The general goal of a sea battle is to shoot the other ship (avoiding getting shot) until she get the maximum damage and then grapple her. Maxing will cause opponents to have the maximum amount of black unbreakable blocks on the Swordfight board (for brigands or players) or lock out a large portion of the Rumble board (for barbarians).
In the table below we have highlighted in blue the figures an aspiring Officer has to keep in mind. Since you'll probably be taking out only sloops at the beginning, spawning enemy ships that range from sloops to war brigs, you should learn how to max your opponents with small cannon balls as well as how many cannon balls they need to max you. Please note that Dhows, Baghlahs and Brigs are equipped with medium cannon balls, thus they would only need 4 shots to max you. Our suggestion is to not attack them, choosing as a target only Sloops and Cutters.
| Ship Name | Max SF Damage | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Small | Med | Large | |
| Sloop | 6 | 4 | 3 |
| Cutter | 7.5 | 5 | 3.75 |
| Dhow | 7.5 | 5 | 3.75 |
| Baghlah | 12 | 8 | 6 |
| Merchant brig | 12 | 8 | 6 |
| War brig | 15 | 10 | 7.5 |
| Merchant galleon | 18 | 12 | 9 |
| War frigate | 30 | 20 | 15 |
| Grand frigate | 36 | 24 | 18 |
This tool may help you to figure out how damage works:
http://www.hellswrath.org/files/SBDamageApp/SBDamageApp.jnlp
Practicing with the Navy
The easiest way to get familiar with the Battle Navigation puzzle is to practice with the Navy.
In order to do that, there are a few requirements. An experience of Broad in the other duty puzzles is required to unlock the Navigation puzzle and an experience of Narrow in Navigation is needed for Battle Navigation. Please note that a pirate must also have a pirate badge in order to be able to play the Navigation puzzles.
Crew
Unlike the rest of the bots, those jobbing for the mission "defeat brigands with the Navy" have standings higher than "Able". Once you get on the sloop set for that mission, check your bots' stats. Some of them might be good sailors, some might have fine gunning standings. It's up to you to assign them to their best station in order to make the ship work properly. Note that this is a very sensitive issue which you'll also have to manage in a real pillage: before setting sail you should always make sure you have onboard skilled jobbers for each station (or at least for sailing and gunning)! With the Navy you'll get 4 bots. If you don't have both a decent (+respected) sailor and gunner, just cancel the mission as you might find yourself in trouble. On the other hand, if you get skilled sailors and gunners, assign them to the aforesaid stations and get ready to set sail.
As for the rest of the bots, we would suggest assigning a second one to sails and the last to bilge, having no carpenter during the battle. When you are at sea you could assign your gunner to carpentry so as not to let damage increase. Why 2 sailors and no carpenter? If you keep the damage to a minimum, that won't affect the proper functioning of the ship, while letting bilge water into the ship would affect the sailors' performance and you could get less sailing tokens (arrows). If you are a very good puzzler, you may work "double-duty" taking another station while bnaving, assigning a bot to another station. Note that it's unadvisable to sail and bnav at the same time.
Engaging
There are two ways to engage enemies: 1. setting on the auto-target device; 2. doing it manually from the crow's nest.
Auto-target and Duty Navigation
If you choose to use the auto-target, then you should play the duty navigation puzzle in order to spawn brigands more efficiently. If you are on a Navy mission you don't have to worry about which kind of enemies you will spawn, while on a pillage you have first configure your voyage in order not to get too hard opponents. In facts, the default parameter for a pillage is: "fighting Average to Hard brigands and barbarians"; meaning that the auto-target may engage also orange-red ship and believe me, at beginning you don't want to face them. In a real pillage, before setting sail click on the helm, select "Configure voyage" and adjust the difficult level of your opponents. Now you can take the helm and navigate.
If you choose this method, don't forget to set the auto-target on: it may be hard to engage any ship if you navigate without turning on that device.
The crow's nest and the radar
The most effective way of engaging enemies is probably doing that from the crow's nest cause you have a huge overview of the surrounding waters. You can combine that with the use of the radar. Click on Booty tab on your right, find the map of "Yer known world" and select "View". If the ship you are onboard is deported or at sea, you'll see a circle surrounding her. Inside that circle you should be able to see all the ships in its range. You can use the radar to see if any ship is approaching and sail towards that direction. Once your target is close to you in the radar, close the map and look for the ship in the screen showing now the waters you are sailing on. Switch now in the golden tabs menu to "Vessel" and when your opponens are on the screen, click on them and then on the button "Engage". If they are close enough a chase will start.
Consequences of enganging
Reengage wisely. Do it only if in the previous battle your ship hasn't got too much damage or bilge.
Winds, whirlpools, rocks
Beside plain sea tiles, in a bnav board there are three more items: winds, whirlpools and rocks. A good naver should learn to master them all.
You may think rocks are unimportant, as long as you avoid hitting them. Not true. First we have to separate tall rocks, that block cannon fire, from low rocks, that can be fired over. As a consequence watch your sides facing low rocks, as they are exposed to enemy fire. Another underestimated aspect of rocks is the fact that if your prow faces a rock, you can turn your ship by hitting it with a left or right arrow token. This tactic is sometimes used by brigands, so don't just take for granted that brigands are trapped once they face rocks: they do hit them, turn the ship and fire. Note that if brigands have to chose between hitting the rocks and getting shot, they choose the first option. It's a wise choice: ramming causes 0,5 damage, while a shot causes 1 (or more, depending on the type of the cannon balls).
Winds may give you the advantage of saving tokens if you exploit them correctly, same for whirlpools, which can be turned into an extremely useful tool. Please read the Yppedia whirlpool tutorial, then practice navigation on whirlpools with an on-line simulator that you can find here. Take a ship to sea only once you have understood how whirlpools work.
Brigands tactics
The general behaviour of brigands during bnav, can be summarized as follows.
1) Assuming they have enough tokens to reach their desired destination and they are not seriously damaged, brigands try to grapple whenever they have the chance to.
2) If they can't grapple, brigands try to find themselves in a position that allows them to shoot you.
3) If brigands are seriously damaged they try to flee.
First corollary: being in a position that can give them the chance to grapple if you move, they try to grapple.
Second corollary: being in a position that can give them the chance to shoot you if you move, not being able grapple, they shoot.
Try to find yourself in a position that lead them to move towards you, not allowing them to grapple or hit you.
LSM
Last second movement (LSM) means placing the tokens in a sea battle just before the vessels move.
While in a sea battle, each ship involved displays a movement meter, showing how many moves the navigator has currently placed. Because it can give the opposing ship's navigator an approximate idea of where their enemy is going to move, navigators often wish to disguise the true numbers of moves that they are going to place. LSM is one strategy used to disguise the navigator's true intentions.
To execute a LSM, wait until the timer for each round has only a few seconds left. Then, as quickly as possible, place all the moves for that turn. Usually, mouseclicks, as opposed to drag-and-dropping (see below), are used to execute a LSM. A variant on the LSM is to place a certain number of moves at the beginning of the turn, and then use a LSM to change the number of moves or putting in a shot without a move but which makes it look like you are moving.
Against brigands, LSM is a controversial topic. Many navigators use them to attempt to fool the brigand into thinking that the navigator is not going to move, and then move into a position to shoot or flee the brigand. However, many believe that repeated use of LSM against brigands leads to the brigands using LSM in that battle as well, making it more difficult for the navigator to judge the brigand's movement. Once used a LSM, let at least one turn pass before executing it again!
Shipspotting
While at sea, you may come across a few kind of crews.
Brigands and barbarians are spawned by the game to engage and fight player controlled ships. The might ring of their ship has an icon that allows you to recognize them easily: rumble icon (2nd ship in the image below) for barbarians and swordfighting icon (3rd ship in the image below) for brigands.
Merchant brigands are groups of NPPs that gather commodities that spawn on uncolonized islands and sail them to colonized islands. Merchant brigands, carry the title instead of on their ship's panel. If a player ship defeats a merchant brigand, the players receive a portion of the merchant's commodities. Small merchant ships tend to carry valuable and rare commodities while the large merchant ships usually carry fairly common, bulky items such as hemp. Merchant brigands are generally hardest to fight against and capable of releasing Instakills in a swordfight.
Players crews also don't neither have an icon on their might ring, nor a title; they show instead the name of the Flag they belong too. Please don't attack players ship, cause in case of loss our pvp rank will go down, moreover usually PvP are harder and don't worth the booty you may get in case of victory (being only 25% of the booty on the players ship).
The might ring
Every ship on the seas has a strength rating known as "might." Might is shown by a small ring around each ship: the might ring. The might ring serves as an indicator of the strength of an enemy ship relative to one's own ship. Blue ships are weaker than yours, green ships are relatively even, and red ships are stronger than yours.Attacking ships of different might ring colors can have various consequences. If a ship engages an enemy with a blue might ring (don't!), it risks being engaged by the Black ship. Conversely, if a ship engages an enemy brigand with an orange or red might ring, there is a random chance that they could encounter a Brigand King.
Might rings are commonly used by the commanding officer of a ship to determine what brigands to attack. Generally, a green-ringed enemy has the best possibility of being a winnable fight while still giving a large amount of booty. Ships with easier might rings may bring easier fights, but they will often bring in less booty, and attacking stronger might rings can often lead to losses.
The melee
Before the melee starts, it is not uncommon to be asked from jobbers: "is it rumble or swordfight?". The answer is very simple: for brigands it's swordfight, for barbarians it's rumble. Against players it's usually swordfight, unless both commanders have configured the voyage to target only barbarians.
Teaming & stalling
Teaming is an important skill in sea battle. The ideal team size in swordfighting is three (because above that, bots start stalling). In Rumble, bigger teams of 4 or 5 seem to be more effective.
Stalling involves refraining from pressing on the spacebar when teamed upon, allowing the pieces to fall at the game's standard speed. In multiplayer or sea battle swordfights, this strategy is usually employed when many opponents are teamed up on a single target. As the target stalls, the attacks sent by the opponents will build up, rendering most of the attacks useless, and allowing the other players on the targeted pirate's team to play unhindered. It is common to resort to this strategy when there are three opponents or more targeting a player; NPPs will stall if four or more players team up on them.
When rumbling, stalling is generally less effective.
