【发售前预热】开发者日志——海战篇 partII （发售前最后一篇）

Brighteast

如果你对船队中船只的组合有一定心得的话，将对你在单人战役中帮助很大。在单人战役中，并不只有你我互相炮击而已，将会有更多乐趣。
  设想你或者AI的船载满了珍贵的货物。如果你船上装满了你用99%的财产买来的香料，我想这时是你最不想招惹敌人的时候


  在这种情况下，你的战术技巧就得受到真正的考验了。假想你的敌人的船比你的要快，以至于如果你一直在瞎漂的话就会被干掉。这时你也许需要牺牲掉一艘船来让其他船能够逃走。如果你只有很少的加农撞角的时候，这将会对你有所帮助——在加农的掩护下试着让商船逃跑。
  
  在追逐战中，你甚至可以丢掉所有装载物来提高你的额外船速。不幸的是，你的货物可能经常超过你的船本身的价值，但是这样总能防止你遭到敌人的打击。
  如果你是攻方，你也许会想要要俘获敌舰，掠夺敌舰上的任何货物，而不是击沉他——船只可以以多种方式俘获。最显而易见的方式就是接触战，靠近并登船。登船时你不需要任何操作，所以你得保证你有足够的优势来进行甲板战。
  在登船时，这一切都取决于人力：人多者取胜。这就使得水手们变得宝贵起来。大多数船种可以交换水手，而他们是甲板专家。水手也能够远距离的对敌舰上的敌人进行射击。


  如果你不想冒险进行甲板战，你也可以不用进行血肉厮杀让敌人臣服于你。如果船上的水手受到伤害，水手们的士气会下降。如果损失船只（沉没，投降，逃跑），会降低所有友军船只的士气。损失的士气取决于船队的船只损失数量。在一个旗舰+2艘小帆船的船队中，损失一艘小帆船，队士气影响可能不大，但旗舰被摧毁，可能直接导致两艘小帆船举白旗。
  在多人游戏中，也有三种游戏模式。骷髅战船（个人暂译）是玩家与玩家进行对抗，最后活下来的为赢家——这样一种死亡模式。你可以随意选择逆向操作的船只。如果你想要公平竞争的话，最好限制船只的性能保持平等。另外也有组队模式，在组队模式中你可以随意选择队伍的组成（1 vs. 2, 5 vs. 7, 6 vs. 6, 3 vs. 3…）最多同时支持12个玩家进行游戏。
  在锦标赛模式中，海域内设置了许多浮标。航行到足够近时，就会开始为你的队伍计时，积累到一定时间的队伍则获得胜利。这些浮标可以被重新占领，因此战斗的中心就集中在抢夺浮标。这种模式也可以利用到战术思想，火力强大的一方可能有足够的力量，然而速度上却受到限制。轻快的小船像是柯特式帆船会是不错的选择，特别是如果友方有强大的火力支援。或者你可以你可以试试一些租赁船只类似于三位快速帆船等。
  离7月28日发售日已经很近了，这是我在发售前最后的一篇开发者博文。在下一篇中我会与大家分享一些关于我自己在创建东印度公司时的战术心得~
Kim Soares
                                        —Editer Brighteast

翻译稍作了点润色，大家将就吧。。

原文：

Designer's Blog: Naval warfare, part II.In campaign play it helps a lot if you already have some idea of how different ship combinations will likely end up against each other. To make matters more interesting, in campaign play it’s not just about shooting the other guy into pieces.
The odds are that either you or AI has ships that are loaded full of precious cargo. If your flutes are packed full of spice that you spent 99% of your money to buy, the last thing you want to do is to shoot it out with the enemy.


In these kinds of situations your tactical skills are truly measured. The odds are that the enemy has faster ships than your flutes so fleeing is probably going to fail. You might try to sacrifice one of your ships while others make a run for it. It would help if you had only 3 flutes and perhaps 2 galleons. Then your galleons could try to keep the enemy at bay while the traders try to escape.
In a pursuit situation, you can even choose to throw all cargo overboard as to gain extra speed. Then again, the cargo might often be more valuable than the ship itself, but at least that way you can deny it from the enemy.
If you are the attacker, you might want to capture the enemy ships with any cargo they might be carrying as opposed to sinking them. Ships can be captured in multiple ways. Most obvious one is to get close enough and then initiate boarding action. You do not have any control during the boarding action, so it is best to ensure that you have the upper hand before doing it.
In boarding action, it is all about the manpower: The ship with more crewmembers is likely to win. This is what makes marines so valuable. Most ship types can transport marines and they are experts in boarding actions. Marines also independently shoot at the enemy crew if their ship is in range.


If you don’t want to risk it in boarding action, you can always try to make the enemy surrender without bloody close combat. Morale of a crew of a single ship will decrease if they take casualties. If a ship is lost (sank, surrendered, fled) it will decrease morale of crews of all other friendly ships. The amount of morale loss depends on the size of the ship. In fleet of one ship-of-the-line and two sloops, the loss of single sloop does not matter so much. If it’s the SOL that gets destroyed, it might well be that both sloops will rise a white flag.
Multiplayer has three different game modes. Last Ship Floating is deathmatch where the player with the, hum… last ship floating is the winner. You can take any ship you want, but naturally if you want balanced battles it’s good to limit the selection to vessels roughly equal. There is also team version of this game mode. In the team version you can have any combination of players (1 vs. 2, 5 vs. 7, 6 vs. 6, 3 vs. 3…) up to the maximum of 12 players.
In domination there are a number of buoys floating scattered across the play area. Sailing close enough will tag the buoy and it will start ticking time for your side. The side to accumulate enough time first wins. They buoys can be re-captured by the other team, so struggle for domination is constant. This game mode also benefits from team tactics. Side with only large warships might have huge firepower, but speed is of the essence here. Small fast ships like cutters are good, especially if the team has some large warships to give them fire support. Or you can try to go through the middle, employing ships like xebecs and frigates.
As the release date of 28th july is very near now, this was my last designers blog before the release. In the next one I’ll share with you some of my own tactics I use when creating the trading company that will dominate the East Indies.

Kim Soares