Ports

[unmerged(5952)]

I am playing Portugal and just send a fleet of 50 ships to explore the Americas. Hlafway there though they die cause of being at sea for too long or form being Sick...

Earlier I have set up a colony halfway there and now that it was a city, it had a port.

Sadly though, My ships will not dock at the Port. Why is THAT?

 

[BiB]

Click on the province itself, not the harbour (I4m assuming u mean the Azores ?)

Also explore with 3 ships max, not 50.

 

[unmerged(5952)]

Yes I meant the Azores...thankyou for your help..

 

[unmerged(4679)]

I hade the same problem. I guess it occurs when the island is very small.

 

[unmerged(5944)]

3 ships max?

Originally posted by BiB
Also explore with 3 ships max, not 50.

Why should one explore with a maximum of 3 ships?

 

[BiB]

It will seriously cut in ur atrition losses.

Say the attrition rate is 10% a month. On 50 ships u will lose 5 ships a month. With 3 ships u will lose 0 ships. U do the maths

 

[unmerged(1104)]

Trust us on this one - the best formula for exploring as a human player is 3 ships (as stated because of the attrition factor)

Exploring one or two sea lanes at a time and bringing that fleet back to port - then repeating is very effective in keep the explorer alive as well.

 

[unmerged(5944)]

Oh, I trust you all right!

I suspected that might be the reason, because I have been successful at exploring one space at a time with just ONE ship, bringing it back to port, and etc.

So what makes 3 ships a better choice than 2 ships or 1 ship, like I did before?

 

[BiB]

Oh, 2 or 1 ships works too. It's just that they come in 3 anyway.

 

[Steel]

Also, having more than 1 ship is useful if you've got an explorer commanding the fleet. With a 1-ship fleet, he dies if you lose it to attrition or in battle with another fleet. With 3 ships in your fleet, you can lose two of them and still bring your explorer back to port.

Steel

 

[unmerged(25223)]

Attrition Rounding

You mention the 3-ships idea. Does the "0.3 of a ship lost" in attrition accumulate?
(If not, a 1-4 ship flotilla could never die of attrition, other than storms).

As a side note ...
I tried to take a 100-ship armada from The Canaries to India when I had no intermediary colonies. I figured that the 100 ships would cover attrition long enough to get there and base a colony for the way back. Of course, I'd lose a fair number of those 100 ships, but a good 20-30 should return ...
Then the explorer died just past Cape Horn.
*glug* goes the fleet.

Moral ... don't use F12 to coerce your merchants into funding invincible fleets.

Yes, I know this was a wasteful use of F12, but I wanted to see if it was possible...

 

[unmerged(21523)]

They'll die eventually. As a rule of thumb, my 3-ship exploration fleets last an average of 20-25 months.