Heavy ships versus galleys?

[Walder]

Hello, i am playing as Shimazu and i am about to declare war on Ming, he has around 2 times more heavy ships than i do, whereas i have 2 times more galleys than them.

Even though the battle will happen in an inland sea i am still anxious, should i pump up more heavy ships or am i fine to go?

[tonypa]

I don't think even inland sea bonus makes galleys EQUAL to heavy ships. You would still need much more galleys compared to the enemy heavies.

But it is not just about plain number of ships, some ideas and techs give bonus to ships, as do admirals. Is your diplo tech equal?

[Zornvel]

I can tell you from the fight vs the ottos Heavys destroys Galleys easy even in 1:3 ration in the inland sea. Heavy is allway king.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

In inland seas, for god sake use galleys

[tonypa]

The point of Galleys is that they are cheap, meaning you should have 3 to 4 times more and in the inland sea you would have spent less gold then on heavy ships. They are not able to fight heavy ships even on 2 to 1 ratio.

[tonypa]

Aw, you know me :)

[GrandpapaStalin]

heavies are dads, if you ever build a navy for fighting just make it them

[c00lizz]

Galleys would be better if morale wasn't a thing. Unfortunately it is so even if you MASSIVELY outnumber the heavy ships they will kill far, far, FAR more of your galleys than you will kill of their ships to the point where it doesn't actually matter if you win the battle or not, you will lose the war.

Galleys are purely for the early game and even then, they are pretty useless outside of specific regions and only with specific playstyles. If you intend on having sort of naval game then they should be replaced as soon as you can afford it.

[Tasty Bunny]

I usually use galley on pirate hunt mission of mediterranean and when start war with otto place them under strike fleet of heavy ship

[Fellini_Fiend]

Just build heavies. Heavies are always superior to galleys. Also you don't necessarily have to win the battles. If you can manage to destroy a few galleys but lose 0 heavies then get out of the battles with a loss and dock up for a few months and then strike them once again. Believe me, you will annihilate their galleys here and there and they will end up having less ships than you and then you have naval superiority. This strategy works great against the Ottomans. Especially since they tend to have like 20 fleets but each fleet having maybe 10-13 in them. You can fight one of those fleets and do good damage but then when the rest of their navy reinforces you retreat out of their having destroyed a handful of galleys while you lose none. Just rinse and repeat until you have a superior navy.