I'm NOT on a boat!! Navy/Naval/Transport [MEGA-THREAD]

[Fredmonroe]

They do not "transform" into boats. They just build or buy transport boats. Using the money you pay (1% of Army size in Gold) and the months it takes them to embark.

There should be plenty of woodworking experience in a well balanced Levy. We are only talking about transports ships, not warships after all.

I mean you realize that what you quoted was not really the point of my post at all? The post is about the simplicity of the CK1 system and how it loses out on certain tactical aspects. Everything in that list was examples of naval use that would be more complicated in the CK2 system. Whether the CK1 system can be justified as historically possible is pretty unrelated.

And, I can't believe this has to be said, but I guess it does: that part was an attempt at humor. I don't think that the CK1 system is supposed to make us believe that all of your soldiers are literally transformers from the popular kids series....

 

[Oglesby]

And, I can't believe this has to be said, but I guess it does: that part was an attempt at humor. I don't think that the CK1 system is supposed to make us believe that all of your soldiers are literally transformers from the popular kids series....

The problem is that your attempt at humor has been other people's point of derision since CK3's naval system was revealed.

 

[Fredmonroe]

The problem is that your attempt at humor has been other people's point of derision since CK3's naval system was revealed.

I mean, at the end of the day, you've won. You get to play CK3 with the CK1 naval system and enjoy it. As I expressed in my first post on this thread from many many pages ago, I find the system extremely frustrating. It has killed the enjoyment of the game for me, and I have stopped playing it. And this is coming from somebody who put hundreds and hundreds of hours into CK2 - I had played it since release - and was super hyped for CK3.

So please, allow me at least a little derisive humor.

And again, this particular aspect of the post wasn't really that related to the point of the post in general.

 

[The Founder]

Um, no. Not every village has shipwright skills.

You needed access to some or all of shipwrights, ports, merchants (with ships) and money capital.

Every village was at the Ocean, at a River or at a lake. If they were not, their size was limited by what little clean water supply they could scrape together. And so the amount of levies that came from them would be small.
Without aqeducts, water experience in your levies was pretty high.

And that is before you consider they could just buy, lease or conscript merchant ships. Wich is also handeled by money+months.

 

[KipperUK]

Sorry for not reading 40 pages of this topic, but on the off chance none of this has been mentioned (it probably has), I thought I'd add my tuppence worth. Here goes.

I thought, prior to playing, that being able to embark/disembark at will would be a bit of a dumbing down - but actually, on playing - it's completely fine. I'm okay with the concept that a military force would rock up at the coast and either build or obtain some kind of seaworthy vessel from which to transport their troops.

HOWEVER - it does seem a bit OP and these are some changes I would consider making:

1. Remove infinite ships but introduce an 'embarkation limit' mechanic. Give coastal/river provinces a maximum ship supply number equal to the number of troops it can load; and add together all of the supply numbers from all connected (friendly or neutral) provinces - that's the number of people you can embark at any one time. Rather than tracking ship locations, just have the number reduce by the number of embarked troops and then gradually tick up again as the inference is that new ships are being built / obtained / returning from wherever they went before. By using connected territories you can infer that embarking a large army from a realm with a lot of coastline will be quicker and easier than doing so from one that just holds a single county. By including neutral territory you can allow landlocked realms to participate, maybe at a slightly higher cost unless there's an alliance. Have buildings (shipyards) that will increase the embarkation limit if you want to be a naval power.

2. Increase the embarkation limit in the province where you disembark. Effectively, you re-use the ships you borrowed/built. Have this number tick down slowly to whatever is that provinces 'normal' level, representing ships being lost, or returning back to where they came from. It means that you can re-float your army for a period of time (from the place it left the ships) but not forever.

3. Remove the ability to embark from any territory. Now make it so that you can only use the embarkation points from your own (cheapest), allied (a bit extra), or neutral (even more depending on opinion) territory. If you disembark at an enemy coastline, you need to occupy that province first to protect your ships from simply being destroyed by your foe when you leave them unprotected. It may be less risky to disembark at an enemy territory that has no holding (least risk), a church, or city (medium risk) than a castle (the garrison there will burn your ships).

4. Allow an action for an army to 'burn the ships' if they arrive at a coastline occupied by or owned by an enemy. Doing this is like besieging a castle, it will take some time to reduce the embarkation limit, though it will eventually succeed (if your army is >= the 'garrision' of people guarding the ships). Random dice rolls might speed up or slow down the progress. This means you can legitimately have a tactic to prevent or delay/increase costs for embarkation in the enemy lands (by occupying them) or cut off their retreat from your lands.

5. Allow armies to break the embarkation limit if they want, but to do so they would need to build their own ships. Represent this by just increasing the timer on how long it takes to load them at the coastline, or the cost, or both (maybe give the option). The more you're trying to break the embarkation limit by, the longer it takes to embark. You have the option to split your army here if you want to take some across and wait for the rest to follow. This gives you an 'out' if your army is stranded, but it will take some time or cost some money.

6. Add some risk to naval transport. In open sea tiles especially, ships are lost to storms or whatever, so increase the attrition rate at sea. Allow some cultures (vikings) to have a modifier to negate this a little. This means that travelling by land, although slower, is always safer.

Finally, fix the AI - the above rules might have the effect of doing that. Right now, it uses ships to 'kite' you, by leaving the shore and coming back around to the other side of say, Scotland, and disembarking again - repeatedly. They do this when they don't seem to have the gold to be able to, and chasing them down is tedious, when it's a war you can't lose - you just can't catch their stupid little stack to defeat it. This would be a valid tactic if they were re-using their ships, which the above rules would allow provided they embark from the place they disembarked from.

Doing something like this would mean nobody has to endure the tedium of managing a transport fleet, but it's inferred in the game that there is such a thing and would introduce a tactical element as to when and how to use it. You could also then add in a bunch of commander perks to allow you to embark faster, burn enemy ships down more quickly, squeeze a few more troops onto boats, or build its own ships (reduce cost OR speed up retreat by sea).

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Tempers are flaring up, please be respectful of your fellow users.

 

[Balesir]

So now nobody had any ships availible? That is a very odd asumption.
Then how did the battle of Sandwich happen at all? The English gathered their fleet in 5 days, not the months that the game uses.

The English gathered a fleet to carry 500-600 men in their own territory. The French were provided ships by their ally, Eustace. Why would there be a problem with either? Perhaps you misunderstand the word "most"? Around a third of ships might be in port at any time (hence two thirds - "most" - will be away at sea, in the campaigning season, at least). Of the one third in port, at least a half will be in foreign ports (i.e. not their home port - although it might be another port in the same kingdom). Thus, for our would-be pirate (because seizing ships without permission is piracy), at most one sixth of the local ships will be available, unless they have been extraordinarily lucky. A similar number of "foreign" ships might also be available, if they have been taken by complete surprise (since, otherwise, they woill probably have just sailed away).

Either he comes out to fight you - in wich case you are sieging a city, not a castle - or he might as well be not there.

That is only true if you are at war with him, in which case we have already established that you can seize ships by conquest. You can't have it both ways, here; either the locality is neutral and you are "just passing through" (by agreement or, at least, with prior notice, generally), or you declare war (either explicitly or by your actions, which would have been well understood at the time). You are, of course, at liberty to declare war on neutrals, but then they and their liege lords can be expected to oppose you in every way that they can. Besieging a fortified town or castle requires time and supplies, because the usual methods of foraging don't work indefinitely in the same locality. The easiest way to get supplies in is by sea, but for that you need ships...

And the families of the captains are with you, not him. Looks like he failed his obligations to protect their families. He has only himself to blame if they do not follow his orders.

The families of some local captains might be with you, but then you will only have ~one sixth of the local ships susceptible to your piracy - and you will have picked up the monicker "pirate", as well, and will have implicitly have declared war on the local lord and his suzerain.

Shallow draft ships were becomming all the rage. You know, with the Vikings, their longboats and everyone adopting those ideas?
And again, we are not talking about Warships that needed to survive a cannon salvo. Those are hard to make. We are talking about transport. It does not mater what they normally transport, you need their cargo capacity.

Here again you jump around between different times and uses to try to validate your dodgy point. Yes, norse raiders had seaworthy, oared raiding ships available to them in their own lands. To raid from them, they generally beached them and left them under guard to come back to. If ships had been freely available to them locally, why would they have done that? The ships were, after all, a weak point - both Charles the Great and Alfred of Wessex took advantage of that to strangle viking raids during their reigns. Such ships could only carry seaman-warriors, however - the medieval equivalent of "marines". They both crewed the ship and fought. To transport landlubbers you needed different ships - ones with cargo space rather than big crews. Such ships were the "cogs" and "hulks" and the like that were deeper drafted and needed port facilities to load and unload. Such ships were also much more efficient for supplying an army, since the cargo capacity was much higher.

You want/need the hold empty for your Soldiers. Operational range was not exactly big a goal (one of the problems with the System right now).

Operational range could, in fact, be very high provided that you had friendly ports to repair and resupply at along the route. This is why holdings and alliances were so important along coasts.

If you are in your own land, there is no issue as you can get your ships. Using this as a argument agaisnt easy sailing was stupid. Why did you try to take that argument?

Because you suggested in the post that I was replying to that it was a thing. I was answering your point, not raising one independantly; I'm glad that you agree it was a stupid point to make.

If you are in enemies lands, your plundering their countryside will get the people to get you ships ASAP.
At the end of the day, people did not like having a unprovisioned army in their land, regardless whose "side" they belonged to. If they wanted to leave, they were the last ones that would stop them.

An unprovisioned army could be a sparking point and raised tensions, without doubt. The fact remains that they have the choice either to pay for provisions, to accept charity (maybe in return for an alliance) or to declare war to seize what they want.

Let's be clear on where you can get supplies and ships:

a) In friendly (your own or allies') land you can buy or hire provisions and ships without issue. You could even simply seize them, if you wish to, but that will have consequences.

b) In enemy lands (ie lordships you have declared war on) you can seize provisions and ships in any settlement you control. Doing either of these things in neutral land will simply shift into this mode, since you have implicitly declared war.

c) In neutral lands, unless you want to have implicitly declared war, you can buy provisions (subject to availability in the market) and negotiate to hire ships with the local lord or government (town council, etc.). It's quite common for soldiers in a poorly supplied army to steal from the locals (in fact, the army doesn't even need to be poorly supplied, necessarily, because in some circumstances soldiers were responsible for buying their own food under their contract of engagement). This is expected and accepted by the local lord as long as it doesn't get out of hand, is not encouraged by your commanders and you try to find and punish the culprits. Deliberately going out to seize food, however, is an act of war. Successfully negotiating to have access to ships would constitute an alliance, since the ships are potential agents of war, so if they fight with you they are seen as your allies.

And nope plundinger one county of your land will not get you mass desertions from your realm-wide army. And economics was not exactly a understood concept - they had to make sure they still provided their tithe. If they were lucky, they got a 1-year exception from "hosting a army".

Are we talking about counts/earls, dukes, princes, kings or emperors, here? Plundering your own or your vassals' lands can be done, yes, but it stores up trouble, even if you "only do it a little bit". It happened, but it was rare. It had consequences.

If you want a honest discussion, inventing things to put on my keyboard is not the way.
Nor is putting the argumentation of a 5 year old into my mouth. Please stop that.

I'm not "inventing things to put on <your> keyboard", I'm reading what you have written. You show the distressingly common modern traits of switching about your premises whenever your argument gets into difficulties, of mixing and matching concepts and arguments that are not compatible with each other and of grossly underestimating the complexity and breadth of the subject that you are trying to generalise about based on myths and factoids taken out of context. If the concepts you argue for had been fully realised, warfare in medieval Europe would have looked very different; several of the major actors would have acted very differently because the factors that constrained them would not have existed.

Just to be clear, none of this is to say that CK3 isn't a fine game. Historical accuracy is not required to make a game - even a strategy game - fun to play. But you have been consistently arguing that not only is the current system fine for game play (which I would agree with, up to a point), but that it is historically realistic. It just isn't.

 

[The Founder]

The English gathered a fleet to carry 500-600 men in their own territory. The French were provided ships by their ally, Eustace. Why would there be a problem with either?

Operational range could, in fact, be very high provided that you had friendly ports to repair and resupply at along the route. This is why holdings and alliances were so important along coasts.

So now you are saying gathering enough ships on your or the enemies side of the coast is not a problem?

Please make up your mind if gathering ships at any one point is a problem or not a problem. It can not be shroedingers problem. We a still a few centuries to early for the uncertainty principle!

That is only true if you are at war with him, in which case we have already established that you can seize ships by conquest. You can't have it both ways, here; either the locality is neutral and you are "just passing through" (by agreement or, at least, with prior notice, generally), or you declare war (either explicitly or by your actions, which would have been well understood at the time). You are, of course, at liberty to declare war on neutrals, but then they and their liege lords can be expected to oppose you in every way that they can.

You think a army in the real world can not attack a "allied" city? You think one measily city would spark a war?
You think one small squabble like that is goingt to cause all out war?
Apparently during hte "Trouble in the Camp" event the game has, your two Champions are at war with one another?

You need to break more then 1 egg, to make a war omlett.

The families of some local captains might be with you, but then you will only have ~one sixth of the local ships susceptible to your piracy - and you will have picked up the monicker "pirate", as well, and will have implicitly have declared war on the local lord and his suzerain.

At worst you are a privateer. You really think anyone would call a nobleman "Pirate", just because he did some ship stealing?
Because by that definition in the battle of Sandwich, the English were Pirates (cause they siezed french ships).

Again, you are turning one little pillaged city in a World War.

Here again you jump around between different times and uses to try to validate your dodgy point. Yes, norse raiders had seaworthy, oared raiding ships available to them in their own lands. To raid from them, they generally beached them and left them under guard to come back to. If ships had been freely available to them locally, why would they have done that?

1. Viking is just the Norse word for "Raider"
2. Longships were used extensively by Norse traders as well
3. You can pay them for it. "We get gold and have no danger from fighting? Cool!"

So now we are the options:
- Steal, build or hire Local Transport Ships
- Pay Norsemen to give you a ride
- Send for your own fleet to pick you up
All three things seem perfectly represented by "spend 1 Gold per 100 men + 1 Month of disembarking time".

 

[Balesir]

So now you are saying gathering enough ships on your or the enemies side of the coast is not a problem?

What? Where do you read that I said that? Maybe you misunderstood:

- The English raised ships in England. In their own territory. This I have always agreed with as OK.

- The French raised ships from an ally, in their own territory and that of their ally. This has never been said to be a problem.

- The French did not raise ships in English territory, nor in any neutral territory; nowhere did I say that.

- The English did not raise ships in French territory, nor in any neutral territory; nowhere did I say that.

Raising ships in your own territory has never been an issue. No ships were raised in neutral or even enemy territory for this battle. Even though this was a complex case, because the French were allied to one side (the anti-King John barons in an English revolt), there was never any question of raising ships anywhere but each side's own lands and ports.

Please make up your mind if gathering ships at any one point is a problem or not a problem. It can not be shroedingers problem. We a still a few centuries to early for the uncertainty principle!

I explained in detail in the last post I made - did you read it? Raising ships in your own or ally territory is feasible; raising ships in neutral territory generally isn't. Seizing ships in conquered enemy territory can be done, but comes with some problems (it will usually be resisted and you may need to supply your own crews).

You think a army in the real world can not attack a "allied" city? You think one measily city would spark a war?
You think one small squabble like that is goingt to cause all out war?

Yes.

Suppose that Mexico attacked Del Rio, just over the border in Texas; do you imagine that the Americans would say "ah, no big deal, it's only one little city"? I'm pretty sure they would not - it would be the start of a war. A basic job of any lord is to protect his land and people; if you let them get attacked, pretty soon all of your rivals will be attacking your land to get a piece of the action. If someone attacks you, as a medieval lord, either they apologise very quickly and sincerely or you attack them back. Seriously, the medieval age was really not one where you could just go around looting and killing with impunity; if you played the bandit, powerful people would eventually nail you down.

Try reading the history of the Norman lords of Sicily; they are a nice example of a lord (a whole dynasty, in fact) getting away with a lot, but not scot free. Eventually the Emperors caught up with them (after they had squandered their sea power, as it happens) and crushed them. They pulled a lot of imperial beards, but when they did so they got a war.

Apparently during hte "Trouble in the Camp" event the game has, your two Champions are at war with one another?

You need to break more then 1 egg, to make a war omlett.

Two champions brawling (or even duelling or brawling with their followers) is nothing like an army sacking a town or stealing ships. It's frankly ridiculous even to say so.

At worst you are a privateer. You really think anyone would call a nobleman "Pirate", just because he did some ship stealing?

People of the time could and did call noblemen pirates. Not usually to their faces, I'll grant you, but check out Duke Barnim of Pomerania, Hayreddin Barbarossa and Eustace the Monk, all of whom held lordships and were known as pirates. (The last one was the ex-monk who was the ally of the French at Sandwich, in fact, after he had been given lordship of the Channel Islands by King John of England).

Because by that definition in the battle of Sandwich, the English were Pirates (cause they siezed french ships).

No, because they seized the ships in a war. I know it might seem odd, but different rules apply to lords at war than those (supposedly) at peace. If you are at war, there is a lot that you are allowed - expected, even - to do that would be grave crimes if you did them while supposedly at peace. Killing people, for example, is normal in war but is murder if done while at peace.

Again, you are turning one little pillaged city in a World War.

Not into a "World War", no - just into a war. Because it is an act of war by just about anybody's definition.

1. Viking is just the Norse word for "Raider"

I know*. What point are you trying to make?

*: actually, there is a proposed alternative root for the word tied to the place the first raiders came from to Lindisfarne, but the "wicingas"/"vikingr" word as a root seems the more plausible option, to me.

2. Longships were used extensively by Norse traders as well

Longships were dual oar/sail vessels that had a crew of 20+. Those are the "raiding vessels" we are talking about; they had much lower cargo capacity and much higher crew numbers than cogs, hulks or the like. When they went to war, their crews were the soldiers, they didn't have a crew plus some soldiers as "cargo". That was the way the norse folks did raiding and war, and it was very effective.

3. You can pay them for it. "We get gold and have no danger from fighting? Cool!"

You can pay who for what? I don't understand what you are trying to say, here. What could you pay the vikings to do?

So now we are the options:
- Steal, build or hire Local Transport Ships

Build or hire in your own or allied territory, yes. You can't really "steal" (as in "sneak off with") enough ships to carry an army, but you could seize them in war. You might seize them at sea (by boarding - which would need you to have ships already, of course) or, if you are lucky, you might catch some in a port that you take by siege or assault. In either of thes two cases you would probably need your own seamen to crew the ships you have taken.

- Pay Norsemen to give you a ride

Norsemen can't "give you a ride", because their ships are full of crew; landlubbers aboard would be useless weight and a waste of space. Merchants might give you passage, but you would need friendly relations with them to agree to this; how do they know that you are not pirates who will seize their ship from them as soon as you are away from port?

- Send for your own fleet to pick you up

You can certainly try this, but it's fraught with problems. Firstly, how are you going to get a message to them without a ship? Secondly, assuming that you find a ship that will take a messenger, how do they know where to pick you up? You will have problems provisioning your army if you don't keep moving, so you are unlikely to be in the same place you sent the message from. The only place you might be able to stay still for a while is in friendly, allied lands - in which case you might be able to just hire friendly ships to take you home anyhow.

Seriously, this is how raiders were caught and captured by lords like Charlemagne and Alfred. Raiders live by their mobility and speed. Even the "Great Heathen Army" of the "Sons of Lodbrok" was eventually bogged down and destroyed in this way. (They sailed up the Thames and camped at Hertford; Alfred built a fortified bridge behind them, and sent ships there in support, to trap the norse ships in the river. He then withdrew his people, with as much food as they could carry from the land, into the burhs (fortified towns) he had built. The desperate norse army marched to Chester on the opposite side of England to try to escape, but they were trapped there, too, exhausted, starving and unable to take the towns and ports of the North-West).

All three things seem perfectly represented by "spend 1 Gold per 100 men + 1 Month of disembarking time".

Given how wrong the points above this were, it no longer really makes any sense. Most of the real remedies don' look anything like "spend 1 Gold per 100 men + 1 Month of (dis)embarking time". Returning to ships left on the beach is way quicker than "1 month embarking time", but trying to thumb a lift from passing norsemen or trying to link up with an incoming fleet using medieval communications technology are highly unlikely to work no matter how much gold you have, even in several months. The closest to "spend gold plus time" is when you are in friendly territory. Spending gold proportional to your army size here is roughly right, but the time ought really be exponential with army size and reduced by port size. Ships for an army of 100 could be available in just a couple of days or even less, but ships for 1000 will take much longer than 10 times that unless in a very big port.

 

[Hoddi Habsborg]

I think organizing a fleet for a decent size army should be more expensive and time consuming, even having to deal with the local ruler who controls the port(4th Crusade Venice f.x.). Since there is no warfare risk is close to none.

 

[Paciaire]

Beyond building ships, there were generally plenty of merchant vessels around on just about any trafficked coast to hire or conscript. The Middle Ages were a time of booming mercantile trade for just about everyone, and it resulted in a ready supply of transports (dedicated military transport vessels were fairly rare, so you generally just hired a merchant ship and stuck the poor infantry in the hold).

Remember that shipping goods by water was cheaper (and therefore both more profitable and more common) than shipping them by land until the 19th century and the introduction of the railroad. Any place that you can sail a ship, someone would be doing so (and other people would know how to).

Byzantine navy - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Its Wikipedia ok but Its clear it wasn't that easy to take random ships to invade a country. It wasn't possible to send just transport fleets and praise they will no meet armed galleys(or dromons, since both ERE and muslims had similar fighter ships).
The game simply doesn't represent how it was hard to get a proper fleet with dedicated fighter ships to protect the convoy. Check on struggle with the Emirate of Crete also, ERE failed a lot with this and they couldn't reiterate attempts to reconquer the Island every year. Because it takes actual resources and time to recover from catastrophic maritime disaster and military defeats. What instafleets will never represent.

Transporting horses definitely required dedicated transports also. They had different names but in west med you can find them under vocable "tarides"(or arabian tarrida). They weren't that rare in actual military expeditions, but not really common in civilian trade.

Interesting quote to illustrate how fked were transports vs dedicated fighter ships(Crusades: Volume 7, Benjamin Kedar):
Its about crusading scandinavians in Levant.

"Northern squadrons in the Levant in 1097-98 may have included longships capable of engaging Mediterranean galleys in battle but more probably they consisted mostly of knerrir and céolas, transport ships unable to do so. Primarily sailing ships, they couldn't have closed with Fatimid galleys unless the latter allowed them to do so, and even If they did, to engage with the large crews of war galleys would have been suicidal."

Its very hard to play in medieval Mediterranean sea without fleets like EUIV has, it was such an important aspect back then.

 

[Axis89]

Post release edit:

So after release and having played this game, I decided to reword my contention to be more accurate.

My opinion is that the game still needs some form of naval mechanics. Currently the status quo is probably just as inefficient as it was in CK2. The main problem I see is that transporting troops require no planning or preparation. It seems like there will always be troops that instantly magically appear (in unlimited numbers) for you to transport your troops wherever you like. This also makes the AI willing to ship over their troops to wars far away from home.

I strongly disagree with this notion that military navies weren't a thing in medieval times. This article can help shed some light on that: https://www.medievalchronicles.com/medieval-battles-wars/medieval-warfare/medieval-navy/

But I do agree, that not all countries had navies. And generally those who don't would just make temporary use of merchant ships and such. Perhaps for nations that can't afford having a navy we can introduce the concept of "leasing" just like mercenaries.

As for naval tactics fitting for the time, here are some examples from that same article:

The Byzantines invented underwater rams that were used to sink ships
The Byzantine navy used “Greek Fire” which was fired from a Siphon
Greek Fire was used to set alight enemies ships, targeting sails and hulls
A Siphon was a very advanced weapon that could set sails alight on impact
The Byzantines invented underwater rams that were used to sink ships


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My main problem with naval transport is actually how safe it is... multiple moments in history dispersed fleet's, sunk a bunch of ships and in the worst cases almost wiped armies completely. Even after medieval times when the ships would be better the Spanish armada sunk due to storms and unknown currents crashing them to the rocks.
Most werent lost to the English fire ships, it was the dangers of the sea.

 

[Axis89]

Also, where you make landfall maybe should be the place you have to go to if you want to naval trabsport again, this is if you are in enemy territory.

Maybe even make it important to control this tile to protect your ships from the defenders who can trap you... AI probavly cant handle this though :/

 

[Rubidium]

Byzantine navy - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Its Wikipedia ok but Its clear it wasn't that easy to take random ships to invade a country. It wasn't possible to send just transport fleets and praise they will no meet armed galleys(or dromons, since both ERE and muslims had similar fighter ships).
The game simply doesn't represent how it was hard to get a proper fleet with dedicated fighter ships to protect the convoy. Check on struggle with the Emirate of Crete also, ERE failed a lot with this and they couldn't reiterate attempts to reconquer the Island every year. Because it takes actual resources and time to recover from catastrophic maritime disaster and military defeats. What instafleets will never represent.

Transporting horses definitely required dedicated transports also. They had different names but in west med you can find them under vocable "tarides"(or arabian tarrida). They weren't that rare in actual military expeditions, but not really common in civilian trade.

Interesting quote to illustrate how fked were transports vs dedicated fighter ships(Crusades: Volume 7, Benjamin Kedar):
Its about crusading scandinavians in Levant.

"Northern squadrons in the Levant in 1097-98 may have included longships capable of engaging Mediterranean galleys in battle but more probably they consisted mostly of knerrir and céolas, transport ships unable to do so. Primarily sailing ships, they couldn't have closed with Fatimid galleys unless the latter allowed them to do so, and even If they did, to engage with the large crews of war galleys would have been suicidal."

Its very hard to play in medieval Mediterranean sea without fleets like EUIV has, it was such an important aspect back then.

If we had naval combat (which was generally much more important in the Mediterranean than anywhere else; there were a few naval battles outside of it, but fewer and smaller) then I agree that there would be some point to ships (although even then, I'd probably abstract transports and just have enemy naval control of a sea province block transport through it). But we don't, and more importantly the CK2 system (which is the main alternative that is proposed) didn't either, and indeed it couldn't.

I would also caution about extrapolating from the Mediterranean to the rest of the map. It was one of the few areas where significant numbers of dedicated warships still made sense (as your quote notes, war galleys required large crews, which meant very little room for cargo). In Northern Europe, you are mainly seeing converted merchant ships boarding and storming each other (the Battle of Sluys is a good example, as one of the largest non-Mediterranean naval examples; if you'll excuse the Wikipedia figures, the French fleet of 202 ships consisted of 167 pressed merchant ships, 6 galleys, 22 oared barges, and only 7 royal warships, with the galleys mainly being Italian mercenaries). The French at least had access to the Mediterranean and its naval expertise/recruits. The English were even worse; the post-Conquest monarchs didn't even make a pretense of a standing navy until the Hundred Years War, and even then it was generally fairly limited.

The other issue of course is that most naval combat was actually over trade (French and English raids on each others' merchant shipping made up most of the naval combat of the Hundred Years War, whereas they rarely made an attempt to interfere with each others' invasion forces; Sluys is actually the only example I can think of an HYW battle against a transport fleet, whereas both sides were raiding each others' shipping and coasts with abandon) which CK doesn't even pretend to represent.

 

[Paciaire]

If we had naval combat (which was generally much more important in the Mediterranean than anywhere else; there were a few naval battles outside of it, but fewer and smaller) then I agree that there would be some point to ships (although even then, I'd probably abstract transports and just have enemy naval control of a sea province block transport through it). But we don't, and more importantly the CK2 system (which is the main alternative that is proposed) didn't either, and indeed it couldn't.

I would also caution about extrapolating from the Mediterranean to the rest of the map. It was one of the few areas where significant numbers of dedicated warships still made sense (as your quote notes, war galleys required large crews, which meant very little room for cargo). In Northern Europe, you are mainly seeing converted merchant ships boarding and storming each other (the Battle of Sluys is a good example, as one of the largest non-Mediterranean naval examples; if you'll excuse the Wikipedia figures, the French fleet of 202 ships consisted of 167 pressed merchant ships, 6 galleys, 22 oared barges, and only 7 royal warships, with the galleys mainly being Italian mercenaries). The French at least had access to the Mediterranean and its naval expertise/recruits. The English were even worse; the post-Conquest monarchs didn't even make a pretense of a standing navy until the Hundred Years War, and even then it was generally fairly limited.

The other issue of course is that most naval combat was actually over trade (French and English raids on each others' merchant shipping made up most of the naval combat of the Hundred Years War, whereas they rarely made an attempt to interfere with each others' invasion forces; Sluys is actually the only example I can think of an HYW battle against a transport fleet, whereas both sides were raiding each others' shipping and coasts with abandon) which CK doesn't even pretend to represent.

Same about extrapolating the rest of the map to the Mediterranean, the rest of the map can live with armed cogs or whatever ships they had.
Edit: I mean why not armed cogs vs armed cogs as naval battles for the atlantic coast? I don't see the problem with them.

And there is not only Sluys but also La Rochelle 1372 where the castillan admiral Ambrosio Boccanegra destroyed the english fleet(mostly made of transports it seems) with at least 13 to 22 galleys and some other ships.

Battle of La Rochelle

The naval Battle of La Rochelle took place on 22 and 23 June 1372 between a Castilian and French fleet commanded by the Genoese born Ambrosio Boccanegra and an English convoy commanded by John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. The Franco-Castilian fleet had been sent to attack the English at La...

military.wikia.org

 

[Xenrek]

Same about extrapolating the rest of the map to the Mediterranean, the rest of the map can live with armed cogs or whatever ships they had.
Edit: I mean why not armed cogs vs armed cogs as naval battles for the atlantic coast? I don't see the problem with them.

And there is not only Sluys but also La Rochelle 1372 where the castillan admiral Ambrosio Boccanegra destroyed the english fleet(mostly made of transports it seems) with at least 13 to 22 galleys and some other ships.

Battle of La Rochelle

The naval Battle of La Rochelle took place on 22 and 23 June 1372 between a Castilian and French fleet commanded by the Genoese born Ambrosio Boccanegra and an English convoy commanded by John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. The Franco-Castilian fleet had been sent to attack the English at La...

military.wikia.org

not to mention, while not usually *critical* to war, there were plenty of significant military engagements between india and the middle east, and between china and a ton of others (including mongols), some in major rivers, others along coasts

much of the old world had established, and infrastructurally critical, trade network, which meant tons of valuable goods traveling by river and sea, which meant piracy, as well as blockades during war. Especially in southern india and other peninsulas, where trade by sea is exponentially quicker and more affordable than trading by land following the shore.

yes all the regions had different *kinds* of naval warfare, which would make abstracting a consistent "stats" system for ship effectiveness between regions that didnt historically fight, difficult (think italians fighting indians, etc). But that doesnt change that not only was it important for economic development and military expeditions, but its a vital reality of many wars (and limitations of those wars) that are absent in both CK2 and 3. leading to absurdities like vikings conquering india, or italy constantly invading north africa into the sahara

 

[Rubidium]

I want to emphasize again the distinction between naval combat and the CK2 boat system.

Personally, I'd be fine with a naval combat system, but that's not what CK2 offered. CK2 did nothing to prevent the Italian conquest of North Africa or Viking conquests of places all over the world. It was just a bunch of strategically meaningless busywork clicks, as the boats didn't fight each other, came from vassal contributions (and thus generally didn't even cost the liege anything) and caused all sorts of AI issues.

 

[Paciaire]

I want to emphasize again the distinction between naval combat and the CK2 boat system.

Personally, I'd be fine with a naval combat system, but that's not what CK2 offered. CK2 did nothing to prevent the Italian conquest of North Africa or Viking conquests of places all over the world. It was just a bunch of strategically meaningless busywork clicks, as the boats didn't fight each other, came from vassal contributions (and thus generally didn't even cost the liege anything) and caused all sorts of AI issues.

I was more thinking about an EUIV-like system than recycling CK2 fleets.

Many conquest casus belli could go and be replaced by piracy/trade wars/looting/asking tribute/demanding "transfer trade power" like stuff If proper fleets were around.

There are many things to do with fleets outside transporting troops in order to blob.

 

[Balesir]

I want to emphasize again the distinction between naval combat and the CK2 boat system.

Personally, I'd be fine with a naval combat system, but that's not what CK2 offered. CK2 did nothing to prevent the Italian conquest of North Africa or Viking conquests of places all over the world. It was just a bunch of strategically meaningless busywork clicks, as the boats didn't fight each other, came from vassal contributions (and thus generally didn't even cost the liege anything) and caused all sorts of AI issues.

I agree - I don't think the CK2 system added anything strategic to the game. My thoughts were more like adding some limits to the CK3 system to disallow embarking from enemy or neutral soil, maybe requiring ports (or making them useful for embarking big armies by speeding up embarkation which takes time based on army size) for embarkation and maybe allowing armies at sea block embarkation into the sea area they are in (subject to a minimum size ratio?) Possibly also requiring re-embarkation on an enemy coast be in the province disembarked into until a port is captured - but that's getting a bit fancy... Technological developments could then adjust these limitations - making ports more effective, for example, and reducing the army size at sea needed to block enemy (dis-)embarkation.

 

[Dona]

Post release edit:

So after release and having played this game, I decided to reword my contention to be more accurate.

My opinion is that the game still needs some form of naval mechanics. Currently the status quo is probably just as inefficient as it was in CK2. The main problem I see is that transporting troops require no planning or preparation. It seems like there will always be troops that instantly magically appear (in unlimited numbers) for you to transport your troops wherever you like. This also makes the AI willing to ship over their troops to wars far away from home.

I strongly disagree with this notion that military navies weren't a thing in medieval times. This article can help shed some light on that: https://www.medievalchronicles.com/medieval-battles-wars/medieval-warfare/medieval-navy/

But I do agree, that not all countries had navies. And generally those who don't would just make temporary use of merchant ships and such. Perhaps for nations that can't afford having a navy we can introduce the concept of "leasing" just like mercenaries.

As for naval tactics fitting for the time, here are some examples from that same article:

The Byzantines invented underwater rams that were used to sink ships
The Byzantine navy used “Greek Fire” which was fired from a Siphon
Greek Fire was used to set alight enemies ships, targeting sails and hulls
A Siphon was a very advanced weapon that could set sails alight on impact
The Byzantines invented underwater rams that were used to sink ships


Moderator note:
This is now the naval megathread. Understand that we reserve the right to ban folks from replying if we feel they are dominating the discussion. All users are still required to be respectful to those who disagree, and I highly recommend walking away rather than dragging the thread down, as if it becomes the sort of topic that the community cannot handle civily, we will just close the thread and all subsequent threads will be removed for disregarding moderator actions/decisions.

Have fun. Be respectful. Feel free to report posts/users that are causing trouble or if you just have concerns or questions.

I agree from an historical perspective, but naval warfare Is not fun in any strategic game. So, from a gameplay perspective, it Is not así bad

Post release edit:

So after release and having played this game, I decided to reword my contention to be more accurate.

My opinion is that the game still needs some form of naval mechanics. Currently the status quo is probably just as inefficient as it was in CK2. The main problem I see is that transporting troops require no planning or preparation. It seems like there will always be troops that instantly magically appear (in unlimited numbers) for you to transport your troops wherever you like. This also makes the AI willing to ship over their troops to wars far away from home.

I strongly disagree with this notion that military navies weren't a thing in medieval times. This article can help shed some light on that: https://www.medievalchronicles.com/medieval-battles-wars/medieval-warfare/medieval-navy/

But I do agree, that not all countries had navies. And generally those who don't would just make temporary use of merchant ships and such. Perhaps for nations that can't afford having a navy we can introduce the concept of "leasing" just like mercenaries.

As for naval tactics fitting for the time, here are some examples from that same article:

The Byzantines invented underwater rams that were used to sink ships
The Byzantine navy used “Greek Fire” which was fired from a Siphon
Greek Fire was used to set alight enemies ships, targeting sails and hulls
A Siphon was a very advanced weapon that could set sails alight on impact
The Byzantines invented underwater rams that were used to sink ships


Moderator note:
This is now the naval megathread. Understand that we reserve the right to ban folks from replying if we feel they are dominating the discussion. All users are still required to be respectful to those who disagree, and I highly recommend walking away rather than dragging the thread down, as if it becomes the sort of topic that the community cannot handle civily, we will just close the thread and all subsequent threads will be removed for disregarding moderator actions/decisions.

Have fun. Be respectful. Feel free to report posts/users that are causing trouble or if you just have concerns or questions.

I do agree from an historical perspective, but naval warfare Is not fun in any strategic game. So, from a gameplay perspective, it Is not that bad.