Naval Combat Discussion

[vietanh797]

I think mainly people don't find naval battle fun cus they too suck at it
I can beat the bell so I love naval battle, I played a lot of naval games since my childhood till now and ETW naval battle is a bit too easy for me honestly.

Gamers are simple, they hate what they suck at. I was a Professional FPS gamer once and now I am just a casual gamer on all types of game. That make me love all games(Not Dark Soul pls it was simple too hard for me)

[-=PHX=-Hades]

I think mainly people don't find naval battle fun cus they too suck at it
I can beat the bell so I love naval battle, I played a lot of naval games since my childhood till now and ETW naval battle is a bit too easy for me honestly.

Gamers are simple, they hate what they suck at. I was a Professional FPS gamer once and now I am just a casual gamer on all types of game. That make me love all games(Not Dark Soul pls it was simple too hard for me)

That's part of the reason for me. I totally suck at naval battles. It doesn't help that for some reason the enemy ALWAYS gets the wind in his favor. But the thing that really bugged me was I sucked despite the fact that, IMO, my tactics were sound in most battles. The ships just didn't do what I want them to do, or perform the way I wanted them too even when I had a big advantage in numbers/experience etc. Eventually I just kind of stopped paying attention to the navy in Shogun.

But I have a feeling Rome II will change that for me. The wind won't matter as much and ramming should be fun.

[jamreal18]

Watch it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zqy21Z29ps

[Pinarius]

So far, the we have the following ship-types in Rome II:

Egypt:
Missile Penteres (five-rower with archers), Flagship Octeres (eight-rower with Infanterie), Artillery Penteres (five-rower with onager).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Romans:
Assault Quadreme (four-rower with infantry), Artillery Quinquereme (five-rower with ballista))

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

There are similar buttons as in Shogun 2 - the usual missile button and the ones for grouping, formation, speed, stop, close combat, fire arrows. There is also an "board ship"-button that makes your ship ram the the others. But I don't know what the button on the far right of the flagship means.

[PhallosMaximus]

I think the naval combat in Rome 2 will be great.
Look at the ships,- they are small works of art. Can't wait to learn the mechanics of the different ship-types, and be the scourge of the Seven Seas!

But as always in a TW-game, the naval combat needs modding. The ships move around like speed-boats and are prob. too easy to sink or set on fire.

I want realism, so I modded the naval combat in Shogun 2 to be 50% slower (ship-speed), the ships to be more difficult to set on fire, (the flaming arrows was OP) and the crew to have higher morale (so they did not flee so easily). That gave some very realistic sea-battles, and you had time to really use different tactics in the naval engagements.

I know some people just want to have "fun" and don't want to spend 30-45 minutes on a battle, but my enjoyment comes from simulating a real battle.

So after some modding, I am sure that the naval combat will also become epic!

[Argon Viper]

Also, one small boat shouldn't be able to transport an entire army across the sea, it should take several boats for larger armies and there should be more attrition due to sea sickness and weather.

I believe CA has already commented that armies being transported by sea will take their own transport ships. However, these ships are supposed to be quite weak and they did recommend having real ships along to escort them.

[Ser Hodorius]

Do you think, there will be an option to break the oars of another ship, by getting next to it, like shaving close, and then get your oars inside the ship? It was a common tactic that time period to immobilize the enemy ship.
Boarding happens when ramming the other ship, or with corvus?

[panzerschreck]

Do you think, there will be an option to break the oars of another ship, by getting next to it, like shaving close, and then get your oars inside the ship? It was a common tactic that time period to immobilize the enemy ship.
Boarding happens when ramming the other ship, or with corvus?

Seeing the images of E3, I doubt there is corvus ingame and that we can break the oars...

[Pinarius]

I'm sure, the oars will put in and out in this game automatically, so that you can't break them. There is at least no button to do that manually.

Abot the corvus, I also doubt it will be in the game (it had an huge disadvantage anyway). I would much prefer the Harpax, but I don't have high hopes that CA will build that.

Harpax at about 6:35 min:

[Adreno]

actually jack did confirm a corvus somewhere, i imagine it will just be a harpoonish ballists thing for boarding from further away

[Ser Hodorius]

I hope that the naval battles won't be determined only by the sheer size of the warships. The Liburnes should have high effciency.

[Ichon]

One of the better explained features of naval battles on youtube though it leaves out alot and ends just as the Punic war era is starting but most importantly discusses the costs and advantages and disadvantages of different ships which presumably will be the smaller ships in Rome 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e1cmprH6BY

[Destraex]

I am most looking forward to the naval aspect of the game and voiced some of my concerns below on the twcentre forums.
I really think I am going to be dissappointed with naval combat after looking forward to ancient galley combat in a total war game for many years. As per below, with everything I see and all the media I have seen with regard to naval combat in the game, I get more and more worried that the attention to detail will be so lacking that even modders will not be able to fix the missing features.

Near the end of this video we find out that now naval sectors have been changed to be like land sectors, I don't have a problem with it apart from the fact that it pulls some of the land elements that don't work in the sea onto it.
For instance armies will simply turn into transports as they hit the water and move over it like a fleet was waiting for them.
How do you ever get stranded if you carry boats on your back?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NltYhi58tQ

The below is a "press" of my three posts in order and thus may be a little out of context. But by in large the core ideas are there for those who are interested.

Just watched this and they have naval combat the wrong way around.
They say that little ships have trouble causing ram damage while larger ships seem to be the primary RAM damage dealers.
This is the opposite to how it actually was. You would try to RAM with your zippier smaller lighter ships and board with your larger ships.

Let me explain in a little more detail. I have 5 or so books specialising on naval battles of the period.

Larger ships will have a greater impact when the hit and will cause more damage. However larger ships are so slow to turn that it is almost a given that any good captain on smaller ship can avoid larger ships rams. If you hold a ship in place to be rammed by a larger ship. fine. But it is a huge waste of the larger ships potential.
Larger ships were built for boarding actions. They were usually of a heavier build than smaller ships and much wider to hold more marines. They act like giant forts, grappling and boarding.
The battle of actium was a victory for smaller ships swarming larger ships to ram them. The idea for a smaller ship is to pass an opposing ship and then turn into it to ram it in the side, the rear quarter being the perfect place. Interestingly ships DID NOT usually sink. Because they were usually of wood and light construction a lot of them could be towed off after battle. The ramming primarily disabled the enemy by stopping it from manoevering. A rammed ship was basically a dead duck in the water. Waiting for the clean up operation after battle.

Essentially ships especially triremes were built so lightly that they could (and usually would) just be dragged up onto beaches for lunch or as soon as bad weather showed itself! More time permitting also dried out for even more speed. Galleys in ancient times could not stay on station long because they were light on supplies and food. Not much was carried. Whole fleets blockaded by capturing nearby islands or dragging galleys up onto beaches to hold position that way. simply patrolling and hoping they had time to mobilise when enemy supply ships or fleets sallied.

Factions usually built fleets either as fast rammers with hardly any marines or heavily (heavier wood and construction) built boarding ships of the larger variety. Before Roman times some ships needed to reach critical speed before ramming because they did not have re-enforced prows and would crumple on impact with the enemy ship otherwise!!!

Ships were disabled rom FIRE, RAMMING or BOARDING. Artillery in most battles played almost no real part. Being either to innaccurate to hit fast moving ships or simply having no effect on what are fairly large wooden objects.

It should be noted that sails were taken DOWN for battle so they did not get ruined or catch fire. Again at actium it was a sign that the enemy wanted to run that they did not do this!

So you see. ROME2 tactics should not revolve around getting larger naval units to smash smaller ones. They should be used for boarding and threatening or scattering an enemy fleet with boarding. Sure if a larger ship does happen to ram devestation should be awesome, but usually they are just large targets or forts from which any who dare to approach should beware.

What I am guessing we will get in rome2:
(i) Sniper artillery ships acting like a moving galley is an easy place to shoot from. Please consider how hard it is to be with catapult s we use in total war on land!
(ii) Large ships coming up to speed just as fast as the lighter purpose built rammers and turning like tie fighters (remember rowers can row backwards to turn at a cost in speed)
(iii) No ability to shoot rowers or helmsmen to disrupt enemy manoevers
(iv) Ships running around at full speed like dogem cars with no real appreciation of anything naval. No wind, tides, shallows or deep water which all affect speed and manoever.
(vi) No ability to launch blockading fleets. They will simply stay afloat for years. It was very common for blockading fleets to simply mobilise too slowly to catch blockade runners!
(vii) No ability or control over rowers use of oars or the way the ship is handled. It will plain and simple be like shogun2. Boring and simplistic??

Large ships most certainly DID exist in ROME2's period. At least up until the civil war that ended with cleopatra and antony committing suicide.
Antony's fleet had many very large ships. His problem was that he could not man all his small ships to protect them from ramming and really just used his large ships to aid cleopatra's escape.

These are the books I have on hand:

new vanguard : ancient greek warship
warfleets of antiquity by R B Nelson
conways history of ships the age of the galley
Ospreys battle of Actium
age of titans: rise and fall of the great hellenistic navies by william M. Murray (almost forgot this was on my kindle)

I guess the main problem I had was when the CA guy said smaller ships were obviously going to have much greater problems ramming and causing damage with their rams. When the opposite was the smaller ships role.
All this while showing a monster with fore and aft castles on it.

[Destraex]

Oh and here is an earlier thread with my ideas.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...add-to-my-list

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...confirmed!!!-(

The Weapons & Tactics of a War Galley

Corvus – Made the ship unstable but enabled the Roman Marines to use their scutum and board as if fighting on land. Entire fleets were lost because of the unstability caused by this weapon. Used by the Romans only.
Ram – Used to ram other ships and hole them. Some specialist RAMs were designed to breach under the water.
Bear – A type of ram that is designed not to pierce enemy ships but to bunt them. This weapon had the effect of throwing rowers off their benches and marines into the sea before boarding is attempted.
Catapults - Apparently Alexander used them and it is assumed later fleets would have used them as well. I have read some material that claims catapults would be useless due to their less than accurate trajectory against a moving target.
Bolt throwers – These could pierce upper hulls disabling rowers and other crewmen
Archers – Clear the enemy decks and fire ships.
Javelin – Clear enemy decks as they get closer or before boarding.
Fire fire projectiles and arrows – A common tactic of Roman era warfare seems to be the use of fire as a tactic for burning ships. This deserves more research as their may well be greek fire which is hard to put out as well as standard fire projectiles which crews can put out more easily.
Redundant oarsmen – Some ship types have enough rowers on each oar that gives an advantage of not so much of an effect being had when one dies in battle.
Spare Rowers – A lot of ships especially larger ships carried reserve rowers that were used to switch exhausted or dead rowers.
Cataphract\Fenced – This means the ship was covered with wooden planking and re-enforced on both the tops and sides to protect rowers. Some ships had rowers exposed instead.
Light Built\Normal Built\ Re-enforced hull (heavy built) – Ships within classes were often built to a particular doctrine or purpose. Light ships were faster and made saving weight where ever possible. Heavier ships would have re-enforced heavier wood types and be stronger below the water line to resist ramming. Carthaginian build quality seems to have been far superior to Roman build quality especially early on.
Outrigger – The greek doctrine which the Romans adopted seems to have used an outrigger to project the upper row of oars while the Carthaginian shipwrights seems to make their ships taller instead.
Chasing down one ship with many – A tactic that seems to have been used is for one chasing ship to go to ramming speed to exhaust the rowers of the fleeing ship. Once the fleeing ships crew and the chasing ships crew were exhausted the remaining pursuers could over take the fleeing ship at leasure.
Raking Oars – A major disabling tactic of this era was to pull in your ships oars as you swept past the enemies oars breaking them and disabling the oars on an entire side of the enemy ship.
Grapple ballista – This weapon seems to be a little later than others. It was a bolt thrower that had an attachment that allowed grappling. The weapon could penetrate hulls as fairly long range.
Ballista – Standard bolt thrower.
Grappling hooks – Sailors using standard ships grappling ropes to board enemy vessels at close range
Boarding ramps – I do not know how boarding with a corvus took place. I assume a lot of the time that the outrigger actually got in the way of marines jumping from deck to deck. I assume that ramps or ladders would have been used but have no evidence.
Siege attachment – there is evidence of two ships being lashed together or one large ship carrying a siege tower or scaling device in sieges.
Room to lower ship sails below deck – Ships seem to have disembarked sails before battle where possible to avoid damaging them. However there is also ample evidence of ships raising sail to escape a losing battle. From what I have seen their must have been room to store the mast and sail in the middle of the ship just below deck. I also assume that the ships lookout at the top of the mast would have played a huge role in finding the enemy before battle!! The mast having to be pulled down just after?
Living space – Larger ships would have had an advantage at sea of having more living space for some. Fatigue must have played a large part in battles. Some crews sleeping at the oars.
Waterlogging and Speed – Some Ancient Galleys were made of such light wood that they regularly needed to be pulled from the water to dry out to protect from water logging, sea borers and leaking. Waterlogged ships were much slower than their enemies. A good example of this was a blockade carried out where the besieging side was at a disadvantage because the besieged could launch and pull their boats out of the water at leasure while the besiegers had to stay at sea to enforce the blockade.
Rowing Speeds – Needless to say different crews would be capable of different speeds for different sustained periods of time.
I need data on this point. More rowers in ship types would obviously also have a relationship between the weight of the extra rower and diminishing power related to how many extra rowers on an oar was efficient. Some got so large that oarsmen had to stand instead of sitting while rowing.
Spare Oars – 30 or so spare oars are recorded as being carried by the average trireme. This means that damaged ships could replace oars in an emergency.
Sitting on Deck (trireme) – Marines and others on deck would be encouraged to sit whenever possible to prevent upsetting the rowing and stability of the ship. Marines would jump up only when there ship
had stopped to board.

Bibliography
http://www.h2g2.com/entry/A69451572
Greece and Rome at war Peter Connolly
Warfare in the classical world John Warry
Battles of the Greek And Roman Worlds John Drogo Montagu
Osprey Ancient Greek Warship 500-322BC
Warfleets of Antiquity R B Nelson
The Age of Titans:The Rise and Fall of the Great Hellenistic Navies Murray William
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic-era_warships
http://www2.rgzm.de/navis/Ships/Ship...alaEnglish.htm
http://www.navistory.com

[Destraex]

In closing. I was looking forward to rome2 naval battles. They could be sooooo interesting as per above. However I think we may just get point and click. Attack or retreat.

Actually I am wondering now if there will even be room to stack or re-enforce warships with land troops.
A fairly common practice for battles where fleets relied on them.
Will transports that AUTO spawn be sailing ships with no oars as they should be?
Will we be able to take transports and disabled ships in tow during battles?
Will lighter ships with higher draughts be able to pop over reefs to avoid larger ships?
Will specialist courier and blockade runners be available? (yes they existed with special 24/7 standby picked crews manned all year around)
Will the various formations the ancients used be available, such as the schiltron style circular formation to beat a ramming fleet?
Will warships be able to be co-joined with them. I expect at least this it be so.

[jamreal18]

Some ships only want to tilt the enemy ships to make it upside down....

[Destraex]

Some ships only want to tilt the enemy ships to make it upside down....

not sure what you mean. Are you talking about archamedes device?

[geala]

Nice posts, Destraex, I only think you overestimate a little bit the impact of ramming and smaller ships (aka trieres) in 3rd c. sea warfare. We are not at Salamis and not at Actium (with not very professional and too few Egyptian seamen), but in a time of more or less balanced fleets. It was the time of the pentere rule as all-purpose vessel, because it was able to transport a lot of soldiers and also ram to a certain extent. What would have normally happened if a triere had succeded to ram a pentere? As you correctly wrote, ususally the rammed ship did not sink. Instead it would have tried to catch the triere with ropes and hooks and enter it, without any chance for the triere crew to survive. So the triere had two big problems: hitting the pentere (which was not so much slower, because albeit bigger had also more rowers, about 300 compared to the usually 170 for a triere) and, even more important, getting away. Quite often however the ram of the ramming ship was entangled with the rammed ship and the former could not easliy row back and escape. So the triere could only ram, the pentere could ram and board, and the triere had always to come into boarding distance to ram. That's rather bad. So only under special circumstances (f.e. at the harbour of Carthage during the siege 149 to 146 BC) trieres could compete against the medium bigger ships.

[Lockpick]

Also, one small boat shouldn't be able to transport an entire army across the sea, it should take several boats for larger armies and there should be more attrition due to sea sickness and weather.

Not checking allready available informations, eh?
Armies create their own transport ships as they go to see.
Navy ships can't mount land units.
Navy is stronger so you need them to defend the transports, but if you want you can cross the sea without any help from your navy.

[Kissaki]

Personally, I wouldn't miss naval warfare if they decided to resolve them all automatically and instead focus their efforts elsewhere. In Shogun 2 I did find naval combat tedious -- I found them rather easy, but it wasn't what I wanted to do. They were fun now and then, but they could be enormously time consuming. Fortunately the auto-resolve didn't penalize me that much if I outnumbered the enemy. In fact, if I greatly outnumbered the enemy, I might win the battle completely unscathed, not losing so much as a single archer. But yeah, if Shogun 2 had never included naval battles in the first place, I wouldn't be missing it. On the other hand, naval battles of the Ancient world has more appeal to me than feudal Japanese naval battles, so I guess we'll see what we'll see.