Overview
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Faction Overview
There are basicly two types of navies. The barbarians and the greek style. There are a lot of common things about them and they dont differ that much but barbarians have no huge ships like the greek style navies, no ramming device (Allthough they do ram effectivly, its just a graphical difference) and they mostly rely on melee tactics although they can play every style as well. Biggest advantage of greek style navies are the cheap skirmishers they get from the beginning. In my eyes they are far better than melee ships.
Barbarians have far more cheap and in the campaign earlier melee ships. The barbarian Heavy Rider ship is actually with 1290 hull strength better than most ships of greek origin but they ultimatly fail against the best ships of carthage, rome, egypt and macedon but again they lack skirmishers from the beginning.
The greek style navies are better at most everything than the barbarians, once you unlock their better ships, making them much more fun than the barbarians.
One interesting fact is that the Ships for each faction are different in Single and Multiplayer, but the overall style and tactics are mostly the same.
Ship Classes
Cheap skirmishers: Starting navy for all greek style navies. They are pretty useful. Faster than transports and bigger ships and used in masses they can quickly kill any enemy marines on their ships. Raming is decent against transports but against bigger ship will do no damage. Still, unless you have a lot of cash these will be the backbone of your navy.
Transports: Slowest unit in the game. Most of the time stands not more than 2 rams or 2 shots from a ballista .Depending on the unit that is one them they can be usefull. Slingers tend to do well but since some patches ago they are pretty much useless.
Support ships: Manned with better skirmishing troops they can fullfill allmost any role. Use them to make enemy ships follow them away from the battle, ram the enemy, shoot them to pieces or sacrify them against stronger vessels. Flaming javelins are effective against most tougher enemies but most of the time normal ammunition is sufficient. When 2-3 ships of these class concentrate on one target its like machine gun fire. Barbarians have slingers in this class. They are not bad but I would take skirmishers over them any day.
Assault vessels: Fast, great at melee and great at ramming but… mostly useless against huge armadas of support ships. These have really been nerfed to the point of uselessness. Fire ships are sometimes good for their additional fire damage but they die in autocalc every time. Furthermore boarding is a mechanic not really reliable.
Huge ships: Huge impressive vessels, mostly containing generals and are built to last. They take a lot of abuse, excel at ramming (If they ever have the chance) and can either have skirmishers or assault infantry on them. They are powerfull but never think of them as unbeatable. They too go down in no time when showered with fire, getting flanked from two fire ships or against severhis means I don’t get to fight rome. Huge ships with assault infantry are your main strinking force against enemy towns but are not really useful in naval combat. Archer or slinger ships excel against most other ship types. Strong ramming, decent speed and a missile advantage against all other ships.
Artillery ships If used right they can give any enemy a headache. Control the shooting yourself and even fast atacking enemy fleets should lose at least two vessels against one of these ships. They are perfect general killers too. In close combat they lose against everybody but their ramming is pretty decent. Against bigger ships they can have problems though needing 10 hits to take the biggest ships down.
Most overpriced bad ship in the game:
The biggest ship of them all: The egyptian Octareme. They lose really really badly against the sacred band or even a barbarian general ship which costs 40% less in Multiplayer. 200 man are great but no speed and 200 egyptian infantry are not that great. However if they ever get to ram the enemy, small ships break apart with one ramming.
Basic Battle Concept
Ramming
The fastest and and cheapest way to sink an enemy is ramming him. When two ships ram each other the ship with the fastest speed (Sometimes it just seems the AI wins at random) rams the enemy. Ramming the front is ill advised however. The enemy can simply lock you with the boarding order. It always beats ramming.
Also ramming and boarding only really work in every 45degrees. That means two ships cant ram from the front and its hard to ram somebody with two ships from the sides. It gets really messy. Boarding ist the same. If possible, always have a clear sight on one side of the enemy ship with nobody interfering. If you can, get the extra speed bonus most ships have to ram the enemy. Ram sadly does not always work when ships are really close to each other.
Melee
Melee atacks can be made from two sides dropping the enemy morale and troops in no time. Two medium infantry can beat one heavy infantry in boarding action easily. Besides that, its just battling it out. If you sink a boarding ship its crew is so kind and jumps in the water instead of harrassing you any further. Unfortunatly the AI is way better at boarding your ships then reversed since this mechanic doesnt work really well.
Ranged Atack
Ranged ships have been pretty buffed. Having a lot of fire javelins hand can complettly destroy any enemy ship but low armour enemies are better just shot to death with normal javs. Use fast reload. Keep your support ships together in groups and be careful that not all get boarded at the same time. To be honest a fleet of just skirmishing boats is all you need in campaign.
Artillery ships just need to fire at the enemy. If you can do it yourself. They should be protected from melee but if nescessary they are pretty good at ramming.
Your General
One of the most importing aspects of naval battles is moral so keep your admiral well protected behind you line and kill their admiral. Ship give the admiral bonus they receive to every ship in their side making a small battle line with admiral in the rear pretty steady.
Strategies
The machine gun
This strategy is advisable with javelineers/archers with huge numbers.
Put less ships in the front row than in the back row. Only deploy on a small scale. Maybe distract the enemy flank with fast ships.
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Your first line of ships will block the enemy advance bogging him down. Your machine gun like fire javelins will knock them out. Use it if the enemy hast more melee ships. Your Flanks either distract and try not to engange or if the enemy doesnt take the bate then flank their main advance in the middle for further chaos.
Two against one
SImple and deadly. One ship locks the enemy with boarding. One goes around the side and rams it with 2-4 ramming actions to the ground. Its the most effecting way to fight with cheap units. Even Light Skirmishers can take out most enemies with it.
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Distracting
Use skirmishers or fast assault boats to lure some enemies from the battle. Most likly they wont catch you for a long time. If you have enough time to evade the enemy main line then take some skirmishers in a group and destroy the crew of the pursuing ships with fire.
Melee Atack
If you are better in melee for example you have a lot of small fast assault boats then dont just rush in. Getting bogged down is the worst thing that can happen and groups of emeny support ships are your enemy as well. Try to get some fast ships to atack over the flanks. The moment the enemy tries to reinforce them atack the reinforcing ships from the side.
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This tactic gets even more evil if you have more artillery ships then your enemy and you can force him to come to you.
Artillery Line If you are confident just do all artillery ship in a line and fire away. More cautious characters might want to set them in a diagonal line shooting from the first ship in line personally. That way you can always fire with the next ship by yourself on close range and absolutly wreck any enemy thats coming. You might lose more than with a straight line but you dont lose everything as soon as the enemy reaches you. Also the possibilty of the enemy getting bogged down is pretty high.