Reading the description of the bomb ketch I thought that was what it was for. So I am a bit confused about what exactly your supposed to do with this particular ship. Somehow a mortar doesn't seem like it would be very useful against a moving ship.

I can't either, but TBH I don't really mind that much, I'm normally zoomed out to see the whole picture and graphics are pretty good.

Had a intresting naval battle last night against some pirates in one of the trade theaters. I had 5 ships, 2 5th rates, 3 brigs, vs 1 30 gunner, 1 brig 1 sloop. One of my 5th rates that I had been using (as in moving and firing myself) ended up ramming the enemy sloop and I ended up losing the 5th rate and a brig due to a massive explosion from the ramming. Hows that for awesomeness?

Speaking of trading, does anyone know if you have more then 1 indiamen in the trade outpost, do you get more money? As in, if you have 2-3 of them on the same spot, not just in the theater on different spots.

I think the more scholars you have increases the research time, but the first one is a huge upgrade while the others slightly increase it.  In my new campaign as prussia since my russian one keeps crashing, i didnt notice a research difference after the first guy till i got about 4 in a college.

Also, the Indiamen, I havent built one yet, but what do you do with them, I know there armed merchant vessels, but where do you send it to trade?

Oh yeah i forgot about that ship. Yeah in the description it says you should drop anchor to use it better but, you would think it would be better for hitting cities and towns from the sea.

Oh yeah 2.0 and Pirates get on my nerves so much in the Caribbean. I just mass produce Indiamen and sent them out alone in hopes that one will get by (which they do) and hit retreat when they are attacked, sometimes the retreat puts them closer to the Theater Worm Hole Square which is nice.

Oh yeah good point, I don't know, maybe I'll need to pay more attention to see if that's the case for me too (British).

Tip: Capture the Inuit Village above Newfoundland, easy win, easy faction kill, more money Brits and French have easy access to it. Send a fleet from England with an army and its all yours Just make sure yur rival French dont want it.

And I noticed by 13 Colonies has been conquering (or receiving idk) territories in the Caribbean from the French, Gunya (?) and the Windward Islands, lol. They better not revolt like we did in history lol, I don't want to have to contend with that haha.

Lol yeah i crushed the Huron with forces from Fort Ruppert and imported from England.  I'm about to hit the plain nations but don't have a big enough force so gotta wait a bit.  The french are bugging me too. They want Huron Territory in return for their New Quebec i believe. 

I have the highest prestige rating and i'm trying not to be attacked by anyone til i have a big enough army and fleet to invade France itself.

The Carribean is mine pretty much except a few islands. I have destroyed the Pirates as a faction altogether which I didn't think you could do but it is nice not having them alive

What else...I have like five allies and like ten trading partners and the only reason I don't have more trading partners is them not having available trade fleets (i think) because I have a few trade ports with no sea trade to them .

-Phalnax

Did you go after prussia or did they come at you? They keep coming at me and wont make peace even though I destroyed their navy and am raiding their trade.

It really needs to stop crashing randomly :/ Lost another 40 minutes last night when it crashed as I was about to liberate Philly from the stinky British.

I love the game.  The Road to Independence campaign was very cool, but now that I'm actually playing the grand campaign I have more freedom to research/explore/trade/attack whomever.

The Load times can be a bit on the long side, but the battles are very good IMO.

Sometimes ground unit and ship pathing can make you scratch your head and be like wtf are they trying to do.

Ground warfare seems to take more micromanaging than fleet battles.  With fleets though I found that it's important to not let them get too bunched up or their firing lanes will be shut off.

AI is pretty good.

Overall, I am having a blast playing it!  I would recommend it to anybody that has a decent rig.

I've only had 1 crash so far, though I've had a few freeze up but only during regular battles (as in not campaign battles). I ended up in war against Prussia and Poland, but was able to make peace with them both (not before I captured the entire prussian navy). But Prussia ended up declaring war against me several years later, for what reason, IDK. So far just raiding their lines as most of my land forces are in America. I then took all the huron lands, and just took your advice to go after the inuit, but when I got there they had 2 massive armies, the city was full of units and they had one that was heading for quebec, but it turned around to fight my invasion armies. I just destroyed their armies last night when they attacked (the whole reinforcement thing kinda sucks as my 2nd army was behind the one they attacked, yet it ended up coming in behind their main army and took heavy casualties. Have yet to take their city though as I was done after that. I sent spain a 2.5k gift and got a trade route with them, I tried the same for Genoa and the Italian states but even though they became friendly and have ports, they refuse a trade treaty. So far the most I've been able to get for income is about 10k. I haven't touched India at all and only got 1 more island in the carribean. I figure to probably go after the cherokee after I'm done with the inuit so I can try to get the colonies. I've got campaign on normal, but battles on easy as when I first got it I did a few trial run battles and got owned badly each time.

Yeah, but most games are launched buggy and patched later anymore.

I noticed this too, a major thing seems to be if the enemy routes your units will no longer auto chase to destroy them, you actually have to order them to do it, same seems to be with attacking, their units will come in range and fire, but your unit won't seem to fire till you actually order it to, and yes, thats with fire at will toggled on.

Been playing for a couple days now, paused the sins game for awhile till i get Entrenchment, and the sea battles i think are its true shining point. I seriously, make all my ships leave the battle so i can watch a damaged ship sink without fighting. so cool to see men jump off the sides and the water slowly claim the ship. Think the technology researching really rather difficult and hard to get.

Some Points:

The_Monk definitely has some points right

Seems like the AI become much less active and more passive and is willing to let skirmishers and light infantry decimate its main line soldiers. Land battles and campaign map stutter every once and awhile while sea battles are perfect. Also, the other powers turns take forever. You can walk away and come back later. Love a skip feature that doesn't show enemy turns.

Yep 107 turns in, haven't been attacked on home soil. Bout to hit the Iroquois for sure this time!! No lie, been saying that for a few posts now. Haha.

Yes even though Naval Battles didn't get great reviews I find them fun, as long as there aren't huge fleets, that may be a chore as PC Gamer put it. I don't mind a few five v five battles at most.

Like in Master and Commander the movie (good movie). That was only involving two ships, so that's the battle I like.  More personalized and if you lose an even 1v1, then you know you have some reconsideration to do about your naval skillz.

-Phalnax

A pickly question.