The art of Naval combat...

[SinerAthin]

... is there any to it?From what I have learned from the battles I've fought, Naval combat seems less like a battle between ships and more like a battle between wooden, manned torpedoes. The best way to achieve victory seems to be to ram your way to it.But what about catapults and ballistas and such? Do they really serve a purpose in a seabattle?I've found that more often than not, I simply forget about whatever siege equipment it carries, and simply use the fact that it's a big ing ship to just ram anything that moves.Boarding seems to be very rare, and whoever boards signs themselves up to be rammed.My beef with Naval combat is that it seems that it is a little too easy to ram people (epic turn speeds coupled with great precision) to the point where other tools of ancient naval warfare(siege equipment, boarding) suffers. The focus on ramming and the speed and maneuverability of the ships seem to leave most battles not lasting more than 2 minutes.The only other tool I use other than simply ramming people is Javelins, mainly because they can ram AND fire inbetween(and does a great job at dealing damage even when playing cat & mouse while kiting enemy ships).What about you guys? Do you think naval combat works well or could use some fine-tuning/rebalancing?

[Nikolaos_K]

no there isnt... CA took our favourite series for decades and downgraded it into an action game for 7 year old kids

[Viljanen]

no there isnt... CA took our favourite series for decades and downgraded it into an action game for 7 year old kids

That's a bit harsh considering that ramming was indeed the dominant naval tactic back in the days. Siege engines on ships, on the other hand, are just fantasy. There are little historical records about such being used.

[nameless]

... is there any to it?From what I have learned from the battles I've fought, Naval combat seems less like a battle between ships and more like a battle between wooden, manned torpedoes. The best way to achieve victory seems to be to ram your way to it.But what about catapults and ballistas and such? Do they really serve a purpose in a seabattle?I've found that more often than not, I simply forget about whatever siege equipment it carries, and simply use the fact that it's a big ing ship to just ram anything that moves.Boarding seems to be very rare, and whoever boards signs themselves up to be rammed.My beef with Naval combat is that it seems that it is a little too easy to ram people (epic turn speeds coupled with great precision) to the point where other tools of ancient naval warfare(siege equipment, boarding) suffers. The focus on ramming and the speed and maneuverability of the ships seem to leave most battles not lasting more than 2 minutes.The only other tool I use other than simply ramming people is Javelins, mainly because they can ram AND fire inbetween(and does a great job at dealing damage even when playing cat & mouse while kiting enemy ships).What about you guys? Do you think naval combat works well or could use some fine-tuning/rebalancing?

Unknown.

This is my set up.

1 general
5 Assault Triremes
5 helot Archers
10 Ballista ships

The Ballista ships with solid rounds have superior range and decent enough accuracy that they can devastate any naval ships before they close in.

The Helot Archers with flaming arrows do massive damage to wooden ships

The Assault Triremes are just there to delay, block, and finish off any ships that linger around or get too close to my missile units.

IMO the fire arrows/javelins are OP. They need to increase the fire resistance on the warships because right now there's not much incentive for melee ships.

Ramming requires a certain set of skills but can be very devastating if used correctly.

no there isnt... CA took our favourite series for decades and downgraded it into an action game for 7 year old kids

Nice way to be constructive.

If it was that simple then all you have to make is 20 assault ships and just go from there but that's just asking for failure. I tried that and the AI killed me badly.

[Nota']

I get boarded all the time by roman transports. Taken to just javelining them to death now.

[St. Nietzsche]

Its not an action game for 7 year olds, but it does seem like a downgrade from FotS. It just felt more realistic, with more variation in the ship types, ammo type, range, haul strength. You could have say a very expensive HMS Warrior take out 7-8 wooden corvettes, where in Rome 2 it seems whoever outnumbers wins, even if they are transport ships.

[craziii]

transport ships ramming elite naval ships and killing it in one blow put me off of all naval combat I just auto resolve it all now.

[wis]

transport ships ramming elite naval ships and killing it in one blow put me off of all naval combat I just auto resolve it all now.

A wooden ship is a wooden ship regardless how many elite warriors are standing on the deck looking at the waves. There is no "elite" wood that can withstand being rammed from the side.

[I WUB PUGS]

A wooden ship is a wooden ship regardless how many elite warriors are standing on the deck looking at the waves. There is no "elite" wood that can withstand being ramming from the side.

Are you serious? No really are you serious?

Warships are built to withstand a fight. They even look bigger in the game. Bigger ships means sturdier construction, more mass, more oars, more everything (do you know the formula for force?). There is a BIG difference between a warship build for an engagement and something that's meant only for transport. Top notch, major investments that serve one purpose are being slaughtered by free transports.

CA actually have this fact built in to the game. There is very good reason why you can float a fleet of say 10 warships and take on 2 full army stacks of transports, auto-resolve and kill all of them.

The problem is the actual game mechanic on the battlemap where these piss-ant transports have ramming capability and they're incredibly fast AND ING FREE!!!

CA needs to remove the ramming option from these vessels. Boarding only.

There is no "elite" wood

Yeah, wood is wood is wood, which is why shipbuilders have sought harder, more resilient timbers since man first put a boat in the water. Or are Egyptian Nile river grain ships made of reeds going to be able to ram a Trireme made of desert ironwood?

[Winterspawn]

The scorpion/archer ship is really good, I use it as Macedon as my main ranged ships and they can quickly kill a hostile crew from afar while still being able to sink ships by ramming. Truth is that during this time period ramming was actually the main weapon during a naval battle, and boarding was actually quite rare. It's about how you ram, it's about luring the enemy into the right position so you can do maximum damage to them.

[Dago Red]

There is no art to something so poorly implemented, no.

Wait for a major patch and or a total overhaul mod. I mean really, a total, complete overhaul. This doesn't even deserve a player's time wasted on it at this point.

[Hrobatos]

I think ramming should be removed from transports. And speed decreased. So they wont be able to ram anything, and will make them more open to missile weapons. Thus proper navy will be better in combat too rather than just in auto resolve.

Also it wouldnt be bad to see missile navy ships to have skirmish option automatic, so they can atleast try to keep distance from enemy ships.

[General Maximus]

You mean those jet-powered ships that are faster than CARS weren't enough?

Even steamships from FoTS or even today's speedboats pale in comparison to those over-fast Triremes.

[rrgg]

Naval battles even more so than the land ones are way to focused on micromanagement. The ships need better path-finding and a bit more autonomy so that the player can give more broad commands rather than "Ok, now you go here and board here while you go there then go there then use your speedboost there then ram there, and arrgh! now some of my ships have managed to bunch themselves together and are being bombarded by missiles!"

To use an example of how stupid some of this is, if I order a ship to ram the side of an AI assault ship, they are able to immediately lock me in place and board onto my bow. If I try to do the same thing to an AI ship that rams one of mine then I can't, because I'm not able to click the "board" during the one millisecond before they bounce off and ram again.

It probably doesn't naval help the naval combat that it's such high risk either. In land battles you rarely lose entire units, so if you lose a bunch of men due to bad path-finding or AI shenanigans they just replenish after a couple of turns, no big deal right? But with big fleets, unless you hit auto-resolve you are almost guaranteed to to lose a number of ships due to ramming or fire. Which means you have to spend a ton of money and time rebuilding ships after each battle, and it makes every ship lost to bugs or unit stupidity stand out that much more.

[I WUB PUGS]

My thoughts on the speed of naval combat:

The oarsmen must be so well defined and sweaty. I bet they have flawless, deep, dark tans too. Covered in olive oil so they don't chafe. Semi-naked, possibly, hopefully completely nude as they pull as one well-drilled throbbing mass of muscle. Trapeziuses and triceps straining to drive the ram at maximum speed. A collision, no an eruption as the ships meet. The oarsmen reverse, and then drive again, this time deeper and more deliberate. Again and again until the foe succumbs to the relentless might of their battering. Then they rest and massage one another with a fresh application of oil.

[Tritus]

I gave up on naval combat when I learned that my ships could still move around and ram when all the men on the deck were dead and gone.

[I WUB PUGS]

The oarsmen are still there...

Oil and muscles and all.

[krisslanza]

Naval warfare in this time period, at least for Romans, WAS pretty much built around ramming and boarding. That's really all there is to it. Honestly, the only reason people say Transports are OP is because everyone starts out with incredibly flimsy ships that get utterly creamed by transports. Proper warships will mop the floor with the slowness of transports. Siege ships are pretty good at ripping them apart though, so long as you can keep them safe.

[jtfjtfjtf]

Naval combat is a bug fest for me. And when things work how they're supposed to the design is so badly constructed it's not even fun.

[General Maximus]

I have totally stopped playing naval battles unless the enemy has 1-2 ships, because they are so bugged that any more ships would be an annoying bug-fest.

Ships did not sink when rammed in the front. You need to ram from the sides to get the planks breaking up. Ramming from the front will actually present a much stronger frontier due to the narrowness of the planks, physics prove it. And even after ramming from the sides, it would not sink the ship immediately unless the attackers found a way to untangle their ship from the rammed and badly damaged ship's hull.