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Yamato`s come to Age of sail


Charlie1957

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Hello Gentlemen

I have come to agree with others that in the American Campaign we have what it appears to be a couple of Yamato battleships disguised as British ships, I name two who I have come across so far HMS Rye and HMS Orpheus, with both ships I took the manoeuvre of using three ships 30, 40 and 46 gunners, respectively to fire point blank and then sail away to another firing point and start the process again. six times I tried this with HMS Orpheus being the target and the most damage I have managed is very minor destruction to a sail. does anyone have a strategy to sink these dreaded ships apart from introducing a nuclear option to the game, I would appreciate you assistance. cheers

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If you can't damage any large ship with your ships and your ships are the ones getting damaged by the AI then I suggest using an explosive barrels ships to take it out and that will end your immediate problem.

I captured the HMS Orpheus, so if you want to capture it make sure you have plenty of sailors nearby from your other ships so you can deploy life boats to feed the ship or two ships that you are using to board the enemy ship.

If you don't have good tech like say, boarding kit's level 3 or you don't give good perks to your crew like morale and the crew fighting perk, then I would say be prepared to lose a ton of sailors while boarding. I have all those things and do pretty good most of the time and I also go to canister when I am up close boarding the ship. Even with all this said there will be times when the AI ships can wipe out both your ships if you fail to have a lot of sailors feeding your ship that are boarding.

Sometime it takes 2-1 for boarding and sometimes not. It just depends on a few factors of what you have and what the AI has.

My POV of the AI 3rd rate ships is that they are way over powered in this game and they have superior marines on them nearly all the time so they must have the best perks and tech. Most of the time my ships can't hurt them but they can hurt me, 10 times more and most of the time it takes nearly 1000 sailors to try and take over one which is at a great cost to do so. Just saying and please be warned that the few ending sea battles in the American campaign are loaded with tons of 3rd rate ships that just blows my mind up! LOL

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Thanks for the feedback gents, I shall take on board your advice and try it out, doublebuck has come up with game plan that would appear to be good tactics and will try out, I did try out the fireships before as a solution, unfortunately I do not want to go down the road of using fireships all the time (hopefully) to eliminate superior ships that is difficult to beat. much more fun to engage in a duel. Hopefully as the game progress`s they may reduce the power of these AI 3rd ships to allow more satisfying engagements, and making the battles a bit more closer. thanks again all for your advice.

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I did that mission just yesterday. The HMS Rye shows up first and is alone but it is a Diana class frigate. You have to bring the USS Hancock and a second frigate with at least 30 guns, 40 or more would better, to the battle. The Diana class frigate can carry either 18pdr or 24pdr cannons on the second gun deck or 32pdr congreves. I think the typical armament is 6pdr on the main deck and 18pdr on the second deck. And that frigate can take quite a beating. So make sure the Hancock and whatever other frigate you bring have the biggest cannons mounted you can put on there while maintaining a max crew.  Then use the Hancock and another frigate to gang up on the HMS Rye. Make sure that one of your ships is hitting the stern of the HMS Rye. Either hit the Rye with round shot until she surrenders and then capture her. Or use grape shot until the crew numbers are down enough for you to board her with one of your ships. Remember, the Rye comes in alone which makes her an easy target despite the fact that a Diana class frigate is one hell of a ship.

I don't remember much about the HMS Orpheus other than that she was a Unity class frigate i think, so 44 guns with 12pdr cannons being the best you can put on there. The third frigate comes in about the same time as the HMS Orpheus but is too far away from the Orpheus to help her if you want to capture her. I used the Hancock and a Porcupine class frigate to capture the HMS Rye and HMS Orpheus and sank the third frigate. Both of my ships had 6pdr and 12pdr woolwich cannons on them along with the faster reload upgrade. So whatever you do make sure to capture the HMS Rye. After capturing her i put 6pdr and 24pdr woolwich cannons on her and if i had enough 32pdr congreves i would have used those instead of the 24pdr woolwichs. 

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Thank you Malkor, for a most articulate tactics description and shall be put to good use I can assure you, funnily enough, I completed the missions which included HMS Rye and HMS Orphues yesterday as well and managed to capture both ships, the tactics I used were very similar to your description in the text above, I finally got there in the end and had a very enjoyable time in doing so. (thanks again to the team who put this game together).

Thanks to all who have replied, I have used your input and information to allow myself to get a bit further in the game and having immense fun in the process. Cheers

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4 hours ago, Charlie1957 said:

Thank you for a most articulate tactics description


The advice you've been given is either strategic management of the battlerating system (To spawn easier ships) or brute force approach (rageboarding) which is both incredibly expensive (massive crew losses guaranteed, possibly including several expensive officers) and risky (if you don't time the boarding PERFECTLY right you'll end up with the enemy capturing a couple of your ships). It's advice, and valuable, but I wouldn't call that tactical per se.

Against big ships you can fight, and you can win, and you can prevail even with much smaller ships, if you have the numbers.  Of course you're going to need a respectable degree of firepower on your side, but a couple 5th rates could, and should, bring a 3rd rate to it's knees. Not without a hefty cost in damage and crew losses, but can be done. three 5th rates or a couple 5th rates and a 6th, or something like that, it should be a guaranteed capture - and without involving "rageboarding" (meaning, just going for an all out boarding from the get go).


See- Big ships have two things going for them - tremendous planking (only the heaviest guns will go through the broadside even at close range) and spectacular firepower. If you settle for a board to board fight you're going to lose - and in spectacular fashion.

They lack in two aspects. General turning ability, and specially so, really clumsy when close hauled (wind coming from either or it's front quarters, let alone directly from the front). It's easy to outmaneouver them if you know what you're doing.

And finally they have the same issue every ship of the era had - a very vulnerable ass which no gun has problems going through, mixed with the carnage raking from the rear causes on all ships. Not joking here, round shot volleys from a 6th rate with 9pdr long guns from the rear end of a SOL can easily kill a couple dozen sailors while causing structural damage, floodings, and gun loss.

All this translates in maneouvering your ships so at least one is constantly at the rear of the enemy unleashing at his rear nonstop, the others going for the foremast (if you manage to bring that sucker down and manage to force the enemy against the wind, he'll be stuck there for a LONG while making your rear-ending a much easier effort), and then focus firing grape from all angles posible.

Ideally you want your toughest ships to be the ones attracting the fire from the enemy. They're going to get chewed up and take a hell of a beating, but that's part of the deal: you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs after all. As long as you have someone on his rear unleashing volley after volley, that as stated can (and will) kill far more than a dozen guys per go, the enemy's crew losses will begin to mount up in no time, and there's a really high chance once they're low enough, and specially so if they have no nearby support, that they just strike colors outright (surrendering the ship for you to take it with a boarding party). If they don't surrender, once they're low enough, time to go and step on board and take by the sword what they won't give up by surrendering.


some advices on firing from the rear:

1- keep some distance, you don't want to be board-to-butt (but if you're forced there, its still a better place than out of his rear arc)

2- account for his turning specially when the enemy is moving towards the wind. The closer hauled he comes, the more time he'll take to turn, the more time you have to unleash

3- account for the wind, as when you're going upwind you won't be able to move forward to keep position at his rear. Plan your moves accordingly, bid your time until the time to tack is right, and regain position behind him.

4- USE HOLD FIRE. I can't stress that enough. Ideal rake is 90º off the enemy stern, from maybe half a ship's lenght distance, and opening up as the enemy's rear is alligned with the firing ships' center. That'll give you the most guns  that will send shot right across the enemy's lenght (a pure rake), as the guns in the extreme bow and rear will come at angle and cause less damage (one of the reasons why keeping some distance is needed - to reduce those angles). Literally the difference from a demolishing round shot raking volley at the stern of a ship causing 35 crew losses, several guns being knocked down and a supressed ship (crew shock), from a mostly mild botched one that maybe kills half a dozen men an does little else, is holding fire for an extra 5-10 seconds until the geometry is right.

5- Fire round shot. Specially so if the guns involved have limited range or are light. Grape at max distance from the rear (and if you're in the correct raking position you'll be near that max range) doesnt' do a lot because it's a lot more innacurate. If you're REALLY close to the enemy (closer than needed and advised) it can be a good option though, as I've seen truly terrifying grape rakes from the rear in the game - they're a lot harder to achieve though.
Also change to grape raking if you notice the enemy structure is going down fast and  you don't want to sink it; it can happen if the enemy is stubborn enough to not surrender before that you can actually go through all it's structure firing from the rear - yes, rakes are THAT powerful.


Now go out there and grab some SOLs...they're not easy, you won't grab them for free (repair costs are going to be high, specially because those heavy guns of theirs tend to crush some masts in the process), but it's doable with a little bit of skill and know-how.

Edited by RAMJB
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Again a very comprehensive post providing more information on how to use the ships, including movement, gunnery, wind etc, thanks RAMJB, being new to this game, (I am more of civil war enthusiast) through your and others sharing your knowledge of the game, I seem to be finding it a bit easier and a lot more enjoyable, I shall read through you post again and try the next battle using your advice. you have increased the awareness of myself and others who are probably in the same boat (no pun intended) to some of the finer points in the game. thanks again.

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