EP and Merchants

[Tyr]

To me, it seems that whoever loses merchant vessels in a trade node suffers a massive EP loss that is not commensurate with the gains. For example, as France, I lost 60 EP when Britain hit and sunk 8 of my merchant ships. Now, I can understand the economic and moral hit; however, these ships are LOCKED in place. Therefore there is no option to avoid the attack by trying to remove your vessels. Sure, you would lose some income, but not the massive EP loss. Furthermore, the ships are supposed to be locked ONLY until they are attacked. I have had merchant vessels attacked, took some hits, but no losses, and they remain locked in place. This is directly counter to what the tooltip lists for the lock conditions.

[csiemers]

Do you add French war ships to the locations of those merchants? I've done that and has some success at protecting them better.
I primarily play Great Britain and I always stick a few warships in the shipping areas along with the trading fleets. That helps to take out a few raiders and the oppositions merchant ships.
My blockade around France and Spain however, produces much better results at destroying their fleets.

[Tyr]

Csiemers, I agree that you attempt to mitigate some of the damage by placing ships in the blocks with your merchants; however,t his ignores the two main points. One - the massive loss of EP per ship that is sunk is not balanced to their value. A player should not lose 30 EP when 4 merchants are sunk. Two - the merchants are locked and supposed to unlock once they are attacked. I've had merchants hit for 5 hits, and they remained locked in place, only to be sunk several turns later.