Several quick questions about ships

[pemmons1]

(1) After sending a ship or fleet to an activity such as escorting or attacking, how do we exit that process to do something else? Neither a right-click nor a left-click on the mouse seems to do it. Often after directing ships to such an activity, I scroll around the map and click somewhere. This sends the ships towards wherever I've clicked and they drop what they were assigned to do. This can be disastrous if one doesn't notice the mistake immediately. What I've done to exit is click on the "build" icon, but it seems like just an awkward work-around. Is there a better way?

(2) When I wish to exchange things between a ship and a warehouse, sometimes the strongbox tab appears at the bottom left of the popup window, and sometimes it doesn't. Why? Is this a bug?

(3) There are a couple of rather advanced attainments that increase the maximum number of ships you can build. What is the initial maximum? I've never yet reached it, but would gladly build more trading ships but for fear of being unable to build warships when I need them.

(4) The best item to socket in a small warship seems to be ribbed planks. Given a fleet of several small warships, only some with ribbed planks, they will be the last to be attacked. Enemies seem to attack the weakest ships first. In my experience, if the enemy fleet contains more than two ships, it is best to pull the first ship attacked out of battle immediately if at all possible. The enemy will follow it and keep attacking it until it is well out of range (and of course, the more damage it has sustained, the more slowly it moves). Unless your fleet comfortably outnumbers and outguns the enemy;s, you might well lose this ship.

My question: what are the best times and places to acquire these ribbed planks? I can never find enough.

(5) This is not really a question, but a tip. Scrolling through your inventory of ships one by one can become slow and tedious. It's quicker to use the trade-route function. Click on "add a ship" to any of your routes. This brings up a list of your ships, with the names of unassigned ships in black. Hovering the pointer over any of them shows you the ship's location on the map. It's easier for most purposes.

[some moron]

1) LMB works for me. However I do find for armies, after I use the mouse to perform an action, it's difficult to shake it off.
2) It will appear at the bottom of the warehouse not the ship, so if you select the ship first and then RMB the warehouse, the strongbox is gonna be at the bottom left of TOP trade box.
3) I never maximized it and I have 10 military ships. So you should build all the trade vessels you want. The first tier of expansion is cheap so why not do that?
4) I never use ribbed planks, what makes you think they are so good? And I think you are right that they seem to attack the weakest first, which is what I also do. So yeah making a stronger ships stronger seems only relevant when there is nothing weaker with it. Might be useful if they are solitary. Unless you are okay rebuilding small ships, that's not that big of a deal, there is no experience points to lose.
5) Do you know that "Q" will cycle through only the ships that are not assigned to a route?
Actually this isn't that good and would be WAY better if it was "all ships not currently active, assigned route or not", but oh well.

[pemmons1]

Thanks, I'd forgotten about the "Q" cycle possibility. Guess I'd better review all the hot keys set up. Long ago I changed the default "Y" to "Z" for rotating the map around. It's right next to "X", so it's more convenient and corresponds to other games.

I just discovered that the popup box for building ships shows the number of ships existing and the maximum, for instance 7/23. The maximum number grows gradually with population.

You're too humble with your name. If you're a moron, then I must be an imbecile. ;-)

[some moron]

lol I made this name for Modern Warfare so it would read "You have been killed by some moron"

Ooh I didn't know about the total number of ships, I'd just never maxed it out.
Maybe I changed my defaults, there's a key for All ships, unassigned ships, troops, ports, I find them handy.

As for the ship buffs, for my trading ships I use the +20 sails and the repair + less-reduced-speed.

For my attack ships I use +30 attack, and keep in the ship a +10 damage + medium repair, or load them both if there is space. That way I am all attack and no defense, so the planks aren't necessary. If a ship takes half damage I send it out of combat and put on the repair dude.

I haven't built a historical port since the campaign, I'll have to try one. It sounds like a central warehouse. I thought it was too expensive maintenance, but I think I end up paying the same thing with storages etc. I'll have to try one now. And even if it does cost, as you say, it's worth it if it reduces micromanagement. Thanks for the tips!

[pemmons1]

My favorite trading ship is the oriental caravel. It takes awhile before we're advanced enough to build it, and the price is high. But it is relatively fast, low-maintenance, and has two sockets. Installing +20% or +25% sails in both sockets makes them really zippy. They can outrun enemies and win speed-based quests with no problem. One then wants to build piers to keep them from waiting in harbors. Otherwise they can spend a good fraction of their time doing nothing.

I once raced two of these caravels with the same socket configuration (both empty as I recall). One ship was fully loaded with cargo and the other empty. The loaded ship was only about 5-10% slower from what I could tell. So I concluded that giving the ship another 20% speed boost with a second sail was better than a crewman reducing slowdown.

The silver flag ship might be different. Slowdown when fully loaded seems significant. I guess I should time it against itself somehow, once empty and once fully loaded.

I don't know about other ships, because I avoid building more than one or two.

I wonder some cargo products, such as iron, are heavier than others. More experimentation might be interesting.

As I remember, the historic warehouse maintenance is 300 while a-building and drops to 150 when complete. That is still a lot, but the wiki assures us that is the most economical storage per ton. I was delighted with the management changes that having it allowed me to make, especially when the main island is in a fairly central position on the map. In this game I'm making it a higher priority to build one. It may even be possible (once the requirements for building one have been met) to build a second one on another island. Will see about that.

[some moron]

Yes when I realized all the benefits of the caravel I convert entirely to that as well. However I do use the reduced slowdown but not for that, but for the repair. Because I don't spend the money to make peace with the pirates so they are always attacked so I always need repair. I think I'll try your technique maybe with a repair crane on only the main island, and any boats that don't go to main will need the repair crewman. I wish there was a guy for speeding up "servicing boat".
Interesting that the slowdown isn't that much. Mostly that would be relevant for me when they are being damaged and trying to escape. I've also wondered if having like scrolls as cargo slows it down, since you only have like 1 and they aren't really cargo. Also I wondered whether half a load of spice slows down less than a full load.

Wow that historical takes a LONG time to build. I guess I'll have to build it sooner in next game to get any use of it. Funny thing about this game is these three wonders, I feel like by the time you can build them you don't need them anymore. I've begun building two large mosques so I expect you'll be able to build a second historical.

[pemmons1]

Just did another speed test between a caravel and a large oriental trading ship, both with two top-quality sails and empty holds. The large oriental trading ship is slightly faster. One might bear this in mind for time-sensitive quests.

Another advantage in these circumstances is that the large oriental trading ship has some armaments. Late in the game, these raced delivery quests often involve evading enemy warships, and a caravel could get into trouble without military support nearby. I've lucked out with a beautiful map whose largest island is near the center and have played this map several times. I've put three harbormasters docks around the island in addition to the initial warehouse. This enables me routinely to take a ship from the source during such a quest to the nearest dock on this island, drop off the cargo to be delivered, and have another ship immediately pick it up from a dock close to the destination. Doing this not only saves time but outwits enemy ships.

As I've already observed, cargo does not slow oriental ships down very much. I also raced an empty caravel against a fully loaded (5 holds with 75 pieces of cargo each) large oriental trading ship. In this case, the speed of the two ships was identical.

I still think that for most purposes, the caravel is a better deal. Large ships take up two ship slots each towards your maximum available, and maintenance costs are much higher. The increased number of holds can simplify your trade-route network when many types of cargo must be transferred between islands. But having a single ship shuttle between islands more than once in a single route, each time carrying different set of cargos, seems to work fine as long as you remain vigilant that there is space to drop all cargos off. Otherwise the ship will become full and unable to deal with the cargo assigned to it for the second run.

[some moron]

I agree. Ideally is many ships, each with their own dedicated use such that when they DO become full, it's not a problem for that ship (though you may need to add a sales stop, or do something else with the cargo on the island). Yes I think many small ships is preferable to fewer larger ships. However they can fill up the wharfs. But with the extra cash you can build additional wharfs and problem solved.

For the races, my racing ship I use the "reduced damage slowdown". However I also send some attack ships to attack and slow the enemy. If they get damage it's okay because I can withdraw them and they are not in the race. Sorta reminds me of the movie "Kansas City Bomber" which I am watching as I write this.