After a year, I still don't have any idea on running a decent navy. Looking for hints.

I'm not overly concerned with the pre-oil years. I can always take care of a couple galleons full of Calvary or earlier units. But a couple transports full of gunships and MAs scare the pee-pee out of me -- especially if I'd just sent the bulk of my forces over to invade and they're stuck six turns out in the ocean.

So defending is important. Let's say I have a modest coast that's about 20 tiles long. I've done the destroyers spread along the coast about a turn away from each other, with battleships in between each destroyer -- but even then the nasties come in and destroy my destroyers, then they take advantage of the newly made hole to slip in with a larger force.

How do you defend your coast?

If you defend every coastline, you defend nothing. :crazyeye:

You need to put submarines in the ocean to see when the enemy approaches, so that you can send your massive navy that way. If you cannot scout the force, try to anticipate where they will come.

Or, simply allow them to launch troops when they want, and just keep a navy to make safe your coastline from pillaging. And focus on taking them down as they land, with artillery backed with modern armor.

no no no...what you need to do, i agree its a pain in the ass so i do this only during wartimes and once every 2 turns, is that you take your fighter and bombers to do recons mission in the sea. Once you tracked transports you bombard them so they lose half their HP...your destroyers are ready to go sink battleships and transports...

NKVD's advice is sound. Place your fighters and bombers in cities along the coastline so that none of the groups overlap too much and each can sufficiently protect their given area; one fighter and one bomber should do, the more the merrier. Recon every two turns. (during peacetime also if you want, this prevents a sneak attack). You should have some destroyers and battleships strategically placed in your cities with fishing/clam/crab/whaling boats (or on the fishing boats) as well so the AI can't pillage them. Since your fishing boats should be near most of your coastal cities it works out and you'll have a decent enough navy to handle any attack. You'll have some overlap as well and the AI always tries to pillage work boats.

Also try and make sure your navy producing cities have drydocks, generals, and any other XP modifiers you can have. On Monarch about three or four battleships and three or four destroyers (well trained) is usually enough to handle an invasion force. This gets expensive if you're trying to put these all over the place.

The alternative is keeping a smaller navy to only protect your fishing boats and not destroy an invasion force, and keeping a centralised land force which can make it to any point on your continent in 2 turns(railroads help) and is capable of destroying up to 16 enemy units. The AI doesn't usually bring more than that and usually brings less. With cannons/artillery and bombers this is pretty easy to do.

Definitely do not try and form a chain around your continet with destroyers. This is a waste of time and resources and leaves them vulnerable.

Or just keep subs near your opponents bases and see when the invaison force is launched.

Or just keep subs near your opponents bases and see when the invaison force is launched.
Yep. Subs, spies, and even a few old caravels can serve this function.

Also, the AI has a fondness for the lowest-hanging fruit. By that I mean that the AI will almost always send its naval assault against the point of land in your territory that is closest to its own. So if you know who's likely to attack you, you can reliably predict the vicinity where their forces will arrive and focus your navy in that area.

Something else you could do is a forward warning system.

Position a Carrier with 3 fighters based on its decks, and use these for a recon mission north/south, with 3rd fighter to recon any areas of interest.

A.I. it will usually launch its invasion force from 1 PORT, send your caravel to scout out that ONE port, that its naval transport and attackers for the age are based in. Modern, destroyers and transports etc.

Then you base a sub or a couple of ships 1 turn away from the port, with a caravel, inside the cultural borders, to watch for sudden departures.:confused:

Its a pain, but check every turn, or suddenly you may find, that build up of force is suddenly gone, and your frantically searching the oceans to find out where its gone.:eek:

If they leave, as Sistal said, they'll attack one point only, and usually so doggedly, that you can sink an attack force over a period of up to 6 turns, so only transports/troop carriers and moving to attack at the end. Also, when chasing ships after a landing, they'll doggedly return to port of launch, reguardless of losses.:D

P.S. the A.I. won't declare war untill its outside of cultural borders, so if its only you in that direction, why wait....:eek:

If you can afford it, line your coast with troops. In Civ3, that used to prevent the enemy from landing anything. I believe in Civ4 it would confuse the AI's pathfinding and achieve the same effect. I'm not sure if the AI would attack with marines, though.

If you can afford it, line your coast with troops. In Civ3, that used to prevent the enemy from landing anything. I believe in Civ4 it would confuse the AI's pathfinding and achieve the same effect. I'm not sure if the AI would attack with marines, though.
that works somehow (i tried in the american independance scenario)
but it's very close to an exploit:mischief:

My favourite is submarines + air force.
1) submarines to detect invasion force early,
2) then air force for recon missions when you see them launch,
3) then waiting until they are within bomber striking range (you know they launched, you can see where they go, rebase your bombers!)
4) bomb them to 50 %
5) submarines to weaken/sink the battleships
6) all navy forces to sink them for good

With 3/4 bombers, you're quite sure to have an easy fight :)

I use multiple carrier based fighters as my early warning system.

I keep a couple carriers in my territorial waters with fighters. Based on the range of said fighters, I will position another carrier(s) out at sea. This way I see the following:

My culture allows me to see the water around my cities.
The territorial carrier/fighters allow me to see the distance from my culture to the "out-at-sea" carrier(s).
My "out-at-sea" carrier(s) lets me see the fighter range beyond that.

This is then adjusted based on the amount of sea available. If land masses are close, the territorial carriers may be enough.

If you are diligent about checking the area, you carrier is in very little danger since your fighters will spot your foes long before they are in range of the carrier.

Edit: I then keep my attack navy in my waters and send them out based on what the fighters see.

that works somehow (i tried in the american independance scenario)
but it's very close to an exploit:mischief:

Yes, it is. But in Civ3 I remember using it because I didn't want the annoying enemy to land SODs on my tiny island of a city and several tiles. Land them on the mainland and get a good fight! :D

I lean towards the land-based counter-attack strategy. Regardless of the time period, boats are relatively expensive to build and tend toward "coin-toss" fights of almost equal odds. Much easier to keep some "response teams" of 2-move units and barrage weapons (I usually do 2 of each per team) located at a few points in the empire. Not only are they usually cheaper to build, but they're more versatile and can be built in more places (oftentimes, I want coastal cities to be producing buildings to capitalize on lucrative trade routes). If the AI drops a boatload of troops, the siege units bombard it, the mounted/armor units pick off a unit each then hide in the cities, and if necessary another team will move from a further location to be ready to assist the next turn. This is almost always adequate to destroy the invaders before they can do any damage. In the worst case scenario, they manage to pillage a tile or two before being taken out. But I've never seen the AI use a massive enough force to actually threaten a city, at least up through Emperor.

That being said, you can often predict a specific location where an AI is likely to attack. A typical example is if I control the northeast part of a continent and the AI has the southeast. The AI, if it sends an invasion by sea, will invariably send it just north of the border. So some destroyers and bombers in that area are a good investment. You can usually figure the AI will escort each transport of troops with one warship, so 4 destroyers (plus bomber support) would handle a typical 2+2 ship invasion fleet. But overall, trying for a rigorous, empire-wide coastal defense demands a huge investment with very little impact.

I generally use carriers to send out fighters and do my recon. I use destroyers to do the real damage, but I support them with air strikes from the carriers. By setting up about 1 turn off the coast, and using fighters for advanced warning, I can get about a 2-3 turn headstart to intercept an incoming fleet. I typically use submarines only for watching the enemy coast to know when they launch an attack, and to transport spies to hostile continents. Submarines just don't have the same usefulness as fighters launched from carriers. They don't contribute much to the defense if they have to take on battleships, and they don't see any more tiles than fighters do. They also can't be used to make amphibious assaults easier. With fighters and battleships, a city can be dropped to 0% defense bonus, and the defenders can be reduced to half health, making an attack by marines or navy SEALs very survivable and effective. If I'm at the end of the game and I have more cities than I'll ever need, then I may also use nukes to hurry things along. Nukes can be used on incoming fleets if you're short on fighter support, or if the fleet has too many destroyers, or fighters on patrol.

After a year, I still don't have any idea on running a decent navy. Looking for hints.

I'm not overly concerned with the pre-oil years. I can always take care of a couple galleons full of Calvary or earlier units. But a couple transports full of gunships and MAs scare the pee-pee out of me -- especially if I'd just sent the bulk of my forces over to invade and they're stuck six turns out in the ocean.

So defending is important. Let's say I have a modest coast that's about 20 tiles long. I've done the destroyers spread along the coast about a turn away from each other, with battleships in between each destroyer -- but even then the nasties come in and destroy my destroyers, then they take advantage of the newly made hole to slip in with a larger force.

How do you defend your coast?


nuke thiere ports, and all your problems will be solved ^_^ rember :nuke: is youre friend...use it before they use it on you!