The journal of Civ Naval and Archipelago Strategy

The journal of Civ Naval and Archipelago Strategy

Editor: Yalyublyub
Volume 1:

Editor’s foreword:
This journal is an attempt to find a definitive naval strategy guide to civilisation 4, as well as encouraging the rulership of empires which are spaced out and utilise different survival rules to pangean continuous empires. It plans to cover purely naval nations of varying types, including hybrid land-naval powers. More volumes will be added, so please do not comment in this thread but pm me. Please also see the Editor’s note at the end.

Topics:
-Start Small.
-You are going to be attacked.
-Work boat circumnavigation.
-Representation- the naval republic's friend.
-Mercantilism or free trade?
- Review: galafor’s ‘How to circumnavigate the world without really trying’
- Editor's note.

• Beginners tip: Start small.

As with all Empires in civilisation 4, the quick creation of numerous cities will dangerously hamper your civilisation’s research abilities. On the higher difficulty levels, this is extremely troublesome, as the computer opponents have the technological advantage. For island-based civilisations, your city priorities should be thus: 1. Attempt to control the island if it is small enough. If control of this area ******s your scientific rate, try and control the strategic points leading to the unclaimed territory, and set that as your periphery of expansion. Then as you develop your centre (nucleus of developed city-states) into economic powerhouses, grab those territories by combined naval-land forces. Do not ****** your research foolishly by prolific expansion! 2. Resources, particularly iron. Early on, you should find islands tend to lack resources, so its key to scout out territory with resource potential. An island nation might have to start out small, but that doesn’t mean it necessarily it can’t be spread out! However, since you will probably be focusing on naval supremacy, try and find the resources on small, single island areas where the other civilisations can’t land alternative cities or easily invade. Consider the following evolution strategy first: You begin as a naval city-state-> Duchy -> Naval republic -> kingdom/federation->empire. Think in these terms, and enjoy your time acting as these progressive states. I suggest roughly 2->4->7->10->11+ as the guideline to this.

• Beginners tip: You are going to be attacked.

When playing an island map of any sort, assume you will be attacked for no reason. Despite large areas of expansion, the computer players, in spite of the huge benefits you bring to them by peaceful trade, are filled with greed for your fine cities. Overexpansion on your part can destroy your empire before its born, because you have to transport forces over distances, often involving loading and disembarking which can waste vital turns. Instead, prepare a naval force, ideally twice as strong as your opponent. Defeating the enemy navy before they disembark on your shores is excellent, and builds up you navy’s experience, but expect high casualties. Navy units gain a small defence bonus, but waiting for them to attack you is often more problematic, particularly to growth and economy. Ideally, you will want one naval ship per work boat improvement plus a fleet of a small number of ships. Spread out the ships on the worked sea tiles, for use after the fleet is within range and attacked, in case they fail but leave the enemy mortally weak. Also remember that caravels are not able to carry your army, so keep a protected reserve of galley to carry these soldiers off. All that is left once the home island is secure then is to target the enemy islands, isolating the nearest/most resource-strategic of them. Only explore as much as you can take though!

• Beginners tip: work boat circumnavigation.

A good strategy on the island archipelago maps is to use your first turns to churn out a work boat. Send this ship off to circumnavigate the world and you will be surprised how quickly you gain +1 movement…and meet new ‘friends’

• Intermediates tip: Representation- the naval republic’s friend.

I strongly believe that representation is the best civic for naval nations up to at least naval republic size, if not kingdom. Until you have gained a huge financial empire and can rush buy, you should be sticking to two strategies. 1. you should be utilising mercantilism and not have open borders, in which case you gain +3 science for every specialist, and with mercantilism, you get a free specialist. 2. Your city numbers should be small enough to gain a substantial bonus to happiness, particularly on higher difficulties. Monarchy is essentially useless if you are navy heavy, or made redundant as soon as representation comes along anyway. If you can, build the pyramids! Then use representation until your economy has progressed beyond that which sustains a naval republic
.
• Discussion: Mercantilism or Free trade?
As a naval power, you have to consider which is better: safe borders or lucrative trade routes. The answer always is safe borders. Naval powers should not, unless they utilise heavy unit protection and guard each vital resource tile, give up the powers mercantilism gives them from sneak attack. Besides which, I would argue that representation and mercantilism aid your naval republic as complimenting each other far better than any other combination…and if pacifism is introduced as well, the great peoples will spread quickly through your nation too.

• Review:
I found galafor’s ‘How to circumnavigate the world without really trying’ (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=151034) an interesting tactic when that early sent worker’s boat can’t pass through your opponent’s land. It is vital to get that +1 movement increase, so keep all possibilities for circumnavigating the globe in mind. Bear in mind however, that map sharing could come too late if you don’t begin exploration as soon as possible

Letters/Editor’s note.

Thank you for reading this first edition. If you would like to contribute, either by writing articles, discussing naval/archipelago tactics, or sending in letters disagreeing or suggesting different tactical choices to what the article states, or even reviews of naval/archipelago strategy related articles/and or articles which can be adapted to/seriously fail naval/archipelago states please pm me your submission and I will add it.

As a naval power, you have to consider which is better: safe borders or lucrative trade routes. The answer always is safe borders. Naval powers should not, unless they utilise heavy unit protection and guard each vital resource tile, give up the powers mercantilism gives them from sneak attack.

Click to expand...

One quick question. ROP-rape is impossible in Civ4 because upon a declaration of war (or AFAIK, any other method of initiating war), all units of each side that are within the other's cultural borders are instantly moved out. That being the case, I don't see how a sneak attack's effectiveness would matter whether there are Open Border agreements or not - you'll need to guard each resource tile near the territorial limits anyway.

If I'm incorrect about units always being instantly moved out, please ignore this.

Another thought to add to the above could be Wonders that are appropriate for an islands or archipelago map:

Obvious candidates in the early-ish game are Great Lighthouse and Collosus.

Great Lighthouse is my least favourite, the benefits IMHO are less useful (open to other ioinion though) and the AI often seem to bee-line for it.

The Collosus is generally much nicer in my opinion: the AI doesn't usually seem to follow the tech path that leads to this wonder, and since most - if not all - of your cities are likely to be founded on the coast, this wonder can be the equivalent of making your civ financial (if it's not already), as can be seen in one of Sulla' example games. Sweet!

Any others?

I need help, I circumnavigated the globe with a caravel so had a map with a thin strip of sea, like an equator, going around the world. But I don't get the message saying "You have circumnavigated the globe" and believe it or not, about 5 turns later Alexander (Greece) circumnavigates and get the +1 movement. ????????????????

Any help???

First, that wasn't necessary to bump an old thread for knowing what went wrong while trying to get the circumnavigating bonus.

Second, I haven't ever seen this feature not working. And uploading your game is important to detect problems.

Third, I will have a quick look into the SDK:

Basically,
the circum bonus is available (availability both in term of maps allowing it or someone won the race over you)
if

• If Circumnavigation bonus already rewarded to someone. ==> Not your case. Alex got it after you.
• If XML global value (CIRCUMNAVIGATE_FREE_MOVES) was defined 0. ==>Not in the unmodded game.
• If the map doesn't have any kind of wrapping like Oasis mapscript. ===> Alex got it. I then deduce your mapscript was a typical one.
• If over two-third of the plots are landish, then circumnavigation is disabled. That's an interesting one I didn't know but not your case.

Then remains the possibility you haven't uncover every x-coordinates of the map (I assume that is a typical map; other that would be y-coordinates for a vertical map wrapping). No need to be connected each others; in worldbuilder, that could be random dots of every x-coordinate and Circumnavigation would be still rewarded.

Then I made a quick research and it looks like long time back ago, someone had the same issue.

Unfortunately, no one can help if you can't help yourself with a save. Keep in mind for getting help, you always have to be either extremely precise or release your game save.