Naval Combat and Marines

[Jagger2013]

Had a naval battle and tried to figure out what happened. My fleet had both troops and marines but it seems none of them fought and many went down with their ships. The enemy fleet had no troops or marines. I know the combat report is fairly generalized but I lost a lot of ships and troops apparently to firepower rather than boarding and close combat. The manual mentions boarding but I couldn't see any mention in the battle reports. The manual also doesn't mention anything about marines or troops firing or boarding during naval combat. So does it make sense to add marines or troops to strengthen fleets for naval combat purposes? Or do they simply go down with the ships without fighting?

What were the decisive factors about naval combat during the Roman era? I am no expert but from reading about the naval battles from Caesar's Civil War, it seemed ramming or disabling ships followed by close combat boarding was the decisive aspects of naval combat during that period. I imagine there was plenty of bow and slingers and maybe some small projectile artillery type pieces but was fairly secondary since it seems fire was directed against crew rather than disabling ships. Also I would assume regular fighting troops or marines on board supplementing the regular crew would make boarding and capturing a ship fairly tough.

Any thoughts?

[pantsukki]

Did you have transports in the fleet? Might be that the engine counts troops as being in them, thus quite unable to take part in the combat. Just a guess.

[Jagger2013]

I agree. I doubt if troops could fight well from non-warship transports. But then, most fleets need transports for the supply if nothing else. Without supply, fleets have pretty limited range.

[Bohémond]

I agree. I doubt if troops could fight well from non-warship transports. But then, most fleets need transports for the supply if nothing else. Without supply, fleets have pretty limited range.

The only land units that can fight during sea battle are the ''marines'' ones. They only involved in assault, boarding, phase.

Warships can fire at a range of 1 ( simulation of archers, etc.. being part of the ship crew). That is why boarding does not happen everytime.

Regards

[Jagger2013]

Thanks Bohemond. So worthwhile to carry marines for naval combat.

This is interesting:



Note that in the battle, my fleet had an admiral, Canus 4-2-1 without any special command abilities. The opposing fleet does not have an admiral.



This shows the battle report. Note that the opposing fleet has the windgage advantage. According to the manual, windgage is determined by commanders. The strategic rating plus any command abilities are compared between admirals. If no admiral, the strat rating is considered to be 3. So in the above battle, my admiral has a 4 strat rating with no command abilites vs opposing fleet without admiral which gives a 3 strat rating. My fleet should have had the windgage advantage. But as you can see above, the opposing no admiral fleet had the windgage advantage (little white marker in the middle of the ship combat advantages). Is it a bug or are there other factors besides command strat rating and command abilities?

[Bohémond]

If you remove the land elements, not inolved in battle, the enemy fleet is far more powerful than yours.

Except for WindGage, I will ask for it to Pocus, battle results seem consistent, IMHO.

Regards

[Jagger2013]

Bohemond, I agree. The cohesion of my fleet was so bad, plus the power of the enemy fleet, ensured I would lose that battle. But I am curious about the opponents windgage advantage because it seems I should have had the windgage advantage.

[Bohémond]

According to the Dev"s statement, Windgage is a stack (i.e fleet) feature. Windgage can be given to a stack without leader although is probabilty is low (1D10+strat level of the leader).

Regards