Whats going on with barbarian ships?

[Menulo]

Hey there,

I am kinda confused with barbarian naval combat, since they cant ram by the looks of it. What is their point over just having transport ships with troops?

the auto resolve gave me 55% win ratio, with 9 (big) naval ships vs a full stack of troops. with the greeks this would be fine, since as long as you dont get boarded you can ram those weak transports to the bottom of the sea no problem.

To my shock however my troops could only board... and 120 fierce swords vs 300 on a transport is not something they can win :/ though they have twice the upkeep as normal fierce swords.

I understand that the barbs never really had ramming ships, but at this point there is no use for naval ships wat so ever. might as wel just use land troops.

Am i missing something here?
Anyhow, i love 1.0 so far. this is only a minor problem i am having

[Krixux]

had similar with the best badazz admiral ship, 2 ballista ships , 2 fire pot hastate (late) and 5 hermiola (?name?) missiles (the velites naval ship anyway. Total 10 war fleet ships, with lvl 2 tradition (from various smallish raiding enemy fleets)

Attacked a Nori invasion force of 8 land army on transport ships ...
And since me truly deeply sux in naval warfare, I relay on auto-resolve

Guess what = me crushing defeat = really ???

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Barbarians aren't meant to have big naval battles. Just use them to raid coastal cities, and use transports to get them from point A to point B.

You're not missing anything, it's working how it was designed to work.

[Menulo]

Barbarians aren't meant to have big naval battles. Just use them to raid coastal cities, and use transports to get them from point A to point B.

You're not missing anything, it's working how it was designed to work.

Wel fair enough, but whats the point of having a 330 cost unit with a big strong ship (i thought) and 120 fierce swords. when a units of 300 swords cost 160 per turn, and can board ships just a well as the expensive one.

to clarify, auto resolve could win this fight. i would lose 70% of my troops/ships. however when you fight on map, there is just no chance on gods green earth that you could win.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Prices and units will be overhauled come 1.1.

Right now I suppose my advise for you would be to not bother with the dedicated naval units.

If you have an unavoidable need to combat an enemy at sea. Use the small raiding ships with ranged units to harass and whittle down the enemy.

Some of the barbarian patrol ships have slingers on them if I recall correctly.

Use transports for melee units, since you get a bigger number. And when you're versing other barbarians at sea, the bigger number of troops on the transports will put you either at parity or give you an advantage.