controls for naval battles?

[_ROGUE_ALBAYANO_]

got into my first naval battle on the campaign where you fight off pirates but i do not know the controls i just watched as my ships attack other ships.can anyone tell how to control my ships?

[Darinthal]

When attacking any convoy your sailors only use Swords no Muskets at all. Stack your fleet with equivilent of 5 combat vessels worth of Swords (Or max them if you have spare cash). Max the Chain and Grape shot.

Auto attacking convoys will not allow you to capture ships. Selling captured ships is the serious Cash Crop in PR3.

When attacking manually I normally set my first ship to Chain Shot, second ship to Grape Shot then third ship to Chain Shot which is the one I am controlling. Or switch back to the first ship as soon as you can since this is invariably the biggest ship. Set the AI to attack your target and pick off the biggest enemy. Kill off all its sails and troops, switch to Grape shot on your ship once the sails are all gone or almost all gone. Once the Crew are crippled then board the ship. Then the second biggest then third biggest. In the end you have 3 more ships to add to your fleet to sell or use.

[ExCuSe_Me]

Wow thanks for the info, i didn't know that.

[Darinthal]

Just a side note.
Explosive Barrels can be very helpful to end a battle if you are starting to lose too heavily. In PR3 you can't flee from battle once in it. You can surrender but that loses you the fleet.

To use Explosive Barrels the E button drops a barrel. Generally 4 will sink most ships. Of course you need the enemy ship to sail over them to take the damage. Best use is have the enemy ship trailing you and drop them right in their path. The other option is lay them right across the enemy ships path so they will hit at least one of them. Repeat the laying of the barrels until they sink the enemy ships.

[Lord Bludgeon]

I agree with your strategy Darinthal. That is the classic approach that works so well in other games like this. Too bad it's broken here. Chain shot doesn't hardly slow them down at all... in fact, the closer you get to beating them the faster and nimbler your target ship becomes regardless of their sail condition. I haven't managed to kill enough crew to find out if that has any effect yet as the AI determines that a sweeping broadside of grapeshot from point blank range only kills 1 crew member while the salvo from their roundshot takes 20 points off of my hull... I encountered the same issues in Patrician 4, only much worse as the sail percentage and crew compliment have NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on your target's performance.

Not to mention there is no indication to judge windspeed, direction, or your speed. You have no idea what the wind is doing until you make a wrong turn and stop dead at the worst possible moment. (at least Pat 4 had clouds to judge by). No indication of your sail condition (reefed or full), and I had to access the Control Options menu to even find the buttons for Reefing or Ejecting the Powder Kegs (actually just dropping...Too bad they didn't have catapults back then to hurl them with... oh, wait...) . I still haven't found a button to un-reef...

And be prepared to lose any ships you aren't personally controlling... the AI is a complete idiot unless it's working Against you.

Maybe things get better once you can afford big bruising ships to overpower your opponents... but as far as beating them with finesse you are S.O.L .as the AI makes all the decisions. Need a switch to turn combat off. Or fix the combat system. I don't care which. Hopefully they will figure this all out for PR4, but I won't be paying full price for it just to find out.

[Darinthal]

Holding down Q draws up your sails. Letting go releases them again.

Chain does destroy sails. They will always be able to move but you can run rings around them when their sails are at 0.

Grape Shot kills crew. Despite there being 0 crew they will still be able to fire their cannons.

When there is 0 crew you can board the ship with 0 casualties from boarding action.

E drops explosive barrels. 4 will cripple or even sink a Ship of the Line.

There is an indication of wind on the HUD in the form of a compass direction.

[Lord Bludgeon]

Much obliged, Darinthal. Found everything but the compass, but I read elsewhere that you can just watch the pennants. I'm getting the hang of it, it's just more combat-focused than I would expect for a trading game. Doing the adventure campaign now and What a damned shameful waste of resources. Got 7 fleets blockading Tampa, shouldn't be much longer if I don't run out of money.

You seem to have figured things out pretty well. I'm wondering if there is anywhere on the interface that will give you a list of your businesses/buildings and where they are? I'm thinking it would also be handy if there was a way to highlight your buildings in a town.

Looking forward to using some of these techniques on Pat 4.

[Darinthal]

Originally posted by Lord Bludgeon:

You seem to have figured things out pretty well. I'm wondering if there is anywhere on the interface that will give you a list of your businesses/buildings and where they are? I'm thinking it would also be handy if there was a way to highlight your buildings in a town.

Looking forward to using some of these techniques on Pat 4.

Ctrl highlights your businesses.

As for what your businesses are there is no way as such to find a list of what your businesses are other than checking your warehouse commodities tab showing your total manufacturing amount for the city.
However a prudent city plannner will know the amount of each manufacturing company you have in each city.
Personally things like Bricks and Lumber I build 2:1 ratio in these buildings and a house for each manufacturing company I make. Cotton, Hemp etc. I make a full building site worth of each commodity (Main site + 4 connected fields) and supporting housing (5 houses).
For things like Metal and Metal Goods I see what they require to make their product and build accordingly (Metal requires a particular amount of Wood. Lumbar Yard creates 6 Wood per cycle, Build 1 Lumbar Yard for the appropriate number of Metal foundries (4)) This will allow you to plan your manufacturing better so as to always have what you require to build whatever you need to and fulfill whatever quests you need to for faction boosts.

[Lord Bludgeon]

Actually that's a lot like what I've been doing, but I dislike needing a pen and notebook when playing a computer game as these are basic tools I would assume would be included. When you start talking about 50 businesses spread over 6 or 7 cities... I'm almost 60 and I had a LOT of fun in the '70's & 80's... I'll need to write that down. ;) It also doesn't help when the game crashes about every 2nd or 3rd time you Alt-Tab out to check something that isn't available in the game interface.

I've also noticed that I need to shut it down every couple of hours or it also crashes. And restart Steam. I assume this has something to do with the game cache.

The Ctrl tip will help immensely, thank you. The other advice is quite sound, and I appreciate your sharing it.

[Archie]

i fight battles much like darinthal but what I do differently is all my boats have chain shot?? the sail destroyers and like darinthal i set attack my target.
I do this on the most powerfull boat first .
this keeps the boats without sails effectivally stationary.
so you go and do the same with he rest.

then i set follow me and rescue all the sailers drowning as these are very scarce later in the game.
when you have all the sailors rescued then set the grape shot on all boats and attack the biggest boat first while staying near the rear of it to collect more sailors.


at first when your fleet is at level 1 in naval attack you will find the vessels do not steer very well and are to far from helping you with the main boat.
in this case set the attack mode to ai then go for the boat you can deal with the best.
later you can go through your captains and pick the best one and put him in your fighting fleet.

later on when you progress to level 5 your boats turn on a dime avoid each other and seem to be able to be more help with your first boat to destroy.

also I find you recognise which boat is which, your boats, if you have them all different.
I usually have 6 boats or more, a military frigate, a um french boat and a dutch one.

the english boats liners are good later , 3 of them , to have as many crew as possible when attacking a town. also liners take more damage.

so use the carrack, the er french boat and a military frigate.
i use the frigate to control and ai on the other 2.
the frigate turns better has a shallower draft and has powerfull guns so does lots of damage.
all this time you control 1 boat never leave it all to ai.

[Melon]

The Naval Battle AI is total Garbage in this Game. When i switch through my ships and tell them what to do (for example to sail in one direction so they cant sink it and then switch to another ship the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ AI makes that ship go back into Battle .. this is so frustrating).

I wish there was an Option to disable the AI if you fight manually

[Archie]

in the game "rise of venice" a similar game to this one - port royale, they have a scram option.
hopefully this will be in port royale 4

[redimap]

Lots of good suggestions here.

One thing missing is in the battle screen, you can change the camera angle and direction by holding down the Alt key and moving the mouse.

You can change the battle speed with the plus and minus keys and holding down the space bar ups the speed to x10, same as in the game overview map.

Don't worry about sailors at the end of the game. You can farm them at will from incoming treasure fleets. Oh why, oh why did I not see this before. Cash and cannon-fodder.
Just make sure you have a big enough fleet to take the extra crew.
----------------------------------

I tend to use a single vessel to have my battles. This is because i'm a miser and I keep trying to get to Ruler Master of The Seas in minimum time.

The one ship strategy is simple:
Use your fastest/most maneuverable ship as your one battle ship (or have multiples of it in your convoy). Then have at least 3 other ships in your convoy. This allows you to overfill your convoy with crew and ammo, so you can stock enough to take on all-comers, and ensure that your battle ship is fully crewed and stocked.

Fill up your chain and shot to > 500 for small pirate convoys (early game); >1100 for naval convoys (mid game); >1800 for treasure convoys (mid/late game).

Make sure you only take on convoys that are SLOWER than you. This means avoiding navy convoys until you have at least a military corvette or military frigate. You can get away with a pirate barque when the battle is close to the coast, but in the open ocean a couple of war galleons or liners will have you for breakfast.

I tend to use a liner in open water and military corvette on the coast/or attacking docked convoys and pirates.

I have used multiple ships in fights but I found that it always leads to overdamaged ships (too much time in port getting repairs == slows me down on my evil plans.

Each size ship has particular strengths and weaknesses to attack. The general rule is:

Smaller ships == More maneauverable, but easy to damage. Hang back at a distance and destroy their sails with shot, then move in behind at 3x speed and wipe out their crew.
Small ships seem to suffer from good shots from any angle.
Larger ships == Can turn fast, but lose speed fast. Non military vessels are still relatively prone to damage, although you will find that you will get more bullseyes from port or starboard than from fore or aft.
Military Vessels == Can turn, fast but lose speed fast. Can have devastating fire power. Can be surprisingly difficult to take down e.g. Caravels. Military vessels are far less vulnerable to hull damage and sail damage seems to work on a hyperbole ie. Minimal at first, leading up to bullseyes at the end. The best hit direction for liners and warships is port or starboard, and running counter to their direction. Beware their return shots, they can be showstoppers.

Finally, most important point to remember: AMMO AMMO AMMO.