Naval Combat

Naval combat is conducted between ships as well as naval-land-combat. A comparative list of ship units' stats can be found here.

=Ship Crew= Every ship has a base crew that will engage in melee and ranged combat once ships fight. Ships crews require food and recruits in order to operate effectively.

Land combat units on board of ships join combat and do take casualties. That means Combat units on ships act as marines and have a much greater impact on both ship-to-ship combat and ship-to-land combat. The better a unit will be on land, the better it will be on water too. Normally, ships with units on board will wreck ones without them in a matter of no time.

=Ship Actions= Ships can siege, capture and raze enemy cities from the water. Also, ships can surrender and be captured or sunk.

Attacking
With one or more naval units selected, right click on an enemy unit to attack it. How a unit attacks depends on their stance.

Combat Lock
Unlike land combat there is no combat lock and units can always disengage.

Defeat
A unit is defeated when all of its members are killed, or its morale is reduced to zero and the remaining members rout. Unlike for land units, defeated naval units do not return to their home city but sink after a while.

Capturing
Defeated enemy ships can be captured (just as land units). These ships will be incorporated into the player's navy but will not have a home city.

Sinking
Surrendered ships can be sank rather than captured. Sinking ships will not pull crew from the boarding ship nor require maintenance costs, but it will significantly increase hostility between factions.

On-Boarding Units
There are two ways to do this:
 * Move a transport ship towards a beach, it must be close enough so that land units can reach it. Then select a land unit with the left mouse and click onto the transport ship with the right mouse
 * In the city view select your land unit with the left mouse and then click onto a transort ship with the right mouse.

Disembarking Units
There are two ways to do this:
 * Move the ship towards a beach, select the units in the ship and command them on-shore
 * Move the ship into a city/camp and press the disembark button in the ship menu.

=Ship Stance= Ships now have different stances that control whether the ship should ram, board, or use ranged fire when attack other ships.

Ram and Sink
Warhsips will attempt to ram the enemy vessel and sink it quickly. Impact damage is based on the speed of the ships and the angle of impact. If the enemy ship is not sunk immediately, then the sailors will attempt to board and sabotage the ship.

Board and Capture
Warships will move alongside enemy ships and attempt to board them and force a surrender rather than trying to sink the ship by ramming.

Ranged Support Ship
Raiding ships attack other ships and coastal targets using short range projectils.