Storm sunk Fleet, (Eight fleets instead of 1)

[Manzana]

There was a storm outside of Tarentum. I had eight fleets. A storm sunk the fleet. It sunk all eight fleets instead of just one. Needless to say a little frustrating. I like the game. And Im going to keep on playing it. How many fleets were supposed to get sunk? One I can understand. 8 seemed a little excessive. Can you patch this. I bought the game. Now I have to start over.

[mercenarius]

Manzana

Do you mean that your fleet had 8 squadrons in it? That is what I think that you mean.

Fleets in zones with no friendly ports are at risk for being sunk by a storm. You want to operate your fleets in zones with a friendly port. The port may be under siege (but if the city falls the fleet is put to sea, of course).

So the game is working normally. You just need to be careful where you leave your fleets. The chances are not too high for a storm to hit a particular sea zone. But when it does you can really be hurt. What matters is the fleet's final sea zone, of course. You can move through zones with no friendly ports without risk. But you normally want to finish a fleet's move in a zone with at least one friendly port.

The particular sea zone you mention, the Bay of Tarentum, only has one port, of course. That makes it particularly hard to operate in unless you can capture Tarentum.

[julianbarker]

It can happen to the Romans also. The first game I won was a victory because the Romans lost 8 squadrons in a storm and I was guaranteed naval superiority from then on.

[PJJ]

And it's also historical. During the Punic Wars, both sides suffered heavily from storms. No meteorological forecasts back then, so even big storms often came as complete surprises, and the ships weren't that strong either. Fleets of the period preferred to stay quite close to land and friendly ports, if at all possible.

[NefariousKoel]

Yep. That's why you want to have a port on the sea where you have a fleet located. Very much so if you plan on keeping them out on the water.

I made the mistake of trying to blockade Rome so an enemy general couldn't escape my siege by sea, get reinforcements and attack me from behind. So I stationed a fleet of 7 outside his port after beating the snot out of the Roman fleet. The whole thing was gone. I didn't learn and tried doing it twice more in the same game with the same results. I lost three whole fleets of multiple tiles that way.

So:
If you're going to keep fleets at sea, get a friendly port there. Otherwise it's demise will be inevitable over time.