Naval Combat Discussion

[theDaedricPrince]

After playing some Shogun 2, I came across a naval battle. I find them..boring. To be honest, they are a bit pointless IMO. So what are your takes on the naval system? How can they be improved in Rome 2? How about the speed of the battle? They are extremely slow to be honest /)_(\

Discussion will start in.............3....2....1...go!

[bengalg3]

There's going to be a lot of ramming going on I guess.

[Lieutenant Sharpe]

Rome II battles will involve more aspects. Such as now you have oarsmen but you must also pay attention to the wind. There are ballistae and archers on your ship, do you want them to burn enemy ship or clear the decks. Marines will play a bigger role too. Also ramming will become another way to destroy enemy ships.

[The Great Consul]

Command of the sea is vital in the Mediterranean but not in the thick forests of the north. Yes, naval combat did suck in Shogun 2, and I can't imagine it being much better in Rome 2 unless they fix the AI and physics and add some amazing graphical enhancements that make the sluggish boat combat more visceral.

[MonkeyD]

Time for some jolly rogering!

[The Great Consul]

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.

[empr guy]

The two biggest flaws I saw from S2 were the path finding of units, and the slow movement of ships. The path finding will probably only ever be good on the open sea, but i think ships will be able to move faster here (not entirely sure about that).

Also there were wierd things like bow ships sending huge waves of arrows at a covered part of the ship instead of the huge block of like 50 guys out in the open, but i guess thats so ships werent taken down in like a minute...

[MrBoBo1]

With FOTS I think the direct control was a big step forward in making it more interesting. I'm not really sure how they could translate that into the older ships though.
I don't agree its pointless either, the Napoleon era battles with AI had more tactical and strategic requirement than pretty much all of Total Wars land battles outside of the more scripted historical battles.

[Ngazi]

Naval combat is not boring at all. It is just unlike land combat because you cannot charge around while your other units hold the enemy. You have to move like a dancer and achieve local numerical superiority with nothing but maneuvering.

[BigHairyMelon]

I've just got back into my fall of the samurai very hard campaign and it is pretty hard, mainly because its me on my little island on the left against all of Japan, that's right all the Emperor factions went mope and joined the Shogun. So I have been playing untold numbers of naval battles and it is just so boring, half the time the AI don't know what to do and bunch all their ships up and just sit there while i kill them an the other have its my 10 ships against 30 of theirs and I still pound them into the Earth, but i can't auto resolve because then i lose my entire navy. If the Naval BAI was actually competent i would have been destroyed many many turns ago.

[Ngazi]

The exact same thing happens on land.

[Emperor Domitianus]

In Shogun2 naval battles were really annoyng. The ships were non-sense for me. I preferred more Empire-Napoleon with cannons and open see fights. Here, in Rome II, I can see both open see fights and good naval fights. The ships of that time were far better than those of medieval Japan. Ramming was the last part of a fight.

[emotion_name]

I enjoyed the naval battles in ETW, NTW and FotS, but in S2TW they were just boring, and in MP they sucked big time!!

The AI/Pathfinding and other things of course could be improved, but this is true of the land battles also, its something you wouldnt want to stagnate through the series anyway.

Im sorta open minded about R2TW Naval Combat, im hoping CA do big things with it, atm Naval still feels "slapped in" and not really progressing much, but already we know they have managed to combine land and naval battles so this is a step in the right direction - the people who feel naval is slow and boring will have land units to move and worry about whilst ships are getting into position and so on.

We also know "in battle" coastal bombardment is in R2TW, so its safe to assume the campaign map feature from FotS will continue as well, which is good as well imo.

I would like to see something like the option to pick different types of hull (small and fast, average all rounder, big destructive slow moving) and then also the option to pick how many of each type of unit you want onboard. For example, i could pick to build 2 average ships with 100 oarsmen and 300 fighting men each, a small and fast ship with archers onboard, and a heavy ship with a ballistae onboard (only oarsmen and ballistae operators allowed on ship or summin) but another player could choose to have a heavy hull, with 200 oarsmen and 500 fighting men for boarding and so on.

In this way we get completely customisable navies, from the hull to the crew, which adds so many layers of tactics to Naval battles its unreal.

[weirdoascensor]

Previous Threads on Naval Aspects:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=566593
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=551585

Shogun 2 Naval Battles are Boarding-Based...And You'll board a Lot in Rome 2 Naval Battles, Deal with it.

Shogun 2 : Rowing ships with boarding attacks, fire bombs, arrows, musket, cannons + occasional sailing ships + european ships.

Rome 2: Rowing galleys, "remes" with RAM, arrows, corvus, catapult+other ships

R2TW Polyremes from Quadremes up will be as Sluggish as S2TW O-Atakabune. Most Ships Powered by Rowers in Both Games. Veneti Sailing Cogs fights mainly by Onboard Marines. R2TW Vessels have Archers, S2TW has Muskets. Ballistae and Onagers are not Cannons - Far Weaker.

In Short, Most Naval Battle in R2TW shall resembles S2TW.(Well, Ram Ironclads with Shell-Spewing Rifled Cannons of Fall of The Samurai does not count, Obviously...)

What Can CA do to Make it Much Better than S2TW?

1> Better AI Maneuvers.
In S2TW, Ships can go in Reverse. But Both Micromanagement AI and Battle AI does not understands this. As an Result, If a Ship fails to reach a Place in a Ordered Formation, It'll Make another Round rather than Simply Reverses...

This Reverse Maneuver is essential in a Ramming Attack.

2>Better Targeting.
Crews on Top Should Let Loose Light Projectile to The Enemy PERSONNEL, not ENEMY SHIP. Only Heavy or Incendiary Projectiles targets Ships.
Too much Bullets and Arrows spent in S2TW on Ship's Hulls, rather than their crews...

3> Multi-Ship, Multi-Directional Boarding.
In S2TW, A Ship can be only boarded in One Direction, by One Ship. This means it all just Whomever have More Marines, wins.
This Multi Directional Boarding means Several Smaller Vessels can Gang-up against Larger Ships.

4> In-Battle Ship Capture.

5> Modular Damage System

6> Transported Units Fight Alongsides Marines in Their Transporter Ship

[HigoChumbo]

Well... Shogun's naval battles were boring mainly because the napanese fleets of the era were boring...

I liked Empire battles, save that i don't think i have ever won one... they are extremelly slow and hectic at the same time. I'd much prefer to be able to assign all ships but one to the AI and controll just one ship (even if you could switch the ship you controlled on the fly while the others remained as AI).


Rome naval battles will be different though, i guess they will be similar to a chess match, but i think they will have the same problem as Empires (being hectic, having to control 15 ships at the same time is a pain in the ass, and pausing every 5 seconds is not fun).

[Nepos]

I liked the battles in Empire, but they were difficult to win and manage. In Rome it's going to be fun, because of the use of rams and onagers. Boarding's going to be much more important, but most of all I hope that transporting units on ships will add to the amount of marines. If I have a cohort on a ship they should become undefeatable. Also, I want a few things:

Customisable ships, you should be able to control whether your ship has three onagers on board, maybe at the expense of marines or speed of the ship. I'm not an expert on naval classical warfare, but I know that in the battle of Sluys they had squadrons of three ships, one with knights and the other two heavy with longbows. I'd love to make a fleet with faster ships, some ships made for boarding and others for artillery bombarding.

If they are going to make ship units then they should split said units up in a battle so you can control each ship.

They should have polyremes larger than quiriremes. Those things were standard fair at Actium, and there were a fair amount of sexaremes, octaremes and even decaremes.

[panzerschreck]

I feel the same than OP, I am found of Naval battles but I think CA failed to make them immersive. I fear they don't change many things to their system in Rome 2. I put my ideas here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=566593.

[Emperor Domitianus]

I found winning in ETW naval battles not so difficult. You just needed to right ships. I used mainly heavy cannon warships.

[Ichon]

ETW and NTW battles were interesting but the ship types became quite important, run around with very fast ships taking 1 hour to win or bring big ships and win in 5 minutes or auto resolve for instant win but half your fleet requires major repairs.

Not sure how to resolve that... in theory naval battles could be very interesting but I haven't seen that yet in TW games. The most positive aspect of naval battles now is the inclusion of troop transports. Even with a weaker navy running in to ram and sink as many transports as possible will be fun. I don't like what I saw in the battle of Carthage pictures with little triremes having 1 mile range for their missiles, hopefully that was just for effect but I'm worried CA will include that in released game so big ships lining up and firing at max range with burning projectiles like a WW1 battle becomes the normal result.

[hessia78]

I think ships should be divided in not only their size but how they fight. You have ramming, boarders and missile ship.
Ramming ships such as the famous trireme rely on their rams to damage enemy ships bellow the waterline or to disable their mobility by destroying the oars. They are typically the fastest and most mobile of their size classes but this comes at the cost of them having low crew numbers and the majority of their crew to being rowers meaning they are vulnerable to boarders.
Boarding ships are slower and less maneuverable than ramming ships but have larger crews with a large number of marines. Romans have very good boarding ships
The last type of ships are missile ships. They come in light and heavy classes. Light missile ships have a large compliment of archers who fire their arrows to kill enemy crews. They are very fast and maneuverable but they lack melee marines and have weak hulls, which means if they get caught by ramming or boarding they will lose very quickly. Heavy missile ships are the largest available ships (consider them to be like the ships of the line from empire and napoleon). They have a number of artillery weapons (such as ballistas and ongers) which makes them useful in naval siege assaults and have decent size compliment of both marines and archers, also they have the strongest hulls of any ship. However this comes at the price of them being expensive, come with a massive upkeep, very slow in battle and their heavy weapons will have a hard time hitting the smallest of enemy ships. The most notable of the Heavy missile ship would be Tessarakontere which is the equivalent of the heavy first rate from Empire.