Battles at sea

General information

Ships can be moved on the map or in the area selection similarly as armies. Additionally ships can reveive orders that define the tactics during battle: conduct during approaching, attack targets and setting for aiming the catapults (issued with the "GO!"-button).

A newly built ship has "flee" as standard setting.

The tactics

There are two blocks of tactics. To the left is the primary tactic and to the right the secondary tactic. The primary tactic is the default tactic for a ship. Players can enter a percentage to the right. This percentage represents the remaining hitpoints (HP). If the ship has only that amount of HP left, the ship's captain changes to the secondary tactic. This allows to define a behaviour for the ships after being damaged, for example "flee" or "attack from a far distance". rnung.

Conduct during approaching:

• flee: The ship tries to leave the combat as fast as possible, without fireing on the enemy. The ship flees 1 field in a random direction on the regular map.
• keep distance: The ship tries to remain outside the firing range of the ordered target (15 fields on the combat map). However, it does not flee from the area of combat.
• far distance: The ship tries to reach firing distance for heavy catapults, but tries to remain outside the firing range of light catapults (8 fields on the combat map).
• short distance: The ship tries to get within 3 fields distance to the enemy on the battle map, so that it can fire its light catapults in addition to the heavy catapults.

Attack targets:

• next ship: The ship attempts to reach the set distance to the closest enemy ship.
• smallest ship: The smallest enemy ship is chosen.
• greatest ship: The largest enemy ship is chosen.
• few catapults: The enemy ship with the fewest catapults is selected.
• many catapults: The enemy ship with the most catapults is selected.

Setting for aiming the catapults:

• low: Regular damage to the hull, small chance for hitting a mast.
• high: Half the damage to the hull, double the chance for hitting a mast.

When does a battle at sea take place?

If the ships of hostile players meet on a field and at least one of the ships carries weapons, a battle commences. If two hostile fleets meet and all ships are set to "flee" or "distance", no battle takes place and the ships simply sail along. Ships of neutral or players at peace / NAP can sail on the same fields. Ships that are currently dropping off troops do not actively attack, but may still be attacked by other ships. If ships of multiple enemies are present on a field, the following rules apply:

• The ship of the active player attacks the enemy, those ship has the most movement points. If there are multiple enemies with the same movement points, the enemy is picked at random.
• The movement points of a ship for each turn are defined by its speed (this means, 0-3). Every move on the map costs 1 point and every combat takes another point. Ships may therefore fight more than once each turn. Example: a fleet with ships of speed 3 moves from one field away into a hostile fleet. During the same turn, this hostile fleet will be attacked twice.
• Allied fleets attack in a joined way, even if they move from different fields onto the enemy field. It only matters that they arrive at the same time. The diplomatic status of the allies does not matter.
• If the ships do not have any movement points left, they will not attack this turn, but at the beginning of the next turn. However, even when all movement points are used up, ships may be attacked by an enemy in the same turn.
• A ship that has no remaining mast can't bring the opponent in range of its weapons and fires therefore no catapults.
• If a ship has a speed of 0 because of broken masts, the crew starts constructing emergency masts, until a speed of 1 is achieved again - this takes one or two masts, depending on the ship. The construction of an emergency mast takes 3 turns and costs 2% of the maximum HP of the ship each turn. If there are not enough HP left to build a mast, the ship is forsaken and the armies and spies loaded on the ship are shattered.

Course of the battle

The battle takes place on a combat map with 100 x 100 fields and lasts 50 combat rounds; this combat map is simply the area of the respective water field on the regular map. The order of players is determined at random for every combat round, with all ships of one side moving at the same time. This means that it may happen that in one combat round all ships of the "attackers" move, followed by all the ships of the "defenders". However, in the next combat round, all ships of the "defenders" may move first, followed by all ships of the "attackers".

A combat round in a combat proceeds as follows:

The crew is distributed: For each fire on board 10 men are selected to fight the fire. After that, the masts are staffed. If not enough crew is present for all masts, the speed of the ship is reduced. At last, the catapults are staffed. Only staffed catapults can fire.

Now each ship uses its movement points. First, all ships do their first movement, then each ships their second movement, and at last all ships their third movement. How many movements a ship can do, depends on the speed of the ship.

1. The active ship seeks out an enemy vessel depending on its tactic setting.
2. The active ship attempts to reach the distance to the enemy's ship suggested by the tactic. However, the ships never leave the 100 x 100 combat area, except if the tactic "flee" is selected.
3. The active ship fires its heavy catapults against the selected target. If the target is not in reach, an alternative target in reach is chosen. A catapult can only be fired once during each combat round.
4. The active ship fires its light catapults against the selected target. If the target is not in reach, an alternative target in reach is chosen. A catapult can only be fired once during each combat round.

Whether a catapult scores a hit depends on the distance, the crew's experience (= XP of the ship) and good luck. Every hit costs the enemy ship hitpoints (HP). If the HP fall to 0, the ship sinks. The armies and spies loaded on the ship are lost.

Fighting fires

• Fires start on ships, when it is hit by a fire projectile coming from a catapult. The stronger the hostile crew and the shorter the distance is, the more propably fire will start.
• The propability for fire to emerge on a ship using greek fire is 3%.
• Fire causes damage in every turn during the combat and the crew attempts to put out the fire. For each fire 10 men are recruited. Surplus crew does not help to put out any single fire. If there is not enough crew available for all fires, the fire automatically gets out of controle.
• In every combat turn, the crew has the chance to put out the fire. The more experienced the crew is, the bigger the chance. If the fire is not put out, it expands and the chance to put it out in the next turn is reduced by 5%. If the chance is down to 0%, the fire gets out of control.
• The ship is lost when a fire gets out of control. It loses HP in every combat turn until it sinks.