Naval wipeout?

[siddhi]

Generally I very much like the increased challange of RTR Platinum (1.9 modswitch), but naval battles seem to be unwinnable. I have had number Trireme and Quadriieme fleets (4-5 at a go) sunk by single pirates. I have tried sending the ships to the armoury but also no dice - i have single strenth 2 pirate ships sinking entire fleets (as the Secluids, btw). What am I doing wrong? Can't imagine it is intended..

Would this problem be solved with the "Metro Naval"?

Also, I am always a bit irritated that the unit movement and construction IMO is much too slow, does metro naval fix this=?

Also, am I right in persuming that there are no catapults at all in RTR platinum? Can't seem to find them...


cheers

[Caligula Caesar]

Also, am I right in persuming that there are no catapults at all in RTR platinum? Can't seem to find them...

There are no catapults in RTR, apparently because they weren't used much or something.

Also, I am always a bit irritated that the unit movement and construction IMO is much too slow, does metro naval fix this=?

No, this isn't solved in MNM. I agree that unit recruitment is too slow. I am currently modding MNM, and one of the things I have done is reduce recruitment time. I don't think the unit movement needs to be reduced, though.

I don't know about the rest, since I spend more time modding MNM than actually playing it, but I think this might be because autoresolve is very unbalanced (in the AI's favour) on VH level. You are playing on VH, aren't you? I have heard that H is much more realistic, as on VH the autoresolves become unrealistic and the AI wants to kill you above all other nations

[despot_of_rhodes]

The naval battles can be quite frustrating, especially while playing on H or VH campaign difficulty ( naval battles, since there are autoresolved, depend on campaign diff. not on battle diff. settings, btw. ).
The pirate ships got very high armour, wich seems to matter much more than the defence skill of the ships. It also depends on what unit scale you use - on large the size of your ship crews is only 20 soldiers, so the battles suppose to become quite dececive ( on huge there are 40 soldiers, wich means, the ships got a higher surviving chance ).
Try to attack the pirate fleets with multiple fleets, if the odds doesn´t seem good enough for you ( even 3:1 battleodds doesn´t insure that you going to win a battle against the pirates! )
You should allways retrain your ships after each battle, and notice, it´s the second ship in the fleet, wich seems to absorb the most damage.
My favorite composition of an early fleets is: 1 Trireme followed by 2-4 Bireme. That way you will be able to retrain your fleets anywhere, since not every settlement gets an option of building larger warships like Trireme etc.
After you ships gained enough experience, beeing upgraded in a foundery, and your port network is build up, so that you then are able to retrain your Trireme in much more harbours, you should consider building another flagship like Quadrireme/Quniquereme/Corvus Q. and join the allready experienced fleets with each one of them. Your second ship in the fleet becomes now the Trireme, followed by Biremes, wich are also quite experienced, and the high attack of the new high tech ships brings you a good boost against your oponents.
I also noticed, that your chances for winning a battle are much higher, if you are defending ( especially against the pirates ).
This applies to RTR Platinum and ExRM, not to metro naval mod, but i hope, it helps a bit.

[siddhi]

well i am playing "Moderate" (i think), and i have single pirate ships sinking fleets of tri and biremens.

on the other question, despite maybe a wrong forum for this, but i am convinced that the timing are heavily off on most unit constructions and speeds. the idea that rome could only train 1 legion (if that is what they are supposed to be) every 6 months is absurd - it should be at least possible to train these units in parallel, if in fact they do take that long. Also, units speeds are certainly off. A general and his bodygaurd on their own should basically be able to cross the entire map in 1 turn. For larger armies it is more realistic but still IMO a little too slow - conquest of Greece for instance should be possible within a year. Are there any mods, tools that you know of that can deal with this, or address the speed issues?

Cheers,

S

[Caligula Caesar]

Firstly: It is possible to change the distance you can move. Secondly: MNM (and ExRM) has a script that makes it four turns per year, not two.

I think it would be quite easy to nerf pirates, but it is not possible to train two cohorts at the same time (it is hard coded). What can be done is reduced the recruitment time. If the recruitment time is 0, nine cohorts can be trained a turn (that is more realistic, but there is the problem of the AI stack spamming).

The idea that a general could go from India to Spain in six months is absurd, by the way, though I think a general on his own would have been able to cover a good distance.

[siddhi]

generals (with bodygaurds) are in theory just 10 or so people on horseback. groups like these traveled from London to Rome in eight weeks. Sometimes even less. Travel by sea was much quicker. Hannibal travelled with his entire army from south spain to Rome in about 9 months (3 turns!), taking a number of cites, forcing the alps and defeating two large armies in the process. the grognard accuracy on military equipment most of the mods illustrate is impressive. the lack of understanding of actual history however is a pity.

[siddhi]

As a follow-up to my long-out of date post: I am now playing Metro-Naval mod, and guess what, I am still having insane naval results: 6 quadrieme-like ships, each with twice the attack and three times the defense states of "barbarian" crafts are beaten be a smaller number of barbian ships!! Given the whole point of Metro-Naval was that is supposed to address this issue I find it a great shame, especially as everything else about the mod is great. Is this just me, or do others get the result? Anyway I can fix it? Seriously it is driving me to distraction...
thx, S