Best Navy civilizations

Hello, there. Vote for best Navy civ in Civ5.....

I'm split between the English and the Polynesians.

Ocean-going ranged ships are where the naval game takes off. The Polynesians get the first of these, with the Galleass combining with their unique ability, and the English get a massive upgrade to the utility of such ships, with their Ships of the Line going at +2 speed.

Exploration/Great Lighthouse England. Just thinking about it makes me want to start a new game and cheese it on archipelago map.

I voted Polynesia as being able to cross ocean from turn 0 is going to put a dent in anyone's navy. consider a galleass that has range, it can conceivably sit in ocean and be untouchable from any unit or city until Astronomy whilst still gaining xp every turn.

Ottomans by far. Your navy grows like a snowball and you pay only 1/3 for them.

Notice the question is "best navy civ," not "best civ at navies," so Venice clearly wins, being the best of all civilizations.

I voted Carthage because of the free Harbors

England, because SotL will just massacre everything else (even an Ottoman Zerg Swarm) once you get several up. Their UA does not only mean you are able to outrun anything: the most important (and perhaps not immediately obvious) aspect is the ease in reinforcing new units to the front line, ferrying wounded units to a city to heal, and quickly switching targets from one quadrant of the map to another (i.e. the "logistics" of your navy and its operations).

Being able to efficiently explore the world at triremes is also pretty nice. Doubly so with a Great Lighthouse.

I vote England too. Assuming you have the iron, frigates are really a large step above the previous technologies. On maps wth smaller land masses, they can serve as the only military force you need. They and protect both land and sea. They can capture cities (with a couple privateers). Very powerful. Having an upgraded version is only icing on the cake.

I agree I like the ability to efficiently explore with triremes. But I hate finding ruins that I can't explore. I think it just makes me frustrated

Thanks for voting. Quite surprised that nobody is voting Portugal.....

tribefaninnc said:

I agree I like the ability to efficiently explore with triremes. But I hate finding ruins that I can't explore. I think it just makes me frustrated

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On Archipelago/small continents, investing in 2-3 scouts on ruin pick-up duty (and to find Natural Wonders) will quickly pay themselves off.

EricNgui said:

Thanks for voting. Quite surprised that nobody is voting Portugal.....

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Portugal is Trade, not 'Navy'.

England without a doubt. Frigates are already scary enough and is very easy to tech to. So let's put an extra 5 base strength on it (30) and seven extra ranged strength! (35).

Crossbowmen do nothing against SotLs and city strength is not as sufficient enough to combat them even with castles. They excel against other naval units with their ranged strength and are very hard to destroy.

Sea beggars are really good as well. They can start at Logistics with Barracks and Armories.

Early Byzantine rush with its Dromon is also viable. Since no other naval units can really defend against them with their 50% naval bonus against other ships.

Ottoman bonus is very mediocre. And extra Galley/Trireme, who cares? Naval supremacy happens during the Renaissance, and they don't have naval units whatsoever. Getting some Battleships would be nice though I guess. The 1/3 maintainence? We'll take it. It'll save you something.

Venices naval unit Great Galleass is pretty nice. Especially if you don't want to waste techs on going to Navigation. You can take cities with these pretty easy. Although if you're really wanting to become a naval power, maybe building these and upgrading so they can go across Oceans, get faster movement, get prior promotions, is pretty nice.

Danish embarmkment bonus, who cares? You won't be using units to destroy cities if you're destroying them with your Galless, Frigates, ect. Sure I guess getting some units in is great but if you're already going to Galless or Frigates then you probably won't be getting the other units which require a different tech. Maybe the berserker is good time for it but I find it mediocre.

Im too lazy to do all the naval civs lol

Sharples said:

Danish embarmkment bonus, who cares? You won't be using units to destroy cities if you're destroying them with your Galless, Frigates, ect. Sure I guess getting some units in is great but if you're already going to Galless or Frigates then you probably won't be getting the other units which require a different tech. Maybe the berserker is good time for it but I find it mediocre.

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The Danish embarkment (and an extra 1 Movement bonus on top, I think?) is good for early game scouting/securing ancient ruins, and fairly late in the game on a (large) continents map, if you need to move like 15+ units ashore to strike an inland target.

Trying to take a coastal city with land units from the sea, just because you can still make an attack after de-embarking only exemplifies the traffic-jam problem stemming from 1UPT (i.e. can only fit so many units around a city, when half the surrounding tiles are water!).

Why no Byzantium? Greek Fire really hurts.

I would say England is the best, SoTL is just great, and together with the UA, they'll have a very mobile navy.

Polynesia might be nice though. Might try the tips in this thread since I've never looked at them as a Domination Civ.

Carthage is scary in the early game. I almost always bribe someone to attack them from the land side.

The Ottomans deserve a special mention. Raising a navy without using production and maintaining them at a discount is envious. They don't have a naval UU so they'll just swarm corsairs and then soften opponents on the landside with their UUs (partly how they got Venice out of Greek areas IRL).

People who voted England either noob in game or an Anglophile.

If 2 same level player would play against each other as Ottoman vs England in any map, archipelago or pangea or continents. Ottoman player would destroy England so easily.

Ottoman has ability to capture defeated ships and this make their navy extremely powerful and their navy grows like snowball.

Also, for example, lets say England player pay 10 gold for maintenance for 10 ships. On the other hand, Ottoman player pay 10 gold for maintenance for 30 ships. So, how can you claim England is better navy faction?

Khagan Bek said:

People who voted England either noob in game or an Anglophile.

If 2 same level player would play against each other as Ottoman vs England in any map, archipelago or pangea or continents. Ottoman player would destroy England so easily.

Ottoman has ability to capture defeated ships and this make their navy extremely powerful and their navy grows like snowball.

Also, for example, lets say England player pay 10 gold for maintenance for 10 ships. On the other hand, Ottoman player pay 10 gold for maintenance for 30 ships. So, how can you claim England is better navy faction?

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The English SoL are going to be able to outmaneuver the Ottoman Ships, you'll never be in range to kill England's SOL without already getting your own naval units wrecked.
20 GPT in additional Gold Maintenance is mostly irrelevant by the Renaissance.
Russia is a better Naval civ than the Ottomans, so is Austria, and probably Korea and Babylon.

Resipsa said:

The English SoL are going to be able to outmaneuver the Ottoman Ships, you'll never be in range to kill England's SOL without already getting your own naval units wrecked.
20 GPT in additional Gold Maintenance is mostly irrelevant by the Renaissance.
Russia is a better Naval civ than the Ottomans, so is Austria, and probably Korea and Babylon.

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SoTL has to get close to fire enemy and and you can easily catch him.

Also, what exactly make Russia or Austria or Korea or Babylon better naval civ than Ottomans?

Khagan Bek said:

SoTL has to get close to fire enemy and and you can easily catch him.

Also, what exactly make Russia or Austria or Korea or Babylon better naval civ than Ottomans?

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If you can catch SOLs On equal terms your going to die as their combat strength is so much greater. In that same time period privateers from all civs can capture too so the Ottoman UA is largely a wash in that time period. In order for Ottomans to win the engagements they'll need so many more ships. How do you get to that point without neglecting tech/infrastructure?

Russia can field twice as many frigates, Austria can rush buy several naval units for a meager sum, Babylon/Korea can get to frigates 12 turns faster than other Civs.

Khagan Bek said:

People who voted England either noob in game or an Anglophile.

If 2 same level player would play against each other as Ottoman vs England in any map, archipelago or pangea or continents. Ottoman player would destroy England so easily.

Ottoman has ability to capture defeated ships and this make their navy extremely powerful and their navy grows like snowball.

Also, for example, lets say England player pay 10 gold for maintenance for 10 ships. On the other hand, Ottoman player pay 10 gold for maintenance for 30 ships. So, how can you claim England is better navy faction?

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Let's play a MultiPlayer game. I'd love to show you.