Finally figured out Navy fleets --> AKA what happens when 1 Navy engages a 4 Transport fleets?

[nameless]

This is what happens.

VH Campaign as Rome with NO MODS BETA 3 Patch

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Now that I've figured out the political system and navy I've gotten a feel for this game.

About 120 turns in the Civil war ignites when I took Carthage and because I had 70% influence in the Senate the Loyalists appeared in Corsica. About 8 full stack armies appeared and they fled the island trying to get to my other provinces. Because I was at war with Carthage I built up 4 fleets and they were already ready to engage at the same time while my armies were busy protecting the Alps and Africa.

The Holy Fleet chases down and engages 4 Transport fleets on their way to Syracuse and completely annihilates them.

What I did was I stationed my fleet outside of their max range. When the transports closed in they started getting sniped off by the Ballista warships. As they got closer I sent my Velite warships straight at them with fire javelins. Because they're AP they tore through the transports and kept them from getting too close to my Ballistas. As a result my Ballista warships were able to continue picking off the Transports one by one. The enemy transports tried boarding the Velites and while some won they rest lost because they were open to my Ballista and other velite warships. As the other transports came in they eventually got bogged in close quarters combat with my Velite warships which I used to keep them from getting too close. Because as CA pointed out the ramming power of transports is very weak so while they succeeded in ramming they couldn't do any significant damage at all. The losses were mainly through attrition as the transports kept coming and coming.

I should note that it took me only 10 turns in the beginning to build the Wharf and then start building these ships so therefore if you're a sea nation like Rome it's necessary to have these ships as soon as possible so your army doesn't get bogged down like this.

I still think though transports should be tweaked a bit and maybe buff up the Assault ships too.

[SinerAthin]

By the way, is it just me or are melee ships mostly obsolete?

I find that it's better to spam javelins than any missile ships, because if ships get bogged down in a big blob(which often happens because good luck micromanaging 20 individual ships), Velites with fire missiles will just tear apart any other ship.
They also ram just as well.

1 on 1, it's better with a melee ship, but once you have a lot of javelins, it seems that melee becomes suicide :O

[Korburss]

By the way, is it just me or are melee ships mostly obsolete?

I find that it's better to spam javelins than any missile ships, because if ships get bogged down in a big blob(which often happens because good luck micromanaging 20 individual ships), Velites with fire missiles will just tear apart any other ship.
They also ram just as well.

1 on 1, it's better with a melee ship, but once you have a lot of javelins, it seems that melee becomes suicide :O

That happens forcefully in my campaigns, the AI spams ranged ships and obsoletes melee.

[nameless]

@SinerAthin. Personally I think the Assault ships should have some "fire resistance" trait and health buffs in order to allow them to close in and do their killing work. Naval battles do require a lot of micromanaging. I don't know how the hell the Ancient world did it back then. Artillery ships require micromanaging because their fire arc is extremely narrow so you have to direct them yourself and that's where the velite ships come into play as they force the AI to focus on them.

[Langer Kerl]

So far I liked a combination of artillery ships guarded by strong melee ships. The melee ships form a wall, lock down enemies, can fend of a boarding attack, withstand a ram and ram enemies themselves if they have to while artillery ships do the damage from the back. Any rare foe that doesnt get locked down gets focus fired and sinks quickly. It is not neccesarily "more" effective than a fleet of flaming javelins in a straight on naval battle, but it still works really well. The risk of getting overwhelmed in a boarding fight is extremely low, and, in my eyes the greatest benefit, a fleet of such composition is a really effective amphibious force suited to take coastal settlements. The ballistas shell the defenders (and possibly the city walls) while the heavy marines land on the beaches and storm the breaches. I keep snatching regions this way to add to my empire or simply make them my vassals. And a joint operation of a land army that storms a city bombarded by sea while numerous heavy reinforcements are landing around- and inside the city is equally epic and effective.

I dont think I could do that with skirmisher (velites) marines^^

[Downtown1]

Langer that's a great idea, I'm going to have to try using the fleets themselves as an invasion force.

I do think the civil war mechanics need a bit of a tweak, spawning a bunch of armies and no navies, then sending all of your armies via transport fleets.. not a good idea. In my game I had a much weaker navy but I was still able to take out 2 full stacks just from navy alone instead of fighting them out on land where they would've had an advantage.

[bzhou]

Langer that's a great idea, I'm going to have to try using the fleets themselves as an invasion force.

I do think the civil war mechanics need a bit of a tweak, spawning a bunch of armies and no navies, then sending all of your armies via transport fleets.. not a good idea. In my game I had a much weaker navy but I was still able to take out 2 full stacks just from navy alone instead of fighting them out on land where they would've had an advantage.

I had 9 armies/6 fleets spawn on legendary, so I don't know what's up with that. Granted, they took Karalis (island). <3 autoresolve.

[NavyBee]

I do think the civil war mechanics need a bit of a tweak, spawning a bunch of armies and no navies, then sending all of your armies via transport fleets.. not a good idea. In my game I had a much weaker navy but I was still able to take out 2 full stacks just from navy alone instead of fighting them out on land where they would've had an advantage.

Playing Carthage on patch 2, I got my first civil war erupting around Carthage. At first I considered myself lucky, because it were only a few stacks (maybe 12), and Carthage was surrounded by my client states whose armies would take care of the loyalists, while my fleets would stop them from escaping to Spain or Italy. I was wrong. To my surprise, both armies AND fleets were spawned. Those fleets really gave me a hard time, I had to resort to the Alexandrinian strategy to take them out. Once again, R2TW has surprised me quite positively. :-)