Clarify the purpose/value of fire ships

[DeletedUser]

I have read/researched fire ships and frankly find a lot of seeming confused and contradictory info on waht value they hold in this game - revolt word. As I understand it, fire ships are pretty much strictly defensive units that don't even join into a battle until the defenders's other ships have been completely destroyed by the attacker. Ok. Then when fire ships join the fray they will destroy enemy ship's on a one to one ratio. Ok. But, I also am given to understand that they never attack transports or a colony ship. If indeed that is the case then what ultimate value would there be in having them since no matter how many enemy biremes and light ships they destroy, the attacker will always still be able to land his transports? That is the part I don't see the logic too. What are the conditions under which fire ships possess any tactical value?

 

[DeletedUser]

When a large number of Light Ships hits a small-medium number of Biremes (or, even, a large number of Biremes with decent luck, battering ram and Captain), there will be a greater number of losses for the Biremes than there will be for the Light Ships. In these situations, minor sparring with your opponent where it is more about who can take the least amount of losses than who can conquer who, fire ships come into their element. With a 1:1 kill ratio, you will always kill an equal number of the enemy ships, to the number of fire ships that you lose.

So you are right that in some situations they are not particularly effective - for defending against incoming attacks with land troops on transports, for example - but when used correctly they can be great.

That said, I have used them very little, and never intend to use them again unless I find myself forced to do so.

 

[DeletedUser]

So, what you are saying is that they are pretty much useless for a defender to use if the expected incoming attack(s) is either a revolt or conquest attack, right? It seems to me it would make more sense since they are kamikaze type units and they are last to deploy, that once they have destroyed the attacker's ships that they then turn their attention against transports, and then colony ship in that order. But that's just an opinion coming from a relatively short time player.

 

[DeletedUser]

The only advantage of fire ships is they will destroy light ships in an equal quantity despite having a lower cost.

While they will not kill a colony ship, they can kill the supporting navy. Without navy, the colony ship will not land.In this regard they are quite useful in a revolt world to prevent takeover.

Since they are so limited, most experienced players don't bother building them. Biremes might only kill light ships at the rate of 75%, but they will also kill transports and they will be at their destination while fireships are still leaving the harbour.

 

[DeletedUser]

Just to make sure I am getting this correctly. If all the support ships accompanying a colony ship (presumably light ships) are destroyed then the colony ship will not land even though transports loaded with troops that were part of the flotilla remain in tact?

 

[DeletedUser]

yes.

To put it frankly. If you are a newbie, n00b or nUb, or simply useless at spotting they are of very little use to you. If you are a vet, there are 2 likelyhoods:

1) Vet vs n00b/nUb/newbie - no point really because the person you are fighting won't understand their use and for them to be useful both players fighting need to understand their value.
2) Vet vs Vet - They form an integral part of the game that many miss out on due to public opinion developed from fighting MRA's in one sided battles.

 

[DeletedUser]

Another feature of fireships is that they are slow. This can be useful if you need to slow down your biremes or transports for a support. They cannot be used to slow down an attack, though, if you try to use them in an attack you get a red message saying you cannot attack with fireships.

As a tripwire, a fireship will only be destroyed once all biremes are down, this can be useful too.

 

[DeletedUser]

Another feature of fire ship that can be useful is its building time,when someone is attacking you and you are out of troops so they can be build to get few BPs as well

 

[DeletedUser]

Just to make sure I am getting this correctly. If all the support ships accompanying a colony ship (presumably light ships) are destroyed then the colony ship will not land even though transports loaded with troops that were part of the flotilla remain in tact?

Actually, I'm not so sure about this. This was in Sigma, a conquest world.

One of my frontline cities was under constant attack, so I sent my FS wall (Yes an FS wall I built for funsies) to it. The attacker (stephon) used a harbor spy from his city on the same island. I only had a small amount of land troops left, but about 300+ FS in the harbor. He cleared out the city with troops on the same island, and sent the CS attack. The CS attack had only 1 Bireme for escort. My FS destroyed that bireme, but the CS was able to land, and had my FS in the harbor protecting it. In the end, I withdrew the FS and used a manti-nuke to destroy the city.

So, the point of this was to say, that the CS can still land if its naval escort is gone, (from the enemy's use of FS) and the city is clear.

 

[DeletedUser8790]

Actually, I'm not so sure about this. This was in Sigma, a conquest world.

One of my frontline cities was under constant attack, so I sent my FS wall (Yes an FS wall I built for funsies) to it. The attacker (stephon) used a harbor spy from his city on the same island. I only had a small amount of land troops left, but about 300+ FS in the harbor. He cleared out the city with troops on the same island, and sent the CS attack. The CS attack had only 1 Bireme for escort. My FS destroyed that bireme, but the CS was able to land, and had my FS in the harbor protecting it. In the end, I withdrew the FS and used a manti-nuke to destroy the city.

So, the point of this was to say, that the CS can still land if its naval escort is gone, (from the enemy's use of FS) and the city is clear.

Also Happened to me in a revolt world, I had 475 firseships in defense, CS attack hit, All LS were destroyed but the city fell anyways, so my support became the new owners support, Building fireships is a 100% waste of time.

 

[DeletedUser]

Actually, I'm not so sure about this. This was in Sigma, a conquest world.

One of my frontline cities was under constant attack, so I sent my FS wall (Yes an FS wall I built for funsies) to it. The attacker (stephon) used a harbor spy from his city on the same island. I only had a small amount of land troops left, but about 300+ FS in the harbor. He cleared out the city with troops on the same island, and sent the CS attack. The CS attack had only 1 Bireme for escort. My FS destroyed that bireme, but the CS was able to land, and had my FS in the harbor protecting it. In the end, I withdrew the FS and used a manti-nuke to destroy the city.

So, the point of this was to say, that the CS can still land if its naval escort is gone, (from the enemy's use of FS) and the city is clear.

This must have been re-edited in an update somewhere. Originally it was possible to do what you described, then an update "ironed out" that "bug"... it is possible another update has made it possible again...

which does lead me to question, what is a bug and what is design?

 

[DeletedUser]

That is something I didn't think about. The remaining fireships become the colony ship's naval support after the battle. This allows the colony ship to land.

The bug that was ironed out was when you sent fireships with a colony ship, the colony ship could not be destroyed by the defender. This was because the colony ship can't be attacked while it has supporting navy. Since fireships can't attack, the supporting navy was never destroyed.

 

[DeletedUser]

unfortunately... i have to disagree with you there. Since I actively tested it before and after the bug was removed.

 

[DeletedUser21774]

Has Grepolis programming ever updated the value of the fireship? I had heard they were planning on doing this after a survey of game features showed how little the fireship was being used. Also does anyone have an idea what sort of bump in utility was being planned for the fireship?

 

[DeletedUser27700]

The rebalance has not taken effect yet.
All the info is here

 

[DeletedUser32488]

They have a very limited use to destroy enemy LS nukes at 1:1 ratio. Fire ship is worth 8 battle points, while LS is worth 10. LS is also more expensive so when you catch an enemy's LS you will get slight BP and decent resource advantage.

In reality they are seldom useful, perhaps in a very advanced stage of the game where most advanced players have 20+ cities you may want to hunt someone's LS nukes with your FS.

 

[DeletedUser]

I find them extremely handy in the 10 city stage of a world to stack land off cities with.... I dont know many people who will risk a LS nuke to take out 40 LS and a whole bunch of fireships. Most of the time people spy it, then leave it.

 

[DeletedUser25074]

The only thing i can think of them being useful for is simple to kill of Close range LS escorts for troop attacks. So that the player either has to rebuild a very small LS escort or send the same attack back unescorted and your bireme's go to work in taking down those TS/FT's full of troops lol.