Winning Fleet Makeup

[Walter Warlimont]

Whats a winning 20 ship fleet makeup?

[Walter Warlimont]

rome

[ashunsley]

Are we talking custom battles or in campaign? I'm relatively new to the game but it seems it all depends on what you do with the fleet.
If you want to optimize it for naval battles, the artillery ships just seem useless to me. They only get a few shots off- and miss- before the fleets get stuck in melee. But artillery can be useful in taking settlements by amphibious assault.
You almost can't go wrong with ramming. I send ships in pairs against the closest enemy vessel- the enemy vessel will force a head on collision with one of my ships, leaving my second ship to get a free hit. If the enemy is still standing, keep backing up and ramming until it sinks, then quickly extricate your survivors, since they're at their most vulnerable when they're dead in the water. Any vessel can ram, but support and artillery ships are highly vulnerable to being grappled and boarded in response.

Enemy transports and barb ships can grapple and board you, but they're very weak and fragile in a ramming contest.

If you have a faction that can build full-strength royal peltast or theuros spear assault ships, there's really nothing they can't do. They're very expensive to maintain, but in pure naval battles they will throw their pila before they ram or board enemy vessels. and a fleet of them can take lightly defended coastal settlements all on their own. Even if it's a provincial capital, there's generally a dock where you can land inside the walls- though it's helpful to have arty or missile support ships to clear the landing zone first.

[Walter Warlimont]

thanks for the large amount of info.. I'll look over this. I usually just auto-resolve battles. and fleet to fleet naval battles

[Yews]

The sturdiest ships with the meanest mofos on board. Naval combat is pretty much land combat cranked up to 12; everyone is a glass cannon, and everyone moves like chariots. The best way to deal with the enemy is ramming everything that moves straight to Neptune, but your warriors get no experience like that, which means that when they get boarded (yes, when, because it eventually happens no matter what), they get massacred. So ideally you want to board everyone, be able to defeat the enemy you board, and also not get rammed straight to Neptune while at it. So the answer is, the largest ships you can get, with the best warriors on the deck, are what you want. But, being outnumbered is exceptionally dangerous in naval battles, so if the choice is a giant melee ship vs. a bunch of skirmisher boats, the answer is usually the skirmisher boats, because they can do the thousand cuts thing whereas a giant melee ship locked in boarding is an immobile ship that cannot do anything and is open to ramming and all sorts of mischief.

You might also want to keep a bunch of skirmisher ships behind your giant melee juggernauts and sail around and throw missiles at the enemy while your melee fighters are boarding them, if you can afford that stuff.

P. S. Naval battles are a microcontrol nightmare. Keep an eye on every single ship and control its every move at all times, especially if you choose to go for the ramming solution. Ram, order to move somewhere (anywhere but NOT behind) immediately after contact, order to ram immediately after the ship starts carrying out the movement order. The moment you forget about your ship, it sinks.

[Walter Warlimont]

'Naval battles are a microcontrol nightmare'
that's it in a nutshell. I get overwhelmed with so many ships.
I only do ;auto resolve'. So I generally build 20 ship fleets with a
even mix of all the types available

[Cowabunga73]

You don't really need 20 ships if you're fighting the AI, I find 13-15 is enough without being too much to juggle (I do use slow motion and pause). If 15, 8 artillery ships in the centre, and 6 assault / fast support ships, 3 on each side with the admiral sat in the middle of the line.

Your artillery ships are your capital ships and will wreck anything that comes at them provided 1) you use regular not flaming ammo (the accuracy penalty is harshly punitive) and 2) you send your fast support ships towards the end of the approaching enemy lines. The AI will obligingly react to the nearest ships (your fast raiding ships acting as pawn sacrifices) and peel off towards them, presenting a flank view for your artillery ships to broadside. Timing comes with practice: too soon and the enemy are out of range of your artillery, too late and they are on top of you before you've done enough damage. With the enemy attack disrupted and in disarray you can use your assault ships to ram any bolters that get too close to your artillery ships and sink the rest at your leisure.

The AI rarely if ever puts a fleet of more than 10 ships together so this should work fine in all circumstances. If it embarks a garrison or a full 20 stack army to attack your fleet - and it does - the same tactic works with the troop transports being even more fragile for both artillery or ram damage (at a pinch your artillery ships can ram troop transports that get through to them).

With very little ramming, no boarding and only a few of your ships manoeuvring while the artillery stay put and bombard the enemy, the micro-management aspect is reduced. I typically lose 1-2 of the support ships (which are easily replaced) and never an artillery ship. Do use slow-mo and pause to help manage what ships are doing and don't use flaming ammo on artillery ships - the first time I followed that advice I was astonished by how they went from lame to highly effective and I've never looked back.

[Majpalmer]

I also used to auto-resolve naval battles. THAT WAS A MISTAKE! The AR% you get is usually totally off. I'd fight battle that the AR% gave me a slim chance and win big. So fight them out.

I go with ramming ships. Most of the naval battles I fight end up being fleets of transports. Their only strength is to board. So don't board; RAM!. One shot and they go down.

[Walter Warlimont]

which are the ramming type ships?

[ashunsley]

If there's a pointy bit in front it can ram.

Most barbarian ships (the ones that look like viking longships) either can't ram or do a negligible amount of damage in a ram attack. Barb ships are also slow, on the campaign map and in combat.

If you embark an army (with or without a naval escort), any land units will ride in transports. Transports are slow and can't ram, though they can grapple and board.

Missile troops can fire from transports. It's a viable tactic to stack some army slingers with your navy for additional fire support. I generally don't because 1) I have better things to do with my armies and 2) I don't need to. But if you're fighting a mostly naval war against a strong naval power, it's an option.

I agree with the other advice above. I'd just add that in campaign- until the mid-late game when money is no longer an issue- the amount of money you spend on maintenance is a critical factor. The larger ships are some of the most expensive units in the game to maintain, other than elite mercenaries. Every turn they're just sitting in port they're a drain on your resources- working for the enemy. That means the cheaper units are a better value, if you are still able to win with them.

I tend *not* to max out my navies. Apart from the fact that they're expensive, it's useful to keep at least one slot open so you can plop a fleet down at any random port in an emergency. Fleets actually help with public order, as armies do, and they can reinforce the city's garrison if it's invaded.

There's another advantage of keeping your fleet below 20 units. You can hire mercenaries to bulk up right before a fight, and then disband them immediately when the fight is over. That works with land battles as well- mercenaries are cheap to raise but expensive to maintain, so treat them like modern companies treat temp workers. Though beware, everyone in the region is recruiting from the same base of mercenaries, and the pool takes a while to recover.

The hemiolas and dieres are fragile, but cheap and fast. You can use them like cavalry to attack the enemy flanks. That includes the fire pot dieres. I've never noticed the fire pots doing anything useful, but the ships themselves are nimble little rammers.

[Majpalmer]

Agree! Agree! Agree! Though you can't find mercenaries everywhere.