masts and hulks lying in a big mess. Especially the explosions had created awesome results. One in particular sinking at least three others. It looked like my sailors could have walked dry from one squadron to the other. I really should have made a screenshot.