Best Naval Composition? (2024)

I’ve just been using Galleys that fill up to the combat width. It’s working well so far, but I wonder if there’s more depth to it.

Also, where do you check the “navel engagement width”?? I’ve looked everywhere in game, but it’s not there. I had to manually calculate it by tech levels...

What Jarvin said. It can be useful to have some galleys hanging around to reinforce once you start taking loses, but there is no point in mixing ships or having more than you width.

You can check naval width inside battles. You should also be able to check them on the modifiers section of the government tab (the place where all modifiers pertaining to your nation are located). I seem to recall being able yo also see it on the military tab, but now I'm not so sure.

Heavies only is the ideal naval composition.

Naval engagement width has a base of 25. It is not increased by tech, unlike army combat width. It is only increased by a couple of policies you'll never use (because they both require Naval idea group), as well as a context based 10% increase in coastal seas. Or I guess if you're playing Denmark, as they get a 10% increase in their ideas.

My naval strategy is just throw as many heavies as I can afford at the problem. If I can't beat their navy straight up, well it's not worth much warscore anyway so I just dock my fleet up and forget about it.

Kanem Bornu said:

Heavies only is the ideal naval composition.

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If you can afford them. Up to date galleys make a good substitute in inland seas. But they will lose to close to equal numbers of mid to late game heavies unless there is a huge difference in ideas and admirals.

Pretty much all heavies + Flagship (Improved Crow's Nest).

You'll take out anybody simply by just spamming heavies. Only exception are the Ottos who usually spam out too many galleys for you to deal with (300+ in my games)

EarlKonrad said:

Two Sicilies doesn't have galley combat ability. What they get is naval morale, yearly tradition and trade power.

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ye mb, got it backwards

Assuming all else is equal, a full engagement width of galleys should beat heavies in inland seas, and lose fairly horribly in open ocean.

If you want a simple, don't think about it, strategy for non specialised naval warfare, spam heavies, arrange into fleets of 10-12, and attach your best admiral if you have one. This is normally enough to beat the AI in single player. Sometimes you may need to reinforce with a second such fleet if the AI stacks a large enough fleet. Is it as effective as micromanaging fleet sizes to match your admiral and battle sector? No. Is jt good enough for most purposes in SP? Yes. Great Britain is still likely to smash your fleet, but beating them or a late game Spain requires some investment and attention to detail.

@Beagá why would Venice be fighting in open seas? Inland seas, with a nice galley combat ability, they want galleys.

In theory, the galley combat ability might be enough to take a fleet of heavies with no bonuses even in open seas. In practice, my experience is that such a strategy is a recipe for pain the minute you end up conflicting with Spain or Great Britain.

Venice is interesting in that the naval battles that matter to them tend to take place in the Med, so they are all galleys until after they have already won.

Beagá said:

So Venice, do what? Mix of heavies and galleys in early game?

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Ship combat ability isn't enough to change the meta. Always full galleyes on closed seas, heavies everywhere else. Never mix.

There is something to be said about heavies becoming stronger than galleys on late game but by that point naval combat doesn't really matter anymore.

I'm ashamed to admit that after 1.5k hours of EUIV I still understand next to nothing about the minutia of battles, particularly naval battles. I just throw a bunch of ships against the enemy, try to have more expensive ships, more galleys if it's closed sea, a good leader and better naval modifiers and tech and that's the end of it.

Also, I tend to send my whole armada together everywhere so I definitely mix lol Too many disasters in the past caused by dividing it into smaller fleets.

Kanem Bornu said:

Naval engagement width has a base of 25. It is not increased by tech, unlike army combat width. It is only increased by a couple of policies you'll never use (because they both require Naval idea group), as well as a context based 10% increase in coastal seas. Or I guess if you're playing Denmark, as they get a 10% increase in their ideas.

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There's one more thing. Naval manoeuvre increases naval width by 10% per pip - which is pretty good. An admiral with many manoeuvre pips is great - those manoeuvre pips speed up your fleets by 5% per pip, increase trade power of light ships in a fleet by 5% each, and they also reduce attrition by 1% each.

William Shakens said:

I'm ashamed to admit that after 1.5k hours of EUIV I still understand next to nothing about the minutia of battles, particularly naval battles. I just throw a bunch of ships against the enemy, try to have more expensive ships, more galleys if it's closed sea, a good leader and better naval modifiers and tech and that's the end of it.

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Naval combat has never been as well-developed as land combat. But the latest patch was a major upgrade. Groogy did at least one dev diary on the topic.

I think heavies are best, even in inland seas. They're just not always as cost-effective, but they're 'better' because galleys are brittle.
The hull value of galleys is 8 vs 20 for heavies. Considering that a fleet loses morale when a friendly ship is sunk, brittleness is a real weakness (don't know the exact amount of morale lost - it's not on the wiki). Heavies take up more space in the 'line of battle' but this doesn't seem to cost them terribly. The fact that they can take damage for longer means they can outlast most galleys, and demoralise others.

In practice, I use both ships depending on my situation.

Less2 said:

I did some testing a while back and its actually not true that galleys always lose on the high seas. I don't have any hard test data to support this but I'd expect that if you are someone like Venice AND have the +15% galley combat ability naval doctrine then your galleys will always be better than heavies on the high seas. There's also instances where new galleys unlock a bit earlier than new heavies and outperform them straight up until the new heavies are available. This was on the previous patch though so I'm not aware of how things may have changed.

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Well, if you break the assumption of all else being equal...

I am not sure where the flip point for combat ability bonuses is for which fleet is stronger, but I agree it exists. Generally though, IME, if you are playing this close to the margins naval isn't really in the "fire and forget" category for that game.

Question - given that the power-option is just a stack of heavies - is there any reason that the AI Always presents with a mixed fleet ?

It's often a weighted mix of say 60% heavy / 40% everything else, but it's rare that I see a one-type fleet in battle ?

I RP a little, so usually have mixed fleets too (and I learned early on that fighting Britain & not protecting your transports = enjoy swimming, Prussian grenadiers).

RobbieAB said:

Well, if you break the assumption of all else being equal...

I am not sure where the flip point for combat ability bonuses is for which fleet is stronger, but I agree it exists. Generally though, IME, if you are playing this close to the margins naval isn't really in the "fire and forget" category for that game.

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Well, the thing is everyone can get +15% galley combat ability with no real sacrifice required. Additionally, if you DO have galleys, then its a very cheap and attractive opportunity to go f*ck up England at something like tech 15. They probably aren't teched ahead and standing by with thousands of gold to instantly upgrade their fleets.

EarlKonrad said:

It can be useful to have some galleys hanging around to reinforce once you start taking loses, but there is no point in mixing ships or having more than you width.

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Well in SP there is because the AI is too scared to take on a massive stack of heavies and you can keep a sea zone free for your transports to do their thing.

Titanius Puffin said:

There's one more thing. Naval manoeuvre increases naval width by 10% per pip - which is pretty good. An admiral with many manoeuvre pips is great - those manoeuvre pips speed up your fleets by 5% per pip, increase trade power of light ships in a fleet by 5% each, and they also reduce attrition by 1% each.

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Naval hegemon also increases engagement width by 10%

Less2 said:

Well, the thing is everyone can get +15% galley combat ability with no real sacrifice required. Additionally, if you DO have galleys, then its a very cheap and attractive opportunity to go f*ck up England at something like tech 15. They probably aren't teched ahead and standing by with thousands of gold to instantly upgrade their fleets.

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Planning a war specifically around tech timing isn't really "fire and forget" naval warfare.

I didn't say you couldn't do it with galleys, I said the lowest thought option was heavies. If you start investing thought into it, yes, pretty much any naval strategy can be got to work against the AI.