If your enemy lives on a different lump of land from you then you have two options: swim or sail. Since swimming with weapons and armour is quite hard, sailing proves to be a popular method of crossing large bodies of water. In battle, larger ships have an advantage over smaller ships because of their greater height and speed, small ships though are more agile and can operate in much shallower waters.
Most ships are measured in their weight class, some however have a specific name. Below is a simple chart the shows ship weight/name, materials cost, construction cost, crew count and armament slots. Construction points are generated by shipyards and only last for that turn but are re-created each turn, if you do not have a supply of wood then all shipyards will produce a quarter of normal. Horses take up 8 transport slots, 9 with a rider.
| Hull |
Materials |
Points |
Armaments |
Transport |
| 100 tonnes |
0.25 |
3 |
0 |
50 |
| 250 tonnes |
1 |
5 |
1 |
130 |
| Horse transport |
1 |
5 |
0 |
30 |
| Flat bottom boat |
1 |
10 |
0 |
100 |
| 400 tonnes |
3 |
15 |
2 |
350 |
| Bomb ketch |
15 |
15 |
0 |
0 |
| 600 tonnes |
5 |
30 |
4 |
650 |
| Pegasus carrier |
5 |
30 |
0 |
70 |
| 800 tonnes |
8 |
60 |
6 |
900 |
- A Bomb ketch is a 400 tonner with a Trebuchet on it, the transport space is filled with ammo
- A flat bottomed craft can land on a beach much more easily and leave a beach much more easily than a non flat bottomed craft, they are however nearly useless for ship to ship combat
- Horse transports and Pegasus carriers are built so that a horse takes up only a single transport slot, carriers additionally have facilities Pegasus to take-off and land
As with the army you can improve the quality of the men and the equipment that they use. As with the army this will increase the cost and also the upkeep. A higher quality ship is faster, tougher and better crewed.
A ship can have one of three roles:
- Transport have twice the transport capacity of normal
- Gunboats have thicker hulls, higher sides and the number of each war engine is doubled
- Assault craft have rowers, a ram and are designed to allow easier boarding of other ships
There are two main forms of ship to ship combat; the first is to simply shoot at the other ship with your war engines and the second is to board their ship. The boarders are not the crew of your ship but army personnel carried aboard your ship.
Here are some Aggregate ships as examples as if they were written in a military summary.
Swarmer - Assault craft (Materials: 2, Points: 5, Upkeep: 0.5) - 250 tonnes
The crew are trained to a Normal standard, transport capacity: 130
Ballistas: 1
Cruiser - Gunship (Materials: 9, Points: 60, Upkeep: 2.25) - 800 tonnes
The crew are trained to a Normal standard, transport capacity: 900
Catapults: 6
Airships in World of Arl are pretty basic, they're more akin to a hot air balloon than the common "Zeppelin" image normally conjured by the word Airship. Airships are constructed by shipyards and will benefit from the
shipbuilding tech. Airships are listed according to how much they can lift. A basket to hold the crew is already taken into account, you need only worry about the crew and what they carry. Airship crew can be trained but there is no point in taking it above normal training.
| Lifting power |
Materials |
Points |
| 160kg |
1 |
20 |
| 350kg |
3 |
40 |
| 650kg |
6 |
70 |
| 1000kg |
10 |
100 |
| 1800kg |
15 |
150 |