countering the naval 'sneak' attack

wolfblue

Warlord
Joined
Dec 3, 2010
Messages
164
Your navy spots a large flotilla of ships heading toward your shores. the ships belong to an opponent which is annoyed with you and has made several demands which you ignored.

your pretty cirtain that the ships are an invation force heading toward one of your cities but you but its possible they are attacking some one else and you dont want to DoW on them because it would cause other civs to get negative diplomacy against you for declaring war on their friend.

how can you defend yourself?

Is there any way to code in a means of blocking the naval sneak attack... for example cant land troops the turn you declare war (allowing for any naval units in the area to fight off the enemy in a defensive battle. use of the "patrol" to attack any naval units in range if their civ declares war on you?

especially in the modern age the naval sneak attack is largly impossible because naval units on the open seas will block any large naval force from approaching home shores.... its one of the primary reasons why the US does not need a standing military at coastal cities.

but in CIV the only defence from the sneak attack are large forces in your cities (and hope that the AI uses a direct amphibious assault or expect a ground war.)

Im just wondering if there is a work around i dont know about or a way to mod in a counter.
 
I will often "shadow" AI naval stacks with Airships or subs... it's tedious but sometimes can save your bacon. When I see one coming my way, I check worst enemy status... active wars... who is able to declare on who, etc. That usually helps me determine if I'm the target, and buys time to prepare my land defenses.

Occasionally, you can position a ship or three (Destroyers, usually) in a place or places that will prevent the AI from landing their army on the next turn. An AI Galleon/Frigate force will often be unable to force its way past a single Destroyer. That too can sometimes buy time to assemble defenses... and sometimes, they'll declare without landing on the next turn (declare by violating closed borders).
 
thats the strategy i use. I mean... I dont split units because your not always in a situation where you have a bunch of destroyers and they are still in the age of sail.

still the only way to activly defend is to preemptive strike.

I play the better AI mod and find that if your build up defences the AI will sometime call off the attack... but more likley it will simply shift focus to an easier target.
 
...how can you defend yourself?
In a nutshell, you can't. :mad:

Wether that's bad game design, or a deliberate "hole" in the game to improve the AI's chances, I could never decide. But it is extremely irritating. In Civ4, Hitler would have easily invaded Britain. :rolleyes:

You suggested some workarounds. But IMO, the best one would be to give warships Zones of Control (ZoC), that can't be entered by hostiles forces. No more sailing right past the enemy fleet!

Even better would be to penalize landing troops by having them lose some organization. Unfortunately, Civ ignores this core concept as entirely as it ignores logistics. :rolleyes:

And of course, amphibious attacks should cause a much more severe penalty. 50% is a joke. Should be at least 80%. And even marines should suffer at least a 50% one. There's a reason if operation Overlord was such a daunting venture, despite nearly total air and naval superiority, and despite the poor quality and preparation of the opposing forces...

Not to mention that you shouldn't be allowed to land on a hill.

But, hey! The wargame part of Civ has been simplistic since Civ1, and it's not going to change any time soon. :sad:
 
Check to see if they have "enough on their hands" on the declare war trade window.
Demand a peace treaty, but I don't really see how it's that bad if you just move your armies to your coastal cities, unless you're already at war.

I do think it's kinda stupid when the AI has like 10 galleons and you have 3 destroyers. You can't sink them all, because for some reason they run out of bullets or something.

But honestly I think it's fine, since that's how I usually invade them. :lol: Sneak attack raze capital, woot!
 
Check to see if they have "enough on their hands" on the declare war trade window.
Demand a peace treaty, but I don't really see how it's that bad if you just move your armies to your coastal cities, unless you're already at war.

I do think it's kinda stupid when the AI has like 10 galleons and you have 3 destroyers. You can't sink them all, because for some reason they run out of bullets or something.

But honestly I think it's fine, since that's how I usually invade them. :lol: Sneak attack raze capital, woot!

More like "sneak attack with subs, nukes, paratroopers outside every coastal city". If the AI isn't packing workers/settlers/missionaries/execs in its interior cities, you can kill it on the exact same turn you declare, literally no chance to react at all. Even if they do have that coverage...well, we're talking about 0 military and 2-3 cities drenched in fallout. They're not coming back. Whatever power they had prior is irrelevant.
 
I'll give them 1 gold. Then they'll load their invasion force even if it isn't war, and I'll defend the closest unclaimed land, where they'll jump to once the DOW is made. Or you could just gift 1 gold each 10 turns.
 
Unsolicited gifts don't work. One side must make a request that the other side accepts.
 
And of course, amphibious attacks should cause a much more severe penalty. 50% is a joke. Should be at least 80%. And even marines should suffer at least a 50% one. There's a reason if operation Overlord was such a daunting venture, despite nearly total air and naval superiority, and despite the poor quality and preparation of the opposing forces...

Not to mention that you shouldn't be allowed to land on a hill.

But, hey! The wargame part of Civ has been simplistic since Civ1, and it's not going to change any time soon. :sad:
Hold on a second.
Not be able to land on a hill? Why? The Marines did it many times in the pacific, those little one to two tiles islands that were mountainous... the hill is just the dominant terrain feature in the tile, it doesn't mean there can't be beaches!
And what about Pont Du Hoc!? Rangers lead the way.

I somewhat agree the penalty should be higher for amphib landings... but not 80%!
 
If you plan ahead, you can have some options to react when you see the armada coming your way: When you get Chemistry start cranking out Privateers, which, of course, can attack without declaring war. When you get combustion, upgrade your privateers to destroyers and keep them off the coast to see what is happening in advance. If you're pretty sure they're coming for you, and you can't work a peace treaty, you'll have to suck up the diplomacy hit, or bend over and take it. Either way, you can position your ships to make their landing more difficult: if declaring war while they are a few tiles off your coast you can position ships directly in front of them so they spend more movement points going around, or they have to suffer the lossed they'll take from the battles; if you refuse to declare war on them, you can position your ships close to your coast so that their direct access to your city is blocked, again requiring them to waste movement going around, or take losses trying to go through your forces.

This is an element I really enjoy, because it requires a more sophisticated strategy than the one-tile-at-a-time bit of carting your SOD to the enemies front gates.
 
I never use Privateers for commerce raiding/blockading, but if the game situation supports it, I will make some for anti-galleon duty. Usually I just use them to stop colonization on my continent or another open landmass, but if via a caravel I see sudden naval spam from an opposing problematic leader, I sometimes will spam more.

Hopefully, they launch the galleons before they have chemistry, because once a few Frigates come along, this becomes hammer ineffective quick (I actually had Ghengis throw 10-12 unescorted galleons worth of troops WHILE he was researching Chemistry. Bullet dodged). For whatever reason, the AI treats caravels as escort ships on pre-chem Sail era invasion fleets, which always screws them as the galleons defend first.

It actually doesnt take that many privateers to take out a good number of galleons assuming the ocean is large enough and you can hit them enough turns, and even 50% odds are ok when you are trading 1 ship for 1 ship and 3 knights. If you run out of ocean you can wait till the turn before the fleet will hit your borders, then beg gold for the 10 turn sheild, then privateerhammer the fleet while it tries to cruise somewhere else.

Long story short, if you can caravel-spy AI's ship production and get a warning when a fleet is getting spammed out and when it leaves, privateers can save you in sufficient numbers.

Once oil navies get online, good luck. I still lament that they didnt continue the privateer dynamic with submaries, as the logic involved is nonsensical. If youre sunk by a sailing ship with a jolly roger you can't figure out what country was behind it, but if you suddenly blow up due to a ship you cant see and cant imagine, somehow you can figure out who to declare war on...
 
Unsolicited gifts don't work. One side must make a request that the other side accepts.

What I've found works nicely, if all you want is the ten turn peace, is to ask for 1 gold. I've never been refused, even by AIs that are Annoyed. I've never tried at Furious, only because they won't talk to me!

I've used this to get a clear field to DOW on an AI with good buddies. First I ask each of his buddies for 1 gold. They are always happy to help out. Then I DOW on the target. I know that I will have ten turns with no other AI coming in as the target's ally.
 
Hopefully, they launch the galleons before they have chemistry, because once a few Frigates come along, this becomes hammer ineffective quick (I actually had Ghengis throw 10-12 unescorted galleons worth of troops WHILE he was researching Chemistry. Bullet dodged). For whatever reason, the AI treats caravels as escort ships on pre-chem Sail era invasion fleets, which always screws them as the galleons defend first.

Don't the caravels defend first if the galleons have troops on them? I seem to remember a few naval battles like that. Perhaps the galleons that are picked are empty? Playing BtS I do miss Vanilla where you could see what troops the transports were carrying.
 
funny how every one comments assuming some kind of best case scenario
If you have destroyers and they have age of sail...
if you have lots of privateers...
if you see them early enough in advance...

etc etc.

what if your totally even...
what if they have naval tech advantage....
what if you have not managed to picket the oceans with look outs yet...

the long story short is its a crappy failure in the game design that i wish had been addressed in one of the patches or expansions...

I would be happy with making the patrol feature engage stacks that are deploying troops... or something that makes enemy navies unable to land troops the first turn of war... or even naval zone of controll which i have no idea why that does not exist. (you should not need 3 stacks to block a city from direct attack when a blockade has a massive 7 tile range.)

I hope CIV 6 fixes this...

how does CIV 5 address it?
 
Hold on... why is this a broken part of the game?
Naval sneak attacks are very possible, especially in the periods before modern communication and observation devices.

Heck, Pearl Harbor was in 1941... Most people didn't see that coming, not like that.
 
thats the strategy i use. I mean... I dont split units because your not always in a situation where you have a bunch of destroyers and they are still in the age of sail.

still the only way to activly defend is to preemptive strike.

I play the better AI mod and find that if your build up defences the AI will sometime call off the attack... but more likley it will simply shift focus to an easier target.

what do you mean by this? T though better AI is built in BTS
or in BUG and BUFFY

so how is it?
 
If you plan ahead, you can have some options to react when you see the armada coming your way: When you get Chemistry start cranking out Privateers, which, of course, can attack without declaring war. When you get combustion, upgrade your privateers to destroyers and keep them off the coast to see what is happening in advance. If you're pretty sure they're coming for you, and you can't work a peace treaty, you'll have to suck up the diplomacy hit, or bend over and take it. Either way, you can position your ships to make their landing more difficult: if declaring war while they are a few tiles off your coast you can position ships directly in front of them so they spend more movement points going around, or they have to suffer the lossed they'll take from the battles; if you refuse to declare war on them, you can position your ships close to your coast so that their direct access to your city is blocked, again requiring them to waste movement going around, or take losses trying to go through your forces.

This is an element I really enjoy, because it requires a more sophisticated strategy than the one-tile-at-a-time bit of carting your SOD to the enemies front gates.

It's easier to drown an army than to bury it. That's pretty much my approach, whether it's privateers, destroyers or subs in my screen.

I'm not convinced that my strategy is cost-effective, because more games than not my defensive navy isn't needed. However, it is fun to use it when it is.
 
Heck, Pearl Harbor was in 1941... Most people didn't see that coming, not like that.

as noted pearl harbor was a raid not an invasion. in CIV terms what they did was declare war from 5 or 6 tiles away and then launch a bunch of air strikes. could they have with proper planning, resources and intention lead an amphibious invasion... MAYBE.. but not likley.

amphibious assaults after the viking raids only happen when the attacking side has full naval control.

anyway.... no mater how you look at it. the defending navy would not sit there 1 or 2 "tiles" away as a huge naval armada casually floated up to its shores and launched an invation. the game should account for that.
 
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