Hi,
After fixing a persistent crash issue thanks to tweaking video settings, I am finally able to cut my teeth in this game. I have several naval related questions playing as Ottomans in the January 1805 long campaign.
1. What determines what I receive from my merchants in Sea zones? For most zones, I get 20 money and 0 war supply. Is it ever possible to get WS via trading? I need it badly to build more ships. Some zones I get 20 dollars per turn such as Black seas. Other zones I get merely 10 (North sea and one of the atlantic ones). What determines the money coming in, and how can get WS from this? I suspect my ships in North Sea probably were damaged by storms in the transit. There were no raiders involved.
2. I know boarding is a factor since each ship has a % CHANCE OF CAPTURE as a statistic. In AJE, boarded ships were considered sunk. Can you capture ships here? In AJE, putting special marines unit in your fleets help in the boarding phase, which was very important for non romans like the Carthaginians or Illyrians. Do marines help in the assault phase and the fire phase (boardings and sniping?) if they are combined with a fleet here?
3. I have been handily catching detached Russian fleets with my main fighting task force and handily defeating them. I am almost at par in naval terms with them due to that. I've been constructing a few ships, mostly sloops to form a QRF and to beef up my main task force. However, I noticed a few strange things. For example, heavy frigates are more powerful than 3rd rate Ships of the Line in terms of combat value. If I wanted to create a super fleet to defeat the Russians once and for all in a decisive battle, should I build heavy frigates or Ships of the Line? This is puzzling, since Frigates are cheaper than SOTL but offer slightly better combat values.
4. What is the difference between heavy ships, light ships, and raiders? I've been building sloops, which are raiders, because I thought I had not chance of facing them head on and so went for a raiding fleet. Would it be bad if these small ships joined their bigger cousins in a line? What kind of ships is good for what?
5. What are the specific bonuses to researching High Seas Fleet? It mentions better high seas performance, but what does that mean?
6. How do I fight the Russians if they insist on putting their black seas fleet in the black seas sea zone? I formerly used my sloops to raid their merchants in the zone by moving them in and setting them to aggressive and intercept fleets, but then they moved a huge fleet with several SOTL into the zone. I rapidly withdrew my raiders, and since my combined battle fleet was stronger, I moved my main fighting force inside the zone and set them to aggressive. Nothing happened for several weeks. I then turned on intercept fleets and still yet nothing happened, except my fleets losing cohesion, presumably from the intercept fleets order. How do I force the Russians to fight?
7. What statistic is most important in determining whether my raiding force sinks enemy merchants? Would ships of the line be good raiders? Frigates which are light ship? Only actual raiders like sloops and privateers? What is the statistic that determines whether my escorting force in a sea zone protects my merchants and sinks enemy raiders? I say this because a few raiders crept into one of my formerly lucrative sea zone and reduced it to only 8 money, and I am prepping a task force to clean them up.
I am currently in 1806, and was initially losing the land war until the Timariots triggered in the Balkans, after which I have annhilated a 800 power russian Landing force by sinking their escape route. I am hoping a win big at sea so I can trade my gains on sea for their gains on land, or pray Napoleon defeats the Austrians to begin fighting the bear.