How NPC captains fight

Every ship but yours has an NPC captain, one the game sails, enemies and allies alike. An NPC captain gives the same orders you do, helm, yards, sail, gun orders and shot, and can do nothing you can't. It has no other way to sail. So everything below is something you could do yourself, and knowing it tells you what the ship across the water is about to do.

An NPC captain looks round and decides again every second or few, by its competence (below). It doesn't remember what you did a minute ago. When it looks ahead at all, it assumes you'll hold your present course.

Each NPC captain has a temper: it fights as a brawler, who closes and goes for the rake, or as a skirmisher, who keeps its distance and fires chain. The odds decide first. An NPC captain with clearly fewer men aboard than you skirmishes, and one with clearly more brawls; so a smaller ship stands off from you, and a bigger one comes for you. Between ships nearly even, the temper is its own, and differs from fight to fight. It counts the men aboard as the fight goes, so a ship you have hurt badly may turn skirmisher. It also has a competence. Most NPC captains are middling; a few are poor and a few excellent. A poorer NPC captain looks round less often, every few seconds instead of every second, so it is slower to answer your turns, and a poorer brawler judges the rake less far ahead. None of this is shown; you find it out by watching.

Choosing a target

An NPC captain fights the nearest enemy it can see. Land hides a ship from it as it does from your guns. Once it has a target it keeps it. It changes only when that ship strikes or passes out of sight, or when another enemy comes much nearer, at a little over half the range. So in a crowded fight, an NPC captain that has fixed on one ship can let another sail across its stern.

With no enemy in sight it holds its course, turning only to keep off a shoal.

Closing

Far off, beyond about 700 m, an NPC captain is only trying to close. Of every heading it can sail, it takes the one that brings it toward you fastest, counting the speed its point of sail gives and the leeway that sets it to leeward. It sails no closer to the wind than its class's best windward angle. When the short way round to the course it wants is through the wind, it tacks, if it has way enough; going slowly, it wears instead, the long way round with the wind across the stern. A tack, once begun, is carried through.

Caught in irons, head to wind with no way on, an NPC captain backs its fore yards and puts the helm the same way, to pay her off on the side her head already lies, and tacks or wears from there once she sails.

It sets full sail to close. Within about a kilometre it sets the sail its men allow (see Crew, below).

In action

Inside about 700 m an NPC captain stops chasing and fights by its temper.

• A skirmisher works to keep you abeam, where its broadside bears, at about 400 m. Further out than that it puts you a little ahead of its beam, so it closes as it fires. Nearer in it puts you a little abaft the beam, opening the range again. It doesn't like to turn much at once, so it settles onto a course and holds it.
• A brawler closes to about 150 m, close action, and manoeuvres for the rake. It weighs each course by where it would leave the two of you about half a minute on, if you hold your course: its broadside on your stern is best, on your bow next, on your beam least. Your broadside on its own bow or stern counts as much against it, so it works to keep its ends away from your guns. A sharp turn of yours spoils the rake it was setting up.

A raking broadside is the great killer: a ball from astern goes the length of the hull. Against a brawler, keep your stern out of its arc. Against a skirmisher, the rake is yours to take, if you can close: it will open the range as you come. Ship for ship a brawler usually beats a skirmisher, but in a smaller ship, standing off is the better chance.

Crew

An NPC captain moves its men with the orders you have: sail and the gun orders. It mans every side an enemy lies on, long before the guns bear, from about two and a half kilometres, because clearing for action takes time, and stands a side down once it has no enemy and no loaded guns.

In action an NPC captain keeps full sail as long as its guns keep at least half their crews, since speed wins the rake or holds the range, and accepts the slower fire: with one side manned, every class does. With enemies on both sides, or after heavy losses, the men run short and it takes in to topsails.

Its manned sides fire at will, each gun as it bears.

Shot

Within about 250 m an NPC captain loads double. Further out its shot depends on its temper:

• A skirmisher fires chain while the chain will reach your rig, and goes back to ball once you've lost a good part of your drive. By then your men are the better target.
• A brawler fires ball.

Beyond chain's reach both fire ball. Changing shot draws the shot already in the guns, so an NPC captain holds its shot a little past each range's edge, and a side that is mostly loaded with shot that still reaches fires before it changes. The first broadside after you cross a range edge is still the old shot.

You can tell an NPC captain's temper by where it fights and what it fires. A skirmisher standing off and firing chain is trying to stop you, not sink you.

Keeping clear

An NPC captain looks about a minute ahead and won't take a course that brings it within a few tens of metres of another ship. It assumes every other ship holds its course. It also looks ahead along its course for shallow water, further the faster it sails, and turns away from anything shallower than its draught with a little to spare.

Allies keep a wider berth from your ship, and no gun fires while a friendly ship in its arc is nearer than the enemy, so an ally whose line of fire you cross holds that fire.

What an NPC captain doesn't do

These are the openings. An NPC captain:

• doesn't fight for the wind. It doesn't try to get to windward of you, and it gives no weight to having the weather gauge or the lee.
• doesn't break off. The odds only decide how it fights, close or standing off. However outmatched or hurt, it never runs, and fights until its crew strikes.
• uses sternway only to get off a shoal. Aground, it backs its sails and goes astern, the way it came in, until the water ahead is clear, easing any sail that can't back so it doesn't drive her on again. With the wind abaft, where no trim backs her sails, it stays aground, as you would. It never goes astern for anything else, such as box-hauling.
• doesn't anticipate. It judges a collision, and a brawler a rake, by where you'd be on your present course. A sharp turn changes its picture only when it next looks.

Some follow from the others. Alone against you, an NPC captain mans the side it expects you on. Cross to its other side and that side may be stood down, and has to clear for action before it can fire. And because it keeps its target, a ship it hasn't fixed on can work round it unopposed.

NPC captains under your signals

An NPC captain in your squadron fights as above until you make a signal. In line it keeps station and fires as its guns bear, but doesn't manoeuvre for a shot; hove to, it lies where it is and fires as its guns bear. It still chooses its shot as above. See The squadron and signals.