Unsinkable navies

[Dustman]

I'm playing as Zaporozhie with 1647 start. War with Spain, late 18th century. My fleet of 80+ threedeckers, 15 or so heavy frigates and 20 transports was attacked by small, really small Spanish navies, where all combat ships including galleys are only 9 in number, plus 4 transports. Similar admirals. Result: my fleet lost 30% total and no enemy had been sinked.

Few years later, war with Venice. Similar fleet size and composition. Venice was captured and their mighty fleet of 30 galleys and some transports attacked mine. Result? I was loosing morale and dealt damage, while their ships were intact, so retreated to one of the captured province.

Now, real diamond in this collection! Early 19th century, war with Manchu. 85 threedeckers, 4 heavy frigates, 30 transports. Attacked by a lone escaping transport. Similar admirals, 40+ Naval tech difference. Battle started in October and lasted more than an year. Result: fully intact Manchurian transport, while I lost couple of warships, all light ships and 17 transports of my own. I called for retreat when saw this.

This is not even funny. Not when you can't transport your sizable army back from god forsaken place half a globe away.

 

[mgoetze]

0% positioning?

 

[Edlar89]

Is your naval maintenance at 0?

 

[Abraxas]

Stacking penalty?

 

[Dustman]

Stacking penalty? How many ships can be in a stack?

I had even bigger ship stacks in a game as Ragusa, and it worked.

And no, maintenance was at 100%, otherwise ships would lose morale almost instantly.

 

[DDRJake]

As a result of having so many guns on a single fleet, your naval positioning was 0%. You didn't manage to even scrach the enemy ship while it slowly chipped away at your fleet.

This has been addressed in the 5.2 beta where minimum positioning% is affected by your fleet's admiral.

 

[unmerged(540854)]

attacking with a third of your fleet would also solve this problem.

 

[przemo_li]

WAY TOO MUCH SHIPS!!!
And in 5.2 you should add some light ships to the mix.

 

[Mayi]

Your fleet stacks are much to large at that stage of the game, by the time you hit threedeckers you want 40 big ships in the fleet(nothing else), above that and it starts facing penalties in battles until it losses any combat effectiveness as you witnessed. Stick 5-10 light ships(big ships are fine too, but they slow down the movement speed across provs) to protect your transport fleets and keep a war fleet close by. If it gets in trouble with a battle send the war fleet to save it, retreat the transport from the battle(or you'll be facing those overstackng penalties, transport, galleys and lightships all contribute to overstacking), and you should be fine.

As a general thing, in the beginning of the game your fleet sizes can be bigger(120 big ships to a stack) but as you progress in tech and get better ships you want to reduce the stack sizes which each new ship model.

 

[Dustman]

Thanks for tips. I'll reduce my fleet size.

 

[Mods]

Just go in groups of 30 and if you're somehow losing, throw in a second of 30. don't include transports in these fleets
Works perfectly on single player

 

[przemo_li]

OH!

If you want to win battle INSTANTANEOUSLY through 50 ships. For me it always end battle (enemy do not loose any additional ships beyond what he already lost in battle, so if you could win, keep fighting so you have higher chance to capture ships).

 

[Dustman]

How many cannons max can be in a fleet? Threedeckers got 120, East Indiamen 16. Lets assume rather crappy admiral with 1 maneuver.

 

[przemo_li]

5000

Is best. After it performance degrade.
40 threedeckers and 40 heavy firgates are beaten by 10 galleys ... Also had problem with naval defeats

 

[Dustman]

This doesn't make any sense, frankly. Single transport attacking huge fleet will be sunk no matter what, even if few ships in a fleet will go down in (rather unlikely) friendly fire. Even a brander can't destroy multiple ships at once, unless ammo depot caught fire and resulting explosion started chain reaction. Still, this is unlikely if ships aren't in port.

 

[midget_roxx]

This doesn't make any sense, frankly. Single transport attacking huge fleet will be sunk no matter what, even if few ships in a fleet will go down in (rather unlikely) friendly fire. Even a brander can't destroy multiple ships at once, unless ammo depot caught fire and resulting explosion started chain reaction. Still, this is unlikely if ships aren't in port.

"It's a feature"

 

[unmerged(487181)]

"wad"

 

[synthshadow]

This doesn't make any sense, frankly. Single transport attacking huge fleet will be sunk no matter what, even if few ships in a fleet will go down in (rather unlikely) friendly fire. Even a brander can't destroy multiple ships at once, unless ammo depot caught fire and resulting explosion started chain reaction. Still, this is unlikely if ships aren't in port.

Just like Darth Vader didn't think a couple of diddly little X-Wings would be worth noting and look what happened there! :laugh:

 

[Summercat]

Just like Darth Vader didn't think a couple of diddly little X-Wings would be worth noting and look what happened there! :laugh:

Technically, that was Tarkin.

Also, I'd better read up on the Naval battles. Lesigh.