Need some naval combat tips

[lokk23]

So Ive looked around and the general idea seems to be just spam heavies unless you have alot of inland sea zones near you in which case you spam galleys. What ive been wondering is if theres a navy comp for a mix of heavies and trade ships, and how good each ship is. Ive had tons of battles where I have the same heavy/trade fleet but lose battles when tech/ship teir are the same and have more ships and a better admiral, and seen heavy fleets demolish galley fleets when they should have an advantage, so whats the deal with that? and how do the ships compare to each other? i know transports are bad for combat (obviously) but how will 5 trade ships handle a heavy, or 5 galleys? And what exactly is up with the ship stats for the guns and hull size, I cant seem to find out too much about those either but whats alot of any of those stats?

[Razor Feather]

There is never really a reason to mix heavy and light ships, unless you have too few heavies to fill your naval combat width. Light ships are faster, so sometimes using them alone in combat fleets can be helpful, but adding some light ships to a heavy ship fleet provides no combat benefit once you have enough heavies.

Naval moral and quality is very important for winning fights, and so if your enemy has a significant advantage in those areas then they can win even tech even number fights pretty easily, even if you have a better admiral.

Galleys are finiky beasts. While in inland sea, they have much more damage output than an equivalent combat width of heavies, and they also have a greater total durability, as you can have 3 times as many galleys actively participate in a fight than heavies. However, they are individually quite fragile. The end result of this is that if you have enough galleys to fill the combat width with some extra, they will trounce heavies of equal tech and quality. However, if you don't have a full width of galleys, or there are some heavies in the fleet with the galleys, they will get massacred very quickly as they won't be able to deal enough damage to the enemy to end the battle before they start losing ships, and each ship lost lowers morale which only makes the problem worse. You really do not want to mix heavies and galleys in the same fleet, as heavies always deploy first even in inland sea and then by the time the galleys get into the fight morale is already low and they all die.

Transports are actually somewhat less awful in combat than you might think. They're damage is utter garbage, but their durability is actually fairly good. If you only have a small amount of ships (ie less than combat width), including the transports in the fight will actually meaningfully help, as they keep damage of the more expensive and high firepower ships.

5 trade ships versus one heavy is probably advantage to the heavy. The heavy has less total health, but equivalent fire power, and will probably just kill one of the trade ships then leave.

5 galleys versus one heavy should favor the galleys, though the heavy will probably still get away, and it might just manage to kill a galley before doing so (naval combat is just annoying like that).

If you are in the weird situation where you need to beat light ships and heavies are not an option, then galleys beat light ships even outside inland seas. It is very unlikely to be relevant, though.

My understanding of how hullsize and cannons work is that if a ship has twice as much hull size as another, it is twice as durable, and if it has twice as many cannons, it has twice the damage. Because of how the ship types work, that is all that really matters. The galley combat bonus effectively doubles their cannons while in inland sea. Artillery fire bonuses from mil tech also buff ships, so keep that in mind when comparing fleet strengths between nations.

A very important aspect of ship stats that the game doesn't really tell you is that the speed given in the description of each ship is the tactical speed, not the strategic one. Tactical speed is almost completely irrelevant, and only effects blockading. The speed value that actually matters, strategic speed, is quite different. It is 10 for light ships, 6 for heavies and transports, and only FOUR for galleys. This makes galleys unable to catch heavy fleets, and is part of why the two should not be mixed.

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

And on the topic of Combat Width:
For naval battles it is called "Naval Engagement Width" (or something like that) and unlike land battles each side has its own width. It can make a massive difference if you have an Engagement Width of 30 (so 30 Galleys or 10 Heavies can fight at the same time) when your enemy only has 20 (only 20 Galleys or 6 Heavies can fight at the same time).

Also unlike land Combat Width Engagement Width is not a global value: Each of your fleets has an individual EW with the Admiral's Manoeuvre skill as the easiest to influence modifier.

[lokk23]

Wow guys thats super informative and exactly the kind of info i needed! I had no clue that galleys would be slower than heavies because of the bigger=better mentality but i guess that follows bigger ships=bigger sails. Also never knew that ships get to the battle at different points based on speed like reinforcing armies do in land battles. Also didnt know that ships used different amounts of engagement width, and i dont think its really shown in the UI unless i missed it. Also never thought that galleys could beat light ships even outside of inland seas, usually I just see stuff about them being absolute trash otherwise. I guess i should also ask what you guys think of naval ideas, no one seems to really think highly of them, so would they be worth taking ever?

[Razor Feather]

Naval ideas are quite good at making your navy better, the problem being that that is seldom actually necessary, at least not to the extent that naval does it. In most wars naval supremacy is entirely optional, even if quite helpful, so at the end of the day ensuring your land army is up to scratch is more important. If you want to have a super strong navy just for the fun of having a super strong navy, go for it. It should make a noticeable difference, at least. Otherwise don’t bother.

Quality ideas can be a nice alternative if you want to beef up your navy a bit, as it has a solid amount of land combat buffs alongside some naval ones.

Maritime is a reasonable option if you really want an entirely boat focused group, but want something more practical than naval. It helps you crank out more light ships, which gives income, while still providing some combat benefits. Also it has that costal repair thing, which I think is pretty nifty. Still not a terribly high tier group, but it is more consistently valuable than naval.

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

Originally posted by Razor Feather:

Naval ideas are quite good at making your navy better, the problem being that that is seldom actually necessary, at least not to the extent that naval does it. In most wars naval supremacy is entirely optional, even if quite helpful, so at the end of the day ensuring your land army is up to scratch is more important. If you want to have a super strong navy just for the fun of having a super strong navy, go for it. It should make a noticeable difference, at least. Otherwise don’t bother.
[...]

In my opinion Naval is the best military ideagroup in the game where "best" means "hardest to replace by other sources". You can get army quantity by conquering more provinces, army quality from so many different sources (and if you have enough troops and reinforce correctly you won't need superior quality).

However, naval bonuses are very hard to come by and matter a lot in naval battles.
It is very hard to win a naval battle without Naval Ideas against an enemy who has it (and even worse if he also has Maritime Ideas).

But as said, as great as they are, Naval Ideas suffer from the unimportance of naval warfare in the game and are therefore a bad choice for an ideagroup for a WC.

However, it is great fun to "roleplay" a nation like Great Britain, Japan or Malaya and take Quality, Maritime and Naval.

[Hairy]

Unless you are fighting to invade the British isles or Denmark ships are a waste of ducets.

Even light ships for trade are a bit meh these days.

[Tasty Bunny]

1. Check your naval engagement width
2. Make a fleet consist of that width/3 + 2~3 number of heavy
3. Go get some naval morale bonus, like advisor. You know, actually I think morale is most important in naval battle(provided that your composition is not hellish terrible and ship is up to date)

[lokk23]

Okay so i do think navy is important as well, obviously depends on where you are since blocking straights and transports can effectively trap armies in crappy places ( usually see this done with places like corfu) but land army is 100% the deciding factor so most people seem to say to ignore the ideas completely.

Originally posted by Tulduil Iphukiir:

Originally posted by Razor Feather:

Naval ideas are quite good at making your navy better, the problem being that that is seldom actually necessary, at least not to the extent that naval does it. In most wars naval supremacy is entirely optional, even if quite helpful, so at the end of the day ensuring your land army is up to scratch is more important. If you want to have a super strong navy just for the fun of having a super strong navy, go for it. It should make a noticeable difference, at least. Otherwise don’t bother.
[...]

In my opinion Naval is the best military ideagroup in the game where "best" means "hardest to replace by other sources". You can get army quantity by conquering more provinces, army quality from so many different sources (and if you have enough troops and reinforce correctly you won't need superior quality).

However, naval bonuses are very hard to come by and matter a lot in naval battles.
It is very hard to win a naval battle without Naval Ideas against an enemy who has it (and even worse if he also has Maritime Ideas).

But as said, as great as they are, Naval Ideas suffer from the unimportance of naval warfare in the game and are therefore a bad choice for an ideagroup for a WC.

However, it is great fun to "roleplay" a nation like Great Britain, Japan or Malaya and take Quality, Maritime and Naval.

I do feel like you make a good point about the naval bonuses having fewer sources than land army boosts, but im starting to feel they may be worth trying out sometimes.