Fall of the Samurai - Naval Battles are complete trash

[00th_Eldr_BlindSniper007]

Salt incoming.

To preface, I am doing a legendary playthrough, which I acknowledge is going to exacerbate the already tiresome naval mechanic issues and AI spam.

However . . .

What is the point of copper-plated hulls when they seem to do about as well versus fire shells as wood hull ships? One or two salvos and the crew just jumps ship.

Also, is it even possible to put out fires once they start? I've had a single unit try repairing for quite some time while they were on fire (and pulled them back so they weren't getting hit while doing this) and the fire never seemed to go out.

How are you supposed to play naval battles then? Straight to ironclads?

[BlackKatana]

Originally posted by 00th_Eldr_BlindSniper007:

How are you supposed to play naval battles then? Straight to ironclads?

That's what I do and it is working. one ironclad for punching bag and a couple of iron-hulled ships for extra firepower. Also, ships can fire manually while they repair.

[easytarget]

I've never personally seen a naval battle myself, it's 100% auto for me.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Copper plated hulls don't provide protection, they state that they increase a ship's movement range.

Besides, the hull may be plated but it is still wood and wood burns.

[markeason]

The hull of the ship rarely burns.

In case people hadn't noticed, that is the part that sits in the water :)

[Eddie G]

Originally posted by markeason:

The hull of the ship rarely burns.

In case people hadn't noticed, that is the art that sits in the water :)

/true the "part" that sits in the water does not burn.

[Kōizumi Seishiro]

Naval battles in FOS are way more entertaining than in ROS at least. But best experience for me is basic campaign regardless. I somewhat agree, in FOS on legendary this can be very repetittive and to mitigate poor auto-combat outcomes one will have to fight every battle manually.

[00th_Eldr_BlindSniper007]

An update. Went to ironclads, that did help for a few turns.

For some reason, (when rolling with a two-stack ironclad fleet), the AI seems to love throwing their ships at them. I was attacked . . . maybe three or four times in one turn. My two ironclads (in port), killed maybe . . . 15-20 ships in one attack. The rest of the attacks ranged between 8 - 12 ships. Each battle took, maybe on average, 10 minutes? It feels like forever though.

That plan was going okay up until the AI rolled out there own ironclads and now I'm pretty much back to square one on naval supremacy.

[BlackKatana]

Originally posted by 00th_Eldr_BlindSniper007:

An update. Went to ironclads, that did help for a few turns.

For some reason, (when rolling with a two-stack ironclad fleet), the AI seems to love throwing their ships at them. I was attacked . . . maybe three or four times in one turn. My two ironclads (in port), killed maybe . . . 15-20 ships in one attack. The rest of the attacks ranged between 8 - 12 ships. Each battle took, maybe on average, 10 minutes? It feels like forever though.

That plan was going okay up until the AI rolled out there own ironclads and now I'm pretty much back to square one on naval supremacy.

Attacking is much easier than defending. Ai is dumb, they will be waiting until their ship is within your canon range. But the thing is you can snipe the enemy ship out of your canon range and if you use an advanced shell, you have a good chance of one-shotting an enemy ship.

Also taking a 15-20 ship with two iron clad is good enough, you just have to make more ships.

[Kōizumi Seishiro]

So wait.. are naval battles trash in this game because AI beats you? ) B/c thats how it reads now

[00th_Eldr_BlindSniper007]

Originally posted by BlackKatana:

Originally posted by 00th_Eldr_BlindSniper007:

An update. Went to ironclads, that did help for a few turns.

For some reason, (when rolling with a two-stack ironclad fleet), the AI seems to love throwing their ships at them. I was attacked . . . maybe three or four times in one turn. My two ironclads (in port), killed maybe . . . 15-20 ships in one attack. The rest of the attacks ranged between 8 - 12 ships. Each battle took, maybe on average, 10 minutes? It feels like forever though.

That plan was going okay up until the AI rolled out there own ironclads and now I'm pretty much back to square one on naval supremacy.

Attacking is much easier than defending. Ai is dumb, they will be waiting until their ship is within your canon range. But the thing is you can snipe the enemy ship out of your canon range and if you use an advanced shell, you have a good chance of one-shotting an enemy ship.

Also taking a 15-20 ship with two iron clad is good enough, you just have to make more ships.

Yeah, that is what I've learned to do with the ironclads since they have the forward facing guns with superior range. I'm still on explosive shells currently although I've started to research advanced shells given my current situation. It still works decently well, even if explosive shells keep the ironclads from fully utilizing their long range bonus as much due to the range reduction on those shells.

Originally posted by Kōizumi Seishiro:

So wait.. are naval battles trash in this game because AI beats you? ) B/c thats how it reads now

I spoke a little bit in haste, I posted that message right before I went into battle at the same port against the enemy fleet that contained the ironclad. I managed to win the battle but traded one of my two ironclads in turn, unfortunately. I'm not frustrated by the enemy beating me, they haven't beaten me since I got ironclads, it is just the overall feeling of FoTS naval combat that really grinds my gears.

Mind you, my current playthrough is on Legendary, so numbers a skewed quite a bit and you should take what I say with a grain of salt, but my complaints with naval combat are the followinig:

- (Before explosive shells) You need a larger fleet to win most pitched battles, which hampers your land army and economy in the early game.
- (After explosive shells) You might as well not even build ships, since they go up in flames so fast you'll be wasting so much money.
- Some port maps are super ♥♥♥♥♥♥ and have coastal guns in positions where terrain actually blocks their line of fire.
- You have to fight pretty much every naval battle because even stacked naval fights can do a lot of (unacceptable) damage to your ships.

Outside of the immediate naval combat battles, naval supremacy is a tiring game of cat and mouse that never ends and ultimately becomes un-fun to engage with. The AI is always going to be able to respond better and find weak spots to raid, whereas you will constantly be on the back-foot, at least in my experience.

[BastardSword]

I used to find playing FOTS on Hard was frustratingly impossible for this very issue--the AI would constantly spam ships, and no matter how many I'd build, they'd just send more the next turn. All my ships would end up damaged or sunk, and then the AI would destroy all my ports and coastal buildings. I'd be spending massive amounts of money on endlessly building ships, repairing ships, and repairing ports, and none of it would ever really make any difference. If I auto-resolved then all my ships would either take massive amounts of damage or sink, and playing out the battles manually is just painful, the ships move slow as molasses and the AI ships just sit there forcing you to sail to the other side of the map. I just don't have time for playing endless naval battles like this.

One day I decided to just completely ignore the naval side of the game. I didn't upgrade any ports or coastal buildings, and only upgraded interior buildings. Even if it was a garbage barren farm, I still upgraded it because at least I wouldn't have to repair it every turn. I didn't build any ships and didn't repair any ports or buildings that got bombarded. The result was that I still made plenty of money and I wasn't losing massive amounts on pointless naval nonsense. I also found that while the AI would occasionally attack my ports, it wouldn't spam ships like before. I really only focused on the land warfare aspect of the game, which is super easy if you just rush to kneel fire and use line infantry. If I needed to get to say Hokkaido or Shikoku then I'd build a tiny ship and move my army but that was it.

A few more points:

- there's a couple of civil research arts that increase growth by +2. I find that if I prioritize these I make lots of money.
- I will upgrade coastal cities, putting things like factories and financial districts in them. The AI rarely bombards cities and will really only attack ports and outlying buildings like farms and clay pits and copper mines.
- the only ports I will upgrade are Nagano or Satsuma. You can blockade their bays by putting 2 or 3 kaiyo maru ships at the entrance to the bay. If you have AP shot you can destroy any ships easily. HE shot is deadlier but has much shorter range. Once you get a foreign trade port you can buy the US or French ships which can use HE shot at longer range.

Again this is all done on Hard. I'm not sure if it would be viable on Very Hard where you have less money and the AI is richer and more aggressive. But as I say, you can do a lot with line infantry with kneel fire. Might be worth a try.

[Kōizumi Seishiro]

On the side of repetitive and tiresome one-sided nature of naval combat I totally agree

[00th_Eldr_BlindSniper007]

Originally posted by BastardSword:

I used to find playing FOTS on Hard was frustratingly impossible for this very issue--the AI would constantly spam ships, and no matter how many I'd build, they'd just send more the next turn. All my ships would end up damaged or sunk, and then the AI would destroy all my ports and coastal buildings. I'd be spending massive amounts of money on endlessly building ships, repairing ships, and repairing ports, and none of it would ever really make any difference. If I auto-resolved then all my ships would either take massive amounts of damage or sink, and playing out the battles manually is just painful, the ships move slow as molasses and the AI ships just sit there forcing you to sail to the other side of the map. I just don't have time for playing endless naval battles like this.

One day I decided to just completely ignore the naval side of the game. I didn't upgrade any ports or coastal buildings, and only upgraded interior buildings. Even if it was a garbage barren farm, I still upgraded it because at least I wouldn't have to repair it every turn. I didn't build any ships and didn't repair any ports or buildings that got bombarded. The result was that I still made plenty of money and I wasn't losing massive amounts on pointless naval nonsense. I also found that while the AI would occasionally attack my ports, it wouldn't spam ships like before. I really only focused on the land warfare aspect of the game, which is super easy if you just rush to kneel fire and use line infantry. If I needed to get to say Hokkaido or Shikoku then I'd build a tiny ship and move my army but that was it.

A few more points:

- there's a couple of civil research arts that increase growth by +2. I find that if I prioritize these I make lots of money.
- I will upgrade coastal cities, putting things like factories and financial districts in them. The AI rarely bombards cities and will really only attack ports and outlying buildings like farms and clay pits and copper mines.
- the only ports I will upgrade are Nagano or Satsuma. You can blockade their bays by putting 2 or 3 kaiyo maru ships at the entrance to the bay. If you have AP shot you can destroy any ships easily. HE shot is deadlier but has much shorter range. Once you get a foreign trade port you can buy the US or French ships which can use HE shot at longer range.

Again this is all done on Hard. I'm not sure if it would be viable on Very Hard where you have less money and the AI is richer and more aggressive. But as I say, you can do a lot with line infantry with kneel fire. Might be worth a try.

I've completely ignored the naval side before on easier runs, yeah. It is definitely the . . . not "nicer", cause you're still dealing with naval spam, but simpler way to play, I guess. There is a point in the game, even on Legendary, that your economy just skyrockets anyways, so the destruction isn't as brutal as it would be much earlier in the campaign. I still end up spending most of it on repairs each turn, but I've already got some okay armies running and a small navy going at this point, so I'm fine with it (at this point, at least).

It still sucked real hard in the early to mid game though. It was such an issue because I'm playing as Satsuma and to get to the middle of a map (walking) with a stacked modern army takes, like, 9+ turns or something like that. So, I *really* needed to get an opening to move my troops. Even now, I'm still relying on one army (ironically, I chose my weakest army of the four without thinking) to do most of the conquering because I'm still trying to get the rest over.

The kneel fire turns the game in a cakewalk, yeah. Well, not completely I suppose. You still have to hope you get good enough terrain to stack your infantry elevation wise to make the most use out of your units. Otherwise, you'll take massive casualties on select units who get unlucky enough to be the target of most of the enemies' frontline.

Only other times you are in danger is when the enemy has like, four stacks worth of army against you're one (a recent example from this playthrough, thank god the enemy barely used their Armstrong guns).

[BlackKatana]

Why would you move your army from satsuma to central japan in 9+ turn while you can transport them with ships in 2-3 turns? It's actually just 1 turn if you want to cheese a bit.

[00th_Eldr_BlindSniper007]

Originally posted by BlackKatana:

Why would you move your army from satsuma to central japan in 9+ turn while you can transport them with ships in 2-3 turns? It's actually just 1 turn if you want to cheese a bit.

That is exactly what I said is the issue. I need the openings because I don't want to walk my armies for 9~ish turns.