Swanto wrote:
In a league game, in game 743635, I was playing FIER in England vs. France. As is often the case, FIE ran into the lead English ship EXE on turn 4.
I felt I had the better position, with FIE lying across EXE nose and blocking her path. Moreover, my ship had less damage and I was somewhat confident that I would come out of this with some points even if eventually destroyed.
We were not grappled or fouled, but the nearest English ship transferred 5 crew to Exeter.
On turn 5, we were grappled and EXE captured my boat with an attack of 9 men.
According to the melee table, the odds were 3-1 but
the men involved were 9-6 which should have been 3-2. In addition, the total men remaining seem to exceed those available.
As you might expect, I was quite surprised to go from a superior position to being wiped out in one turn.
Can somebody explain how this type of thing can happen so that I might better understand how 9 vs. 6 equals 3-1?
A good example of why you should never hold back when meleeing!
The 3:1 threshold is on crew strength, not the number of crew squares involved. Different qualities have different points per square. Average crew = 3 points per square. So you really need to look at the Strength column of the log (27 v 18).
Then it does three rounds of melee combat. After each round, it checks for the 3:1 threshold. Your opponent rolled good damage and knocked your strength from 18 to 15 to 9. The 9 isn't shown because that's where the 3:1 kicked in, but the "2" damage in the second round is it. You had 3 squares left X 3 points for being average = 9. He still had 27, so they surrendered.
The crew section that was left firing the guns doesn't count and surrender with the rest.
By the way, the transfer from Victory didn't figure in the melee. TBPs don't count on the turn they transfer, he was just gearing up for the next turn.
I appreciate what you are saying about with-holding 2 crew to fire the guns. Its a mistake because it lowered the hits table to where my guns had no effect ( I was hoping to destroy him with a point blank shot). I won't make that mistake again. At 9-8 I probably would have survived.
I have never looked at these strength tables, but I will now.
In effect, what you are saying that the result was from the role of the dice; in other words he got lucky. While there is no escaping "luck" when "dice" are involved, I am still chagrined to get wiped out that fast
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