How do naval battles work?

[Scrotum Scratcher]

how did I lose this naval battle? I am Prussia with 30 diplo tech vs milan with 29 diplo tech.

I only started to focus on building a navy the past few years to be able to compete with Britain and France. Is my low naval tradition to blame for the loss of this battle? milanese traditions/idea groups of Milan?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1678333567

Also, is there any benefit to forming Germany as the Prussian Empire? I heard that Germany only gets more accepted cultures, but I am already Empire government rank as Prussia after disbanding the HRE which accepted all germanic cultures for me. I formed Prussia with Brandenburg by the way.

[Lvl 1 Human]

RNG, the reason all battles in this game are a joke.

[White Spice]

Sea battles are similar to land battles, they have combat width meaning that not all ships are being used at the same time, I'm not an expert at naval warfare but I'd try trickling in smaller stacks of ships, e.g in 25 or 30 stacks. Also I think another reason for the loss is the galley advantage in an inland sea, heavies are good but galleys have the advantage in areas like the Mediterranean or the Baltic seas.

[Kayeka]

Well, you went with all-heavy-ships on an inland sea, while Milan had a good bunch of galleys. Galleys get double combat strength on inland seas, making them pound-for-pound stronger than heavy ships.

Galleys, transports and light ships also take up only 1 unit of your Naval Engagement width, while heavy ships take 3, meaning that for each of your heavy ships, there were three galleys figthing them.

Speaking of engagement width, you had way more ships in that fight than the engagement width allows, meaning that the vast majority of your ships were "in reserve". Ships in reserve do hardly anything, but they do still take morale damage, so if the front line fares poorly and the reserves are brought in, they'll be at quite the disadvantage.

And, yah know, dice happen. Dice always happen. Other than that, bring galleys when taking on enemies on inland seas.

[Scrotum Scratcher]

I see. What navy composition would you recommend for the 1800s for pure naval combat? Heavy ships + galleys? Are light ships any good besides boosting trade power? The only advantage they have is speed it seems. I plan on fighting the UK, France, and other european powers.

[Kayeka]

Originally posted by Scrotum Scratcher:

I see. What navy composition would you recommend for the 1800s? Heavy ships + galleys? Are frigates any good besides boosting trade power? The only advantage they have is speed it seems.

Well, frigates do have greater speed than Heavy Ships, which means they'll be a lot more efficient at blockading port, which is occasionally useful, and always profitable. So yeah, do bring some frigates.

Other than that, you want heavy ships on open sea, and galleys on inland seas. That's really all there is to it. Bring more of the right type to the battle, and all other things being equal, you'll win.

You can hover your mouse over any given sea area, and the tool tip will tell you whether it is an inland sea or not.

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

First and most important:
Naval battles can be very strange sometimes.


Morale is VERY important in naval battles, even more than in land battles.
What was your Naval Morale, what was Milan's?
Like in land battles all ships receive Morale damage. When a ship is sunk it causes extra Morale damage to all other ships, so once the sinking starts a chain reaction (more shps with low Morale=more ships sinking=even more ships with lower Morale) can easily happen which loses you the battle.

Also Admirals make a big difference (but that is probably not the case here, the Admirals are too similar).

Silly question: Were all your ships up to date? (Probably yes as Threedeckers are available at tech 25)

Did Milan have Maritime, Quality or Naval Ideas?
(Naval is probably the strongest of all Military groups when fighting a nation that has it with a nation without it. It is possible to beat an enemy that has Offensive/Defensive/Quality in a land battle without having it but it is very difficult to beat a nation that has Naval in a sea battle - it is just that naval battles are not important (in most cases) and therefore Naval ideas are normally a wasted idea group)

Galleys have a combat bonus in Inland seas (but this alone didn't cause your defeat).

In the screenshot Milan has two fleets. Reinforcing a naval battle at the right time can make a massive difference (or no difference at all). It probably does not change battle outcome if it arrives after the above mentioned chain reaction has started but can also delay the start of the chain reaction.


Naval combat width (called Naval Engagement Width (EW)) is also very important. It determine how many ship can fight, all other still take Morale damage. Unlike land battles, EW can be different for both sides. Milan might have the Splendour ability for higher EW.

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

Originally posted by Scrotum Scratcher:

I see. What navy composition would you recommend for the 1800s for pure naval combat? Heavy ships + galleys? Are light ships any good besides boosting trade power? The only advantage they have is speed it seems. I plan on fighting the UK, France, and other european powers.

If you are a worldwide power it is normally not worth keeping galleys for Inland Sea battles.
Even in Inland Seas Heavies are better than Galleys (just more expensive).

Have Heavy-only war fleets for naval battles and adjust your fighting fleet size according to your Engagement Width (as mentioned above) and reinforce or alternatively retreat with the first fleet directly after the second fleet enters the battle (don't forget the Admiral in the second fleet).

[Scrotum Scratcher]

they have admin, offensive, diplo, defnesive, economic, trade, inoovative, quality

i also have quality, not sure if trade gives ship buffs.

How are ships sent into combat? Are ships with the highest speed sent in first to fill the combat width? So galleys engage then heavy ships? are there different rows and phases similar to land battles?

[tonypa]

One interesting theory explained here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/9hs91m/naval_combat_rework_paradox_finally_realizes_the/
about why losing morale is even more important in naval battles.

[tonypa]

Originally posted by Scrotum Scratcher:

How are ships sent into combat? Are ships with the highest speed sent in first to fill the combat width? So galleys engage then heavy ships? are there different rows and phases similar to land battles?

1 - Ships are sent into combat all at once up to your Engagement Width (EW). If you have multiple types the order is Heavy >> (Light or Galley, not sure) >> Transport. Heavies are always first to fight.

So if you have fleet of 50 heavies and 50 galleys with EW of 21, only 7 Heavies are picked and will do battle, every other ship simply waits on the back. These 7 Heavies will fight enemy ships until they are sinked or all the enemy is sinked or one side runs away because of 0 morale.

Suppose 1 of your Heavies, that was engaged in the battle, is sinked. This reduces Morale of ALL your ships in the fleet, those that were fighting and every other ship too. Then new ship from the background joins the fight, but with reduced morale (because you lost a ship).

2 - The ship speed is used when moving from one Sea tile to next. The wiki also claims speed is used to check if ship can attack during your turn (against random dice I assume).

3 - I simplify naval battle to only 2 phases - you attack, enemy attacks. There are no active rows like in land battle, ships that engage currently are in one row and every ship not fighting because not enough EW, is sitting in the background.

4 - Now, in the end, there are couple of things to remember if you plan to engage in Naval Warfare:
- EW is most important
- Admiral is very important
- It is still random
- You want to invest in Maritime, Naval and Quality idea groups
- You want to play Nation with bonus to Naval Units (Denmark, England, Spain)
- If you are not one of the countries with Naval bonus and have no Naval idea groups, and you are fighting against country with bonuses, it is just better to avoid Naval battles
- You can play through most games without ever bothering Naval battles, you can have huge empires without single ship


Tulduil can explain it in more detail.

[Tasty Bunny]

That's not becuase of morale, admiral, etc etc. But it's just because of Galley.

Heavy-Heavy fleet is virtually useless in inland naval battle. You can throw your heavy with good admiral and good morale at the Galley and enjoy watching your heavies getting shredded like cabbage.

Important aspect of this is, that matters of speed. If you stop midbattle and inspect your battle status, you can see that heavy-heavy fleet don't even properly use up EW at all, due to slow speed. In one battle I sent my fleet with 36 EW, and fleet only use up 21 slot, out of 36, while Enemy galley fleet used up almost entire EW.
So it's not even 3:1 engagement, but almost 5:1. My heavy that actually made engagement got shrreded by first phase(3 day) already, health gone down from 100% -> 20~30%, while ALL enemy galleys almost didn't got scratch(above 90%)

Naval battle is really bizzare and BS now. In one game, GB took up majorca and sent large fleet(100+ heavy, 50+ frigate) to middteranian sea, and battled with Ottoderps galley fleet("5" heavy + 70+ galley). And what happened?

GB lost allmost ALL heavy and ottoderp lost "3" galley and gain 4 heavy from GB.

So much for "world most powerful" royal navy huh
Don't forget: GB has Heavy combat bonus in NI. While otto don't have any on Galley.