Teleporting ships?

[vaalen]

I've had several great naval battles where the Royal Navy has sent the enemy fleeing.

Problem is, every enemy ship (except those whose rigging is gone)is able to teleport itself out of danger and disappear.

This includes ship that have been grappled by the victors ships, ships next to, even surrounded by the victors , ships with a morale of 0, etc.

While there is a pursuit, and the losing fleet can suffer heavy casualties(apparently in men), The ships still escape.

What actually happened was that ships in close proximity to the enemy when morale broke just struck their colors, enabling the victor to have those ships.

This could be reflected in the game by having every ship with a morale of 0, and every ship within 1-2 hexes of the enemy strike their colors when the retreat begins.

I'd really like the game to reflect this, perhaps as part of an enhancement patch.

No complaints, the naval combat in COGEE is the best computer rendition of napoleonic naval battles ever done.

I'd just like the after battle teleportation to cease.

[Hard Sarge]

Ships that strike, are grappled, have there rigging shot down to under 10% and ships that are hulled are lost when a battle ends

[ericbabe]

You do actually have some control over pursuit -- including the capture -- of enemy ships: frigates are a very effective way of chasing down enemy ships, or to prevent it from happening to you regularly.

In the original COG, we allowed players to play out several rounds of pursuit, but many people complained that this ended up being both gamey and tedious (and proper pursuits often lasted days, and so would be very tedious to play out realistically.)

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

In the original COG, we allowed players to play out several rounds of pursuit, but many people complained that this ended up being both gamey and tedious (and proper pursuits often lasted days, and so would be very tedious to play out realistically.)

Agreed.

What I didnt like about the human controlled pursuit was it was very very easy for me in original COG and FOF to set up my guys in such a way that I would routinely bag entire armies in cannae like double envelopments that were exceptionally rare historically.

The abstracted pursuit roll leads to more plausible results.

[Anthropoid]

But, it is still somewhat annoying when you have forced a unit or a ship to surrender, or grappled it, or drove it down to zero, and then when they retreat, and you do NOT get that unit or ship as a capture. Sure, you definitely get captures, and the system is better than in FoF, where you practically had to surround a unit and drive it to ZERO troops left to get it to surrender, but I think there still could be a BIT of tweaking to get it just a tad bit better.rn.
 
What I have noticed is that: having a ship strike its colors, or grappling a ship, or boarding and capturing it are not 100% gaurantees that you will actually take POSESSION of that ship during the following turn (also seems to happen SOME with captured land units, but not nearly as often). In some cases, this might be because the ship was so damaged or so low in crew that it had to be left adrift/scuttled? I've noticed that sometimes I get a report about getting a certain amount of Wood from captured ships, so evidently the engine does make some fine distinctions about what is happening to all these things, but the player is just not privy to it all?
 
If there was just a message immediately after the Pursuit Rolls window that gave details something like:
Ships Captured During Battle =  7
Details: Santa Ana, rigging damage too extensive, vessel scuttled at battle site
           Rosasharon, crew overpowered boarding party, ship escapes
           Magna Carta, ship captured, 40% of crew turncoat [meaning 'strength' may be 4/10??)
           Edward Scissorhands, ship captured, we man this ship at 80% strength
           Roxbury, hull damage too extensive, vessel towed to port and scrapped
           Lord Ivan Jones, too few hands to man this ship, ship scuttled at battle site
           Piston Polly, ship escapes at last minute

[ptan54]

Agree with the idea of an abstracted pursuit phase....having to move division by division to chase (and it never works unless you surround the enemy or they just happen to run out of movement points right next to your units) was just plain tedious.

[vaalen]

Eric,

Please forgive my ignorance of the system, but how exactly do you have control over pursuit and capture of enemy ships? How can frigates prevent this from happening regularly?

I have grappled ships, practically surrounded them, and they still teleport out of danger when the enemy fleet retreats.

I'd appreciate any tips.

thanks,

Vaalen

[Hard Sarge]

Vaalen

which ships have you grappled ?

are they Merchants ??

I have never seen a combat ship grappeled that didn't get captured when the battle ended in a victory

Merchants, yes

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

Vaalen

which ships have you grappled ?

are they Merchants ??

I have never seen a combat ship grappeled that didn't get captured when the battle ended in a victory

Merchants, yes

Well now that you are challenging, I can't name an explicit example for certain. But I'll watch more closely and see if I can capture some .sve files to show it happening.

[Mus]

I have never seen a grappled ship not get captured when the other side flees.  Whenever I think the other side is about to break in detailed combat I grapple as many ships as I can for maximum caps.

[dude]

Don't forget that you may capture a ship but instead of keeping it you're given 30 money for it.  This should be listed in the Event Report if I recall. 

[vaalen]

Hard Sarge,

The only ones I remember well were two Spanish ships of the line I had grappled in an (1805) detailed battle. The Spanish retreated and I captured no ships. I did not get any money for capturing these ship either. The pursuit report said I inflicted a massacre, and listed a number of enemy casualties, but no captured ships.

I remember that this took place in at least one other battle.

In the future,I will try to grapple every enemy ship I can to see what happens.

[Mus]

You sure they hadnt ungrappled before the retreat?

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

Vaalen

which ships have you grappled ?

are they Merchants ??

I have never seen a combat ship grappeled that didn't get captured when the battle ended in a victory

Merchants, yes

Well now that you are challenging, I can't name an explicit example for certain. But I'll watch more closely and see if I can capture some .sve files to show it happening.

I do not follow ? challenging ?, i am trying to get the details on what he is seeing, I have not seen any Combat ships in a fleet battle not get taken when the battle ends, if they have been grappled, I have seen Merchants slip away

if it is a Merchant, it may be a Wad, if it is a combat ship, it is a bug, and we need to find out what is being done to make it happen

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: vaalen

Hard Sarge,

The only ones I remember well were two Spanish ships of the line I had grappled in an (1805) detailed battle. The Spanish retreated and I captured no ships. I did not get any money for capturing these ship either. The pursuit report said I inflicted a massacre, and listed a number of enemy casualties, but no captured ships.

I remember that this took place in at least one other battle.

In the future,I will try to grapple every enemy ship I can to see what happens.

thank you, I will try to keep an eye out for this, I have not seen it, so we may be doing something in a different way, or something with the Nations in the fight

by the by, were you also trying to board the grapple ship, and failed the boarding action ?, that can ungrapple a ship ??

[vaalen]

Hard Sarge

I did try to board both ships and I failed, both times. I did not notice anything to indicate that they were ungrappled, but maybe they were.

What I will do is restart the scenario, and make the same initial moves that resulted in 4 naval battles. If the battle is going well, I'll grapple every enemy ship I can, and see what happens when the enemy retreats. I'll take careful notes, and get back to you.

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

ORIGINAL: vaalen

Hard Sarge,

The only ones I remember well were two Spanish ships of the line I had grappled in an (1805) detailed battle. The Spanish retreated and I captured no ships. I did not get any money for capturing these ship either. The pursuit report said I inflicted a massacre, and listed a number of enemy casualties, but no captured ships.

I remember that this took place in at least one other battle.

In the future,I will try to grapple every enemy ship I can to see what happens.

thank you, I will try to keep an eye out for this, I have not seen it, so we may be doing something in a different way, or something with the Nations in the fight

by the by, were you also trying to board the grapple ship, and failed the boarding action ?, that can ungrapple a ship ??

[Hard Sarge]

thank you

I think what may of happened, is the boarding action failed and the grapple was undone (I really only started to notice this a little while back)

there is no message saying that the ships were ungrappled, so if you don't see the grapple line, or try and board and get a, need to grapple first message, it could of happened and you never had a chance to see/find out

(maybe we need to ask Eric to put in a message for when ships ungrapple)  (I will)

but, I will keep an eye out for this, and if you can watch, that would be a big help

[Mike Parker]

Yep.  Quite often if a boarding action is repeled the grapple is lost.  You must look and see if the red grapple line shows up to notice.  It might be nice in the boarding message to say "Boarders have been repeled [and grapel lines cut]" or something like that.  Although I admit I hadn't connected that to not capturing when the enemy retreats.
 

[Hard Sarge]

for what it is worth, I have made a request for a ungrapple message to be added for a failed boarding action, up to the programmers if they think it is needed

[gdpsnake1979]

Have you carefully read the events reports? I often 'feel' I've been ripped off too but in the events reports you'll see that the ships WERE captured but often you only get 20 wood resource for the capture and the ship is lost. On occassion some captured ships are now yours in that sea zone the next turn.
Very similar to capturing Cavalry but you get 20 horses and the unit is lost instead of POW or you captured guns but it's disbanded due to low strength.
It's all in the events reports. I consider that the low hull/low rigging enemy ship struck it's colors but was not viable any longer so I get the salvage value in resources. Some just sink/are abandoned and are simply gone. As to the grappled ships, they surrender but maybe the crew had time to scuttle them or perhaps the winning captain just sinks her.

The real key is to estimate when the enemy will break so you can close and grapple as many as possible. You probably won't get but a couple of them but your enemy loses them all (maniacal laughing!!!!!)