Auto-battle

[muki]

I've had the chance to try this game for several hours, so here is one issue I've came upon, other from those already being discussed here:
All my auto-trading merchant fleets were set to cautious, still they regularly came under attack.
That's allright, but sometimes they come after my sloops with galleons and brigs, still I have to fight (which equals to 15 minutes of boredom, fleeing from the enemy with 2 knots speed), or use automatically resolve the battle, which always meant my merchants would sink.
There needs to be either:
1. a button, which resolves the battle, implying your ships actually flee not fight, and retain the curent auto-battle button too.

2. make transports choose retreat when engaged in automatic battles.

I feel this game's got potential, it's only up to the devs to patch it up now (the game is having a rough start though).

 

[delra]

If you use Galleons, enemies won't even come close to your fleet, I saw Pirates running away many many times from my Galleon fleet. That's not the case for fleets based on Schooners or Flutes... so maybe you should just go for heavier stuff replacing your Sloops?

And yeah, this game has tons of potential.

 

[muki]

The problem is that Galleons slow down the other ships, thus the whole "fast trading" doctrine fails.

 

[unmerged(128860)]

Sloops normally run at around 3 knots, still not enough to quickly get away but better than the 2 knots that the Frigates run at and I have found at least 4 knots of speed in them. Could probably get a bit faster too. Not sure what speed Galleons and Brigs run at though. Best thing is to try to find a better wind aspect for your sloops that is more or less away from the enemy and then start running away. If you are going at a better speed they tend to give up the chase quicker. Most of the times when I run away it only takes about 3-4 minutes before I get the message that they gave up chasing me. Now this is with the demo but I dont think they could have changed that aspect of the game.

Albereth

 

[unmerged(148074)]

If you use Galleons, enemies won't even come close to your fleet, I saw Pirates running away many many times from my Galleon fleet. That's not the case for fleets based on Schooners or Flutes... so maybe you should just go for heavier stuff replacing your Sloops?

And yeah, this game has tons of potential.

uh this is not always the case. i was attacked by 5 cutters on my 3 galleons fleet. funny thing is.. because galleons are such slow ships i had hard time defeating them >.> 1 galleon was heavily damaged and had to surrender so it wouldn't sink, flag ship.. was half damaged spent all the cannon balls, 2nd ship was also near half damaged with every cannon balls used up as well, just to take down 3 cutters and heavily damage 2, which ended up running away.

 

[delra]

Good, let's talk fleets. I like full fleets and I like to keep it heavy. I also am much more interested in trading aspect of the game so I avoid combat if I can.

- My main "India" convoys now (1650s) consist of 4x Galleons and 1x Frigate flagship (something you should sail yourself in battle) each. Such a convoy was attacked only once and it was by Sweden who were desperate, they resigned after that attack failed actually (my Frigate sailed between their Xebecs wrecking them using both left and right batteries, it was quite epic actually). Other than that I can see enemies trying to run like hell upon seeing my fleets... noone dares to attack my convoys and it's late 1650s already. I see AI fleets robbed on regular basis so it's not like Pirates aren't there.

- If you use 5x Galleon, enemies try to stay far away. Never been attacked.

- 5x Schooner and 5x Flute I had attacked a bunch of times, they are safe until early 1630s, then you have to think about an upgrade. Schooners still are useful in Africa to deliver Gold and Diamonds (light stuff) but they will be attacked by Xebecs once you're in war so slowly start switching Schooners to Xebecs and Flutes to Brigs or Galleons around 1630.

- 5x Brig, I have two of those running from India from my secondary ports there just to see how they work, they were messed up two times already by Xebec-based AI fleets and they are seriously weak when enemy gets a Frigate but on the other hand you can mix in a Frigate too. They are cheaper and less safe Galleons.

- 5x Xebec, in my game they make runs to Arabia for Coffee, I also hunt down Pirates with those guys if I get a mission (thich hull and good speed make Xebec a really good anti-pirate ship). I really like their mix of firepower and speed and if I was a Pirate, I'd be sailing one of those. Never been attacked either despite all Pirate ports being on their route.

In general around 1635 I noticed I need to mix some actual warships into my Schooner fleets to keep them safe... or switch to heavy ships completely. Hence my first move was to migrate India fleets to large convoys (costs millions) and my second move is switching some of African Schooners for Xebecs for extra protection (2x Xebec, 3x Schooner for now).