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I've been playing Empire Total War for the first time recently and although most of the systems in it are easy enough to understand, even after completing a short campaign as England I am still stumped by the trade system and related intricacies. I had a look around the net but only found one related thread on TWC with lots of contradictory information, so hopefully someone here might be able to help from simple experience of playing.

Firstly "trade theatres", how is it best to use these? Obviously you plonk Indiamen on the trade icons and it creates trade routes, but what are the mechanics of this? Can you place more than one Indiamen on a single point to get extra trade? If so, are there diminishing returns from this? Would it be better to put 4 Indiamen all on one node or each on a separate one? Does it display how much money is being generated by each ship anywhere?

Secondly, blockading. Currently my trade routes from America (i.e. the vast majority of my goods) are listed on the trade screen as being "blockaded" even though there appears to be not a single enemy ship anywhere near them - does blockading have some sort of lasting effect for several turns? The game itself mentioned that blockading requires the raider to stay on a trade route for one turn, does that mean if I destroy the raider in my turn immediately after the turn in which they attacked it they will not disrupt the route?

Thirdly, my own raiders. As with the Indiamen and trading, there is little indication what benefits raiding someone else's trade gives me. When you mouse over a trade route it shows you how much money it's worth (somewhat confusing as I thought they transferred goods, which you don't automatically get money for with trade agreements?), but when you tell a ship to raid that trade route what happens? Presumably it only steals the money being carried by enemy ships, but do you get all of the money from those ships directed to your coffers, or only a portion? Does it depends on how powerful the fleet raiding it is? Is it better to have one big fleet raiding one route or many small ones raiding the route at different points? Is there any way to see how much money this is bringing in for you?

I also had a question related to naval battles: what is the best way to deal with massed fleets of Galleons? Currently the Spanish have two fleets of around 10 Galleons each plus some anciliary ships, and even attempting to match them ship for ship in line of battle with fourth rates (the best I can build at the moment) doesn't work. Given they are supposed to be obsolescent, there must be some good tactic for taking them out - possibly researching rifled cannons and using faster ships with chain shot to disable them at range?

I am only just getting to grips with naval tactics beyond the basics, so any tips on useful tricks would also be good. Currently I am experimenting with splitting the fleet into a line of battle of fourth rates, and another formation with my fith/sixth rate frigates; I use the battle line to take the brunt of the enemy attack while the frigate try to get in position behind the enemy to rake them from astern. This also has the advantage that if the enemy goes after the frigates you can simply maneouver to avoid them while the battle line moves to catch them unprepared. The disadvantage is it takes very good timing to make sure both parts of you fleet engage at relatively the same time, otherwise they tend to get destroyed piecemeal.

Laughing Mechanicus wrote: Firstly "trade theatres", how is it best to use these? Obviously you plonk Indiamen on the trade icons and it creates trade routes, but what are the mechanics of this? Can you place more than one Indiamen on a single point to get extra trade? If so, are there diminishing returns from this? Would it be better to put 4 Indiamen all on one node or each on a separate one? Does it display how much money is being generated by each ship anywhere?

Yes, you can put shitps on trade ports, and there are diminishing returns. Unfortunately, you don't get a nice info screen showing just where you hit the point where the added trade is not worth the expense of maintaining the next trade ship: you have to check out the little dashed line from the trade port to see if it's worth it.

Generally, it's best to claim all ports ASAP and then add more ships when you can, since the enemy can't dislodge you from the ports without declaring war, and vice versa.

Laughing Mechanicus wrote:Secondly, blockading. Currently my trade routes from America (i.e. the vast majority of my goods) are listed on the trade screen as being "blockaded" even though there appears to be not a single enemy ship anywhere near them - does blockading have some sort of lasting effect for several turns? The game itself mentioned that blockading requires the raider to stay on a trade route for one turn, does that mean if I destroy the raider in my turn immediately after the turn in which they attacked it they will not disrupt the route?

Sometimes, your trade partner will go to war with somebody, and that somebody will blockade his ports. In this case, obviously, no trade can enter them, and thus you lose the revenue.

As for enemy raids, they're wonky. It seemed to me that if the enemy raids your route his turn, you are immediately cut off, and won't get the monies at the start of your turn.

Laughing Mechanicus wrote:Thirdly, my own raiders. As with the Indiamen and trading, there is little indication what benefits raiding someone else's trade gives me. When you mouse over a trade route it shows you how much money it's worth (somewhat confusing as I thought they transferred goods, which you don't automatically get money for with trade agreements?), but when you tell a ship to raid that trade route what happens? Presumably it only steals the money being carried by enemy ships, but do you get all of the money from those ships directed to your coffers, or only a portion? Does it depends on how powerful the fleet raiding it is? Is it better to have one big fleet raiding one route or many small ones raiding the route at different points? Is there any way to see how much money this is bringing in for you?

This I don't know. It seems that you do, in fact, get the money directly, though not always all the cash: completely blockading a fat route requires several raiders.

Laughing Mechanicus wrote:I also had a question related to naval battles: what is the best way to deal with massed fleets of Galleons? Currently the Spanish have two fleets of around 10 Galleons each plus some anciliary ships, and even attempting to match them ship for ship in line of battle with fourth rates (the best I can build at the moment) doesn't work. Given they are supposed to be obsolescent, there must be some good tactic for taking them out - possibly researching rifled cannons and using faster ships with chain shot to disable them at range?

I've never been able to figure out a good tactic to countering galleons. They're rather frail, though, so matching them gun-for-gun with lineships should work. According to their description, they're also armed with semicarronades, which theoretically should mean their range should be inferior to long guns.

Laughing Mechanicus wrote:I am only just getting to grips with naval tactics beyond the basics, so any tips on useful tricks would also be good. Currently I am experimenting with splitting the fleet into a line of battle of fourth rates, and another formation with my fith/sixth rate frigates; I use the battle line to take the brunt of the enemy attack while the frigate try to get in position behind the enemy to rake them from astern. This also has the advantage that if the enemy goes after the frigates you can simply maneouver to avoid them while the battle line moves to catch them unprepared. The disadvantage is it takes very good timing to make sure both parts of you fleet engage at relatively the same time, otherwise they tend to get destroyed piecemeal.

Which is really pretty much how naval combat worked in the era. When an admiral was able to pull off a coordinated attack, it was a massacre (See Trafalgar), if he wasn't, it became a distater.

I don't usually bother with frigates, though. My late-game fleets are all first and second rates. I just split them into collumns and try to get one collumns to cross the T, the other to get right between the enemy ships and mess up their formation.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I also had a question related to naval battles: what is the best way to deal with massed fleets of Galleons? Currently the Spanish have two fleets of around 10 Galleons each plus some anciliary ships, and even attempting to match them ship for ship in line of battle with fourth rates (the best I can build at the moment) doesn't work. Given they are supposed to be obsolescent, there must be some good tactic for taking them out - possibly researching rifled cannons and using faster ships with chain shot to disable them at range?

If you don't have decent line ships (Second Rates and First Rates) I'd recommend avoiding battle. Not worth the trouble and expense. You could hope that the wind is unfavorable to you so that you can chain shot the shit out of his sails repeatedly and make them all immobile (and very likely to surrender) but its very hard to repeat 10 times when your ships are more fragile than his.

As with all Total War battle, I find that its best to have room for minor tactical failures in a battle by ensuring you have overwhelming force granted to you by a kickass economy.

Also crucial to note that if your capital port is blockaded then all trade in your empire stops. You get no money for any trade routes or goods. Any other port does nothing, capital shuts everything down.

Similarly, if a trade partner has their capital port blockaded then 100% of your money goes down the frain. Any other port, no effect.

Bit ridiculous.

Immensely frustrating when someone you dont want to attack blockades a trade partners port. The AI is shit at defending its own ports and even worse at attacking blockading fleets, meaning you can have a trading partner cut off by a trivial blockade of one sloop that you cant do anything about because then you'll lose your other trading partner...

Laughing Mechanicus wrote:I also had a question related to naval battles: what is the best way to deal with massed fleets of Galleons? Currently the Spanish have two fleets of around 10 Galleons each plus some anciliary ships, and even attempting to match them ship for ship in line of battle with fourth rates (the best I can build at the moment) doesn't work. Given they are supposed to be obsolescent, there must be some good tactic for taking them out - possibly researching rifled cannons and using faster ships with chain shot to disable them at range?

I am only just getting to grips with naval tactics beyond the basics, so any tips on useful tricks would also be good. Currently I am experimenting with splitting the fleet into a line of battle of fourth rates, and another formation with my fith/sixth rate frigates; I use the battle line to take the brunt of the enemy attack while the frigate try to get in position behind the enemy to rake them from astern. This also has the advantage that if the enemy goes after the frigates you can simply maneouver to avoid them while the battle line moves to catch them unprepared. The disadvantage is it takes very good timing to make sure both parts of you fleet engage at relatively the same time, otherwise they tend to get destroyed piecemeal.

Silly as the phrase is, naval combat really is a bit of a "paradigm shift" and it takes awhile to get the hang of if you're not used to it already.

Firstly, 4th rates are also obsolete. They should be roughly competitive with galleons, but in practice winning such a ship-for-ship engagement would require a fair bit of seamanship and armchair admiralty.

Unfortunately, Empire's model of naval units isn't as good as Napoleon's, but the principle is still the same: 3rd rates are your bread and butter for serious warfare. 4th rates are an early mechanism for dealing with frigates and beefy ships like galleons, but they struggle as actual warships because they only have the firepower of a heavy frigate mixed with the maneuverability of a ship of the line, which isn't a good combination.

Managing two lines as you describe is generally more trouble than it's worth. Any ship which is not in the primary line of battle is, generally speaking, wasted firepower (that is the whole point of a line; it ensures maximum firepower is brought to bear).

Assuming he has 10 galleons, in your situation I would try to get 10 4th rates and 2 5th rates. I am a frigate captain at heart, and frequently rove around with frigate groups (of 1-3 ships each) wreaking havoc, hence the seemingly out of place duo of 5th rates. Deploy the 4th rates in a line and immediately maneuver for the wind (so that you sail with the wind at broad or beam reach while forcing the enemy line to close haul). This gives you room to maneuver as the lines approach each other, which is important. The 2 frigates act as skirmishers; they can run rings around a line of galleons but won't stand up to that kind of firepower long. The goal of the frigates should be to harass and disrupt the line as much as possible by trying to lure, split up, or demast individual galleons from the main line.

Meanwhile, your battle line should maneuver to "cross the T" of the galleon line, or a similar maneuver which allows your entire line to pass theirs while only exposing your line to a fraction of theirs. The result, mid-maneuver, should look something like a curvy or cursive letter 'T', with your line being the (roughly) horizontal part. In practice, a few of the lead enemy ships will probably be able to return fire with their broadsides, but any individual losses incurred should be far less than what the full weight of your own line does to the enemy!

Don't forget about your frigates, though, and after getting off a few volleys they'll probably be pretty trashed depending on how you maneuvered them. As soon as they're able to even partially disrupt the galleon line, you should probably get them out of the fire. If needed, they can then serve as reserves and pursuit vessels for any breaking galleons (board them for high-power merchant ships of your own; Indiamen are modeled quite poorly in Empire as opposed to Napoleon where they actually have teeth).

not to mention as England you need to watch for those pirates and spanish blocking things in the resource zones or just inside the change zones buffers. (don't ask how I know this)

Thanks for the replies.

I did some experiments with Indiamen, the first one I placed on a trade point generated 320 zorkins, subsequent ones added 224 each. I tried this with about 4 ships, but given the low upkeep for Indiamen it seems you could stack them pretty high before only breaking even. Also I did not realise that Galleons were trade ships... those Spanish fleets now look like quite profitable targets!

Are there any particularly good ways to butter-up AI players to get them to accept peace treaties along vaguely sane terms? Currently I am at war with Prussia and have been since near the beginning of the game (I believe they attacked one of my allied trading partners in the first few turns) and it is now 1720. I would like to make peace with them, because war is pointless (with no fighting!!) and I need more trading partners; every single turn they do infact propose making peace, but they always demand either Scotland or Ireland in return - which is of course ridiculous. If I try to make a counter offer with money or technology they always just demand the offered items PLUS Scotland or Ireland, sometimes both. It is getting rather tiresome, and I really don't want to have to go getting entangled in Europe to sort them out.

Steel wrote:Also crucial to note that if your capital port is blockaded then all trade in your empire stops. You get no money for any trade routes or goods. Any other port does nothing, capital shuts everything down.

Similarly, if a trade partner has their capital port blockaded then 100% of your money goes down the frain. Any other port, no effect.

Bit ridiculous.

Immensely frustrating when someone you dont want to attack blockades a trade partners port. The AI is shit at defending its own ports and even worse at attacking blockading fleets, meaning you can have a trading partner cut off by a trivial blockade of one sloop that you cant do anything about because then you'll lose your other trading partner...

Blockading ports in a nations home territory does seem very powerful, as I suppose it would be. France blockaded the port which received all my goods from America for a single turn (and I immediately destroyed them) but it caused my economy to basically tank for two turns after that, so I am certainly going to invest in some strategically placed fleets to keep my ports clear.

I am currently in the situation where the Swedes and Dutch, two of my main trading partners, have gone to war and are constantly at each others ports disrupting my trade income; Bloody nuisance! I'm tempted to see if I can park my fleets in front of their ports to block either sides ships getting at them and keep trade going; has anyone tried this?

I am finding this emphasis on trade is interesting, because paying attention to the required security for it leads to lots of good naval battles and sea-based stategising... I'm just used to the older Total War games (I skipped Medieval 2) where trade and naval matters weren't so vital so I need to re-adjust. Certainly makes the campaign map more interesting.

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:Silly as the phrase is, naval combat really is a bit of a "paradigm shift" and it takes awhile to get the hang of if you're not used to it already.

Firstly, 4th rates are also obsolete. They should be roughly competitive with galleons, but in practice winning such a ship-for-ship engagement would require a fair bit of seamanship and armchair admiralty.

Unfortunately, Empire's model of naval units isn't as good as Napoleon's, but the principle is still the same: 3rd rates are your bread and butter for serious warfare. 4th rates are an early mechanism for dealing with frigates and beefy ships like galleons, but they struggle as actual warships because they only have the firepower of a heavy frigate mixed with the maneuverability of a ship of the line, which isn't a good combination.

<snip tactical advice>

Based on this I have simply barreled down the naval technology route a bit to get something better than 4th rates fielded, I am now building 2nd and 3rd rates.

I also enjoy using frigates to cause havoc amongst enemy formations, mopping up pirates and stray enemy ships with them is great fun. I will give your suggestions a shot - though one question; when you have a battle line consisting of 10 or more ships, do you not find it becomes a bit large and unwieldy? The reason I started splitting my fleets was often the rear end of my line wasn't even getting anywhere near the enemy; I suppose this is only a problem if the enemy fleet has fewer more powerful ships though.

I know what you mean about Indiamen too - I had a battle where about 5 of my Indiamen got caught by a Prussian fleet of 5 sloops and a brig. It was farcical, because neither side was able to inflict any hull damage on the other, so it degenerated into an absolute brawl with my Indiamen at close range using grape shot to whittle down the enemy crew very slowly while they tried to de-mast and board my ships. Eventually I lost, but very marginally.

As you seem to have played it: How does Napoleon compare to Empire? I feel like the poor cousin still playing Empire, but I hear Napoleon has a campaign map which focuses only on Europe and you basically choose to play as either the Allies or French - is there no equivalent to the "global" campaign from Empire available? I do enjoy the colonial adventurism aspect, so if that is missing it puts me off a bit.

Yeah, I was in two minds about going for Empire or Napoleon. I picked Empire because of the bigger scope. I'd be interested to know what people think of Napoleon myself...

Laughing Mechanicus wrote:though one question; when you have a battle line consisting of 10 or more ships, do you not find it becomes a bit large and unwieldy?

A bit. It depends on the engagement, though generally I'll never have more than 10 ships of the line in a fleet, and in a "real" fleet only ships of the line belong in, well, the line. Anything else are probably escorts; frigates, carronade frigates, and the like.

As you seem to have played it: How does Napoleon compare to Empire? I feel like the poor cousin still playing Empire, but I hear Napoleon has a campaign map which focuses only on Europe and you basically choose to play as either the Allies or French - is there no equivalent to the "global" campaign from Empire available? I do enjoy the colonial adventurism aspect, so if that is missing it puts me off a bit.

Egh. This whole mess has not ingratiated me to CA. The bottom line is that both games have their ups and downs, which is extraordinarily frustrating.

Empire has the better campaign, better setting, larger scope, and doesn't stray as far from some TW standards (such as how generals work). Napoleon, on the other hand, has superior unit modeling on both land and sea (there is more detail -- uniforms are more varied and colorful, there are more varieties of troop types, naval units are further broken down into gun counts, e.g., 3rd rates have 68, 74, and 80-gun configurations. Also fixes trade ships; there is now a cheap, crappy generic "merchantman" similar to Empire's Indiaman, while the actual Indiaman behaves more like an actual Indiaman and has enough firepower to give frigates pause). Napoleon also has more polish and a lot of neat little features like strategic attrition from heat and cold -- if you park in the Alps in winter, your army will disappear pretty quickly. Units behave better in land battles and are more responsive, artillery is a bit more effective, and so on.

Napoleon is, unfortunately, missing some things from Empire, though. Generals are recruited out of a generic national pool, which I find a lot less interesting than promoting an enterprising young brigadier or commodore. Empire tracks individual unit leaders, which I've tested under quite a bit of abuse -- if your 3rd Infantry Regiment is led by Bob Smith and you put him in a stack, the game will keep track of Bob Smith even if you shuffle that stack around and spit the 3rd back out 4 years later. If you then recruit a general from that specific unit, your new general will be Bob Smith, the 3rd will get a new commander, and you can put those two units back in that stack to have them led by former colonel Bob Smith. Napoleon doesn't do that.

I would also like to say that Napoleon's battles run better (less lag) than Empires. I don't know if that's just a fluke or not, but it makes the battles much more fun to play.