How to force the AI ships to sail with the wind, not against it in naval battles?

[p.jakub88]

Hello everyone,

I noticed that AI ships behave a bit silly in Empire: Total War naval battles.

They sometimes sail against the wind, so the AI ship speed is lower than mine.

They should sail with the wind, making a naval battle more realistic and challenging.

I heard that it is possible to set a speed penalty for a ship which sails against a wind on certain degree.

Enemy ships should start the naval engagement on the best position available --> sailing against wind make them an easy prey for player ships (even when player uses the slowest ships).

This is unfair, since we are playing again computer not human.

Any help will be appreciated!

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[skyfaller]

little late reply but... the AI is actually doing a smart thing. You will notice they will indeed sail in your direction against the wind but then when you get inside 5X max range of them, it will flip the ship to cross a T and it will do so AGAINST the wind too. Crazy? Nope. Good tactics.

What happens is the player line that is going with the wind has less accuracy due to its faster movement and will end up maneuvering against the wind for the 2nd pass. The AI oth delivers as much pain as it takes on the first pass but on the second pass it has full maneuverability advantage as it will turn its ships towards the wind.



You can see in #1 on the image that the black ships approach very slow speed (small black arrow) while the reds are very fast.

Step 2 the black ships have turned against the wind and the reds have it on their backs.. black ships literally crawl while the reds go on afterburners as they exchange broadsides.

Step 3 the lines circle for another pass.. but whats this? The reds now have to turn against the wind regardless which side they turn towards! Red lead ship slows to a near halt ...black ships oth, now turn with the wind on their backs and make a rapid turn.

Step 4 has the reds still trying to complete the turn at crawl speed while the blacks are now about to land broadsides on them.

I didnt have space for step 5 but its literally the reds getting either pummeled from the rear end by the black ships as THEY turn against the wind (left) while keeping broadsides on the reds at all time... or the black ships turn with the wind (right) and hook towards the SSE and pummel the reds from long range with broadsides from their undamaged side of their ships. Reds on the other hand are taking damage the entire time only on one side.

Its a classic 'hold the weather gauge' tactic. The reds entered battle holding weather gauge but lost it because the black ships took it from them by their #2 step maneuver (if they had turned to the right at #2 the reds wouldve obliterated them since the reds would hold the weather gauge advantage the entire time).

[CoconutFred]

That's very true, the AI turns the weather gage to its advantage by tacking to the wind after first broadsides.

On a side note though, going with the wind does not reduce accuracy. Quite the contrary, it reduces the accuracy of the incoming enemy ships. Go figure.

[skyfaller]

accuracy from what ive seen is based on the movement of the ship firing since the game decides hit/miss the instant the ship fires based on its parameters... what we see as cannonballs flying is just an animation for the player's visual benefit. thus, the slow or anchored ship has much better accuracy than a fast moving ship.

[p.jakub88]

Thanks both of you (skyfaller, CoconutFred) for answer to my question.