@chronodusk said in Winning without boarding:
@idneon
I'd say it's about 50/50 with us. Some situations it may be best to send a boarder and sometimes we can blast them off the deck with our cannons and sink them that way.
In cases where our crew is equally matched with another in terms of both skill and crew size, I do find it irritating that the fight can drag on forever until one of us gets a boarder on.
I agree with boarding being a viable strategy in ship battles, but I don't like that boarding is in many cases the only thing that can decide the outcome of a ship battle.
I honestly think more and more that cannons is the more viable option.
It really comes down to just being better sailors...right speed, right distance, right angles....avoiding their boarders.
Even a Brigantine can put a ton of damage into a ship in one pass, and possibly sink them that round, if not you rake the stern/bow and just keep pounding holes into them too far to sword-lunge to your ship.
There's a LOT of options as long as you don't get into passing-boarding distance.
That's where I've had most difficulty lately, is I often pass their bow TOO close/aggressively and they jump aboard.
I need to be more patient and run along side them just doing massive damage until when they are disabled then come across the bow/stern at a distance.
That's the best...obviously.
And with 2 cannon you can easily do enough damage, with 4...it'd be like dropping nukes.
It takes about 1 skeleton fort to pump in enough firebombs/blunderbombs and cannon/chain shot...so I usually raid 1 starter outpost, 1 skelly and possibly 1 more outpost or skelly, before hunting.
After that, each hunt usually just requires one skelly to maintain.