Is there any reason to try to build Ships of the Line

[MasterDave]

I have played most of the way through two games now, and in both games I have sunk considerable resources and cash into building fleets of 15-20 ships of the line. In both games, the REF shows up with 80-120 ships ALL of which are Man-o-wars. I can take these down with two ships of the line jumping a single MOW, but I usually lose one of my ships in the process. More of my ships get trapped in settlements and die when the settlements fall. The end result is that my very expensive Navy is dead within 10 turns of independence pretty much no matter how much I put into it.

The question is, is there any reason to even try to compete with the King to control the seas? Building a Privateer or two seems to make sense since you can steal resources with them (plus they are fun), and maybe a Frigate or two to fight enemy privateers. Is building ships of the line just an outright waste of resources? It sure seems that way given the size and composition of the Royal fleets (ALL man-of-wars??? )

Historically, Man-of-Wars or Flagships were pretty rare, with England and France having a few at a time and maybe a few dozen ships of the line in their whole fleets. My expecation when I saw that the king had 80 ships in his REF that there would be some Frigates, Galleons, and SOL's mixed in. When I saw all Man-O-Wars coming at me I was a bit dismayed... The next game I built even more SOL's but it was me who was SOL as the king outnumbered me 5 to 1 and his ships are all superior...

I guess one justification for trying to fight at sea is to sink ships that are loaded. Unfortunately in the two games I have had so far, my main settlements were very close to Europe, and the REF could sail up and disembark their guys in one turn before I could try to hit them... I am getting my ass kicked on Conquistador level and am loving it! Back to the drawing board...

[snoopy369]

I think in a game where you have a TON of lumber, it can make sense because it's cheaper to build ships relative to guns. Also, in games where you have a ton of money but little available ore... but that hasn't happened to me yet.

Consider privateers, they're cheaper for the same effect against MoW's.

[devincutler]

Most strategies so far seem to involve ceding the seas and defeating the REF inland.

[peege]

Re: Is there any reason to try to build Ships of the Line

Originally posted by MasterDave The next game I built even more SOL's but it was me who was SOL as the king outnumbered me 5 to 1 and his ships are all superior...

That about sums it up.

The fact that every one of the REF ships is MoW is sort of silly. Especially since he can crank several out at once. Or just adds 10 artillery to my one cannon.

Stick to the hills until a mod or patch deals with the issue.

I'm not going to build any fortresses or SoL's at all any more.

[Ijuin]

Britain WAS the world's dominant naval power in the 18th century (actually pretty much from the defeat of the Spanish Invincible Armada until the USA surpassed them in the late 19th century), so it would be historically accurate for your navy to be unable to compare to them, though you are right that this makes it useless to try to fight the REF on the sea.

[peege]

I like playing the Dutch...

Even in WWII the Allies used transport ships. Surely we've all seen pictures of hundreds of transports unloading on D-Day. The Battleships support the attack and bombard. It isn't cost effective for any government to build only the most expensive ships. Some should be fast ships (frigates), some SoL's, some transport ships. A couple of MoW's here and there.

The MoW is just not supposed to be stopped. You can't build the 2 SoL's to 1 MoW that it would take to fight them off.

on marathon:

Just building 1 SoL takes enough guns to build 6 soldiers. Not to mention all the tools that could have been guns.
900 Tools
900 Guns
And time spend building it, when you could be building cannons or something useful for a fraction of the resources.

Or buying them at rediculous prices (even with the 25% off recruitment). They get expensive after a couple. I couldn't possibly deliver enough goods at 60% or more tax to pay for them (let alone 80%). Even with 100,000 gold, you would be lucky to get more than 5 SoL's. That isn't even going to drop 3 MoW's and it would take an eternity to get that much money.

Considering it takes TWO SoL's to defeat one MoW, that could have been 12 Soldiers enlisted from your normal colonists & 1800 Tools spared (or converted into more guns?) or the money to just buy cannons and soldiers.

Makes sense to NOT build them for REF defense.

It would make sense if there are inter-colony wars, where Fortresses need bombarding.

[Aerion]

Yeah, at first I was excited to see we could actually build SotL in this game. But after reading about how expensive, ineffective and basically useless they are, I wonder why they bothered to add them. It's like fortresses. There is pretty much no reason to waste the money and time to build one. They might as well take them out of the game.

[Ijuin]

AFAIK, SOtL are not intended for fighting against the REF, but instead for fighting colonial wars against other Europeans--notice that their main advantage over Frigates is their specific 50% bonus against Frigates (which does NOT apply to attacking MoW or SOtL!). You are better off using Frigates against the REF--they are almost as effective and are significantly cheaper to build.

[snoopy369]

Indeed, the main problem with SotL is that the colony AI is incompetent. Hopefully Dale will be able to fix that

[peege]

MoW gets 50% bonus against Frigates too though, doesn't it?

[MasterDave]

Yeah when I was moving a Frigate and moused over a Man-O-War the odds of winning were much lower than what I was seeling with the Ships of the Line. Frigates are only useful for polishing off a very wounded MOW once the independence war gets going...

[peege]

This thread describes a win with the navy. for the most part.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=5426662&t=6438#post5426662

[ben04]

I just made a world builder test. If you have Simon de Boviar and maxed out rebel sentiment SoL are stronger than MoW. Even Privaters get a 25% chance of sinking MoWs.

Under normal conditions it should be possible to get 25% rebel sentiment so your SoL would be as strong as MoW, so you stand a chance. I however don't see how another leader could do this.

Perhaps having a FF that gives SoL a +25% attack against MoW would be a good fix.


I don't think that the game should let the REF grow so big. If you play it right and don't produce too many LB early on the REF is normal size so the growing mechanics are fine but need to be capped in some way. Perhaps have the King make an intervention if the REF grows beyond a certain size.

[Saurus]

I considered, even back during the orginal col, that building a strong navy was useless, a waste of resources, as most of the time, the kings forces landed before you had opportunity sink the ships anyway. So sinking the kings ships before units landed was not really possible. And sinking them afterwards was pointless as it was not nessessary to destroy them in order to win the game.

It seems to work along similar lines this time around as well.

[timbrom]

If you do succeed in taking out a lot of the King's navy, he might not have enough ships to transport the REF before you run out of years.