Some details we can see about naval warfare (pics and videos)

[panzerschreck]

Having a debate with some members about rowers, I looked again to the pics and vids we have, and I wanted to share my observations and discussed them here.



AND the others:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

here








I precise for the last pic that cutting in two parts the ennemy ship and crossing it would certainly break your own rows in reality!

[Altimis]

Good picture and explanation

[dheta]

It's called pre-alpha wait and see too what happends when the game enters a beta stage.

[torongill]

The reason there are no sails is because sails were used only when travelling. For battle and for going out of the port only oars were used. In fact iirc they even put down the masts to limit damage during ramming and to lower the center of gravity.

Onagers were used because the first artillery animations were completed for the onagers.

I suppose that CA decided to post that image and implement that kind of damage, because it's more striking
But there is historical precedent. Yesterday I was reading about the Roman-Spartan war of 195 BCE and in the aftermath of the war the Achaean league decided to attack Sparta by sea. The resulting battle saw a Spartan victory, the Achaean admiral's ship falling to pieces in the first attack.

[panzerschreck]

The reason there are no sails is because sails were used only when travelling. For battle and for going out of the port only oars were used. In fact iirc they even put down the masts to limit damage during ramming and to lower the center of gravity.

Onagers were used because the first artillery animations were completed for the onagers.

I suppose that CA decided to post that image and implement that kind of damage, because it's more striking
But there is historical precedent. Yesterday I was reading about the Roman-Spartan war of 195 BCE and in the aftermath of the war the Achaean league decided to attack Sparta by sea. The resulting battle saw a Spartan victory, the Achaean admiral's ship falling to pieces in the first ramming attack.

interesting history! I was wondering if we had an example of ship cut in 2 pieces after ramming. Perhaps like I said this animation can remain for a big ship ramming against a smaller one?

[Emperor Domitianus]

In the variuos pics the ships are differently armed. may this mean that you can choice which type of weapon to install on ship?

[panzerschreck]

In the variuos pics the ships are differently armed. may this mean that you can choice which type of weapon to install on ship?

yes, good observation, that's would be cool indeed! Perhaps you can choose a class like transport of trrops or attacking ship...

[torongill]

After reading Livy's account of the naval battle I talked about earlier, the reality is different:

The ship with the Achaean admiral that broke was very old and rotten(it had been captured eighty years before). It was chosen as flagship because it was a big one - a quardrieme among triremes. But because it was leaking and practically unseaworthy, it broke in the first attack. So it was not a precedent. Still, I don't think we will see such catastrophic damage very often and I have faith that we shall see realistic naval warfare, either in vanilla or in a mod.

[Lord Baal]

The catapults being onagers already where explained dude. I think Jack was the one. He said that they used them on the demo because it was the first arty unit to be fully animated ("done").

[oppaiO_O]

i think that the ships that are filled with the crew are the so called 'transport ships' that CA said we are going to need to move our forces around and the ones with less crew but more artillery pieces are the main naval force protecting the transports and the ones that do all the dirty work and as someone else said you dont need the sails if you are not traveling over seas when battle they rowed... which brings the other discussion if rowers should be visible or not but thats the other thread .... and it'll be awesome if each transport vessel could transport only a unit no more no less that'll be like 150+ men....

[Lockcaps]

I wonder if the soldiers(ie. not the crew on the ship itself) will assist when boarding. It would be cool but it could also create an annoying problem where you always had to have a full army embarked on your ships all the time because of how much better they got, and how much of a disadvantage you'd be at if you didn't.

[totaltotalwar]

I wonder if the soldiers(ie. not the crew on the ship itself) will assist when boarding. It would be cool but it could also create an annoying problem where you always had to have a full army embarked on your ships all the time because of how much better they got, and how much of a disadvantage you'd be at if you didn't.

I was thinking about it too. It'd be nice and it'd make sense because the soldiers (not only the crew) in the ship would have to fight for their lives if the ship they were traveling was attacked. I think they can do it and we'll have to find another way to avoid ships with more units than ours.

[Lord Baal]

I wonder if the soldiers(ie. not the crew on the ship itself) will assist when boarding. It would be cool but it could also create an annoying problem where you always had to have a full army embarked on your ships all the time because of how much better they got, and how much of a disadvantage you'd be at if you didn't.

Expect to pay horrible upkeep expenses and widespread mutiny I guess.

[Sol Invictus]

To balance the bonus of fighting with ships packed with marines/soldiers, ships loaded with soldiers should travel slower both stategically and tactically. I also expect that completely splitting a rammed ship in two will be fairly rare. Hopefully a bit more rare than exploding ships in FOTS. I can only imagine the animation for a fully packed troopship when it gets rammed and split in two.

[torongill]

In historical aspect, the troop transports of Athens were standard triremes with one third of the rowers, the rest of the space being used for the soldiers being transported. As such this wouldn't be a battle-worthy vessel and only a very unlucky commander would entangle himself in combat with a transport. It would be much more easy to ram it(but not overly hard so that his own ship does not become stuck) and then leave it to sink.

[vietanh797]

Ramming normally won't use that much speed since they prefer to pull back after ramming(and leave their enemies to sink since the hole is really big)
only big ship use more speed since it's able to broke the target in two with the heavy structure and big ramming head

I wonder can we smash the rows?
avoid a head on ram by turn a bit then smash all the row on one side will disable any ship since a large number of rowers get hurt(of course we have to pull back our rows before do st like that or both ship's rowers is done for)

[panzerschreck]

Ramming normally won't use that much speed since they prefer to pull back after ramming(and leave their enemies to sink since the hole is really big)
only big ship use more speed since it's able to broke the target in two with the heavy structure and big ramming head

I wonder can we smash the rows?
avoid a head on ram by turn a bit then smash all the row on one side will disable any ship since a large number of rowers get hurt

indeed, I hope there is an other animation where we can see a violent ramming (piece of wood, broken rows, soldiers falling on the deck, or in water) but without breaking in 2 parts the ship, but making a big hole and water entering in. And rowers panicking of course
In FOTS, I am disapointed with ramming, you have the feeling that the ship is just pushing the other, no hole, no soldier falling, no piece of wood or deformation in the side of the ship... It has to be VIOLENT!

[sertorio67]

And where are the corvus?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus_(boarding_device)

[Lockcaps]

And where are the corvus?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus_(boarding_device)

Weren't those used by the romans exclusively? Also they might be in the bigger/more advanced ships. There will be Harpax so i wouldn't be suprised if Corvus were in aswell.

[torongill]

Well first of all the corvus was used only in the first battles of the First Punic war, which was around a century before the siege of Carthage. You might as well be looking at dreadnoughts from WW1 and ask where are the gunports and why are there so few cannons.

Actually the ramming attack wouldn't be that violent for the crew if it were performed skillfully. The attacking ship would accelerate during the maneuver before the attack, but once it was on a final vector the rowers would actually start to back oars in order not to hit too hard and to disengage faster. The perfect ramming attack would be one that penetrates, but not too much. Hit, backpedal, look for other victims. That's it, if you rely on ramming. If you rely on boarding you'd just clash alongside the enemy ship and cross over to discuss differences.

If you have harpaxes, paint the ship golden and black and raise a mighty "Get over here" every time you launch a harpax. Then pull the enemy closer, uppercut them and at the end of the fight torch them