Bombarding other ships while in port.

[Major Guz]

Last night I had a peculiar thing happened. Playing as Domai I had a fight with Sven. He came up to one of my coastal cities bombarding improvements. He had Particle guns I still had only lasers. His boats were 4-3-4, mine 2-3r-4.

I could not attack his ships directly (I don't attack in this situation unless I have superior numbers and that was not the case because I was fighting off Marr and Cheese Dong on land, which had my priority).

By accident (I wanted to bombard a single round, but sea bombardment against sea is to the death apparently, like all artillery) my ship bombarded his and won.

When I had a closer look on the battle screen it stated altitude +25% and some morale factors.
I first thougt it would be some bug or something, but when you think of it, the base in which port was was at 640 meters or something and the ship at ocean level so that accounts for the +25% altitude that in the end did the job (but just barely).

For those of you thinking "why didn;t he use artillery", well I did not invent polymorphic software then.

I captured rest of his ships (first one was stacked) by foil probe giving me tyhe opportunity to reverse engineer his particle foils

I haven't tested this event further yet, but it opens up possibilities to the faction with inferior armament (even compared to the defense of the other faction).

Have any of you had a similar experience or have other tips on fighting a superior foe?

[Mongoose]

Two things.

Ships in port get a large bonus in ship to ship long range fire duels. A (4)-1-4 foil is much stronger in bombarding enemy shipping than a (4)-1-1 artillery battery.

All artillery duels, including ship to ship, ignore armour...it's weapon to weapon, adjusted for morale and elevation. (and being in base)

Aside: When conducting ship to ship duels at sea, have a care to the placement of the engaged ships. The game grants an elevation bonus based on the depth of the water. (Stupid, I know, but that's what happens.) Unfortunately, I can't recall which way the elevation works...i.e., if deeper water is 'higher' or 'lower' than shallower water. It has been a while since I experienced this effect.

[Gibsie]

I think it's silly the way you can capture enemy ships when you bombard them from two squares away. But then I also think it's silly that you can capture enemy troops if you use a marine detatchment on a transport... so I'm just a silly man.

[Kirov]

Originally posted by Gibsie
I think it's silly the way you can capture enemy ships when you bombard them from two squares away. But then I also think it's silly that you can capture enemy troops if you use a marine detatchment on a transport... so I'm just a silly man.

Maybe on marine detachment there is also a propaganda officer present...

[Alinestra Covelia]

Perhaps the marine detachment bombards human cannonballs over to the opposition ship, thus allowing them to subvert the foe from inside.

[Kirov]

What if in that case both of the dueling ships have the marine detachments? Shouldn't they just switch banners? After all, if you shoot off all of your troops and they bombard you with their marines...

[Gibsie]

Now I think you're going too far