Naval Maneuvers Ahoy! Total War Sets Sail
So here we are - it’s coming up to the middle of January 2009, and we’re closer than ever to the impending release of Empire: Total War, but still there’s a whole lot of guesswork going on involving the critically-acclaimed series’ first foray into naval battles.
The Phoenix, a two-masted brig
Forums online are rife with heated debates and furious chin-stroking as fans try and piece together the evidence available in official and leaked gameplay videos, press interviews and rumour.
Creative Assembly aren’t confirming or denying too much with regards to the specifics of gameplay, and are most likely going to leave their options open right up until the game’s release build. Even at that point, who is to say future patches won’t further modify gameplay and force different tactics? Not humble little us, that’s for sure.
So what we’re going to aim for is to give you a general, all-round lesson on how to sail the high seas. Let’s start with some basic terminology…
Nautical Vocab
The front of a ship is called the bow - the back is the stern. When navigating on the water, left is known as “port”, and right as “starboard”. These terms for left and right are used to avoid confusion when giving orders aboard ship - where “left” could mean to any man’s left, port means specifically “to the left of the ship as it is view from the stern”. The direction the wind is blowing is known as “downwind”, while the opposite direction is unsurprisingly referred to as “upwind”.
Maneuvering With The Elements
When using sails to move through the water, wind direction is by far the biggest factor that governs how a ship maneuvers it’s way around the seas. When sailing downwind, square-rigged ships in the times of Empire: Total War would have made the fastest progress by positioning themselves directly in line with the wind and continuing on a straight course. For modern racing sailboats, this isn’t true, but for the square-rigged warships of centuries past, this was the fastest way to sail.
Tacking, or "beating a course upwind"
Things change though when it comes to cutting a course against the wind. It’s obviously not possible to sail directly upwind, so what sailors do is to “tack” back and forth across the wind. The sails are oriented towards the wind at an angle, so as to catch it and direct it out behind the ship. This pushes the vessel along at an angle to the wind. Crews use this technique to move upwind by sailing to and fro, gradually carving their way against the direction the wind is blowing. This is known as “beating a course upwind”. It’s obviously not as fast as sailing straight downwind, but slower progress is better than no progress.
When beating a course upwind, each turn is known as “coming about”, and the process as a whole is also often called tacking. It is important for a ship to have enough speed when coming about, as at the mid-point of the turn the ship is directly in line with the wind, and therefore no forward movement is being generated by the sails. The ship must complete it’s turn and catch the wind in its sails again under it’s own momentum, else it will be essentially immobilised until it can catch enough wind to get moving again.
Turning on an axis
In the pre-alpha videos of Empire: Total War floating around online, you can see ships in a naval battle turning on a point. This caused all sorts of uproar with Total War fans with a penchant for realism, as this just simply isn’t possibly in reality. If it were, it would mean skillful maneuvering to bring ones vessel alongside an enemy (so as to allow the ship to fire on them) would be redundant, and the entire dynamics of a sail-powered naval battle would drastically change. Happily, Creative Assembly assured fans that this issue was tackled way back in the game’s development, and the need for maneuvering tactics would be preserved.
One of the pre-alpha videos that caused so much fuss
Sailing Too Close To The Wind
As well as becoming stuck while turning, plotting too direct a course upwind can also result in a ship becoming stuck. As the ships course turns to close to a directly upwind bearing, the sails will lose the wind and, unless this was anticipated and speedily corrected, the ship will not be able to maneuver back into the wind. Captains must strike a balance between speed of progress and risk of this happening. This is where the saying “sailing too close to the wind” comes from.
A replica of HMS Pickle, a 19th centry Bermuda sloop
Square-rigged ships are at a disadvantage here. While they are the fastest at sailing directly downwind, they are quite inefficient at tacking, and cannot sail nearly as close to the wind as bermuda rigs. These were developed in Bermuda, funnily enough, around the mid-1700s, so we should hopefully see vessels which adopt this sail configuration in Empire: Total War, such as the Bermuda Sloop. This could, depending on how Creative Assembly decide to settle, bring some interesting dynamics to any kind of an upwind naval chase.
Well, that about wraps maneuvering up for now. Let us know your thoughts, and remember to check back soon to see our articles about cannon shot, demasting, boarding, and how you might go about freezing the balls off a brass monkey. No, seriously.
Tags: ahoy, naval, naval tactics, Tactics, video
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