Pirates, the Mortars of the Sea! NAVAL BALANCE

[Stymie Jackson]

Hi guys!

After the whole mortar issues we have half the threads complaining about, I decided to see if I can find a similar, unbalanced, no skillz setup. Basically, find a unit as overpowered as mortars and a tactics as lame as forting on a hill, but in the sea.

I have it. 7 wins in a row ranked...I'd have more but its hard to get sea battles going.

Faction:
Pirates

Settings:
Early
Medium

Fleet:
10 Galleons, increase rank with leftover points,

Pirates do not get more ships between early and late. Heavy first rates have wicked broadsides and too large a crew. Large resources means they'll have way too many 2nd rates to fight in an early game and you'll have to many ships to manage.

So what's the plan? Split into two fleets of five. Envelop the enemy. Use chain shot initially and halt his first 2-3 ships. Switch to cannon shot and weaken his boys. You'll have him surrounded (more ships, and faster than his 3rd and 2nd rates) so then you do what pirates do best...board! Pick ships that are dismasted, switch to grapeshot and kill him in boarding actions.

Pirates, like in the game, are rediculous in boarding actions. You can beat anything but a heavy 1st rate.

Chain shot is lame-o. It is overpowered. I usually stop after only a few volleys because I even feel bad about using it, and the whole plan of this exercise is to prove this is an unbalanced fleet. If he splits his navy though I have no mercy. I will totally dismast one part of his fleet with one of my squads, then attack his remaining fleet with all my ships. Just to show how lame chain shot is.

Willing to post replays if desired. Please discuss your thoughts on this fleet, my lameness, and the over-powered nature of chain shots and pirates in general in early fleet battles.

YARR!

[guerra]

I'd like to try to defeat your pirate fleet if you like.

Add me on steam: dr_guerra

Just remind me about it so I know who you are.

[this_is_sparta]

rocket ships are the mortars of the sea

[|Sith|Duke_Spartacus]

indeed, i played a guy who did exactly what you did, i pwned his ass.... he tried to shoot my masts and i kicked his ass lol.

[Lupu]

Chain shot isn't overpowered, it's specialized, if you have a hug number of ships surrounding many huge ships shooting chain shot they will get immobile very fast, but it isn't overpowered.

Do pirates really have a boost for boarding actions?

[Paolai]

Chain shoot imho is not OP. Chain shoot has its effect just in short range, and it is dangerous to use this tactic.

[|Sith|Duke_Spartacus]

indeed, if u are unlucky, u only rip some sails, while he destroys half your ships

[Stymie Jackson]

Yep, if your chain shot fails, you are in big trouble. Galleons can't get into slugging matches with 3rd and 2nd rates. Gotta outnumber at all times.

If you let a pirate board, kiss your ship goodbye.

[DasCoon]

Well, I guess I was game 8 then

It is a tactic, and having now faced it once, I know I could perform even better against it a second time, cutting my sails down earlier and just letting my guns do the work.


There are often many tactics that will give you a huge edge over a poorer player. However a skilled player even if he doesn't know the best way to defeat something, will know the general idea.

When you demasted two of my six ships, I knew that I needed to keep close to them. I didn't know you were thinking about boarind them, but I did know that their firepower was still potent.

I could have also tossed them into a L formation to prevent either one from being picked on without a chance of getting some shots in.

I think it just comes down to skill, you are probably better than those other players. Naval battles are still new, so you run into alot of people whom are still climbing that learning curve.

[|Sith|Duke_Spartacus]

i just owned this tactic.... he demasted 1 of my ships, just used it as a floating fortress, funny thing was he tried boarding 4 times with different ships. And i used broadsides from the demasted ship to rout him while he was boarding me, i kept my other ships circling around the demasted ships so they were under constant cover, while he was trying to take those ships out, i practicly dematerialized him...

edit: not directly circling, just a WIDE circle that allowed a large crossfire field.

[guerra]

Okay, so Stymie and I tested out this theory. While the galleons are indeed slow to turn and the chainshot business depends a lot on the tactics employed and skill of the players, one thing is for certain:

Pirates are way better at boarding. Like, holy better. My Spanish galleon maxed out experience vs his pirate galleon. The pirates shot my troops, first of all, before the boarding even started then proceeded to ravage my Spaniards. The pirates killed every single Spaniard and had only lost about 20 men. He killed almost 200 of my men and only lost about 20.

Then I thought, lets try this with a 3rd rate admiral ship. His pirate galleon was bruised and down to about 120 men. My ship was fresh. I boarded, and the pirates massacred my Spaniards. I only won because my friend had more ships in the area. It was ridiculous.

So, pirates are best at boarding. Hands down.

[Stymie Jackson]

Duke, it's because your dismasting worked far better. That still needs some tweaking on my part. You did far more damage to my sails than I did you lol.

Also boarding is heavily bugged. Heavily. Ships rarely make it happen unless you totally dismast them. Sometimes it works on a moving ship, but mostly your guy circles, even if the enemy has just 1 sail left, and eats broadsides without ever making contact.

Also the more ships you have the worse pathfinding gets. The plan works fine when I can make big sweeping arcs. However boats will sporadically go nuts. And galleons are real fragile so one mistake or pathfinding bug and the ship is doomed.

What I'm finding against better players is the weight of cannon on 2nd rate ships is too much for galleons in a chain shot. If you lose the demasting game, you lose as pirates.

Also, don't make the mistake of thinking your a master when I did the service of posting this fleet and strat publically first. It's no co-incidence I've lost the first two fleet battles after posting this thread. I've seen some real better players in navy battles since I did this first lame-o fleet post. Glad to see people taking up a challenge!

Still gonna keep trying the strat, and work on better demasting techniques. One way to avoid it is off course furls your sails. But that leaves you dead in the water and outmaneuvered. What gets me though is when that ship is using chain shot back. I cannot furl my sails...if I stop moving a Galleon it's lost.

EDIT: As to the above post...we turned off shooting on the ships. It was the sailors that did the shooting so no broadsides during the test. Pirates pack a lot of muskets it seems because we were laughing as we watched the dudes in his ship's crows nest falling dead after getting shot. Pirates are way OP in boarding, but they can't use good ships.

Maybe I need to try this again, with less galleons and some more faster ships.

YARR!

[|Sith|Duke_Spartacus]

wait wait did i play you

[DasCoon]

That is one of the reasons I never really thought you were going to board me.... boarding SUCKS. If I want to capture a ship I make it surrender, raking shots of grape work wonders. Otherwise, kep it in a cross-fire of round. Best in multi-player since capturing isn't important, but a routing ship may decide to re-join the fray.

It is interesting that pirates are so much better, I wonder if there are other un-discolosed (thanks piss-poor manual) things that will only be discovered through testing.

Demasting = interesting tactic

Attempting to board = deathwish... especially a larger fleet in a no campaign battle.

[Stymie Jackson]

Well, after playing some more this is gonna get scrapped. There's no way to board a 2nd rater as the galleon will sink from the broadsides as they line up too fast. Its too hard to get them to dock in a 'T' formation, they insist on getting up alongside and pounded.

Played a game against Jiminy today and he raped me bad, like handcuffed over a barrel bad. We then played another game, my normal fleet against around 16 bomb ketchs.

They went boom. Bomb ketch's ain't got nothing on rocket boats, that's for sure. Underpowered unit, but it does do good for weakening crew. Might have some use in packs (3-4) backed up by a shielding line of ships.

[LordCallum]

I think rocket ships are the mortars of the sea, because i had a 2v2 with 2 pirates vs me and another guy we were british and we massacred them (this is still early and medium funds) despite the fact that they had about 2x more ships. And when i use rocket ships i seem to be able to hit all the time and destroy 5th and 4th rates sometimes 3rd rates in a single broadside