Ships can be built, kept and used only in villages with harbor.
Special Servers - Harbor and Deep Water
Ship type | Purpose | Speed in deep water | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Trade ship | Sending resources | 2835 | 1235 | 1985 | 750 | 1:15:00 | 18 fields / hour |
Warship | Sending any army | 18500 | 8355 | 12275 | 7500 | 3:45:00 | 18 fields / hour |
Decoy warship | Sending up to 60 units | 950 | 350 | 750 | 350 | 0:35:00 | 18 fields / hour |
Raid ship | Raiding with up to 200 units | 750 | 450 | 450 | 350 | 0:20:00 | Most tribes: 18 fields / hour Vikings: 24 fields / hour |
The time it takes to build a ship depends solely on the ship type and harbor level (the higher the level, the faster the construction). Ancient powers that affect troop training times do not affect ships.
The speed of ships is multiplied on gameworlds with high speed, similar to how this works with units and merchants.
Naval movement
You can send ships to any target on the map, even if it’s not near deep water.
The ships always travel along the direct, shortest path. This has changed compared to the initial release of the ships, where there was more complicated pathfinding.
The movement may include parts over sea and over land. The part of the voyage that goes over the deep water is done at the ship's speed, while the part over the land is using the regular speed of the army or merchants.
For example, a ship with catapults and a ship with cavalry travel at the same speed over deep water. However, if they need to travel over land, the army with catapults is going to be much slower, as catapults are that much slower than cavalry.
Speed bonuses
When travelling over deep water, ships travel at a static speed, which cannot be increased by any bonuses, such as hero items (with one exception – the map still shortens return travel), hero special bonus or ancient powers.
During the part of the journey that takes place over land, the speed is calculated in the traditional way, including all available bonuses. The Tournament Square bonus becomes active after 20 fields have been travelled on land, and it only affects further land travel.
Troops Speed Increase & Tournament Square
Warships and decoy warships allow sending armies out. They can be used for any kind of movement - raid, attack (including scouting), reinforcement (including forwarding reinforcements) and even sending settlers to settle a new village.
The difference between those two ships is that a warship can take an army of any size, while decoy warship can take a maximum of 60 units and is much cheaper.
Both types of warships travel at a speed of 18 tiles per hour over deep water and at the usual speed of the slowest unit in the army over land.
You can only use ships from the village with the harbor. When forwarding reinforcements it doesn’t matter where they are from, they can use your ship from the village you forward them from.
One movement uses one ship. This means you can’t use 2 decoy warships to send 120 units together. You would need to send 2 waves, up to 60 units each. Or send one proper warship with any amount of units you want.
If the army sent to a raid or attack by ship is destroyed in that battle, the ship is destroyed with it.
When the ship reaches the target and is not required for the travel back, it returns to its home village immediately, without any travel time (note this is not the case with trade ships, which have to travel back as usual).
Ships cannot be stationed in other villages.
Warships cannot be used in farm lists.
Raid ships are used exclusively for raids. They cannot transport units as reinforcements or execute normal attacks.
Another difference between them and warships is that you can use them in a farmlist.
One raid ship can take up to 200 units for a raid.
They have a base speed of 18 fields/hour, like other ships. However, Vikings, thanks to the excellent craftmanship of their harbor masters, produce raid ships that fly over the sea with the speed of 24 fields/hour.
Trade ships can massively increase the village’s capability to move resources, in addition to merchants. Trade ships do not count toward the merchants limit and do not need merchants to be used.
The biggest advantage of trade ships is that they transport a lot of resources and you can have a lot of them. They move at a speed of 20 fields per hour (on x1 speed gameworlds) and over land, they travel at the same speed as the merchants of their tribe.
Tribe | Trade ship base capacity | Speed in deep water | Speed over land |
---|---|---|---|
Romans | 2500 | 18 fields / hour | 16 fields / hour |
Teutons | 3000 | 18 fields / hour | 12 fields / hour |
Gauls | 2750 | 18 fields / hour | 24 fields / hour |
Egyptians | 2500 | 18 fields / hour | 16 fields / hour |
Huns | 3000 | 18 fields / hour | 20 fields / hour |
Spartans | 2750 | 18 fields / hour | 14 fields / hour |
Vikings | 300 | 18 fields / hour | 18 fields / hour |
Trade ship capacity depends on the tribe and is affected by Trade Office and the alliance commerce bonus.