Question about reputation and surrendering ships

[Locker]

Hello,

On my current Hawk campaign, i joined a battle between english and french warships with my recently acquired Sloop .

In the course of the battle, my allies won (we had the number overwhelming the french fleet) , i was happy that my Sloop managed to sink an enemy damaged warship ( a corvette, the log mention 156 crew member died from this) and an enemy warship (a frigate) even surrendered.

After saving at that point to test around, i boarded one of the surrendered ship and noticed its captain hadn't surrendered and wanted a duel, seems like there was no other choice than accept.
This taught me i should have trained my melee skill more and should have invested in armor (and better weapon than i had) as the captain was barely hurt at each of my strikes and even despite Defense 1 , his slashes were noticably ignoring my blocks half of the time, killing me fast

So basically i'm nowhere near ready in term of level and melee equipment to take out such foe for now, so i'm left with a choice :
Leave the place with the loot i got already, or open fire and try to sink that surrendered warship with the hope to get more loot.

But then the question : is there a hit on reputation from destroying an enemy ship that had surrendered ?
I'm sporting the english flag and the english warships are still around, the "Art of War" manual does not refer to this specific situation in the "unrespectable act" section so i'm a bit clueless there to see if there's some consequence.

 

[Grey Roger]

Attacking a surrendered ship will certainly harm your reputation! Also, as the surrendered ship is no longer recognised by the game as belonging to France (or any other enemy of Britain), you won't gain any points towards a promotion.

Defence 1 is minimal, but the real question is, what is your Melee skill? That is what will affect your chances of hitting the enemy, and his chance of hitting you. The captain of a frigate will be fairly high level and will have a pretty good Melee skill, as well as a powerful sword.

The rules for whether a captain of a surrendered ship will duel or surrender without a fight are:
If the total of his Melee and Leadership skill is higher than yours, he will fight.
If your total is higher then it goes to abilities. If he has both Professional Fencer and Iron Will, and you do not, he will fight.
Otherwise he will surrender.

Overriding all this is ship class. If your ship is at least two tiers higher than his, he will surrender regardless of skill and ability. If your ship is at least two tiers smaller than his, he will fight regardless of skill and ability. This means you definitely won't be killed in a duel if you're the one in a much bigger ship, he's almost sinking and the crew have surrendered. It also means you're not getting a significantly better ship than your own without a fight. In particular, you're in a sloop which is probably tier 7 and he's in a frigate which is probably tier 4 - the captain is definitely not going to give that away easily!

Try going for easier targets. Merchant crews are less tough than naval crews, and so are their captains. Smaller ships should also be easier.

For combat training, visit dungeons. The low-lifes you'll find hiding in there are relatively easy opponents, you can get plenty of free swords by killing them, and there's usually a nice sword lying around on the ground somewhere. There's one dungeon in Port Royale, one in Speightstown, and another somewhere in the jungle between Speightstown and Bridgetown. And a few more scattered around on other islands...

 

[Locker]

Thanks for the reputation confirmation, better safe than sorry.

My melee is still only at 2 , as i only fought with a couple of monkeys in a jungle and some bandits around some town outskirt, that i managed to defeat but a captain is sure something else
Thanks for the tips about training, i'll have to get this neglected stat up a lot more.