This chapter is dedicated to naval warfare. If you want to be victorious in sea battles, you should read carefully! A lot of experience has been put into this article. This article especially covers naval warfare with new ships and cannons.
Content:
- Sea Battle Basics
- Navigation & Maneuvers
- Ranged Attacks Against Enemies
- The Crew
Sea Battle Basics
There are different oceans you can to sail: The Britannian seas, the seas of the Lost Lands, and the Tokuno Ocean. Britannia and Lost Lands are available as two facets: Trammel and Felucca. Tokuno is Trammel only. You should note that in the Feluccan Lost Lands traveling spells cannot be used. This is important to know, since you cannot enter a boat by recalling there. You also cannot recall out of the Lost Lands/Felucca. You can only leave it by boat by using the Serpent Pillars, or on foot by using the passages to Britannia.
First off, you have to determine if you want to stay in Trammel or go to the more challenging Felucca facet. If you decide to go to Felucca, don't forget to keep your planks locked and your boat key insured if you use one of the old ships!
Attacks have different effects depending on the facet and on how your enemy is highlighted:
| Type of Attack: |
Effect in Trammel: |
Effect in Felucca: |
| Cannon with Grapeshot |
Damage to characters from friendly or enemy guilds |
Damage to all characters |
| Cannon with Cannonball |
Damage to ships of friendly or enemy guilds |
Damage to all ships |
| Magic and Weapon Area Attacks |
Damage to characters of enemy guilds |
Damage to all characters |
| Potion Area Attacks |
Damage to characters of enemy guilds |
Damage to characters of enemy guilds, agressors or murderers |
| Weapon Attacks |
Damage to characters from friendly or enemy guilds |
Damage to all characters |
Keep in mind that field spells and summons can only be cast onto an enemy vessel if it is scuttled!
Navigation & Maneuvers
If you plan organized sea battles, it is recommended to limit the area of the battle. Otherwise, it would be pretty easy to outsail the agressor. The best choice would be a bay of appropriate size. In such limited space, naval maneuvers and navigation will be an important tactical factor.
The primary goal should be to scuttle the enemy ship to prevent it from escaping. This requires not only a lot of experience with navigating a ship, but also good timing with reloading and firing the cannons. To scuttle a ship you have to shoot cannonballs at it. For cannonballs to hit, you must be at most 10 tiles close to the enemy ship. The cannon must point towards the target.
If you organize a boat chase in open water, the goal must be to navigate cleverly behind the enemy vessel and damage it with your bow cannon so it sails with reduced speed. It would be difficult to catch a boat in open water if her captain is a deft navigator, unless his ship is slower than yours.
Ranged Attacks Against Enemies
Obviously, melee skills are mostly useless in ship-to-ship combat before boarding. However, when a ship is boarded, melee fighters will be quite useful. For ship-to-ship combat a wide variety of ranged attacks are available:
Grapeshot:
Grapeshot ammunition for cannons can cause some trouble on the enemy ship. Any person hit by such a shot will be damaged. Although the damage done by grapeshot is not deadly, it can be very supporting to other ranged attacks.
Spells:
Spells offer the wides variety of ship-to-ship attacks. You can use direct spells, area effect spells like Meteor Swarm, or - if the enemy ship is scuttled - field spells like Fire Field very effectively. Casting summoned creatures (like Energy Vortex, Blade Spirit, Nature's Fury or Rising Colossus) onto the deck of the enemy ship is only possible if the ship has been severely damaged.
Archery and Throwing:
Archery has been the only non-magic ranged combat spell for a long time. Especially weapons with hit area effects are interesting, as they can damage multiple enemies at the same time. Throwing is also available for people of the Gargoyle race.
Potions:
Explosion Potions and Conflagration Potions work very well against enemy guilds, and in Felucca also against red and grey people. The efficiency of potions is increased significantly if you have the Alchemy skill (GM Alchemy is recommended), and if you use Enhance Potions jewelry (capped at 50%). Throwing a couple of Greater Explosions on an enemy ship can be pretty devastating.
Ninjitsu:
While Ninjitsu does not directly have ranged attacks, it may be quite useful to throw deadly poisoned Shuriken or shoot some deadly poisoned Fukija darts to your target. This is the only way to use a ranged deadly poison attack. A high Ninjitsu skill will increase your chance to hit.
Bushido:
Bushido has no ranged attacks. However, the Counter Attack spell allows the Samurai to strike the enemy over a distance with his melee weapon and even a special move, if he is hit by a ranged weapon.
The Crew
A good crew for a warship should consist of a number of different people, each responsible for certain tasks. If not enough people are available, the captain has to compromise and assign multiple tasks to single people.
Captain:
The captain is responsible for battle strategy. He prepares the crew and assigns tasks to them. The crew has to be briefed beforehand so everybody knows what their tasks are, because usually there isn't any time to give commands during the heat of battle. The captain has also the taks to navigate the boat. This is a very difficult process, because he has to try to get his ship into a position where he can hit the enemy, but the enemy cannot hit him. He also has to make sure that the enemy does not escape. To support the crew the captain can also have the archery skill to automatically shoot back at anyone who attacks him, or a melee skill to join into the boarding group after the enemy is immobile.
Cannoneer:
The cannoneers have to operate the cannons. Each cannoneer can handle two cannons at the same time, more is not recommended. It is important that they are equipped with the necessary tools and supplies, like matches, a ram rod, a deck swab, enough ammunition, charges and fuse cords. Cleaning, recharging and firing the cannons at the right moment requires full concentration, so the cannoneers should not be burdened with more tasks. Since firing cannons only makes sense before boarding, cannoneers preferrably are melee fighters who can enter the ship when it is scuttled to finish off the demoralized enemy crew. Also, they can watch each other's health during the sea battle.
Musketeers:
The job of those people is to cause as much ruckuss as possible on the deck of the other ship to keep the enemy busy or even reduce his numbers. Prerequisite are ranged attacks, like archery, magery or other spellcasting skills. These people also have to make sure the rest of the crew, especially the captain, does not die.
Boarding Group:
Those people have their melee weapons at hand to destroy the enemy after boarding. Their defense skills are exceptional and their weapon skills even better. Since this group wouldn't have nothing to do during a sea battle, they often carry out other tasks like handling the cannons or navigating the ship. Their weapons come to use only after the enemy ship has been scuttled, is immobile and can be entered.
Boatswain:
This person usually is not on board during the battle. He is a skilled crafter who will repair ship and cannons after a fight. If he is an alchemist too, he could even join the battle and toss his deadly explosives over to the enemy.
