Ship battles can't be won?

[Mr. Bufferlow]

No matter what I seem to do with the first 3 ship battle I always lose. I just can't seem to get my aim to raise and even when I do my stupid crew won't shoot most of the time. I liked the game until this was introducted...anyway to just play the game on land or avoid the battles?

[Hipressure]

Keep trying. You have to get use to it. I have only lost 2 battles and that's because I didn't pay attention to my ships health during the battle. Try attacking just one smaller vessel until you get the maneuvers down. You will get the hang of it!

[Goilveig]

You can put sails down and outrun pretty much anything. Try to pull one or two ships at a time - even in a large group of pirates, they each aggro at 200m so you can get close enough for one ship without alerting others if you're fast.

The AI is really bad at hitting you when you're moving straight away from them, or when you're circling each other at close to maximum archery distance.

[tonypa]

Originally posted by Goilveig:

You can put sails down and outrun pretty much anything.

You can't do that during a combat. I have used it only pre-combat to bait one enemy ship away from others so I can fight it solo further away.

Originally posted by Mr. Bufferlow:

No matter what I seem to do with the first 3 ship battle I always lose. I just can't seem to get my aim to raise and even when I do my stupid crew won't shoot most of the time. I liked the game until this was introducted...anyway to just play the game on land or avoid the battles?

You can not completely avoid naval battles, some are needed to finish main quest.

There are, however, some things you can do to make them easier:
- reduce difficulty setting before naval battle
- upgrade your ship
- hire better lieutenants
- pre-set naval battles can be cleared by swimming into enemy ship and killing everyone. Once all the crew is dead, the ship will not activate during the battle so you can simply run over it

[Perseus son of Zeus]

Try to shoot while you are alone or next to the shore for a practice until you feel ready for a battle. the way how to shoot arrow from the ship is quite same when use arrow on land.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Hull upgrades (which also give more lieutenant slots) and the fire brazier (for more punch) are both good ship upgrades to take early. Naval upgrades cost a lot of resources, but you'll use them the entire game. Javelins are good, but flaming javelins are better. :D

Don't forget to use Uplay points to get the free lieutenants.

Something that's quite useful without being explicitly called out is that once you've initiated the boarding sequence your ship is completely invulnerable until you return to your helm, so you can safely board a crippled ship even if doing so will put you in the middle of others. Winning the boarding fight also repairs a good bit of ship damage.

[Ebina]

Lower your difficulty settings, if it's already Easy, so get good.
Hire better lieutenants, upgrade your ship, take those ship down, one by one.
Also, "Brace!" is your friend.

[Goilveig]

Originally posted by tonypa:

Originally posted by Goilveig:

You can put sails down and outrun pretty much anything.

You can't do that during a combat. I have used it only pre-combat to bait one enemy ship away from others so I can fight it solo further away.

You absolutely can put sails down in combat. You just can't do it while boosting with the rowers, or if too close to a landmass. I use sails in combat all the time, even if just to zoom the camera out to get a better tactical view of where all my opponents are.

[Talkie Toaster]

Originally posted by Goilveig:

Originally posted by tonypa:

You can't do that during a combat. I have used it only pre-combat to bait one enemy ship away from others so I can fight it solo further away.

You absolutely can put sails down in combat. You just can't do it while boosting with the rowers, or if too close to a landmass. I use sails in combat all the time, even if just to zoom the camera out to get a better tactical view of where all my opponents are.

Yep same, sometimes it doesn't let me but most of the time I can put the sails down and flee if I'm getting my butt kicked - even on hard difficulty.

I even use it to ram ships in battle sometimes.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

Thanks for the advice. I decided to turn tail and run and work on my skills before I follow the main quest.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Speaking of skills, it's also perhaps worth noting that in boarding battles, you don't have to kill all the enemy crew; you need to get them off the ship. If you knock them into the water with Ring of Chaos, Sparta Kick, heavy blunt golf, etc -- they won't be able to get back on board, and will quickly be eaten by sharks.