What is your favourite Total War for naval battles/warfare?

[Incendio]

One of the best features and a strong reason for me to play Total War games is naval battles. I can't describe with words how shocked I was the first time I saw a naval battle of Empire Total War in youtube. I would say that Napoleon Total War and Shogun 2 Total War Fall of the Samurai are my favourites in terms of naval battles. I really like the models of later 19th century steamers of Shogun 2 Total War Fall of the Samurai, the steam, the water textures and explosions are epic! and how accurate are the models of each ship.

What is your favourite Total War for naval battles/warfare?

[Destraex]

I really wanted rome2 galley warfare to be good. But it was a real disappointment. Almost no realistic mechanics.
Play age of sail 2 for a sailing game. Better yet naval action or even holdfast nations at war.

[Commissar Caligula_]

Total War: Bathtub! Rubber ducky is the best battleship, but it requires a late-game economy to support the high upkeep cost.

Personally naval battles never caught my interest, and I'd say naval battles are only interesting during the Age of Sail or later when cannons were in action. Sword and sandal galleys just seem like monster truck derbys smashing into each other with little finesse.

[Incendio]

I really wanted rome2 galley warfare to be good. But it was a real disappointment. Almost no realistic mechanics.
Play age of sail 2 for a sailing game. Better yet naval action or even holdfast nations at war.

Do you know if I can play Age of Sail 2 in a modern computer with Windows 10?

[Alwyn]

My favourite era for naval combat is the 18th century. I'm influenced by reading about the adventures of fictional naval commanders, Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hornblower, and by George C. Daughan's excellent history book, If By Sea: The Forging of the American Navy from the Revolution to the War of 1812.

For those reasons, my favourite Total War for naval battles is either Empire Total War or Napoleon TW. Empire has the advantage of being able to take ships to the coasts of the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe, North Africa and India. Napoleon offers more polished game-play and better representation of frigates (in terms of the number of guns carried).

I would like to be able to take a frigate or ship of the line on an adventurous mission, capturing prizes and sending marines to support operations on land. While I enjoy combined land and sea battles in Rome II, I'd love to see an 18th century Total War game with combined land and sea battles, including 'cutting-out' expeditions (sailing into a port to steal enemy ships) and daring attacks against coastal forts.

[herne_the _hunter]

Shogun 2/ROTS/FOTS have the best executed naval battles of the series.

The unrealistic but enjoyable naval warfare of Empire. Those diesil powered ships of the line keep chugging away...

Again the unrealistic but enjoyable naval combat of Rome 2 could be improved in a couple of places. If only it could be improved to the standard of Shogun 2. Though I enjoy these the most.

[Huberto]

NTW was best, FotS a close second...but like others I was really hoping for good trireme fights in TWR2.

[NorseThing]

NTW was best, FotS a close second...but like others I was really hoping for good trireme fights in TWR2.

Were there any historic examples of good trireme fights that would work in a strategic game? The problem may be one of the game systems we use. Combined arms of spear, archer an cav work for the land, but if you want to introduce combined arms and not auto resolve the sea battles in ages before gunpowder -- you have some challenges. To do this for the very occasional times in a few hundred turn campaign may not be worth the developer to spend the time and money. Can any if this be accomplished within the modding community with the resources at hand? Loading catapults on barges, boarding enemy vessels in melee, firing (literally) on enemy vesels with archers could be interesting.

[Alwyn]

... Can any if this be accomplished within the modding community with the resources at hand? Loading catapults on barges, boarding enemy vessels in melee, firing (literally) on enemy vesels with archers could be interesting.

I'm wondering how much you know about naval battles in Rome II. The different kinds of naval warfare which you suggested are possible in vanilla Rome II. There are artillery ships (for example, this chapter of an AAR shows a Massilian ship armed with a ballista), you can board enemy ships in melee and fire on enemy ships with skirmishers (archers can use ordinary arrows or fire arrows, at least in some cases). I am sorry if I am telling you something which you already know - maybe I misunderstood your post.

[NorseThing]

I'm wondering how much you know about naval battles in Rome II. The different kinds of naval warfare which you suggested are possible in vanilla Rome II. There are artillery ships (for example, this chapter of an AAR shows a Massilian ship armed with a ballista), you can board enemy ships in melee and fire on enemy ships with skirmishers (archers can use ordinary arrows or fire arrows, at least in some cases). I am sorry if I am telling you something which you already know - maybe I misunderstood your post.

Sadly, I have never played or found the time to even load the Rome II game. Maybe I should. ([old fart mode]Time to dig through boxes of stuff.[/old fart mode])

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

I actually like Rome 2's naval warfare over other offerings in the series. Is it realistic, not really, but there's something that gives me a moment of satisfaction about ramming into a ship and watching the people scramble over the edge as the whole thing breaks in half and sinks. Manually going after them with artillery results in some pretty evil results. Heck, using the artillery against land units can be pretty damn op with manual control. Empire as a concept didn't really interest me, and that extended to naval battles. Shogun also is an underdog for me, so my interest there is reduced.

Like basically everything else Rome 2 does, it's promising, but it's not quite "there".

[EoNightcore]

Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai. Just the feeling of watching cannons firing. Especially when it's an Ironclad ship or one of the ships with as many guns as possibly stuck onto it. The Naval Bombardment feature is also an added plus, as more guns usually meant more chaos and destruction.

Empire Total War comes next, but only because I haven't played Napolean Total War yet. However, I enjoyed commanding ships in Empire Total War, and watching ships get blown up, sink, catch on fire, and so on and so forth. Unless they were my own, in which case, I scrambled up some First-Rates for vengeance, even if it took me several turns. Damn Pirates.

I've never actually played a naval battle in any other Total War game. I do own Rome II, but haven't played enough to fight a Naval battle yet... Naval landings yes, but no Naval battles.

[Fanest]

Definitely FOTS followed by NTW.

[Incendio]

My favourite Total War game for naval battles is Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai, the graphics are great, the variety of ships and the era are the main reasons of why this game is my favourite for naval battles, those steamed frigates and different classes of corvettes, along with the ironclads are my favourite ships. Also the torpedo boats make the naval warfare to have more variety.

Napoleon Total War would be the second one, graphics look better than Empire Total War, I like the fog atmosphere. The variety of ships of the line is the reason I really like naval battles in Napoleon Total War and the fact you can repair the ships in the battle. It was really good and appropiate the addition of 80-gun Ship of the Line, 64-gun Ship of the Line, and Santisima Trinidad.

Empire Total War is really close to Napoleon Total War, since the first time I watch a youtube video of a naval battle made me to purchase this game. Having galleons is really good but being a freak of 17th century and 18th century naval warfare (I have some big books covering these periods in the naval warfare), I would say that a galleon doesn't fit the 18th century naval warfare but would be more appropiate to early 17th century or even 16th century. I would like to see more variety of ships of the line.

I am not familiar at this moment with naval warfare in times of Roman Empire, but I like the gameplay of naval battles in Rome 2 Total War, the ship models and crew look very detailed, Rome 2 would be my fourth one by preference. Finally, Attila makes an interesting depiction of naval warfare of the period, but I still prefer Rome 2 over Attila and Thrones of Britannia, despite this is the only game I don't own of the ones I mentioned, after watching some youtube videos, I have the impression that naval battles are almost the same as Attila Total War, but I would like to know your opinion about Attila and Thrones of Britannia naval battles.

[reyhanph7474]

My favourite era for naval combat is the 18th century.

[AnthoniusII]

My favorite TW for naval battles is ETW, not only for the detailed ship models ( i am fun of antiquity and middle ages) but for ONE REALISTIC feature.
Yoy can assault a ship , capture it and use it as your own!
Rome II has naval battles but if you capture a ship that apears in enemy's hands in the next turn with redused crew (like RTW automatic naval battles). That was a real backwards features in both Rome II and Attila.
Also the last 2 TW games do not use detailed models )i quess they did not bother to visit a museum to coppy some models like the ETW dev team did years ago.

[Standard Nerd]

The unrealistic but enjoyable naval warfare of Empire. Those diesil powered ships of the line keep chugging away...

My favorite is definitely NTW, especially with the NTW3 mod enabled. It’s especially great if you share the opinion that sailing ships in vanilla move and turn way too fast. Commodore Wellesley put an incredible amount of work and research into developing the closest thing to authentic naval battles you can play with the total war series.

I also share the the opinion of many in this thread that naval combat in FOTS is one heck of a good time.

[sungirl]

My favorite TW for naval battles is ETW

[Leonardo]

I have two games as my favorites, depending of what battle one need to fight.

Battles

• ETW - Naval battles
• NTW - Land battles

Naval battles in ETW offers more challenge regardless what nation one is playing.

Land battles in NTW has better game mechanics for artillery e.g cannons, howitzers and for other units while ETW doesn't offers that instead ETW has a bigger game map with interesting campaign options.