Managing the Navy

[Ryeloc]

Any suggestions how people deal with this? Seems I am not using the system right as I have units somehow combining, at first I had my transports inside my strongest fleet, but then every time I move soldiers my huge fleet goes out, and I have to pay a large attrition, and also why do I have so much navy attrition?

I've found AI seems to run around with just massive 100+ ship fleets, so I'm basically copying that, but then my sailor attrition is very high.

Should I have pirate hunting and protect fleets go back to harbor during war?
If I assign 2 groups to protect trade, in the same sea zone how come they combine into a single fleet,. or it shows a fleet 4, but has like (8) behind it.

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

Any suggestions how people deal with this? Seems I am not using the system right as I have units somehow combining, at first I had my transports inside my strongest fleet, but then every time I move soldiers my huge fleet goes out

If you don't want your fighting ships moving around when you transport troops, you can separate them into a fighting fleet and a transport fleet. Just be careful that your transport fleet doesn't get caught by an enemy fleet while it's moving troops.

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

and I have to pay a large attrition, and also why do I have so much navy attrition?

Naval attrition is just something you have to reckon with for most of the game, until Diplo Tech 22. Try to keep your fleets' travel paths close to coastlines that you either own or occupy. In some cases you may need to arrange fleet basing rights with a country- or chain of countries- along the path you want your fleet to take.

Note that naval attrition isn't like land attrition; it's not about how many units you have in a 'province', it's about the fleet being outside supply range from provinces you can dock it at.

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

I've found AI seems to run around with just massive 100+ ship fleets, so I'm basically copying that, but then my sailor attrition is very high.

Fleets on missions cost a number of sailors each month as maintenance. If you have a whole lot of them and a small sailor pool you may be depleting it.

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

Should I have pirate hunting and protect fleets go back to harbor during war?

Generally best, unless you're very confident that your enemy lacks fleets that can harm them.

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

If I assign 2 groups to protect trade, in the same sea zone how come they combine into a single fleet,. or it shows a fleet 4, but has like (8) behind it.

Just practical for them to do so. No real reason to have two separate fleets doing the same thing in the same place.

[Ryeloc]

Originally posted by Malvastor:

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

Any suggestions how people deal with this? Seems I am not using the system right as I have units somehow combining, at first I had my transports inside my strongest fleet, but then every time I move soldiers my huge fleet goes out

If you don't want your fighting ships moving around when you transport troops, you can separate them into a fighting fleet and a transport fleet. Just be careful that your transport fleet doesn't get caught by an enemy fleet while it's moving troops.

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

and I have to pay a large attrition, and also why do I have so much navy attrition?

Naval attrition is just something you have to reckon with for most of the game, until Diplo Tech 22. Try to keep your fleets' travel paths close to coastlines that you either own or occupy. In some cases you may need to arrange fleet basing rights with a country- or chain of countries- along the path you want your fleet to take.

Note that naval attrition isn't like land attrition; it's not about how many units you have in a 'province', it's about the fleet being outside supply range from provinces you can dock it at.

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

I've found AI seems to run around with just massive 100+ ship fleets, so I'm basically copying that, but then my sailor attrition is very high.

Fleets on missions cost a number of sailors each month as maintenance. If you have a whole lot of them and a small sailor pool you may be depleting it.

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

Should I have pirate hunting and protect fleets go back to harbor during war?

Generally best, unless you're very confident that your enemy lacks fleets that can harm them.

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

If I assign 2 groups to protect trade, in the same sea zone how come they combine into a single fleet,. or it shows a fleet 4, but has like (8) behind it.

Just practical for them to do so. No real reason to have two separate fleets doing the same thing in the same place.

Thanks so much! How can I get more sailors a month, currently im in 1790, and as Spain i'm getting about 350.. When I send my 100 ship fleet out, I lose like 500 sailors a month.

[Malvastor]

Conquer more coastal provinces, and if you like build some docks/drydocks or impressment offices.

That said though, you don't necessarily need that many ships out on protect trade/hunt pirates missions. If you're Spain, you ultimately want to be conquering or colonizing everything in the trade nodes relevant to you anyhow. In real life trade power is about naval power and sea dominance, but in EU4 it's about controlling land-based Centers of Trade.

[MasterYi]

There are only 2 non-coastal (10% attrition) sea tiles in the Atlantic ocean that you have to go through but as long as u make it out of that sea tile before the month tick you will not suffer the attrition.

Instead of auto-pathing, you can shift + right click the exact path u want ur navy to take, so just hug the coast, this will only increase ur travel time by 1 month at most when travelling from Europe to Asia.

[bri]

Originally posted by MasterYi:

There are only 2 non-coastal (10% attrition) sea tiles in the Atlantic ocean that you have to go through but as long as u make it out of that sea tile before the month tick you will not suffer the attrition.

This is sort of true but not exactly. They changed it so you will take an attrition hit as soon as you enter an ocean (or out of range coastal) sea tile in addition to taking one at the end of the month if you are still subject to taking attrition. Thus you can avoid the double whammy with proper timing but you're always going to take a hit for moving through.

[Ryeloc]

Still having a hard time understanding things the navy units do. I went to war with Great Britain, I had 2 fleets, once hunting enemy fleets in the Caribbean and one hunting enemy fleets in the north Atlantic. They have separate admirals, so once I did that now my Caribbean fleet says it has 40 ships, and 100 enroute. What I know is my main battle fleet in the north atlantic has 100 ships. So why does my Caribbean fleet say my North Atlantic fleet ships are apparently enroute?

Cause it says 40 light ships, but then it says (40) in parenthesis, and also (60) in parentheses on the heavy ships.

So confusing, feels like the system is changing my ships around and its causing so much confusion.

For example my Caribbean fleet had 40 light ships, and somehow it has 42 now... and 1 transport which it never had before.

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

Still having a hard time understanding things the navy units do. I went to war with Great Britain, I had 2 fleets, once hunting enemy fleets in the Caribbean and one hunting enemy fleets in the north Atlantic. They have separate admirals, so once I did that

Sorry, once you did what? Do you mean once you sent them to hunt enemy fleets?

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

now my Caribbean fleet says it has 40 ships, and 100 enroute. What I know is my main battle fleet in the north atlantic has 100 ships. So why does my Caribbean fleet say my North Atlantic fleet ships are apparently enroute?

Cause it says 40 light ships, but then it says (40) in parenthesis, and also (60) in parentheses on the heavy ships.

So confusing, feels like the system is changing my ships around and its causing so much confusion.

For example my Caribbean fleet had 40 light ships, and somehow it has 42 now... and 1 transport which it never had before.

Sounds like you might accidentally put in a build order, maybe. That's usually what those parentheses would indicate- the target number the fleet is building towards.

The extra ships could either be the first constructed, or your fleet ran into a British fleet and captured a couple ships in the ensuing action.

I don't know what other players do, but personally I never set fleets to automatically hunt the enemy. I like to know exactly where they are and where they're going, to make sure they don't give battle under dumb conditions.

[Medicles]

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

For example my Caribbean fleet had 40 light ships, and somehow it has 42 now... and 1 transport which it never had before.

Your fleet has a chance of capturing enemy ships after a battle.

Light ships are also rather sub-optimal for fighting and better used for protecting trade or pirating. Fighting should be done with heavy ships and galleys, depending on where you are mostly fighting, because galleys get a huge bonus in inland sea tiles. Look up the EU4 wiki to see which ones are inland sea tiles.

Naval engangement width is also important. You can see your current engangement width in your military window. It determines how many ships will fight in a battle. So if you have a fleet of like 40 galleys but your engangement width is 32, then only 32 of the 40 will actually attack during a battle. Every individual ship takes up one space in the engangement width except heavy ships, which take up three each. So a fleet consisting of 10 heavy ships and 2 galleys has an equal engangement width as a fleet of 32 galleys.

[Ryeloc]

Originally posted by Malvastor:

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

Still having a hard time understanding things the navy units do. I went to war with Great Britain, I had 2 fleets, once hunting enemy fleets in the Caribbean and one hunting enemy fleets in the north Atlantic. They have separate admirals, so once I did that

Sorry, once you did what? Do you mean once you sent them to hunt enemy fleets?

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

now my Caribbean fleet says it has 40 ships, and 100 enroute. What I know is my main battle fleet in the north atlantic has 100 ships. So why does my Caribbean fleet say my North Atlantic fleet ships are apparently enroute?

Cause it says 40 light ships, but then it says (40) in parenthesis, and also (60) in parentheses on the heavy ships.

So confusing, feels like the system is changing my ships around and its causing so much confusion.

For example my Caribbean fleet had 40 light ships, and somehow it has 42 now... and 1 transport which it never had before.

Sounds like you might accidentally put in a build order, maybe. That's usually what those parentheses would indicate- the target number the fleet is building towards.

The extra ships could either be the first constructed, or your fleet ran into a British fleet and captured a couple ships in the ensuing action.

I don't know what other players do, but personally I never set fleets to automatically hunt the enemy. I like to know exactly where they are and where they're going, to make sure they don't give battle under dumb conditions.

No I didn't accidentally do a build order, you think I accidentally built 100 ships? Come on man, no way.

As I said, I had 2 separate fleets, one assigned to hunt Enemy Fleets in Caribbean and another to hunt Enemy Fleets in North Atlantic. Then my Caribbean fleet all of a SUDDEN said 40 (Light Ships) + 100 enroute... It's just so ironic how the numbers match exactly what my North Atlantic fleet has.

Either way, one doesn't accidentally do a 100 ship build order.

[Ryeloc]

Originally posted by Medicles:

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

For example my Caribbean fleet had 40 light ships, and somehow it has 42 now... and 1 transport which it never had before.

Your fleet has a chance of capturing enemy ships after a battle.

Light ships are also rather sub-optimal for fighting and better used for protecting trade or pirating. Fighting should be done with heavy ships and galleys, depending on where you are mostly fighting, because galleys get a huge bonus in inland sea tiles. Look up the EU4 wiki to see which ones are inland sea tiles.

Naval engangement width is also important. You can see your current engangement width in your military window. It determines how many ships will fight in a battle. So if you have a fleet of like 40 galleys but your engangement width is 32, then only 32 of the 40 will actually attack during a battle. Every individual ship takes up one space in the engangement width except heavy ships, which take up three each. So a fleet consisting of 10 heavy ships and 2 galleys has an equal engangement width as a fleet of 32 galleys.

Wouldn't the ships over the combat width of the navy stand in reserves and move in when a ship is damaged? I see the AI using 100-200 ship fleets. At year 1800 my width says its 90.

I was using my light ships like warships, so that's good to know I will get rid of those and use the galleys instead.

[Medicles]

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

Wouldn't the ships over the combat width of the navy stand in reserves and move in when a ship is damaged? I see the AI using 100-200 ship fleets. At year 1800 my width says its 90.

I was using my light ships like warships, so that's good to know I will get rid of those and use the galleys instead.

Aye, they do stand in reserve and would replace destroyed ships, but also take morale damage when in reserve without actually doing damage. Thats why its better to have a second fleet nearby to manually add new ships into the battle.

I highly suggest to not copy what the AI is doing ever. The game is too complex for the AI to work out properly and efficiently.

[Ryeloc]

Originally posted by Medicles:

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

Wouldn't the ships over the combat width of the navy stand in reserves and move in when a ship is damaged? I see the AI using 100-200 ship fleets. At year 1800 my width says its 90.

I was using my light ships like warships, so that's good to know I will get rid of those and use the galleys instead.

Aye, they do stand in reserve and would replace destroyed ships, but also take morale damage when in reserve without actually doing damage. Thats why its better to have a second fleet nearby to manually add new ships into the battle.

I highly suggest to not copy what the AI is doing ever. The game is too complex for the AI to work out properly and efficiently.

Yeah that makes sense, I was just playing on 3 speed, and it gets going so fast when your fighting in North America and throughout France and dealing with British Fleets in North Atlantic, and Mediterranean, and Caribbean hard to manage specific fights. So I just kind of lumped it into a "mega" fleet per zone.

[Medicles]

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

Yeah that makes sense, I was just playing on 3 speed, and it gets going so fast when your fighting in North America and throughout France and dealing with British Fleets in North Atlantic, and Mediterranean, and Caribbean hard to manage specific fights. So I just kind of lumped it into a "mega" fleet per zone.

Micromanaging is indeed a huge part of the game and the Space key (which pauses the game) is your best friend. Though naval is worse than land fighting and generally seen as terrible and worthless, which is also one of the reasons why the ideas related to naval stuff are seen as terrible and worthless.

If you arent in a situation where you really need your fleet to win a war, like when you need to block or free up a straight (Castile to Morocco, Ottoman Balkan to Ottoman Anatolia, fighting Denmark), then its usually not worth caring about. Of course its also about planning, like not shipping all of your armies to America and then get suddenly attacked by France just to be stuck in America because Frances fleet is stronger than yours (an example of mistkaes i did when i started playing the game).

[Ryeloc]

Originally posted by Medicles:

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

Yeah that makes sense, I was just playing on 3 speed, and it gets going so fast when your fighting in North America and throughout France and dealing with British Fleets in North Atlantic, and Mediterranean, and Caribbean hard to manage specific fights. So I just kind of lumped it into a "mega" fleet per zone.

Micromanaging is indeed a huge part of the game and the Space key (which pauses the game) is your best friend. Though naval is worse than land fighting and generally seen as terrible and worthless, which is also one of the reasons why the ideas related to naval stuff are seen as terrible and worthless.

If you arent in a situation where you really need your fleet to win a war, like when you need to block or free up a straight (Castile to Morocco, Ottoman Balkan to Ottoman Anatolia, fighting Denmark), then its usually not worth caring about. Of course its also about planning, like not shipping all of your armies to America and then get suddenly attacked by France just to be stuck in America because Frances fleet is stronger than yours (an example of mistkaes i did when i started playing the game).

Well lots of good information and thanks for all that info.

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by Ryeloc:

Originally posted by Malvastor:

Sorry, once you did what? Do you mean once you sent them to hunt enemy fleets?



Sounds like you might accidentally put in a build order, maybe. That's usually what those parentheses would indicate- the target number the fleet is building towards.

The extra ships could either be the first constructed, or your fleet ran into a British fleet and captured a couple ships in the ensuing action.

I don't know what other players do, but personally I never set fleets to automatically hunt the enemy. I like to know exactly where they are and where they're going, to make sure they don't give battle under dumb conditions.

No I didn't accidentally do a build order, you think I accidentally built 100 ships? Come on man, no way.

As I said, I had 2 separate fleets, one assigned to hunt Enemy Fleets in Caribbean and another to hunt Enemy Fleets in North Atlantic. Then my Caribbean fleet all of a SUDDEN said 40 (Light Ships) + 100 enroute... It's just so ironic how the numbers match exactly what my North Atlantic fleet has.

Either way, one doesn't accidentally do a 100 ship build order.

It is possible- for instance, accidentally hitting the button to conform a fleet to a template that would require building a hundred ships.

But I'm not looking at your screen, so I don't know for sure. I suggested it because usually when the numbers on a fleet read X (Y), it means the fleet currently has X ships and is building Y ships to match. Which is what made me think that your 100 ship fleet might have been built to a template, and you accidentally told your 40 ship fleet to build up to match that template.

Is your North Atlantic fleet suddenly moving to meet your Caribbean fleet? Do you see any provinces building ships, or any ships being built in your outliner?