Sleep/Sentry

[ViterboKnight]

I almost always play on continents and, in late game, expecially when in peace with everybody, I place rows of ships between my continent and the other, trying to "intercept" enemy ships on their way to invade me; to anticipate their war declaration, be more prepared to their attack, and possibly attack first and sink some of their ships.

Now, I know that if I "sentry" my ship, it's waken up by enemy units passing by its next squares. However, does it also work for units entering in the sight of the ship?

I explain in a better way: I place my ships in two vertical lines, from north to south pole, in such a way to "see" every square in these lines. So, it's still possible, for an enemy ship, to "pass" this line without passing close to one of my ship, but still being viewed by it.

I could check manually each turn, but in a long term it can be frustrating. Besides, a very fast ship could go from "behind" my line to "beyond" it in one turn, so when I check I'd still not see any ship (it's already passed!).

So, can anyone tell me if "sentry" does wake up units when enemies enter its sight? Or instead, is there any way to do this?

[paydro]

I wish it were easier to play naval defense. As a practical matter, unless you have a truly absurd number of units, the computer can usually run around you to drop off troops.

I have no idea what the answer to your question is, sorry for the useless response. Bump, at least?

[Rizwan8012]

May be, try in option menu activate show enemy movment

[Dubai Vol]

Originally Posted by Rizwan8012

May be, try in option menu activate show enemy movment

There is also a "show friendly movement" option. That will help when they move in before declaring war.

[hecubus]

Sentry will wake on any enemy unit that moves into its field of view, not just to an adjacent tile. Put enough ships/subs out there to keep the whole ocean lit up, and you'll wake on anyone coming through who's already declared. The problem might be them moving everything into range (past your ships) and then declaring war.

[Sempronio]

If you keep the option "show friendly moves" on you will see the AI ships moving in the line of sight of your ships during the AI turns.
Then if you realise something has gone past your ship during the AI turns you can go and check it out properly during your turn.
I don't think sentry works if you are not already at war with someone.

[jeffreyac]

Yep, I can confirm - sentry works AFTER war, when the AI is your enemy; it won't alert you to that huge invasion force sailing by towards your shore to sneak attack you (as you aren't enemies yet...)

Only thing I've done, as the previous poster suggested, was enable 'view friendly moves' to watch for this. However, this takes almost as long on large games - though I have to admit, it did dramatically improve my situational awareness for the game I tried it on... Even with the improvement, though, I eventually turned it off as I got tired of waiting for the turn to finish, watching friendly moves deep in other AI's territory - guess I'm too impatient!

What would help is if we could specify to watch all friendly naval moves, vs all freindly moves - this would let you see that naval sneak attack force on the way!

[Joe Harker]

The way i moniter other nations sea units is just to check on the minimap before the end of the turn, go to each new spec of colour in the sea, and check what it is made of. It's not ideal but it works most of the time (the proble is to remember to do it!)

[lordqarlyn]

Originally Posted by ViterboKnight

I almost always play on continents and, in late game, expecially when in peace with everybody, I place rows of ships between my continent and the other, trying to "intercept" enemy ships on their way to invade me; to anticipate their war declaration, be more prepared to their attack, and possibly attack first and sink some of their ships.

Now, I know that if I "sentry" my ship, it's waken up by enemy units passing by its next squares. However, does it also work for units entering in the sight of the ship?

I explain in a better way: I place my ships in two vertical lines, from north to south pole, in such a way to "see" every square in these lines. So, it's still possible, for an enemy ship, to "pass" this line without passing close to one of my ship, but still being viewed by it.

I could check manually each turn, but in a long term it can be frustrating. Besides, a very fast ship could go from "behind" my line to "beyond" it in one turn, so when I check I'd still not see any ship (it's already passed!).

So, can anyone tell me if "sentry" does wake up units when enemies enter its sight? Or instead, is there any way to do this?

Good lord, thats a lot of ship!

It seems to me ships do wake when an enemy gets in its LOS. I've had ships wake from sentry, but there was no enemy visible, but moving the ship around often revealed one.

However, I prefer to take a more proactive apprach in protecting my coasts that does not require as much ships. I keep groups of warships in overlapping locations, and have other ships patrolling just outside border's visible range. Later aircraft also patrol for ships. I spot approaching ships with more than enough time to mobilize my groups to attack, including ships that are part of a "sneak attack", when I pre-emptively declare war (after all, they aren't sending those ships to throw a party for me!).

[Supr49er]

Originally Posted by lordqarlyn

... I pre-emptively declare war (after all, they aren't sending those ships to throw a party for me!).

Maybe they're giving you a surprise party!

[MarkM]

I also use "show friendly moves" option (and enemy too of course). Though I don't always pay that close attention. It'd be really cool if the game could be modded to leave a "wake" or something in the water (like jet trails).

Speaking of jets, that's an alternative/complement technique: send planes out from your coastal cities on "recon" missions when you get flight. Almost as tedious to do it every turn though.

[lordqarlyn]

Originally Posted by Supr49er

Maybe they're giving you a surprise party!

And I hate surprises, especially when they consist of 5 galleons loaded with cavalry!

Originally Posted by MarkM

Speaking of jets, that's an alternative/complement technique: send planes out from your coastal cities on "recon" missions when you get flight. Almost as tedious to do it every turn though.

Exactly what I do and it does get tedious at times. But its less annoying having a large scale invasion landing on your shores.

[Gaius Octavius]

It seems to me that something is not quite right about the naval warfare mechanism, and the funny part is that (one would think) it can be easily fixed!

1. You can't declare war before you move into somebody's borders, right? (Or if you did, you'd be kicked out and have to reenter.)

2. There is a naval intercept command that makes your ships intercept enemies trying to pillage your tiles. (I have never seen this work when I did it to the AI, however...)

Therefore, why isn't it a simple matter of extending this command to intercept all enemy ships that enter your borders, regardless of whether they try to pillage or not? Then you could set 5 destroyers, etc., on guard duty and if an invasion force sails close you'd at least have a chance of intercepting the fleet before it landed troops.

I think I will start a thread about this in C&C.

[paydro]

I mean, unless you really do wait 10 squares out from your entire coastline and preemptively declare war on suspicious groups of galleons/transports, you cannot defend your own coasts. This is one situation in which the "moving past enemies" feature is unfortunate, because if I have naval superiority, you should not be able to simply shoot past me to drop off all your troops, no problem.

[ViterboKnight]

Originally Posted by Gaius Octavius

It seems to me that something is not quite right about the naval warfare mechanism, and the funny part is that (one would think) it can be easily fixed!

1. You can't declare war before you move into somebody's borders, right? (Or if you did, you'd be kicked out and have to reenter.)

2. There is a naval intercept command that makes your ships intercept enemies trying to pillage your tiles. (I have never seen this work when I did it to the AI, however...)

Therefore, why isn't it a simple matter of extending this command to intercept all enemy ships that enter your borders, regardless of whether they try to pillage or not? Then you could set 5 destroyers, etc., on guard duty and if an invasion force sails close you'd at least have a chance of intercepting the fleet before it landed troops.

I think I will start a thread about this in C&C.

What I'd like is not about patrolling coasts or intercepting ships pillaging my tiles.
If the existing "sleep" feature says:
"wake up when enemy units in sight",
I'd like something like:
"wake up when FRIENDLY units in sight"!!

Very similar, simple to implement (at least, I think), and extremely useful, IMO!!!

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Yeah, naval sneak attacks definitely need to be fixed. Cultural borders either need to extend farther out into the ocean, though with the large movement range of ships this probably wouldn't work. A better solution would be for enemy ships to be severely crippled when moving in enemy waters. Something like only being able to move 1 square per turn. Similar to how ground units slow down severely when in enemy lands due to not being able to use roads.

[Calder]

I used to do the same thing with an armada of ships on sentry in the middle of two continents, but I now find its more useful having your navy fortified within your cultural borders so when someone does try to sneak attack they have to go through a barrage of battleships and destroyers before thay can do any amphibious assaults. I also place a few bombers in coastal cities which can perform reconnaissance missions out to sea giving you a wide view and warn you of any approaching danger.

[Gaius Octavius]

Originally Posted by ViterboKnight

What I'd like is not about patrolling coasts or intercepting ships pillaging my tiles.
If the existing "sleep" feature says:
"wake up when enemy units in sight",
I'd like something like:
"wake up when FRIENDLY units in sight"!!

Very similar, simple to implement (at least, I think), and extremely useful, IMO!!!

How will that help you take down a transport fleet after it reaches your borders? What are you going to do, pre-emptively declare war on somebody that might not even be headed for you?

There has to be an optional automatic process in there somewhere...