Game Mechanics - Naval Battles - What to attack? | Naval Battles Empire: TW Guide

Depending on what you want to do with the opponent, there are several answers for the question from the title of this sub chapter.

Stern

If you want your opponent to flee you must do Crossing the T and fire at the enemy stern.

On the stern there are cabins of captain and senior level officers. As with land battles: killing commanders will drastically lower privates morale. The crew without officers will be try to run away from your ships. Use normal ammunition when attacking the stern.

You can also try to damage enemy rigging. Firing chain shots from a comfortable position to attack the stern will allow you to destroy number of masts and sails in a very short time.

Sides

Cannons are deployed on both sides of the ship. If you are planning to sink enemy vessel or simply destroy his arsenal, place your ship in line with the enemy unit and start the bombardment.

Destruction of sides and cannons can be very time consuming. In a fight one on one (with similar units) toll may be significant. If you want to destroy sides, use normal ammunition.

After damaging side of the enemy ship, verify if the vessel is not listing on one side. If you will notice that, it will mean that water is pouring slowly to the opponent ship bunker. In this case, you can either complete the work and finish him off or just wait a few minutes - the vessel will sink.

The bow

Doing Crossing the T in front of the enemy bow is a very good action. First of all, the front side of the ship is (in most cases) poorly armed - couple of cannons and some musketeers. The risk of serious losses in your crew is not very high.

Bombardment of the bow, will not result in serious damages of the enemy hull, but it will create very good possibility for the destruction of the enemy rigging. Note that the chain shots fired towards the bow (in line with the ship) can break a few sails and masts. More informations about the destruction of rigging is written below.

The rigging

Use chain shots to destroy masts and sails of the enemy ship. Attack in this way especially when your opponent is sailing with the wind and has set all the sails.

You can check the condition of the rigging by looking on a white mark which is located on the ship icon. By destroying mats and sails you will cause that the enemy will not be able to move. Vessel in that condition is a very easy target (even for the weaker units). When the hostile ship will be immobilized shoot at his stern.

There is a chance that the enemy with partially destroyed rigging will try to run away.

You can set fire to the enemy sail using rocket ships. Remember that burning vessels can explode at any time.

Crew

You can demolish enemy lines with grape shots. These are small balls, which - like bullets from muskets - can kill many hostile soldiers in one moment. Actually, they have one big disadvantage: very low accuracy. Use it especially when you want to intercept the enemy vessel.

After each bombardment check how many people left on the enemy ship. When you will notice that his crew is rather sparse, you can start boarding it (you can't kill all enemy soldiers with grape shots).

Moment of boarding must be wisely chosen. The most important thing is that you have to have more people than your enemy. On the other hand, when you start it too late your opponent can simply run away (because of the panic caused by death of the crew).

Special situations

I hope that your shots will always hit the weak points of the enemy ships. As you may know, sometimes vessels can be carrying barrels filled with gunpowder. When you hit that kind of barrel , fire can start. As a matter of fact enemy unit will be ineffective and may sink.

The best is to hit powder stock-room directly. Hostile vessel will, literally, blow up and will be unable to fight anymore.