Is the ironclad bugged?

[Drachasor]

It's bad luck. My very first game I had mumerous fights between Riflemen (str 14) and Knights (str 10). Sometimes I was on the defensive, fortified or in hills or forest. My first 6 or 7 riflemen were ripped apart by the knights who hardly took any damage. Mind you these riflemen had the level 1 combat upgrade. After 6 or 7 died the AI seemed to be out of knights.

In my later games my riflemen have generally been far superior to knights. Every once in a while you just have a streak of bad luck. Remember that you can lose a fight, even badly lose a fight, even with 20-10 odds in your favor. Good odds make such things less likely, not impossible.

-Drachasor

[Drachasor]

Well, if they were going to do things accurately then ironclads should be almost immune to wooden ships. Additionally an ironclad should have blitz against wooden ship as the ironclad could use explosive rounds--my understanding is that these were so lethal to wooden ships that there was a general consensus not to use them. In real life the ironclad was this good.

However the later ships would have to be similarly powerful. This would make getting destroyers first be far too effective. You could eliminate whole fleets of the enemy and he could do nothing about it. One just has to let these little things slide in favor of game balance.

Now perhaps the ironclad could be boosted a bit, maybe even up to destroyer levels against wooden ships. Afterall, the ironclad can only work in shallow water (they got that right), which means it is largely only good against frigates bombarding your cities or to attack your neighbors. Afterall someone from another continent can easily make sure their transports are never in danger from the ironclad, so it is fairly useless to use against ground troop invasions.

-Drachasor