Boarding

Sinking an enemy ends the fight; boarding ends it with a prize. Instead of sending a hull to the bottom you grapple alongside, storm the deck, and — if you break the crew’s will — take the ship itself, cargo and all. It is a whole separate game played on top of the gunnery duel: first you have to catch the enemy, then you fight a round-based contest of commands that rewards reading your opponent over brute force. A smaller ship with a clever captain can board and capture a bigger one; a careless captain in a giant can lose his crew to a sloop.

Getting to the grapple

You can’t board out of nowhere. Three conditions have to line up first:

• Preparation. Your boarding party has to be readied. Boarding is one of the crew focuses ([9]), and its preparation meter has to climb past the halfway mark before you can grapple at all — and the higher you push it before contact, the better your opening position in the fight.
• Distance. The two ships must be right alongside each other.
• Speed. Both ships have to be slowed below the boarding speed limit (recently around 8 knots). A fast ship can’t be boarded, which cuts both ways — to take someone you must slow him, and to avoid being taken you keep your speed up.

When all three are met you’ll see “Boarding possible [G]”; press [G] to throw the grapples. There’s a brief pulling phase as the lines haul the ships together — if they drift too far apart in that moment, the attempt breaks, so you want both ships truly slow, not just dipping under the limit. A classic setup is to shove a fleeing enemy up into the wind (into irons) to kill his speed, then grapple as he stalls.

The fifteen-second read

Once the pull succeeds, a “Prepare for boarding” screen gives you about fifteen seconds to size up the enemy before swords are drawn. Read four things, because together they set the odds:

• Marines. A complement of marines is a major boarding advantage — specialist fighters who tilt the melee. If he has them and you don’t, be wary.
• Crew. More hands than the enemy is a straightforward edge in every exchange.
• Morale. The number you’re trying to drive to zero — and that he’s trying to drive down on you. Whoever starts higher has room to spend.
• Preparation. How ready each side is, which gates what each of you can actually do in the opening rounds.

If you’re badly outmatched on all four, this is the moment to think about breaking off rather than feeding your crew into a loss.

How a round works

The boarding battle runs in rounds. Each round both captains secretly choose a command; when the round timer runs out, both commands resolve at the same instant. You never see the enemy’s choice — only a preview of the likely outcome if neither of you changes. And you can keep changing your pick until almost the end, which is the heart of the mind-game: bait him into committing against the command he expects, then switch to the one that beats his. (Once you lock a choice it holds for several seconds before you can change again, so the bluffing has a rhythm.)

Two resources run the whole exchange. Morale is the health bar — grind it to zero while attacking and the ship is yours. Preparation is the currency — most commands spend it, and if you haven’t got enough, that command greys out. After every round the log updates and both meters shift.

The commands

The choices form a rock-paper-scissors triangle with a couple of support options around it. Learn what beats what and the duel stops being a guessing game:

• Attack — the win condition. Send the boarding party across; if you drive the enemy’s morale to zero while attacking, he surrenders the ship to you. Attack overpowers Brace and the ranged commands — but it is hard-countered by Defend, and it costs a lot of preparation. Attacking with a deck disadvantage (a smaller, lower ship against a taller one) carries heavy penalties, so it favours the bigger hull.
• Defend — the hard counter to Attack, and cheap to throw. Your crew braces to meet the charge. But it does nothing against ranged fire: a captain who sits on Defend gets shot to pieces by the volleys below.
• Musket Volley — ranged fire that punishes Defend, and grows stronger the more decks and crew you have. Vulnerable to Attack. (This is the command the boarding-focused upgrades and marines amplify most — see below.)
• Fire Deck Guns — your upper-deck cannons fire into the enemy and add some protection against Attack; strong against Defend, and heavier with more decks. Unavailable if the ships differ by more than one deck or your upper guns are gone.
• Fire Grenades — thrown explosives that beat Defend and make the enemy’s Brace nearly useless — but they leave your own men exposed, so Attack tears through you while you’re lobbing them.
• Brace — the default and your reset. It costs no preparation, shields your crew from ranged fire, and builds preparation for bigger plays. Its weakness is Attack, which punches straight through. When in doubt, or when you’re out of preparation, Brace and rebuild.
• Disengage — the escape hatch. Your crew cuts the grapples to break off; while disengaging you can’t Attack and everything you do is weaker, but it’s how you get out of a board you’re losing.

Winning the board

Put it together and a plan emerges. Open by reading the four stats, then use Brace to bank preparation while you feel out your opponent. Force the triangle: if he keeps Defending (expecting your Attack), switch to a ranged volley and shred him; once his morale is low and his preparation is spent, commit Attack to push morale to zero and take the surrender. Bait, don’t telegraph — change your pick at the last second when you think you’ve read his.

Two structural advantages tilt every board: deck advantage (a bigger, taller ship hits harder with volleys and deck guns and resists being attacked up-deck) and marines plus the right fittings — boarding upgrades and perks can dramatically swing the musket and melee exchanges. If you intend to board as a tactic, build for it; what to slot is in Mods, Books & Perks.