Ship of the Line and Man-o-War

[PrinceMyshkin]

Have you noticed what colonizopedia says about the Ship of the Line?

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Ship of the Line

+50% vs.Frigate
Can bombard settlement defense (-12%/turn)
Replaced by Man-o-War

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What does the last line mean (replaced by man-o-war)?

Have you ever had the option to construct any Man-o-War yourself?

Talking about navy isn't the Frigate the most useless unit in this game?

[Dale]

It is supposed to say "Replaced by Man-o-War for the Empires".

It's the same as canon/artillery. The Man-o-War and Artillery are unique units for SoL and canon ONLY for the Empires.

Personally I think a merchantman is the most useless unit in the game.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Got you. Thanks

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Dale
Personally I think a merchantman is the most useless unit in the game.

I find that extra speed matters quite a bit, especially depending on the distance from the primary port to the European sea zone. Mind you, I like the extra capacity of the fluyt...

[Dale]

Caravel moves 4 too now.

But honestly, I've never built a merchantman, in either Col1 or Col2.

[Mark123jansen]

Really? Admittedly I very rarely Build them, but I usually buy 2-3 from Europe and have them sailing around collecting goods.

[Dale]

Yeah, in Age of Discovery II I made caravel have 4 move, and the Dutch and Portuguese unique Flyut and Carrack have 3 move but an extra cargo hold to compensate.

[Supr49er]

Re: Ship of the Line and Man-o-War

Originally posted by PrinceMyshkin
... Talking about navy isn't the Frigate the most useless unit in this game?

I like them for exploring because of their speed and Privateer-killing ability.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Re: Re: Ship of the Line and Man-o-War

Originally posted by Supr49er


I like them for exploring because of their speed and Privateer-killing ability.

...though it's really embarassing when the privateer sinks the frigate. Expensive too.

Frigates become *quite* useful when dealing with Pirates.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Yup, that's the only use I can think of as well.

But have this ever happened to you?

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Caravel
30 Tools
100 Hammers
4 Movement
Cargo 2

Galleon
100 Tools
300 Hammers
3 Movement
Cargo 6

Merchantement
60 Tools
200 Hammers
4 Movement
Cargo 4

Assuming no military strength the merchantment and the the caravel are the most cost effective per cargo unit (1 cargo).

The galleon is slower by 0.1667 tiles (1/6) and less cost effective by 1.67 tools (10 tools / 6) per cargo unit (1 cargo).

Assuming military strengths, the merchanemt becomes more cost effective than the caravel.

The galleon is still more expensive, and slower, but stronger.

[Dale]

And a galleon moves treasures. VERY important factor which I think cancels the extra cost and slowness.

[smak]

The frigate is not useless. It is the cheapest ship that can bombard defenses, and it is the best ship to fight caravels, merchantmen, galleon, and privateers with. You only need ship of line to fight frigates, other ship of line, and man of war. But one could argue that its more efficient to kill ships of the line with multiple privateers instead of taking a 50 50 chance that your ship of the line will beat his ship of the line.

To the person that said merchantman is the worst ship i would say that its the best ship to start with, but its more efficient to add caravels to your fleet after the start. Because multiple caravels can go in different directions, one can trade with indians while another brings goods and colonists back from europe. And if you lose one caravel while moving troops you dont lose all of your shipping fleet and all of your army.

Galleon had 2 uses, one is to ship treasures back to europe and another is to attack cities with 6 cannon at once from the sea. But you can just use a merchantman and a caravel to make amphibious attacks and it is not worth the cost of a galleon to be able to ship treasure to europe. If you let treasure sit at your city until you can afford or build a galleon then you will lose all the gold generating or economic or military power of investing that gold while you wait. Its better to put 50% gold to work now than to wait twice as long to recieve 100% of the initial gold from treasures.

No one brought it up yet but the privateer is in my opinion the most powerful navy unit in the game, IF you buy it very early on. If you take the time to build one then its better to just build a frigate or ship of line instead. Because in the time you take to build a privateer the enemy can buy a frigate. If you buy a privateer as quickly as you can then you will only come up against caravels, merchantmen, or possibly another privateer. And if you sink a transport ship where it enters or leaves the zone to europe then all you have to do is wait there until the next transport ship shows up. The only way your enemy can get around this blockade is to build another ship at his city, and by the time that happens you will be able to field a large army to destroy him with. This doesnt even take into account the ability to capture goods in transit, that is just icing on the cake. Personally i have only encountered one galleon with my privateer, i said wtf and gave it a shot and i won the fight. It was 50 50 chance and i destroyed a very expensive ship and sank over 2000 gold in treasures. On quick games with peter on your side privateer only costs about 1600 gold, that is just one shipment of 100 guns to indians.

[PrinceMyshkin]

My merchant fleet composes usually of my first ship, a galleon, and if I am very developed, near the end, I buy a merchantmen.

The first ship I buy is a privateer, then a galleon.

Sometimes it is the other way around. Depends on the number of treasures I currently have (obviously if you can make two privateers with a galleon transporting treasures in one go, go for the galleon...).

I object about the caravel multitasking with the Indians. This is what we got wagon trains for. Way cheaper (unless the Indian village is miles and miles away, and in this case having a caravel carrying valuable goods in front of everyone's nose is not the best move either).

Smak, if you get to the point to buy a frigate, why not pay an extra 2k bucks to buy a SoL? And as you said above in quick with Pete it’s even less than 2k bucks, and that’s only 1 cargo of 100 muskets to Indians. I guess if you are really desperate, it’s ok… otheriwise...

I agree with what you said about the privateer. It is probably the best cargo ship -ok argueably with the galleon. Dale will say treasures again.

The frigate and SoL have no cargo capacity, making their use limited and solely focused on chasing privateers, or fight other ships with nations you are currently at war.

Saying that an obvious negative for the privateer is it can be sunk by nations you are in peace with, while you don't expect it. It can happen, but if you play it smart most probably it won't.

Saying that an obvious positive for the privateer, is the only unit in my games which repeatidly hits 30+ XP. That's enough to say how useful really is as a unit.

Point to investigate is the uber strong Simon Bolivar privateer, which can fight man-o-wars. Gotta try Simon Bolivar privateer spam once! Maybe I will get easiest win ever!

[Dale]

For me a galleon is the most important ship I must have two of! One for transporting freight back 'n forth to Europe, and the second to transport treasures. I nearly always target the Aztec's for anihalation as they reap fantastic treasures, usually 1500-2500 each tribe.

I don't bother with privateers. Not worth my bother TBH. Yes, they can make fantastic warships for the WoI but since I play the land-war strategy I don't need a navy. So I just stick with my original caravel to explore, and two galleons.

So for me, the galleon is the most important ship.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Jeez... I've just made some quick calculations. SB=Simon Bolivar

SoL vs Man-o-War: 8+50% = 12 vs. 12

SB privateer vs Man-o-War: 6+100%= 12 vs 12.... or 1:1

SB SoL vs Man-o-War: 8+100%= 16 vs 12, or 4:3

But privateer is x2 more cost effective (actually even more, but for the sake of simplicity let's say x2). Hence, in total SB privateer is more effective than SB SoL vs Man-o-Wars.

This is because two privateers against a Man-o-War have 1:1 x 1:1 chance to win, which is rougly 3:1 odd. This is favourable to 4:3 SB SoL has.

Do you understand what this really means? DoI in 1600 for vanilla.

All you need is 5 privateers, and four soldiers.

For AoD II, DoI in 1630 with 15 privateers and 8 soldiers.

Has this ever come up before? SB bonus should not apply to privateers.