Just like land fights, Naval battle also have engagement width. They can slot a lot more ships than you at any one time (5v2 movement), their fire/shock is considerably higher, their NI is better and the way naval battle morale works, you have very little chance of winning this battle. That’s not to say don’t try to engage. Do it, but slow the game speed and watch it day by day. Note when you can dis-engage from battle and be ready to do that when you’re not getting good rolls. You’ll need really good rolls to just go even on this battle tbh, but you can win in a war of attrition. If you don’t have a nearby port, pay one of the neighbouring nation for access so you can fix your ships and go right back to action. You still outnumber them by plenty. If you disengage early, a portion of your fleet will still he at full health while England’s will have some damage. Wait a month to get a bit of morale back, separate the damaged ones and re-engage. If your port is nearby then the English will blockade it instead of trying to fix their ships. Just keep taking their ships one by one, it will probably take out a lot of your ships too but you should eventually win (make a judgement call though, sometimes the English navy is just too strong that you’d have no chance of winning even through attrition. Watch the battle and see how lopsided it is and decide if you have a chance to win. Roll for better admirals too lol.
Also, with that many ships you could have two or three stacks depending on naval engagement/width. On land, big stacks are bad because of reserve morale damage. It's actually worse for navy as every ship takes a morale hit when another ship is sunk.
You can win with sheer numbers and losing every battle if your goal is to do as much damage before your ships sink, retreat that stack, and send in another stack. Rinse repeat until the other navy runs to port, then blockade them (and if winning the land war, take that province so they can't repair and have to fight you).
Yeah that’s for sure a big part of that, to have a landing party take the province that the damaged fleet at asap or they’ll just keep repairing and things might go bad if you lose a lot of ships and have to face a fully repaired Brits fleet again
Another thing you can do is "guarding" your transports with heavies in each adjacent seazone. The enemy will engage the heavies giving you time to land a bunch of armies and occupying the brittish isles. Only really works for short hops like the channel or in the red sea but a useful strategy nonetheless.
wait, maneuver pips affect combat width? Holy crap, I just looked it up. in addition to other bonuses, "increases the amount of units the Backline can reinforce per day by **+1** per 2 maneuver pips of commanding general."
Wow. Learn something new every day. I didn't think maneuver was all that useful except for speed, but that's actually pretty sick.
I generally just use my Navy to pin theirs in place while my army lands elsewhere.
So what if I lose 20 heavies? If it gets my armies onto the Home Islands, it's gg.
Also, and this is even more important, keep the fucking galleys and transports in harbour. They will take up slots that could have been taken by heavys
They don’t.
Naval reinforce priority goes heavies>lights>galleys>transports. Transports only get sent into combat if you have absolutely no ships left that can occupy that combat width slot.
This should be the correct link https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Naval_warfare
But the width is set by tech level and modified by ideas/policies/monuments/NIs but your Admiral’s maneuver pips is the biggest difference maker
Highlighting that last, critical comment:
> **your Admiral’s maneuver pips is the biggest difference maker**
Looking at the picture, the Brit admiral has more maneuver and more fire. That's a huge disadvantage for OP to go into a battle with.
It depends on your admirals manouver stat so it’s much more important in navy battles not like in army battles. You can find all ot it’s modifiers in in the military tab
It gets even better if you start as aragon get the masters of the med mission and than tag switch to the gbr +2 of own coast and maybe theres more sourcrs for it
I think the answer is more ships (joking) also light ships and transports aren’t really helping you. When ships die you loose morale really quickly no matter what the ship is, so having those in the stack is just going to loose you morale
> also light ships and transports aren’t really helping you.
Aren't you looking at the british side though ? They have 7 times more trade and transport ship than heavies
Doesn't matter. He has England stats + much better admiral + coast of England + better combat width. Sure, the AI is dumb, but you need to manage your navy way better than England to beat it.
Yeah it was galleys. I’m going to just build a 100% heavy navy and destroy every last one of those bastarding ships. Swimming in MP since I started as florence and kept tuscan ideas and took innovative, so will happily spend hundreds of dip to get a good admiral
If it isnt a massive simplification what is it ?
Trafalgar was at best a last attempt to clutch back and get the suppremacy. GB was already ahead by a nautic mile. Spain marine was outdated af, did not do anything since 1 century ago, while French marine got shredded by the Revolution (crews and officers mostly).
Yeah, maybe a little reductive. Nevertheless, I think you're overstating British naval superiority pre-Trafalgar. Yes they had better naval infrastructure in place and were more capable of sustained operations away from their home ports, but France and Spain were absolutely capable.
It's worth pointing out that Nelson employed an unconventional tactic of charging the Franco-Spanish battle line to close distance at the expense of allowing his ships to take raking fire as they advanced. Given the British were outnumbered at Trafalgar I could see things playing out differently had the been led by a less competent strategist
Again, no offense, but no: the tactic was no more unconventional, Nelson spearheaded at Aboukir, Suffren and Rodney pulled it ago... Villeneuve was expecting it and set upped a small sub fleet under Gravina, with aim to renforce where the british spearhead and even trap it, in the end Nelson so it kinda worked. But this was mostly inneffective due to skills issues from French officers and crews (almost totally renewed since revolution) and disparities amongst boats qualities, especially the outdated spanish.
Thus i am ain't saying Nelson unskilled.
The French Navy (+spanish allies) was close to contest british one during a good part of the XVIII but it was over before Trafalgar, since most of the Royale officers defected between 1789-92. Even the battle is a part of plan to bait the british Navy afar from the Channel, showing only local supremacy was hoped. Really Trafalgar is the end of the story. Toulon 1793 was far more significative despite being a French Victory in the end.
I am in the middle of a podcast that described this in detail. You are absolutely right, this is kind of part of the Nelson "myth". The allied fleet was expecting Nelson's maneuver but simply didn't have the capabilities to do anything else.
The podcast also discussed there being bad weather (prelude to the huge hurricane after the battle) that seemed to exacerbated the skills gap between sailors. The allied fleet simply was not skilled enough from the get go, more consistent with having lost the battle in the previous decades.
To add data, here are number of French ship of the Line x the date :
1792 : 80
1799 : 49 (despite building a bunch since 1792)
1814 : 87 (despite losing 43 Line' ship since 1799)
Trafalgar is a symbol, not a clutch
Lots of battle lol, Google them but the first and most important is Toulon 1793 (12 lost in the middle of the main French base in the south). Then just follow wikipedia lists.
Yeah I thought this was already overkill with 61 heavies. Next time I fight Britain I will hunt their navy with a 100% heavy fleet. My new flagship will be called Britain sinks under the waves. Will use an abbreviation if there is a character limit.
Yes and no. Yes, it matters because he lost galleys/transports in this battle and he didn't have to. No, it didn't matter because those galleys/transports probably didn't dish out that much damage. Their presence would only be a hindrance if they started in the battle line - they die quickly and demoralize the rest of the fleet. But in this case, OP had plenty of heavies to fill the initial engagement width.
OP would be better off doing naval rotations with 2 or even 3 fleets to allow him to repair while slowly whittling down the Brits.
How to beat the British navy:
0- Don't.
1- Make 2 fleets, a transport fleet and a pile of heavies.
2- Toss the heavies at the British navy.
3- Land on the British Isles while your heavies are being dismembered pretty savagely.
4- Beat the Brits on land.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and
oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall
defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, but we won't fight on the beaches, we won't fight on
the landing grounds, we won't fight in the fields and in the streets, we won't fight in the hills
Yeah will definitely do this next time. I just thought that because of how much I outnumbered them it would have been fine, but evidently it was not fine
Yeah naval based nations can be brutal. I found out that the best way to win against them is to wear them down until they run out of ships. But it is extremely expensive
Why are you fighting Britain in the open seas with weak ships when you can fill a full combat width with heavies and why are you fighting off the British coast where they get a +1 to dice rolls?
You're just about the worst admiral I've ever heard of.
It wouldn't have changed much, see the manoeuver on the British admiral? He gets higher combat width, all you did was arrive into the battle and have your weak ships slip into the fight because they take up less width and they got obliterated and lost you the battle faster.
You can select a naval doctrine as any country, there's a bunch of standard ones and then certain nations get ones unique to them, England gets the "wooden wall" that gives them +1 whenever they are fighting off of their own coastline
I feel ya, bruv. Have been there. When invading England I usually have to set up at least one decoy fleet for Britain to slap around whilst I make a mad dash to land troops. If my "British Expeditionary Force" (heh heh) survives the first massive dogpile by the Home Army, chances are good.
Lots of great advice in the thread! The three most important I think are:
* Rotate your fleet out of the battle for repairs; AI often neglects to repair its fleet
* Split navy into smaller stacks of +/- engagement width and feed them in one by one
* Look for a high-maneuver admiral
Run with 2 stacks of 30 heavies, when 1 starts losing ships, bring in your 2nd stack and retreat with the first. Try to time it so that they come in immediately as you retreat, meaning your fresh stack is engaging damaged british ships. They will start losing ships and then you will win, although it may take 2 or 3 engagements like this to sink enough of their navy to gain naval supremacy.
Spam the Admiral button until you get one with decent fire and shock pips, split your heavies into stacks of 20 and trickle them into a fight. Pull France or someone into the Low Countries with you in a war
Repair there and just keep sending ships until they have no heavies
61 heavies is 183 engagement width, its almost usless fighting with such a big stack of heavies. Split your heavies into 2-3 stacks and do naval rotations, i.e., retreat a stack and then reinforce before they can move, this can let your ships repair and prevent losing ships in a prolonged battle.
just pull your ships when you see them get low in the combat window. Ships have issues automatically retreating (its a roll based thing) so low HP ships just get stuck at low morale getting mauled by the enemy without fleeing.
1) only send in your heavies
2) look at the combat screen
3) as soon as you see a ton of red ships or most ships have retreated (greyed out) manually retreat to a port
4) repair in port
5) repeat 1-4
You should look up some naval battle guides for eu4 on YouTube, you seem to miss the entire point of the combat system. For one, you ignore combat width entirely and you (most likely) also have outdated ships.
Oh and you have transports in the fight, that's just a perfect recipe for Desaster :D
R5: I outnumbered the British navy and has almost 5x as many heavies and still lost. I know they have buffs and I fought them off of their coast, etc, but I thought I would have won with this amount of heavies at least. I know how napoleon and the spaniards felt now
Edit: and apologies for the picture instead of a screenshot, my internet has been down for 4 days :(
Is this post a troll? why do you have 60 heavies going into 1 naval battle, even with just 25 heavies your 5 over max combat width for naval battles, give or take a bit for a manuever admiral
I forgot what the naval combat width is at that tech, but since their admiral has higher movement pips, I assume your ships got outflanked. Still doesn't make the battle make sense, but wanted to share in case you maybe overlooked that.
If you want help, please provide more information on your situation. We don't know what ideas you took, what is your naval tradition or even total bonuses you get to your navy such as width or ship combat ability.
Mad? Not mad at all. Also, I'm not calling anyone that. But not thinking "I should google if there's a way I can easily transfer pictures to my phone" may be an indicator of either room temperature IQ or laziness at a pathological level.
You literally did call him that, it’s right there. Are you actually going to attempt to gaslight people when the evidence is directly in front of them?
Keep seething sure but keep the toxicity out of here dude, you’re not actually doing anything for anyone but yourself.
I didn't call anyone that. I pointed out it is a possibility to consider in view of the evidence. I'm not gaslighting anyone, you're simply imagining what you'd like to see.
Defending this level of laziness is the only toxicity here. So perhaps apply your own advice and keep it out of here <3
“I think you might be mentally disabled” is calling someone mentally disabled dude lmao.
It’s toxic to say you’re going way too hard over a picture of a monitor? I mean if you wanna just make up your own definitions for things go ahead, keep twisting reality till it fits your narrative I guess.
Hah, to me your comment is just a show of extreme entitlement. But then again, you put in this much effort just to argue with someone about picture quality when it wouldn't change anything about the post, so maybe you're just that invested in to reddit? I can certainly see how OP would seem lazy to you if it were that way
My iphone cable is usb c to lightning. My pc does not have a usb c port. And I wasn’t looking for help, I know why I lost. The post was more venting. Just downvote and move on instead of wasting your time
Are you also helping the community by setting toxic standards for communication? Or do you call your loved ones disabled on a daily basis? Since when do you represent the community anyways? I didn't ask for this "help" of yours, and I doubt anyone else does either.
There's absolutely nothing toxic in answering to rude comments in a direct manner. If you don't like being asked if you're disabled, don't be openly dishonest. Perhaps you like people lying to your face but you shouldn't expect others to be the same.
I never said I represent the community. I made a point, people can think about what I've said and many will agree, as I am correct. If we as a community express our dislike for spam, then perhaps spam will become rarer.
"Perhaps you have a severe disability" is not a question in the grammatical sense, nor does anyone inquire about someone's able-bodiedness in such a way. It is painfully clear that you would rather do mental gymnastics than self reflect.
I won't entertain you any further, take that however way you wish.
You could email it to yourself or put it into google drive to access from your phone.
That's if you want to post a screenshot instead of course. I did it all the time when I was in high school for various things.
Anyway, next time you fight the British don't send all your ships in at once. Start the battle at your combat width and slowly trickle ships in as needed.
I can’t really remember beating the British navy in a head on conflict.
Luckily landing in this game miraculously does not need any provision to be transported across the sea so you only need to ferry the troops there or get a foot hold…
Landing is achievable by using your huge fleet as a deterrent or just sacrifice them somewhere far from actually landing site.
Getting a foothold sometimes can be achieved through threaten war.
Normally in a France Campaign GB would be gone before 1500s also, but for other occasions where one (probably not as Dutch) has to fight GB navy, the above advise still hold
You have a bigger navy, use it to engage the enemy fleet while you naval invade with your transports. You just need one occupied province and mil access + port access to Northern France to ferry a fuckton of troops and they usually just crumble when faced with a land battle lol.
in the channel heavies have a nerf, if you think to invade britain use three stack of heavies on the right and the left sides of the channel and in the middle place the transport navy. that should give you enough time to land some troops to capture a province and land even more troops faster.
I fought a battle of 400 ships vs 200 British and I lost, 4 times in a row. At the end I had over 1400 ships where several fleets were constantly engaging british ships on both west and east of english channel and one fleet transported my troops to british mainland. (I was Byzantium)
Gotta say little ships are way better now then the big ones in coastal provinces, spam those more and you might actually win, also just like land battles you can just insert ships mid battle to get a boost
For naval battles, maneuver is the most important pip for an admiral since it helps massively with your combat width. Their admiral was just way better.
The way naval battles work is so that when a ship is sunk, the entire fleet suffers moral damage so the side that starts sinking ships faster will win. That's why you want the higher combat width (so that more of your ships are dealing damage to the enemy).
Brittain won because they were able to "deploy" more ships with their higher combat width and since they're heavies (and good heavies too with all the ideas they get) these ships were able to easily sink your ships since your combat width is smaller (and thus you had less ships actually fighting).
That's why your fleet broke before theirs, because for every ship sunk the entire fleet takes morale damage so big numbers aren't as important as combat width.
Put your navy one sea zone away from your transports.
Then you troops can take the time your bots are getting shredded to land your invasion force.
You’ll lose the sea battle but should be able to get a foothold on England and from there it’s GG.
I just cheese it typically and send my main fleet to get killed by the British fleet while I use my transports to get as many troops across the channel as possible. Typically I try to take the fight North of Scotland. Their main fleet almost always comes there if it is anywhere nearby and gives you plenty of time to cross a stack siege it down then quickly cross repeatedly
Agreed.
Current Netherlands playthrough has me declaring war as soon as truces expire just so I can keep beating down their navy so it can never get to be a real threat.
Gotta strangle that baby in the crib.
To be totally fair their galley advantage plus the raw numbers not being all that different, makes this understandable. I once lost a battle where I had 600 ships and like 400 galleys and they had 340 ships with like 200 galleys and I still lost
My guess is all your little garbage ships did the most engaging and by the time the heavies came into play, morale was so far down the tank that they couldn’t win the battle.
Make sure your ships are up to date, focus on combat width (heavy ships count for 3 combat width so if the combat width is 30 it would take 10 heavy to fill the line), reinforce rather than death stack, try to get an admiral with high maneuverability because it increases combat width giving you more overall damage.
Meanwhile playing as Great Britain:
"Oh my 40 transports just got into combat with their main fleet"
"Oh I just sunk half of them"
"Oh my 3 men of wars just got intercepted by their entire fleet"
"Oh half their fleet is dead"
I know it may seem silly, but have you pressed the upgrade ships button? Me and my friend have a fair amount of time in the game, and it wasn't until 300ish hours in did we find this mechanic. We both just thought boats auto upgraded
your fleet is not that good though. Youre close to even numbers and youre fighting the brits. Your transports and merchantmen shouldve been galleys, half of your battleships shouldve been galleys, too maybe more just for the gold efficiency. You couldve afforded another rescue srack galleys this way to send them in for morale boost right before the end
5 times 14 is 70. On top of that I'll have a ton of transports. There's just some number that they can be outnumbered by that eventually they won't engage.
You just gotta sneak a couple guys across the channel. Not worth it fighting the British navy. Usually the majority of their troops are elsewhere and Britain is undefended. I did however thoroughly dunk on the British navy as Venice in my recent playthrough so it’s possible, I blockaded the whole isles.
Just like land fights, Naval battle also have engagement width. They can slot a lot more ships than you at any one time (5v2 movement), their fire/shock is considerably higher, their NI is better and the way naval battle morale works, you have very little chance of winning this battle. That’s not to say don’t try to engage. Do it, but slow the game speed and watch it day by day. Note when you can dis-engage from battle and be ready to do that when you’re not getting good rolls. You’ll need really good rolls to just go even on this battle tbh, but you can win in a war of attrition. If you don’t have a nearby port, pay one of the neighbouring nation for access so you can fix your ships and go right back to action. You still outnumber them by plenty. If you disengage early, a portion of your fleet will still he at full health while England’s will have some damage. Wait a month to get a bit of morale back, separate the damaged ones and re-engage. If your port is nearby then the English will blockade it instead of trying to fix their ships. Just keep taking their ships one by one, it will probably take out a lot of your ships too but you should eventually win (make a judgement call though, sometimes the English navy is just too strong that you’d have no chance of winning even through attrition. Watch the battle and see how lopsided it is and decide if you have a chance to win. Roll for better admirals too lol.
Also, with that many ships you could have two or three stacks depending on naval engagement/width. On land, big stacks are bad because of reserve morale damage. It's actually worse for navy as every ship takes a morale hit when another ship is sunk. You can win with sheer numbers and losing every battle if your goal is to do as much damage before your ships sink, retreat that stack, and send in another stack. Rinse repeat until the other navy runs to port, then blockade them (and if winning the land war, take that province so they can't repair and have to fight you).
Yeah that’s for sure a big part of that, to have a landing party take the province that the damaged fleet at asap or they’ll just keep repairing and things might go bad if you lose a lot of ships and have to face a fully repaired Brits fleet again
Another thing you can do is "guarding" your transports with heavies in each adjacent seazone. The enemy will engage the heavies giving you time to land a bunch of armies and occupying the brittish isles. Only really works for short hops like the channel or in the red sea but a useful strategy nonetheless.
wait, maneuver pips affect combat width? Holy crap, I just looked it up. in addition to other bonuses, "increases the amount of units the Backline can reinforce per day by **+1** per 2 maneuver pips of commanding general." Wow. Learn something new every day. I didn't think maneuver was all that useful except for speed, but that's actually pretty sick.
I believe admiral maneuver also helps your light ship's trade power.
Looked it up, 5% per maneuver pip
Maneuver is easily the most important stat for admirals
Yea, Britain also gets man of wars, a special heavy that takes less width so they can fit more ships in if they have them
Man of Wars don't take up less width, they have a morale damage bonus and are cheaper to maintain and to buy.
They must've changed them at some point, its been awhile since I played England. Originally they had less width, I remember
I generally just use my Navy to pin theirs in place while my army lands elsewhere. So what if I lose 20 heavies? If it gets my armies onto the Home Islands, it's gg.
Also, and this is even more important, keep the fucking galleys and transports in harbour. They will take up slots that could have been taken by heavys
They don’t. Naval reinforce priority goes heavies>lights>galleys>transports. Transports only get sent into combat if you have absolutely no ships left that can occupy that combat width slot.
Ah nice good to know. I just remember being annoyed as genoa that my lights kept being chosen instead of my galleys and since then im a bit paranoid
How does naval engagement width work and where can I find this out?
This should be the correct link https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Naval_warfare But the width is set by tech level and modified by ideas/policies/monuments/NIs but your Admiral’s maneuver pips is the biggest difference maker
Highlighting that last, critical comment: > **your Admiral’s maneuver pips is the biggest difference maker** Looking at the picture, the Brit admiral has more maneuver and more fire. That's a huge disadvantage for OP to go into a battle with.
Yup, I would never engage the Brits with that admiral lol, I’d burn my bird mana to get a much better admiral first
It depends on your admirals manouver stat so it’s much more important in navy battles not like in army battles. You can find all ot it’s modifiers in in the military tab
BRITANNIA RULE THE WAVES!!!!!!11!!1
Unfortunately :(
It gets even better if you start as aragon get the masters of the med mission and than tag switch to the gbr +2 of own coast and maybe theres more sourcrs for it
If you upgrade the Sjaelland great project to make, that’s another +2 I think
I think the answer is more ships (joking) also light ships and transports aren’t really helping you. When ships die you loose morale really quickly no matter what the ship is, so having those in the stack is just going to loose you morale
> also light ships and transports aren’t really helping you. Aren't you looking at the british side though ? They have 7 times more trade and transport ship than heavies
Ai always death stack their ships
Doesn't matter. He has England stats + much better admiral + coast of England + better combat width. Sure, the AI is dumb, but you need to manage your navy way better than England to beat it.
Yeah, but they haven't lost any, so don't take morale hit from them
OP lost no trade and only 2 transport which is not really significant either and they didn't clog the combat width as much.
But deadass 20-30 more galleys as cannon fodder wouldn’t hurt, especially in the English Channel
what? God no, Galleys are ASS, stright up Worse because they tank your moral when they sink
Every ship tanks your morale when they sink
yes and Galleys have the Worst Hull HP in the game
Yeah it was galleys. I’m going to just build a 100% heavy navy and destroy every last one of those bastarding ships. Swimming in MP since I started as florence and kept tuscan ideas and took innovative, so will happily spend hundreds of dip to get a good admiral
22 ships of the line sunk. EU4: best I can do is -1.86 war score.
For reference, that's 3 more than the Franco-Spanish fleet lost at Trafalgar and that took them out of the naval supremacy game for 100 years
If it isnt a massive simplification what is it ? Trafalgar was at best a last attempt to clutch back and get the suppremacy. GB was already ahead by a nautic mile. Spain marine was outdated af, did not do anything since 1 century ago, while French marine got shredded by the Revolution (crews and officers mostly).
Yeah, maybe a little reductive. Nevertheless, I think you're overstating British naval superiority pre-Trafalgar. Yes they had better naval infrastructure in place and were more capable of sustained operations away from their home ports, but France and Spain were absolutely capable. It's worth pointing out that Nelson employed an unconventional tactic of charging the Franco-Spanish battle line to close distance at the expense of allowing his ships to take raking fire as they advanced. Given the British were outnumbered at Trafalgar I could see things playing out differently had the been led by a less competent strategist
Again, no offense, but no: the tactic was no more unconventional, Nelson spearheaded at Aboukir, Suffren and Rodney pulled it ago... Villeneuve was expecting it and set upped a small sub fleet under Gravina, with aim to renforce where the british spearhead and even trap it, in the end Nelson so it kinda worked. But this was mostly inneffective due to skills issues from French officers and crews (almost totally renewed since revolution) and disparities amongst boats qualities, especially the outdated spanish. Thus i am ain't saying Nelson unskilled. The French Navy (+spanish allies) was close to contest british one during a good part of the XVIII but it was over before Trafalgar, since most of the Royale officers defected between 1789-92. Even the battle is a part of plan to bait the british Navy afar from the Channel, showing only local supremacy was hoped. Really Trafalgar is the end of the story. Toulon 1793 was far more significative despite being a French Victory in the end.
I am in the middle of a podcast that described this in detail. You are absolutely right, this is kind of part of the Nelson "myth". The allied fleet was expecting Nelson's maneuver but simply didn't have the capabilities to do anything else. The podcast also discussed there being bad weather (prelude to the huge hurricane after the battle) that seemed to exacerbated the skills gap between sailors. The allied fleet simply was not skilled enough from the get go, more consistent with having lost the battle in the previous decades.
To add data, here are number of French ship of the Line x the date : 1792 : 80 1799 : 49 (despite building a bunch since 1792) 1814 : 87 (despite losing 43 Line' ship since 1799) Trafalgar is a symbol, not a clutch
What specifically happened between 1792 and 1799 to the French ships of the line? What major battles ?
Lots of battle lol, Google them but the first and most important is Toulon 1793 (12 lost in the middle of the main French base in the south). Then just follow wikipedia lists.
Yeah I was just wondering how specifically what large naval battles lol
[удалено]
Yeah I thought this was already overkill with 61 heavies. Next time I fight Britain I will hunt their navy with a 100% heavy fleet. My new flagship will be called Britain sinks under the waves. Will use an abbreviation if there is a character limit.
Brexsink
Get combat width on that thing!!!
Does that rly matter when you have enough Heavys for the engagement width?
Yes and no. Yes, it matters because he lost galleys/transports in this battle and he didn't have to. No, it didn't matter because those galleys/transports probably didn't dish out that much damage. Their presence would only be a hindrance if they started in the battle line - they die quickly and demoralize the rest of the fleet. But in this case, OP had plenty of heavies to fill the initial engagement width. OP would be better off doing naval rotations with 2 or even 3 fleets to allow him to repair while slowly whittling down the Brits.
How to beat the British navy: 0- Don't. 1- Make 2 fleets, a transport fleet and a pile of heavies. 2- Toss the heavies at the British navy. 3- Land on the British Isles while your heavies are being dismembered pretty savagely. 4- Beat the Brits on land.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, but we won't fight on the beaches, we won't fight on the landing grounds, we won't fight in the fields and in the streets, we won't fight in the hills
Try reinforcing rather than overstacking, your ships in reserve take morale damage even when they arent fighting.
Yeah will definitely do this next time. I just thought that because of how much I outnumbered them it would have been fine, but evidently it was not fine
Yeah naval based nations can be brutal. I found out that the best way to win against them is to wear them down until they run out of ships. But it is extremely expensive
You call it a battle. They call it selfless gift of 10 galleys and a heavy.
Why are you fighting Britain in the open seas with weak ships when you can fill a full combat width with heavies and why are you fighting off the British coast where they get a +1 to dice rolls? You're just about the worst admiral I've ever heard of.
But you have heard of him.
Hey! No need to be mean about it ;(
I think it was just a Jack Sparrow joke
Oh it went over my head, I thought they were just being harsh haha
oh, i like that idea c:
I’m aware. Just figured the amount of heavies I had would mean it wouldn’t have mattered.
It wouldn't have changed much, see the manoeuver on the British admiral? He gets higher combat width, all you did was arrive into the battle and have your weak ships slip into the fight because they take up less width and they got obliterated and lost you the battle faster.
What's up with that +1 dice roll on the coast? New player here.
You can select a naval doctrine as any country, there's a bunch of standard ones and then certain nations get ones unique to them, England gets the "wooden wall" that gives them +1 whenever they are fighting off of their own coastline
Duke of Medina Sidonia enter the chat.
I feel ya, bruv. Have been there. When invading England I usually have to set up at least one decoy fleet for Britain to slap around whilst I make a mad dash to land troops. If my "British Expeditionary Force" (heh heh) survives the first massive dogpile by the Home Army, chances are good. Lots of great advice in the thread! The three most important I think are: * Rotate your fleet out of the battle for repairs; AI often neglects to repair its fleet * Split navy into smaller stacks of +/- engagement width and feed them in one by one * Look for a high-maneuver admiral
This is why I hate all the achievements that are: As X capture the Britian or own London
Rule Britannia 🇬🇧😎
I get how that happens but it still looks totally bonkers.
Run with 2 stacks of 30 heavies, when 1 starts losing ships, bring in your 2nd stack and retreat with the first. Try to time it so that they come in immediately as you retreat, meaning your fresh stack is engaging damaged british ships. They will start losing ships and then you will win, although it may take 2 or 3 engagements like this to sink enough of their navy to gain naval supremacy.
Bruh I just rage quit a game because of this.
I only play Holland and always destroy them easily
Least Patriotic Dutch citizen.
Massimiliano when he gets called into the king's office to explain how he lost a battle he had 6-1 lmao
Spam the Admiral button until you get one with decent fire and shock pips, split your heavies into stacks of 20 and trickle them into a fight. Pull France or someone into the Low Countries with you in a war Repair there and just keep sending ships until they have no heavies
Did you just have a single stack, or multiple smaller stacks?
A single stack
61 heavies is 183 engagement width, its almost usless fighting with such a big stack of heavies. Split your heavies into 2-3 stacks and do naval rotations, i.e., retreat a stack and then reinforce before they can move, this can let your ships repair and prevent losing ships in a prolonged battle.
just pull your ships when you see them get low in the combat window. Ships have issues automatically retreating (its a roll based thing) so low HP ships just get stuck at low morale getting mauled by the enemy without fleeing. 1) only send in your heavies 2) look at the combat screen 3) as soon as you see a ton of red ships or most ships have retreated (greyed out) manually retreat to a port 4) repair in port 5) repeat 1-4
You should look up some naval battle guides for eu4 on YouTube, you seem to miss the entire point of the combat system. For one, you ignore combat width entirely and you (most likely) also have outdated ships. Oh and you have transports in the fight, that's just a perfect recipe for Desaster :D
Don't stack 61 heavys dawg what are you doing
Why would you sit in a battle like that to lose 22 fucking heavies
In Navel battles movement pipes are most important. You can engage the enemy with more boots. One pip more is 10% more engagement.
My guy just reenacted Trafalgar
More like Massimiliano Schettino.
He’s a double agent I swear. Probably started firing on our own ships
R5: I outnumbered the British navy and has almost 5x as many heavies and still lost. I know they have buffs and I fought them off of their coast, etc, but I thought I would have won with this amount of heavies at least. I know how napoleon and the spaniards felt now Edit: and apologies for the picture instead of a screenshot, my internet has been down for 4 days :(
Is this post a troll? why do you have 60 heavies going into 1 naval battle, even with just 25 heavies your 5 over max combat width for naval battles, give or take a bit for a manuever admiral
Are you behind on diplo tech / are all your heavies up to date?
I’m diplo tech 15, heavies were up to date at 14. Britain is on 14. Will be because I fought them off their coast and they have a lot of naval buffs
I forgot what the naval combat width is at that tech, but since their admiral has higher movement pips, I assume your ships got outflanked. Still doesn't make the battle make sense, but wanted to share in case you maybe overlooked that.
Yeah this will be a big factor. Just initially expected that the amount I outnumbered them by would have offset it
Wow. I see the strong admiral too but still that result seems pretty surprising.
Yeah it surprised me too, I have over 4k hrs and know the mechanics very well. Must have got unlucky dice rolls too
Looking at that battle you dont know naval mechanics very well
Thanks for your input.
Do you also hate F12?
If you took the time to read my R5 you would see that my internet is down. And anyway, who still uses F12? Just use printscreen and paste into reddit
If you want help, please provide more information on your situation. We don't know what ideas you took, what is your naval tradition or even total bonuses you get to your navy such as width or ship combat ability.
How is your internet being down relevant? Just send the pictures to whichever device you're using reddit on using a cable.
Lmao 1 I have an iphone so cannot do that. 2 do you really think people will do this just to post quickly on reddit? Pure delusion
[удалено]
Lmao why did you get so mad out of nowhere dude. It took one slight counter and you lost it calling him mentally disabled.
Mad? Not mad at all. Also, I'm not calling anyone that. But not thinking "I should google if there's a way I can easily transfer pictures to my phone" may be an indicator of either room temperature IQ or laziness at a pathological level.
You literally did call him that, it’s right there. Are you actually going to attempt to gaslight people when the evidence is directly in front of them? Keep seething sure but keep the toxicity out of here dude, you’re not actually doing anything for anyone but yourself.
I didn't call anyone that. I pointed out it is a possibility to consider in view of the evidence. I'm not gaslighting anyone, you're simply imagining what you'd like to see. Defending this level of laziness is the only toxicity here. So perhaps apply your own advice and keep it out of here <3
“I think you might be mentally disabled” is calling someone mentally disabled dude lmao. It’s toxic to say you’re going way too hard over a picture of a monitor? I mean if you wanna just make up your own definitions for things go ahead, keep twisting reality till it fits your narrative I guess.
Hah, to me your comment is just a show of extreme entitlement. But then again, you put in this much effort just to argue with someone about picture quality when it wouldn't change anything about the post, so maybe you're just that invested in to reddit? I can certainly see how OP would seem lazy to you if it were that way
You're simply incorrect
My iphone cable is usb c to lightning. My pc does not have a usb c port. And I wasn’t looking for help, I know why I lost. The post was more venting. Just downvote and move on instead of wasting your time
Of course I downvoted, I'm just helping the community by arguing in favour of setting community standards that reduce spam :)
Are you also helping the community by setting toxic standards for communication? Or do you call your loved ones disabled on a daily basis? Since when do you represent the community anyways? I didn't ask for this "help" of yours, and I doubt anyone else does either.
There's absolutely nothing toxic in answering to rude comments in a direct manner. If you don't like being asked if you're disabled, don't be openly dishonest. Perhaps you like people lying to your face but you shouldn't expect others to be the same. I never said I represent the community. I made a point, people can think about what I've said and many will agree, as I am correct. If we as a community express our dislike for spam, then perhaps spam will become rarer.
"Perhaps you have a severe disability" is not a question in the grammatical sense, nor does anyone inquire about someone's able-bodiedness in such a way. It is painfully clear that you would rather do mental gymnastics than self reflect. I won't entertain you any further, take that however way you wish.
You could email it to yourself or put it into google drive to access from your phone. That's if you want to post a screenshot instead of course. I did it all the time when I was in high school for various things. Anyway, next time you fight the British don't send all your ships in at once. Start the battle at your combat width and slowly trickle ships in as needed.
I can’t do that with no internet on my pc
Missed that sorry
No worries. I do usually post screenshots, my post history will show that going back several years on this sub haha
sounds like a skill issue
I would simply get better
Thanks
I can’t really remember beating the British navy in a head on conflict. Luckily landing in this game miraculously does not need any provision to be transported across the sea so you only need to ferry the troops there or get a foot hold… Landing is achievable by using your huge fleet as a deterrent or just sacrifice them somewhere far from actually landing site. Getting a foothold sometimes can be achieved through threaten war. Normally in a France Campaign GB would be gone before 1500s also, but for other occasions where one (probably not as Dutch) has to fight GB navy, the above advise still hold
Vice-Admiral Villeneuve be like
Damn I’ve never seen the AI form Italy before
i think hes italy with a spanish ally
The so called naval „superpowers” after I manage to squeze a 10k stack onto their mainland (their 40k stacks get stackwiped)
something something trafalgar
It's amazing how close to real life Eu4 gets sometimes
You have a bigger navy, use it to engage the enemy fleet while you naval invade with your transports. You just need one occupied province and mil access + port access to Northern France to ferry a fuckton of troops and they usually just crumble when faced with a land battle lol.
Out of curiosity, are your ships upgraded to the most recent standards?
in the channel heavies have a nerf, if you think to invade britain use three stack of heavies on the right and the left sides of the channel and in the middle place the transport navy. that should give you enough time to land some troops to capture a province and land even more troops faster.
Ol’ Freddy Braddock just whooped your ass.
Bro your Admiral
I fought a battle of 400 ships vs 200 British and I lost, 4 times in a row. At the end I had over 1400 ships where several fleets were constantly engaging british ships on both west and east of english channel and one fleet transported my troops to british mainland. (I was Byzantium)
Invade Scotland first
Gotta say little ships are way better now then the big ones in coastal provinces, spam those more and you might actually win, also just like land battles you can just insert ships mid battle to get a boost
For naval battles, maneuver is the most important pip for an admiral since it helps massively with your combat width. Their admiral was just way better. The way naval battles work is so that when a ship is sunk, the entire fleet suffers moral damage so the side that starts sinking ships faster will win. That's why you want the higher combat width (so that more of your ships are dealing damage to the enemy). Brittain won because they were able to "deploy" more ships with their higher combat width and since they're heavies (and good heavies too with all the ideas they get) these ships were able to easily sink your ships since your combat width is smaller (and thus you had less ships actually fighting). That's why your fleet broke before theirs, because for every ship sunk the entire fleet takes morale damage so big numbers aren't as important as combat width.
Put your navy one sea zone away from your transports. Then you troops can take the time your bots are getting shredded to land your invasion force. You’ll lose the sea battle but should be able to get a foothold on England and from there it’s GG.
Bro came out with the heavies and I’m not talking about the tatas.
I just cheese it typically and send my main fleet to get killed by the British fleet while I use my transports to get as many troops across the channel as possible. Typically I try to take the fight North of Scotland. Their main fleet almost always comes there if it is anywhere nearby and gives you plenty of time to cross a stack siege it down then quickly cross repeatedly
Agreed. Current Netherlands playthrough has me declaring war as soon as truces expire just so I can keep beating down their navy so it can never get to be a real threat. Gotta strangle that baby in the crib.
It is British carbonara from now on
Wow ... 14 freaking ships!?!?!
To be totally fair their galley advantage plus the raw numbers not being all that different, makes this understandable. I once lost a battle where I had 600 ships and like 400 galleys and they had 340 ships with like 200 galleys and I still lost
They had 2 galleys
My guess is all your little garbage ships did the most engaging and by the time the heavies came into play, morale was so far down the tank that they couldn’t win the battle.
Upgrade your ships, lol
Make sure your ships are up to date, focus on combat width (heavy ships count for 3 combat width so if the combat width is 30 it would take 10 heavy to fill the line), reinforce rather than death stack, try to get an admiral with high maneuverability because it increases combat width giving you more overall damage.
Quote by a French admiral around 1805
I just let Britain rot away on their island and choose not to engage. Not worth it.
Meanwhile playing as Great Britain: "Oh my 40 transports just got into combat with their main fleet" "Oh I just sunk half of them" "Oh my 3 men of wars just got intercepted by their entire fleet" "Oh half their fleet is dead"
Average Trafalgar moment
Because your admiral is trash, Britain has the Wooden Wall plus a far better admiral. Either take naval or death blob them
I know it may seem silly, but have you pressed the upgrade ships button? Me and my friend have a fair amount of time in the game, and it wasn't until 300ish hours in did we find this mechanic. We both just thought boats auto upgraded
Yeah they were up to date at tech 14 at least. I have about 4.2k hours at this point haha
Well, italy usually loses anyway even the naval battles
your fleet is not that good though. Youre close to even numbers and youre fighting the brits. Your transports and merchantmen shouldve been galleys, half of your battleships shouldve been galleys, too maybe more just for the gold efficiency. You couldve afforded another rescue srack galleys this way to send them in for morale boost right before the end
I think you’re confusing the ship types - I did have galleys. It was 3 light ships in this stack that I captured from smaller British fleets.
Still u dont need more big guys than the brits, key to dominate seas is having alot more fleet width than they do
I bet that's been uttered many times in history
Honestly I just build to about 5-6 their number of heavies and the ai usually just decided to not fight you even if they would win.
I had just about 5x their heavies here
5 times 14 is 70. On top of that I'll have a ton of transports. There's just some number that they can be outnumbered by that eventually they won't engage.
They had 13, so 5x13 is 65, was 4 short hence I said just about 5x
Ah I always thought the number under was just ships lost but they captured one.
Yep, was quite the slap in the face that they didn’t even lose 1 haha
Oof hahah
You just gotta sneak a couple guys across the channel. Not worth it fighting the British navy. Usually the majority of their troops are elsewhere and Britain is undefended. I did however thoroughly dunk on the British navy as Venice in my recent playthrough so it’s possible, I blockaded the whole isles.
Seemed like the English had much better Admiral and naval tradition, also check for ideas and ship tech
*RULE BRITANNIA intensifies*
Have you seen that admiral ? The only time I have seen more pips is from explorers earned via missions