Anybody ever won a naval battle?

[Chas]

1.3, England, normal, 1469. Naval tech 1, French naval tech 0. Maintenance on 100%. I have the only leader I can recruit (newbie, so maybe I am missing some way of getting better ones) who only has one dot.
England: 20 galleys, 13 carracks, 8 cogs = 41 ships, = 476 cannon (if that makes any difference)
France: 14 carracks.

Lose every time. Have restaged the battle about 10 times. About half of those battles the French have to come out of port to give battle (if that makes any difference) - the other half I have entered the sea area they are already in from another sea area. I do beat the small fleets of 2 ships easily, so apparently 20:1 odds is enough - but not a realistic strategy for the next 300 years.

Looks like another waste of money, though I did wait for version 3 before buying.

 

[von_Rundstedt]

1.3, England, normal, 1469. Naval tech 1, French naval tech 0. Maintenance on 100%. I have the only leader I can recruit (newbie, so maybe I am missing some way of getting better ones) who only has one dot.
England: 20 galleys, 13 carracks, 8 cogs = 41 ships, = 476 cannon (if that makes any difference)
France: 14 carracks.

Lose every time. Have restaged the battle about 10 times. About half of those battles the French have to come out of port to give battle (if that makes any difference) - the other half I have entered the sea area they are already in from another sea area. I do beat the small fleets of 2 ships easily, so apparently 20:1 odds is enough - but not a realistic strategy for the next 300 years.

Looks like another waste of money, though I did wait for version 3 before buying.

sounds like the french have a good leader. and dont hire leaders with only 1 point in anything. explore seaprovinces and win navalbattle. that gives you higher navytradition. then you can hire better leaders.

 

[wheattone]

What stats did the french leader have? That is probly the reason you keep losing. I have noticed that the ai inexplicably manages to get fantastic leaders especialy admirals, and lots of them. In naval battles i wont engage unless i have at least 2 or 3 to one adantage and even then i expect heavy losses.

Your best bet is to build galleys, lots of them, they're cheap and quick to build. In my experience the game hardly notices the diffrence between a rinky dink galley and a big expensive gold laden galleon. I dont have tons of experience however so i could be wrong.

 

[Chas]

sounds like the french have a good leader. and dont hire leaders with only 1 point in anything. explore seaprovinces and win navalbattle. that gives you higher navytradition. then you can hire better leaders.

If I could win a naval battle, that might be a strategy, but ...

 

[Kazmir]

If I could win a naval battle, that might be a strategy, but ...

Explore. THe navy tradition goes up pretty fast with it.

 

[unmerged(80814)]

The AI doesn't get naval attrition, so the French have most likely circumnavigated half the world and build up a ton of naval tradition which gives them the ability to recruit stupidly-good admirals.

And, the French get the "lucky" trait which gives them stupidly-good monarchs, which increase naval moral.

 

[Kazmir]

The AI doesn't get naval attrition, so the French have most likely circumnavigated half the world and build up a ton of naval tradition which gives them the ability to recruit stupidly-good admirals.

And, the French get the "lucky" trait which gives them stupidly-good monarchs, which increase naval moral.

The luck tag itself also increases naval morale

 

[painrulz]

yes if u wanna better leader u need higher navy tradition. And dont count cogs as fighters of your navy theyre for carrying ur armies dont bring them into battlefield.Do it only u desperate ...Another thing if you wanna win bring at least equal naval force..And NEVER Run from a naval battle..let say u fighting on english channel against france. u have 13 carrack 10 galleys and they have 14 carracks something(let say they have good leader) when fight begans ur little ships gonna sunk fastly but few of their carrracks will gone too. Dont panic and run if u doit u loose some ships witout fight when u try recover ur force it will past a year and they recover too..And they will win..Let them fight and hope at the and they will loose more moral and retreat while retreat they loose few ships or u capture some of them and return recover atack again and win...even in that way they are eliminating all your force in first battle it means they have very good leader and more morale..save reload go war with more ships. with correct ships!!!not cogs sometin...

 

[semaphore]

Look at the battle as it progresses - if either the dice roll or leaders are going heavily against, you, retreat before anything gets sunk. 14 Caracks is quite a bit, with a good leader and being lucky your fleet doesn't have much of an advantage.

 

[Zug]

It's all about the leaders, in my opinion. If you have a great leader, you can take your fleet of two cogs and simply capture your way up to a great fleet. Leaders seem to have even more effect in naval battles than in land ones, though this might just be my imagination again.

 

[unmerged(71040)]

An alternative explanation could be that the OP's fleet was not in the British Channel, and was possibly heavily damaged already from suffering a few months of attrition (or was in the British Channel, but had suffered damage from previous naval engagements). In that case, 14 full-strength carracks could easily have wiped out that fleet, especially if they also had a good admiral commanding them.

Having 100% maintenance doesn't mean your ships will repair themselves, unless they're docked in a port. That may be glaringly obvious to you, but you mentioned you were new at the game... and god knows I made a lot of mistakes like that when I first started playing the EU series

 

[unmerged(4875)]

That's some B.S. that the AI doesn't suffer naval attrition. With the NA expansion the AI builds up HUGE forces (both sea and land). Trying to play as England it's inevitable that France will send their armada of 200 ships to blockade your shores and they'll be able to sit there for decades. Their genius admirals will destroy whatever fleet you may have and then, once you're blockaded, your only hope is to build 100 ships in one province because trying to use multiple provinces is futile (they'll pick your ships off one at a time when you try to consolidate your forces).

I had it happen to me. It was quite frustrating. If France would've had to go repair or restock their ships then it would have given me a window of opportunity.

 

[unmerged(71040)]

That's some B.S. that the AI doesn't suffer naval attrition. With the NA expansion the AI builds up HUGE forces (both sea and land). Trying to play as England it's inevitable that France will send their armada of 200 ships to blockade your shores and they'll be able to sit there for decades. Their genius admirals will destroy whatever fleet you may have and then, once you're blockaded, your only hope is to build 100 ships in one province because trying to use multiple provinces is futile (they'll pick your ships off one at a time when you try to consolidate your forces).

I had it happen to me. It was quite frustrating. If France would've had to go repair or restock their ships then it would have given me a window of opportunity.

Build a bigger fleet next time, or don't engage the French one head-on?

Really, it's easier (and far more productive) to just learn from one's mistakes and adapt your strategy than go on the forums and rant about how powerful/imba the AI is. A lot of people find the AI too easy as it stands now. Without its advantages there would be no challenge whatsoever in SP mode, and then people would probably start making threads about how stupid/weak the AI is I'm not trying to offend anyone, merely stating that the problems you are facing aren't insurmoutable. There are ways of dealing with it, and once you find them... welcome to MP

 

[unmerged(37198)]

Build a bigger fleet next time, or don't engage the French one head-on?

Really, it's easier (and far more productive) to just learn from one's mistakes and adapt your strategy than go on the forums and rant about how powerful/imba the AI is. A lot of people find the AI too easy as it stands now. Without its advantages there would be no challenge whatsoever in SP mode, and then people would probably start making threads about how stupid/weak the AI is I'm not trying to offend anyone, merely stating that the problems you are facing aren't insurmoutable. There are ways of dealing with it, and once you find them... welcome to MP

is ther a challenge in sp?

with that being said, dont build big ships befor you get naval tech 14, its simply not worth it.....usaly a gally swarm beat carraks early game......and gallys is 5 times as chep(so for one carrak you can get 5 gallys)

 

[semaphore]

That's some B.S. that the AI doesn't suffer naval attrition. With the NA expansion the AI builds up HUGE forces (both sea and land). Trying to play as England it's inevitable that France will send their armada of 200 ships to blockade your shores and they'll be able to sit there for decades. Their genius admirals will destroy whatever fleet you may have and then, once you're blockaded, your only hope is to build 100 ships in one province because trying to use multiple provinces is futile (they'll pick your ships off one at a time when you try to consolidate your forces).

I had it happen to me. It was quite frustrating. If France would've had to go repair or restock their ships then it would have given me a window of opportunity.

They are not so big... They just seem that way because you didn't build enough during peace. If you go to war against a naval power without a 100 ship fleet premade, you'll be at a huge disadvantage with no one else to blame.

 

[unmerged(71040)]

is ther a challenge in sp?

For a neophyte like me, yes Although I play with my own rules... for example, if I have to make peace by giving away even one province, I usually start over, regardless of how much I enjoyed playing that country. It's good practice, since after a while you really do everything possible to ensure that you don't lose wars... i.e. by building a huge standing army and navy and making sure you use them the best you can.

 

[unmerged(4875)]

Really, it's easier (and far more productive) to just learn from one's mistakes and adapt your strategy than go on the forums and rant about how powerful/imba the AI is.

Who's ranting? Regardless if there are ways around the trick, it's still ridiculous that you have to always have a fleet that's twice the size in order to stand a chance. I just wish Paradox would work on the AI a little more rather than having the AI cheat in order to make the game challenging.

 

[semaphore]

Who's ranting? Regardless if there are ways around the trick, it's still ridiculous that you have to always have a fleet that's twice the size in order to stand a chance.

Err, you don't. Just because France has a good leader now doesn't mean they always will.

Or are you talking about the attrition? No naval attrition may sound like a lot, and it is in the case of exploring, but its really not a big deal in a war. I mean, you seriously had 200 French ships blocakding every single one of your ports? In most cases, you can order a ship out of port, then escape from combat before they engaged the enemy. It's a bit of a micromanagement work but it's still possible to build up a fleet that way.

 

[kierun]

I won (and lost) plenty of sea battles. It takes time to build fleets that can fight other large fleets but that's normal. Just keep at it and try not to get into a war!

 

[Chas]

OK thanks folks. I think I get the idea. I need naval experience, which I am only going to get by exploring, so I have to take Explore the New World as the idea I get at the start - not the end of the world but makes it a bit dumb to have all those others on offer.

Regarding AI and staying out of wars. France DOWs me every time the truce expires whatever I do. Given that it has total naval supremacy (and always will, this is only 16 years in to the game) it can land whatever troops it likes, wherever it wants, and will inevitably beat me in land battles. So I would be toast if the AI was any good. In fact what it does is land a succession of 1k armies for me to beat. This is presumably Johan's idea of a good time.

Think I may not bother.