Ship Combat Interface

The Ship Battle View is where you encounter or fight with other ships.

The view displays the two ships in the encounter, the flag (nationality) of the encountered ship, the stats of the two opposing ships and a description of what is currently occurring at the bottom.

You can press image of the flag to receive a brief about your opponent's ship type, affiliation and most important skills. During the battle, you will be able to see what parts of yours and the opponents ships have been damaged in the latest round of combat (red figures denote recent damaged).

Opponent Types

You will find that there are a number of different "types" of opponents you will run into:

• Merchants: These ships just want to be left alone. As long as you are not aggressive (e.g., fire shots at them or close in on them), they will never bother you.
• Warships: Warships are generally not aggressive unless there is a war between their country and a nation that has issued you a letter of marque or your infamy is particularl high.
• Pirate Hunters: Pirate Hunters are naval warships that are out hunting for pirates. Unless you have a letter of marque for that country, you should beware.
• Blockaders: Naval warships engaged in a blockade of a port. They will try to intercept you if your are entering or leaving a blockaded port. If you do not have a criminal record with the blockading empire, you can hail them, and they will let you go free. Any other reaction will result in them trying to apprehend you. Successfully distancing a blockader will either result in you entering or leaving the port (depending on whether you are trying to enter or leave). Defeating a blockading ship in battle may break the blockade.
• Pirates/Privateers: Pirates will always attack you unless they judge you to be too strong. If you are losing a fight with a pirate, consider surrendering. They will take all of your trade goods, but it's better than getting sunk.
• Indian Warships: Native indians will always attack you. They rarely have cannon, so this will usually result in a close-range encounter. Indians will generally not accept your surrender; if they succeed in beating you, they will massacre your crew and set your ship on fire. On the positive side, defeating Indians will gain you rank with the threatened empire and even make them forget some of your past sins.

Encounter Actions

An encounter may go through three different phases: at distance, close up, and boarding. What phase the ships are in is shown by the graphics that depict the battle: at distance, the ships are depicted in half size, close up they are shown at full size, and during boarding, the images of the ships will partially overlap.

Depending on the situation, the player may have a variety of possibilities.

Hail

If you are not currently engaged in combat with the opposing ship, you may chose to hail it. If your opponent is also friendly, this will result in an exchange of news (possibly leading to you picking up rumors) and the end of the encounter.

Submit

If you are engaged with an enemy ship and about to be defeated, it may be wiser to submit and face the consequences than to be blown out of the water. This will end the encounter.

Distance

Increase the distance between your ship and your opponent. If you are in boarding combat, this will try to break of the melee. If you are at close distance, this will try to put distance between your ships. If you are already at distance, this will attempt end the encounter by running away.

The success of this order depends on carrying out a successful skill check of your ship's current rigging rating (modified by your Piloting skill) versus the opposing ship's rigging rating.

If you are often getting caught by enemy ships, stick with fast ships such as the Sloop and ensure that you have a high Piloting skill.

Close

Reduces the distance between your ship and your opponent. If you are at distance, this will set the current encounter state to close. The option is not available in other circumstances.

The success of this order depends on carrying out a successful skill check of your ship's current rigging rating (modified by your Piloting skill) versus the opposing ship's rigging rating.

Broadside

This orders your ship to fire its cannons at the enemy. If the two ships are at close distance, you can target the opposing ship in three ways; either shooting generally for the hull, to try to clear the decks (targets Cannons and Crew) or to try and destroy the sails and rigging. At distance, you can only fire at the opposing ships hull (they are too far away for precision shooting).

Firing at the ship's hull is the overall most effective use of your cannons. However the damage done to the enemy ship is fairly unpredictable. Firing at the decks or rigging ensures much more targetted damage, but has a lower chance of actually scoring hits. In addition, exchanging broadsides at a distant ship also lowers the chance of hits.

To change the target of your cannons, touch the battle image display. Touching the upper section of the image will set your cannon to fire at the enemy's rigging, touching the middle section will set them to fire at the enemy's decks, and touching the lower portion will set them to fire at the ship hull.

Under normal circumstances, half of your regular cannons will fire, and their accuracy is affected by your Gunnery skill. Firing your cannons is the main way in which you can inflict damage on the enemy ship.

Note that, during combat, your ability to fire cannons also depends on the size of your crew. You need at least 5 men per cannon that you will fire (note that a broadside is half of your cannons, so for a 20 gun ship, you need a crew of at least 50 to fire at full effect). If you have less than the full number of crewmembers required, your cannon fire will be reduced in effect.

Board

This orders your ship's crew to enter melee with your opponent. If you are already in melee, this will simply continue the fighting. If you are at close distance, your ship will attempt to grapple with your opponent (a test of your maneuverability, as explained above) followed by a round of melee combat.

In each round of combat, the current combat strength of your crew is measured, modified by your Tactics rating. A number of combat rolls are then carried out, resulting in casaulties to both sides. The side that suffers the most hits during the round of combat must pass a Leadership test or suffer a loss of morale.

Each crew has a morale level, that determines how much punishment they can take. If a ship's crew routs during boarding combat, it will surrender.

Damage in Combat

In general, defeating an enemy ship requires that you reduce one or more of its attributes to 0. Merchant ships may surrender before then, but military ships or ships on a mission will usually fight to the bitter end. Keep this in mind before you engage them.

If your ship gets reduced to 0 Hull, it will sink. This will end your game, no matter which level you are playing at.

If your ship's Sails or Rigging gets reduced to 0, your ship can no longer maneuver effectively. This significantly reduces your chance to hit with your cannons and makes your ship a sitting duck. Most opponents will surrender in such a situation.

If your ship's regular cannons get reduced to 0 (keep in mind that you may also have chasers), you can no longer fire broadsides.

Your fate depends on what kind of ship you were fighting; pirates will plunder your ship, while most other ships will take you away to be put on trial.