Naval question

[Beirut]

Howdy,

I know the naval part of M:TW doesn't amount to much, but what's the deal with my having a fleet of caravels (all in one stack) in the English channel to secure my crossing into France and then if so much as a rubber duck from an enemy comes in, it shuts me down. And sometimes if I make several naval attacks in one turn, in different places, not all of them happen.

Thanks.

[caravel]

Enemy fleets casue a blockade. You won't be able to trade or transport units while the blockade is in place. The only solution is to sink them.

Not all attacks occurring is caused by the enemy fleet moving to a different sea region at the end of the turn. The fleet uses it's speed stat and escapes your fleets.

[Beirut]

Enemy fleets casue a blockade. You won't be able to trade or transport units while the blockade is in place. The only solution is to sink them.

And sink 'em I do. I just find it... funny, that a rowboat coming into contact my my armada causes that blockade. And sometimes it last several years.

Not all attacks occurring is caused by the enemy fleet moving to a different sea region at the end of the turn. The fleet uses it's speed stat and escapes your fleets.

Neat. Thank you.

[Knight of the Rose]

Yet annoying none the less - as new fleets move into the region at the end of turn, but blokade it at the beginning of the next turn. I once had a campaign where the Byz kept throwing thier dromons into my path, and there was nothing I could do about it... Naval combat is flawed in many parts of the concept, and I advocate landbridges.

/KotR

[bondovic]

Landbridges, yes. Or why not simply give all boats the same amount of speed? "Range" still discriminates kinda neat.

[Qilue]

Ah, the old sea region swap trick. ;) Btw, you can do this to the AI (especially catholics and moslems) with a high battle speed ship like Dromons (speed 4).

Say you have two regions (A and B). Place a dromon in each region and each turn, swap their positions. Their high speed means they will easily get away from the slower catholic/moslem ships and there is nothing they can do about it as their fastest ship is only speed 3. This also works against factions with galleys as the AI groups slow ships with their dromons and neutralises their speed for combating this 'technique'.

Yes it is an exploit, frequently used by the AI.

[Heidrek]

Caravels are pretty much a waste of time I find.

My fleets of caravels seemed to be useless against domons and longboats - I'd send them to the attack only to find that they failed to engage - the smaller faster ships just kept wsapping places and my big warships couldn't stop them.

a stack of 3 speed ships with a good leader ship will beat out a stack of strong but slow ships with an average leader.

[bondovic]

Same speed, people. Same speed...

[caravel]

Yes, I'm sure that Caravels, Barques, Longboats, Dhows, Baggalas and Galleys, War Galleys and Fire Galleys etc have a speed of between 1 and 3. It's the Dromons that are the uniquely faster ship, at speed 4. The Longboat and Barque are certainly inferior to the Caravel in every respect except speed so once you get to the stage where Caravels are available it would be unwise to continue producing Barques. The disadvantage is that the Caravel is very slow (slowest I think) so other ligher ships (not just the Dromon) will still escape. Try breaking your fleets up into individuals when attacking the solitary Dromon, that helps.

The rogue Dromon that hops from one sea region to the next is a well known annoyance. In reality there is only one solution and that is to slow it down to the same speed as the other ships in it's class (i.e. 3). Alternatively you can take it on with a Carrack, Barque Longboat or Dhow (all speed 3 which still equates to cat and mouse but gives a better chance of success).

-Edit: Some stats:

Name, Range, Attack, Defence, Speed, Strength.

Dhow, 1,1,1,3,0,
Dromon, 1,1,0,4,0
Longboat, 1,1,1,3,0
Galley, 1,1,1,2,0,
Barque, 1,1,2,3,0
Baggala, 2,2,2,2,0
Caravel, 2,3,3,1,0
Firegalley, 1,3,1,2,0
Wargalley, 1,3,3,1,0
Cog, 2,4,2,2,0
Boom, 2,4,3,2,0
Gungalley, 1,5,3,1,0
Carrack, 3,6,3,3,0


Range relates to the number of sea regions the vessel can move in one turn. The Range 1 vessels can only move one region at a time. The Range 2 vessels can move to the deep sea regions (any sea regions that do not connect directly to a land province) and can move two regions at a time. The Range 3 Carrack is a ship I've not used often. I presume it moves 3 regions at a time?

The speed parameter is related to "escaping" only. AI ships can choose (the player does not have this choice) to flee to another sea region instead of staying to fight. When the escape bid occurs the success rate is based on the speed parameter of both vessels. i.e. the faster ship catches the slower one or slower ship fails to catch the faster one.

The strength parameter is always set to 0 and may be unused. I can only think that it relates to "armour" or the ships' survivability in storms.