British Navy Overpowered?

[Richon]

Playing as France, I'm at the same tech level as Britain (well, actually 1 diplo ahead of them). In a naval battle where I had 21 heavies vs their 16 heavies and 22 transports they wiped the floor with me. I took out one heavy and lost my entire fleet. Both sides had leaders. I've seen British fleets pull this off against vastly superior numbers before, too (playing as Malaya, I had 75 heavies to their 20 and lost everything, inflicting no casualties). What's going on?

[Palmirinha do Hotdog]

What ideas did you two have? Those can make a mighty difference.

[shoki]

did you upgrade your ships?

[ScareCrow]

Ugraded ships can make a huge difference and admirals you need to pay close attention to the stats of youre units

[Richon]

Neither of us had naval ideas yet. Britain had quality, but not far enough for it to affect the navy. So aside from their national ideas giving a boost to morale and a +10% to heavy combat ability, they have no advantages over me. I would have thought numerical superiority could overcome that little boost of theirs. Evidently not.

[Demon of Razgriz]

lol i know i gave up trying to match naval forces with britain when i played as france and spread across the world i couldnt even holf the english channel long enough to land troops before a 300 ship fleet decends on my less than 200 ship fleet of various heavies, frigates, and transports.

[Richon]

Originally posted by TsarAlexis:

Originally posted by {Triarii} Richon:

Neither of us had naval ideas yet. Britain had quality, but not far enough for it to affect the navy. So aside from their national ideas giving a boost to morale and a +10% to heavy combat ability, they have no advantages over me. I would have thought numerical superiority could overcome that little boost of theirs. Evidently not.

Yeah the 10% heavy bonus and probably their morale form either an advisor or their navy tradition is enough to turn the tide substantially, also they may have had better ships form technology.

I out-teched them, so I don't think they could have had better ships...

[Kagemin]

20% morale and 10% combat ability are far from a little boost. It's pretty huge, for navies probably even moreso than for land armies (since navies have less overall modifiers besides unit type).

And as was said already, upgrading your navies is very important, so if you are behind only a little that can make a big difference, since the AI often upgrades their navies as soon as they can after unlocking new ships, as far as I know.

[Richon]

Originally posted by TsarAlexis:

Originally posted by {Triarii} Richon:

I out-teched them, so I don't think they could have had better ships...

Are you sure you had the better ships? Remember that your ships will not upgrade automatically you must manually upgrade them so you may have not done so, hence the better units did not take part in the combat.

Our ships should have been even, aside from bonuses. I was only one level ahead, and that was not a level that unlocked better heavies. Maybe I'm just incredibly unlucky?

[ScareCrow]

Originally posted by MGL ⺌Ω⺌ Kasai ٭☧٭:

Britainnia rules the waves. That is all.

Yeah true, but I beat them all the time as Norway, even Scotland takes them down LOL

[Kitten Food]

Lots of replies but all of them are giving advice withouth knowing what your actual situation was, which is ok but too broad to assume what happened. The OP needs to provide the following:

-Diplomacy Tech levels of self and enemy
-Admiral stats of self and enemy
-Unlocked national ideas (how many ideas in total) of self and enemy
-How many light ships of self and enemy compared to force limit (is a good way to judge naval tradition)

Most likely, as others have said, you were out classed. Technology does not mean outclassed. It is a common misconception and is constantly thrown out there that being ahead in tech is the end-all be-all to winning. Completely false. As with anything in EU4 there are too many modifiers that are taken into account that determine success and failure.

[Richon]

Originally posted by TsarAlexis:

OR you can just do this....lol

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=373275690

I was trying to build toward that. Then the Brits took me to zero heavies in no time flat. lol.

Originally posted by Kite:

Lots of replies but all of them are giving advice withouth knowing what your actual situation was, which is ok but too broad to assume what happened. The OP needs to provide the following:

-Diplomacy Tech levels of self and enemy
-Admiral stats of self and enemy
-Unlocked national ideas (how many ideas in total) of self and enemy
-How many light ships of self and enemy compared to force limit (is a good way to judge naval tradition)

Most likely, as others have said, you were out classed. Technology does not mean outclassed. It is a common misconception and is constantly thrown out there that being ahead in tech is the end-all be-all to winning. Completely false. As with anything in EU4 there are too many modifiers that are taken into account that determine success and failure.

Diplo Tech:
Britain - 12
France - 13

Admirals:
Britain - 2/1/2
France - 1/0/1

British Ideas:
National - 6
Exploration - full
Unkown (non-military) - full
Quality - 4

French Ideas:
National - 6
Defensive - full
Exploration - full
Humanist - 5

Light Ships:
Britain - 0 (had 28 before the war, I sank them all with the help of Netherlands, and captured 2)
France - 6 (had 4 before the war, plus 2 captured from British)

I am aware that technology isn't the be-all end-all. I am just confused as to how they could out-class me if I have the same ship types as they do.

[Kitten Food]

Thanks for the info!

From what you just posted it is quite obvious as to why you lost.
Britain not only had boosts from their National Ideas, but their Admiral far out-classed yours. Admirals make a really big difference in naval warfare. Also, it is very likely their naval tradition was much higher than yours considering that using light ships (the more the better) increases your tradition each month.

While you don't really think transports matter much, they don't offensively but they do have higher durability than a light ship. Your heavies were likely targeting their transports, while their heavies were having a free-for-all vs your ships. You actually didn't outnumber them at all.

So it is simple in summary:
England had a better admiral, better navy tradition, better ships (ni's) and had some cannon fodder in the form of transports. Its not surprising you lost.

Sorry I know you want another answer, but that is the truth of the matter. At least now you know you should probably rethink fighting one of their armada's unless you actually have the upper hand. 7 ships is not an upper hand when going against a foe who excels in that area.

Good luck have fun!

[Pozz]

Originally posted by {Triarii} Richon:

Originally posted by TsarAlexis:

Yeah the 10% heavy bonus and probably their morale form either an advisor or their navy tradition is enough to turn the tide substantially, also they may have had better ships form technology.

I out-teched them, so I don't think they could have had better ships...

You need to manually upgrade your ships (those already built) when you research new ones, so if you hadn't done that, they could have better ships than you.

[Kitten Food]

Originally posted by Pozz:

You need to manually upgrade your ships (those already built) when you research new ones, so if you hadn't done that, they could have better ships than you.

This isn't really applicable to his situation as both nations had the same unit types since tech 9. They both had a couple techs to go before the heavy upgrade at tech 15. But yes it is still important to upgrade, but highly unlikely that he had not upgraded/built ships since dip tech 3.

[ScareCrow]

I think most of the guys who loose battles are actually not fighting enough wars, I usually fight a war all the time the more you fight the more tradition you get fight small insignificant forces until you can kill bigger ones but loosing is also good you get much more tradition by loosing battles. so dont be afraid of sacrificing a single stack youll gain a ton of tradition from it.