I don't post that often but have been reading the forums for quite some time...and much more frequently now that Civ V has taken my attention away from the Total War series. As an opening comment, I really think they have done an excellent job with Civ V. The game may have its flaws but I really think the diversity in viable gameplay approaches is both commendable and fun.
As an example, I decided to see what could be done with the English...a civ most people seem to devalue or relegate to archipelago maps. To my delight, I found that Civ V delivered yet again and allowed for a good, fun game as Elizabeth. She is actually surprisingly powerful.
To form the core of my England approach I decided (not surprisingly) that I would rely on control of the seas. At this point it is very important to note that, as far as unit longevity is concerned, nothing beats the frigate (or Ship of the Line, in England's case...I will call them by that name from now on). This is a unit that you can rush to fairly early and use for a long time. The difference in techs from a navigation rush to an electricity "rush" (for destroyers) is substantial. Additionally, the Ship of the Line is able to competently bombard riflemen and cities up to strength 40 as well as duel with artillery. This all added up to a great central component for our Britain strategy.
So what I aimed to do was rush to iron working and then navigation. Along the way, I'd have to obtain iron, build a fleet of triremes for cheap upgrading, and get out a decent number of social policies. I opted to go with a small (3 city) core leading up to a puppet empire expansion phase. After that I then transitioned to a flexible game strategy with any victory option open to me.
I won't be recounting a single, specific play through because I have done this in several games and because I'm too lazy to put a nice screenshot playthrough... though if enough people ask, I might be convinced to do so. Props to those who do, by the way It's hard work and much appreciated. What I will do is give a general coverage of the approach with some turn #s and reasoning/strategy. I usually set the game on continents (no, i'm not forced to use archipelago!), large+ map size, Immortal.
As mentioned before, we want to be a small empire to start so that we can get some social policies while rushing navigation. Also, I tend to put arbitrary restrictions on myself for no good reason so your results can vary widely (I'd think for the better). Anyways, I don't use any maritime food and don't run more than 1 scientist specialist per library. With these restrictions you can get navigation by using 2 cities, size 4+, running libraries. You end up bulbing the 2 final techs (the renaissance ones, astronomy and navigation) around turn 120.
I start off by settling and building a warrior for scouting/defense. The other warrior goes off to scout in a semi-circular pattern around the capitol. You want to un-cover as much land as possible to find city states and potential iron sources. Initially, don't hug the coast while you scout as that tends to lower your coverage (though it does tend to yield more city state encounters). Either way, you'll map the coast out super fast when your triremes pop out. Set Writing as the research goal to start.
Turn 10 (with a 2F plot, turn 8 with a 2F 1H plot) you should build a settler. I'd also recommend you do not go crazy with the second warrior...you need him to defend your settler and keep barbs from sitting on your luxury plots (and robbing you of income). Once your settler is done around turn 20-25, send him out to build a city. You should already have writing or be a few turns away. Your second city will build a library as its first item (or waste a turn or two on something then immediately switch once able). ESCORT YOUR SETTLER. Try to be coastal and have a luxury resource nearby BUT the priority is having a 2F1H spot in your starting radius. Forest deer is a common one. Alternately a couple of 3F spots and a 2H (hill) will do the job. Don't be afraid to settle on Cows....they only end up 4 power once upgraded just like any grassland or plains would. You should at least be able to grow to size 4 while maintaining 3+ hammers (including the 2 from the city). This really isnt hard at all but spend a few minutes making sure your city can do what you ask of it without heroic worker effort. Build a second settler in your capitol. Research whatever tech will get you a luxury resource fastest, with a priority on mining. Beeline iron working afterwards.
Turn 35-40 you should see your second settler finish. This city will now become your workhorse for items not directly related to the navigation rush (spare troops etc.). Place it anywhere you want, but I recommend emphasizing production. Try to grow it to size 4 though, the extra science will help overall speed. Also, in the mean time you need to get a luxury up and running....ideally before the second settler is settled. This means you probably needed to do this before turn 35 but I didn't want to create a separate bullet....anyways. You have a multitude of options on how to approach this. It's worth mentioning at this point that another one of my arbitrary limitations is I don't steal workers from city states unless I got them via the barbarians. I'm also not trying to attract early DOW so I don't steal from the AI either. Obviously, you can skip this section if you do. Now, the best way for me to get an early luxury is settling one of my cities on a luxury. If I find desert incense, for example, settling on it saves worker time and gives me +1 gold in my city. I'm not going to work a desert tile....ever.... Next best is a fishing boat. People knock sea based luxuries...but 200 gold to buy the boat is dirt cheap. It's 250 if you must buy the plot. Last option is buying the worker for 310. Workers actually have a pretty good gold/hammer buy ratio...better than settlers. Buy workers, build settlers. Anyways, always remember that your last option is AI bribery using sales for gold (OB) or luxury purchase (GPT). Don't build workers, it's a waste (even after my arbitrary no theft rules!). Aim to have the luxury up and running before your 3rd city gets built so you aren't ever in unhappiness. You really need to get your cities to size 4+ to make the required speed.
At this point, a quick aside. You could obviously lean more towards ICS and beat this speed but that isn't my intent. If you want lessons on optimal gameplay you should probably be reading posts my Martin Alvito and not me.... This approach gives the flavor and enjoyment of an early game small empire. It also parallels Englands history and helps you maximize your social policy choices (ill cover those in a separate section at the end.) Lastly, its a refreshing change from ICS domination games. Youll find yourself role playing the British Empire when making decisions as opposed to just smashing everything as quickly and brutally as possible.
OK, so you have that third settler built and on his way to a city site. Set your capitol to build a library. It should actually finish around the same time as your second city. Set your newly founded third city to build a warrior or soldier of your choice. You shouldnt have angered any AI unless you literally started right next to them. Even if they have been taunting you they tend to prioritize geography over raw army power. If you only settle two cities close to your capitol that usually buys you at least 60 turns of early game peace even against an enraged Khan.
Turn 50-60 should see you complete your libraries and research Iron Working. Most important here is identifying your path to obtaining iron. If you got it near your three cities then you are in business. Even a plot of 2 is enough to start though you should seek to obtain as much as possible until you hit electricity. (in case you didnt realize at this point, you need iron for your navy) If you dont have iron near you, dont fret. You can either colonize it if you want, or stay small and befriend a city state with iron. The second option is my favorite and I typically look for a cultural non-hostile CS with iron. Play it as you see it and remember that you can always buy iron from an AI. You only need the iron long enough to conquer a coastal city that has it. When your Ships of the Line first arrive, the conquering wont take long either. Set the beeline for navigation (though you plan to bulb the last two techs). Your two library cities should immediately run the 1 scientist specialist each. This gives you an ETA of 67 turns for the second great scientist to be generated. You can also see the great potential for speed boost if you dont use my arbitrary limits. For construction tasks I would recommend monuments for culture or triremes. Your third city can build whatever you need at the moment, which means troops and triremes. One quick caution, which should be obvious but I give it anyway. Dont make a lot of swordsmen. You need the iron for your ships. Really you only need 1 swordsman at first. The rest of your troops should be warriors waiting to be upgraded in the future, spears because they are cheap, archers to upgrade to longbows, or the various horse troops. You should also try to control your military expenses and prioritize making money. Youll need gold for a CS and 170 bucks per trireme you want to upgrade.
Turns 60-120 should be spent preparing for your expansion phase. Build a healthy fleet of triremes and explore everything you can. Get them some promotions fighting barbs whenever possible. Make sure you use your tremendous ship speed to get a good lay of the land. You want to find coastal iron targets and get as much free CS encounter money as possible. Its also nice to find where the Great Lighthouse was built so you can head there quickly after your Ships of the Line come out. Its good to note that as you build triremes, your army numbers will increase. The AI actually respects a navy as much as it respects an army. Ive played this way a good half dozen times on Immortal and only had serious early war problems once. Even if you get DOWed, your coastal location will help you out. Triremes, believe it or not, are actually quite effective at whittling away attackers. Remember that you can sit in the city to act as an extra archer. Fighting a defensive war on a focused battlefield with virtually invincible artillery supporting you is not hard. Also, spearmen fortified on a hill are surprisingly resilient. Anyways, grow your cities and trade for money. Befriend a CS or two and build up a gold reserve of 170 per available iron. Put that many triremes in reserve in your territory so you dont miss any turns once you hit navigation.
Turn 120. Navigation. Ships of the Line. Awesome. Seriously, after you use these puppies a bit youll really grow to appreciate how much better naval units are in Civ V than in previous iterations. So pop the great scientists, get your navigation tech and upgrade as many triremes as you can. Get your one (or two) swordsmen into the water and send your task force to conquer. Really this ends my explanation because from here on out the game is completely open. You should try and get a comfortable amount of iron early on so that you can build up a fleet. You also want to get the Great Lighthouse. I recommend playing diplomacy a bit too. Attack people far away from you for puppet cities and try to build alliances. You arent actually forced to fight wars of annihilation and youll find yourself settling wars on terms and fighting limited contests for profit. Your reach is far and your empire will be vast!
So now for some specific strategic considerations:
Social Policies
I try not to save up social policies (another one of my arbitrary rules) but it turns out to not be a serious detriment. Honor -> Warrior Code -> Military Tradition really works well with this approach. Honor itself helps you hunt barbs for money, which is crucial in the early game. Warrior Code is not optimal but, since you dont need the GG, using him for a golden age can help accelerate your trireme buildup etc. The key is Military Tradition. Naval units dont get extra experience for killing units its either 2 for a normal attack or 3 for a city attack. However, since you can realistically be attacking almost every turn, your ships can gain experience at a steady rate. When you double that rate, it becomes very easy to get ships with 8 promotions. Ill discuss promotions next, btw.
The next tree to focus on is commerce. Its actually fun because we are using a lesser used civ and a lesser used social policy tree to great effect. The goal here is Merchant Navy. The early capitol 25% gold isnt amazing, but it can help you fund your initial navy. Naval Tradition, while normally completely useless is now premium. The extra movement and sight all adds up to naval dominance. Lastly, since 90% or more of your cities will be coastal, Merchant Navy is basically an earlier version of Communism. Youve basically used a 3 policy tree branch as efficiently as you could really ask for.
Lastly Id recommend using your 7+ social policies in Autocracy. Your navy will balloon to crazy sizes and the 33% savings is quite good .its often times to single best money saving social policy choice out there. I would then proceed to Militarism and Police State. Once you get police state, your puppet empire can come alive and become more efficient under your direct control. You will also then have more help for a domination victory through purchasing armies.
Promotions
For land units, its easy. Get amphibious on a few melee units and have them form your Royal Marines. As they continue to upgrade, Id recommend city attack for obvious reasons. Also, choose rough terrain over open unless you have a pressing reason not to. If your marines, who will be few in number, are not in a city or in the water, they should be in defensive terrain. On every other land unit, choose whatever you want.
For ships you will eventually get everything but I would prioritize bombardment over naval combat. You will initially be the most advanced navy on earth and by the time they get any credible number of frigates you will be overpowering in size. If they reach destroyers before you, you should have enough reach and sea control to prevent them from ever creating a fleet. Picking off single destroyers is surprisingly easy with upgraded Ships of the Line. After bombardment two I highly recommend range before anything else. Once you can outshoot cities (and everything else until artillery or the exceedingly rare range promoted AI archer/siege) you will be able to keep shooting without the need to stop and heal. This also helps alleviate the need for the other oft chosen option of naval supply. After bombard 1, bombard 2, and range, you should get bombard 3 en route to logistics. Not only does the two attacks per turn help wreck your enemies, it also doubles your XP rate and allows you to move after attacking! Now you can rotate ships in and out of cities (discussed later) and kite enemy ships. You are basically a juggernaut now. After logistics, you can choose either indirect fire if you are having trouble with coastal terrain types or naval supply. Generally, your whole fleet doesnt need indirect fire because there are usually targets near the shore as well as over the hills and far away Also, I dont know if this is a bug, but when you get naval supply .you also get 1 extra movement point as a not-advertised bonus. End game you can get extra movement, site, or naval combat as you wish. I generally choose movement.
Combat Tactics and Overall Strategy
Fighting wars is now very different from what you are probably used to. You dont have battle lines or armies. You arent geographically restricted. For the most part, you can fight wars with impunity. The key difference is this you main military power is amorphous. Your pool of naval resources can be brought to bear at any point on the planet in a surprisingly short time. Youll be amazed at how small the world becomes when you can move 8+ tiles a turn. Your limiting factor will typically be how fast you can get marines to a target and not how much firepower you can bring to bear. Dont be afraid to enter wars even if the enemy is on the other side of the map. Enter wars for political reasons if you want, as well. The only thing you should try to avoid is engaging the AI that is adjacent to your homeland.
It is important to note that your puppet cities are not critical assets except for the Great Lighthouse city and any individual iron source only if it means going into the -50% penalty range. Past that, if an AI successfully endures naval bombardment to retake a puppet so what? Your ability to take cities is basically limited by how long it takes a marine to get there. In fact, I would highly recommend against stationing marines in any city near the enemy its funny but they are safer in the water. Even after you take a city, I would recommend getting right back in the water so that you can retake the city immediately after any successful enemy counter attack. Only heal in the safest locations and remember for a British puppet empire, your Royal Marine is worth more than the city.
With that said, please remember that a Ship of the Line is also worth more than the city. If you bombard from a city and end your turn there, that ship is at risk of being destroyed if the AI takes the city. Be very wary of bombarding from inside a city unless .you have logistics. With logistics promoted ships (and sufficient remaining movement points) you can move in, shoot, and withdraw. You can effectively give any coastal city the effective defense of multiple artillery pieces. Most people are worried about having a far flung empire with little ground defenses. But when you combine a large fleet (and you really should end up with dozens and dozens of Ships of the Line), with 8+ movement points per ship, and the fact that what you are standing to lose are puppet cities you stole from the enemy in the first place, you realize that having an Empire where the Sun Never Sets is really no sweat at all.
As an example, I decided to see what could be done with the English...a civ most people seem to devalue or relegate to archipelago maps. To my delight, I found that Civ V delivered yet again and allowed for a good, fun game as Elizabeth. She is actually surprisingly powerful.
To form the core of my England approach I decided (not surprisingly) that I would rely on control of the seas. At this point it is very important to note that, as far as unit longevity is concerned, nothing beats the frigate (or Ship of the Line, in England's case...I will call them by that name from now on). This is a unit that you can rush to fairly early and use for a long time. The difference in techs from a navigation rush to an electricity "rush" (for destroyers) is substantial. Additionally, the Ship of the Line is able to competently bombard riflemen and cities up to strength 40 as well as duel with artillery. This all added up to a great central component for our Britain strategy.
So what I aimed to do was rush to iron working and then navigation. Along the way, I'd have to obtain iron, build a fleet of triremes for cheap upgrading, and get out a decent number of social policies. I opted to go with a small (3 city) core leading up to a puppet empire expansion phase. After that I then transitioned to a flexible game strategy with any victory option open to me.
I won't be recounting a single, specific play through because I have done this in several games and because I'm too lazy to put a nice screenshot playthrough... though if enough people ask, I might be convinced to do so. Props to those who do, by the way It's hard work and much appreciated. What I will do is give a general coverage of the approach with some turn #s and reasoning/strategy. I usually set the game on continents (no, i'm not forced to use archipelago!), large+ map size, Immortal.
As mentioned before, we want to be a small empire to start so that we can get some social policies while rushing navigation. Also, I tend to put arbitrary restrictions on myself for no good reason so your results can vary widely (I'd think for the better). Anyways, I don't use any maritime food and don't run more than 1 scientist specialist per library. With these restrictions you can get navigation by using 2 cities, size 4+, running libraries. You end up bulbing the 2 final techs (the renaissance ones, astronomy and navigation) around turn 120.
I start off by settling and building a warrior for scouting/defense. The other warrior goes off to scout in a semi-circular pattern around the capitol. You want to un-cover as much land as possible to find city states and potential iron sources. Initially, don't hug the coast while you scout as that tends to lower your coverage (though it does tend to yield more city state encounters). Either way, you'll map the coast out super fast when your triremes pop out. Set Writing as the research goal to start.
Turn 10 (with a 2F plot, turn 8 with a 2F 1H plot) you should build a settler. I'd also recommend you do not go crazy with the second warrior...you need him to defend your settler and keep barbs from sitting on your luxury plots (and robbing you of income). Once your settler is done around turn 20-25, send him out to build a city. You should already have writing or be a few turns away. Your second city will build a library as its first item (or waste a turn or two on something then immediately switch once able). ESCORT YOUR SETTLER. Try to be coastal and have a luxury resource nearby BUT the priority is having a 2F1H spot in your starting radius. Forest deer is a common one. Alternately a couple of 3F spots and a 2H (hill) will do the job. Don't be afraid to settle on Cows....they only end up 4 power once upgraded just like any grassland or plains would. You should at least be able to grow to size 4 while maintaining 3+ hammers (including the 2 from the city). This really isnt hard at all but spend a few minutes making sure your city can do what you ask of it without heroic worker effort. Build a second settler in your capitol. Research whatever tech will get you a luxury resource fastest, with a priority on mining. Beeline iron working afterwards.
Turn 35-40 you should see your second settler finish. This city will now become your workhorse for items not directly related to the navigation rush (spare troops etc.). Place it anywhere you want, but I recommend emphasizing production. Try to grow it to size 4 though, the extra science will help overall speed. Also, in the mean time you need to get a luxury up and running....ideally before the second settler is settled. This means you probably needed to do this before turn 35 but I didn't want to create a separate bullet....anyways. You have a multitude of options on how to approach this. It's worth mentioning at this point that another one of my arbitrary limitations is I don't steal workers from city states unless I got them via the barbarians. I'm also not trying to attract early DOW so I don't steal from the AI either. Obviously, you can skip this section if you do. Now, the best way for me to get an early luxury is settling one of my cities on a luxury. If I find desert incense, for example, settling on it saves worker time and gives me +1 gold in my city. I'm not going to work a desert tile....ever.... Next best is a fishing boat. People knock sea based luxuries...but 200 gold to buy the boat is dirt cheap. It's 250 if you must buy the plot. Last option is buying the worker for 310. Workers actually have a pretty good gold/hammer buy ratio...better than settlers. Buy workers, build settlers. Anyways, always remember that your last option is AI bribery using sales for gold (OB) or luxury purchase (GPT). Don't build workers, it's a waste (even after my arbitrary no theft rules!). Aim to have the luxury up and running before your 3rd city gets built so you aren't ever in unhappiness. You really need to get your cities to size 4+ to make the required speed.
At this point, a quick aside. You could obviously lean more towards ICS and beat this speed but that isn't my intent. If you want lessons on optimal gameplay you should probably be reading posts my Martin Alvito and not me.... This approach gives the flavor and enjoyment of an early game small empire. It also parallels Englands history and helps you maximize your social policy choices (ill cover those in a separate section at the end.) Lastly, its a refreshing change from ICS domination games. Youll find yourself role playing the British Empire when making decisions as opposed to just smashing everything as quickly and brutally as possible.
OK, so you have that third settler built and on his way to a city site. Set your capitol to build a library. It should actually finish around the same time as your second city. Set your newly founded third city to build a warrior or soldier of your choice. You shouldnt have angered any AI unless you literally started right next to them. Even if they have been taunting you they tend to prioritize geography over raw army power. If you only settle two cities close to your capitol that usually buys you at least 60 turns of early game peace even against an enraged Khan.
Turn 50-60 should see you complete your libraries and research Iron Working. Most important here is identifying your path to obtaining iron. If you got it near your three cities then you are in business. Even a plot of 2 is enough to start though you should seek to obtain as much as possible until you hit electricity. (in case you didnt realize at this point, you need iron for your navy) If you dont have iron near you, dont fret. You can either colonize it if you want, or stay small and befriend a city state with iron. The second option is my favorite and I typically look for a cultural non-hostile CS with iron. Play it as you see it and remember that you can always buy iron from an AI. You only need the iron long enough to conquer a coastal city that has it. When your Ships of the Line first arrive, the conquering wont take long either. Set the beeline for navigation (though you plan to bulb the last two techs). Your two library cities should immediately run the 1 scientist specialist each. This gives you an ETA of 67 turns for the second great scientist to be generated. You can also see the great potential for speed boost if you dont use my arbitrary limits. For construction tasks I would recommend monuments for culture or triremes. Your third city can build whatever you need at the moment, which means troops and triremes. One quick caution, which should be obvious but I give it anyway. Dont make a lot of swordsmen. You need the iron for your ships. Really you only need 1 swordsman at first. The rest of your troops should be warriors waiting to be upgraded in the future, spears because they are cheap, archers to upgrade to longbows, or the various horse troops. You should also try to control your military expenses and prioritize making money. Youll need gold for a CS and 170 bucks per trireme you want to upgrade.
Turns 60-120 should be spent preparing for your expansion phase. Build a healthy fleet of triremes and explore everything you can. Get them some promotions fighting barbs whenever possible. Make sure you use your tremendous ship speed to get a good lay of the land. You want to find coastal iron targets and get as much free CS encounter money as possible. Its also nice to find where the Great Lighthouse was built so you can head there quickly after your Ships of the Line come out. Its good to note that as you build triremes, your army numbers will increase. The AI actually respects a navy as much as it respects an army. Ive played this way a good half dozen times on Immortal and only had serious early war problems once. Even if you get DOWed, your coastal location will help you out. Triremes, believe it or not, are actually quite effective at whittling away attackers. Remember that you can sit in the city to act as an extra archer. Fighting a defensive war on a focused battlefield with virtually invincible artillery supporting you is not hard. Also, spearmen fortified on a hill are surprisingly resilient. Anyways, grow your cities and trade for money. Befriend a CS or two and build up a gold reserve of 170 per available iron. Put that many triremes in reserve in your territory so you dont miss any turns once you hit navigation.
Turn 120. Navigation. Ships of the Line. Awesome. Seriously, after you use these puppies a bit youll really grow to appreciate how much better naval units are in Civ V than in previous iterations. So pop the great scientists, get your navigation tech and upgrade as many triremes as you can. Get your one (or two) swordsmen into the water and send your task force to conquer. Really this ends my explanation because from here on out the game is completely open. You should try and get a comfortable amount of iron early on so that you can build up a fleet. You also want to get the Great Lighthouse. I recommend playing diplomacy a bit too. Attack people far away from you for puppet cities and try to build alliances. You arent actually forced to fight wars of annihilation and youll find yourself settling wars on terms and fighting limited contests for profit. Your reach is far and your empire will be vast!
So now for some specific strategic considerations:
Social Policies
I try not to save up social policies (another one of my arbitrary rules) but it turns out to not be a serious detriment. Honor -> Warrior Code -> Military Tradition really works well with this approach. Honor itself helps you hunt barbs for money, which is crucial in the early game. Warrior Code is not optimal but, since you dont need the GG, using him for a golden age can help accelerate your trireme buildup etc. The key is Military Tradition. Naval units dont get extra experience for killing units its either 2 for a normal attack or 3 for a city attack. However, since you can realistically be attacking almost every turn, your ships can gain experience at a steady rate. When you double that rate, it becomes very easy to get ships with 8 promotions. Ill discuss promotions next, btw.
The next tree to focus on is commerce. Its actually fun because we are using a lesser used civ and a lesser used social policy tree to great effect. The goal here is Merchant Navy. The early capitol 25% gold isnt amazing, but it can help you fund your initial navy. Naval Tradition, while normally completely useless is now premium. The extra movement and sight all adds up to naval dominance. Lastly, since 90% or more of your cities will be coastal, Merchant Navy is basically an earlier version of Communism. Youve basically used a 3 policy tree branch as efficiently as you could really ask for.
Lastly Id recommend using your 7+ social policies in Autocracy. Your navy will balloon to crazy sizes and the 33% savings is quite good .its often times to single best money saving social policy choice out there. I would then proceed to Militarism and Police State. Once you get police state, your puppet empire can come alive and become more efficient under your direct control. You will also then have more help for a domination victory through purchasing armies.
Promotions
For land units, its easy. Get amphibious on a few melee units and have them form your Royal Marines. As they continue to upgrade, Id recommend city attack for obvious reasons. Also, choose rough terrain over open unless you have a pressing reason not to. If your marines, who will be few in number, are not in a city or in the water, they should be in defensive terrain. On every other land unit, choose whatever you want.
For ships you will eventually get everything but I would prioritize bombardment over naval combat. You will initially be the most advanced navy on earth and by the time they get any credible number of frigates you will be overpowering in size. If they reach destroyers before you, you should have enough reach and sea control to prevent them from ever creating a fleet. Picking off single destroyers is surprisingly easy with upgraded Ships of the Line. After bombardment two I highly recommend range before anything else. Once you can outshoot cities (and everything else until artillery or the exceedingly rare range promoted AI archer/siege) you will be able to keep shooting without the need to stop and heal. This also helps alleviate the need for the other oft chosen option of naval supply. After bombard 1, bombard 2, and range, you should get bombard 3 en route to logistics. Not only does the two attacks per turn help wreck your enemies, it also doubles your XP rate and allows you to move after attacking! Now you can rotate ships in and out of cities (discussed later) and kite enemy ships. You are basically a juggernaut now. After logistics, you can choose either indirect fire if you are having trouble with coastal terrain types or naval supply. Generally, your whole fleet doesnt need indirect fire because there are usually targets near the shore as well as over the hills and far away Also, I dont know if this is a bug, but when you get naval supply .you also get 1 extra movement point as a not-advertised bonus. End game you can get extra movement, site, or naval combat as you wish. I generally choose movement.
Combat Tactics and Overall Strategy
Fighting wars is now very different from what you are probably used to. You dont have battle lines or armies. You arent geographically restricted. For the most part, you can fight wars with impunity. The key difference is this you main military power is amorphous. Your pool of naval resources can be brought to bear at any point on the planet in a surprisingly short time. Youll be amazed at how small the world becomes when you can move 8+ tiles a turn. Your limiting factor will typically be how fast you can get marines to a target and not how much firepower you can bring to bear. Dont be afraid to enter wars even if the enemy is on the other side of the map. Enter wars for political reasons if you want, as well. The only thing you should try to avoid is engaging the AI that is adjacent to your homeland.
It is important to note that your puppet cities are not critical assets except for the Great Lighthouse city and any individual iron source only if it means going into the -50% penalty range. Past that, if an AI successfully endures naval bombardment to retake a puppet so what? Your ability to take cities is basically limited by how long it takes a marine to get there. In fact, I would highly recommend against stationing marines in any city near the enemy its funny but they are safer in the water. Even after you take a city, I would recommend getting right back in the water so that you can retake the city immediately after any successful enemy counter attack. Only heal in the safest locations and remember for a British puppet empire, your Royal Marine is worth more than the city.
With that said, please remember that a Ship of the Line is also worth more than the city. If you bombard from a city and end your turn there, that ship is at risk of being destroyed if the AI takes the city. Be very wary of bombarding from inside a city unless .you have logistics. With logistics promoted ships (and sufficient remaining movement points) you can move in, shoot, and withdraw. You can effectively give any coastal city the effective defense of multiple artillery pieces. Most people are worried about having a far flung empire with little ground defenses. But when you combine a large fleet (and you really should end up with dozens and dozens of Ships of the Line), with 8+ movement points per ship, and the fact that what you are standing to lose are puppet cities you stole from the enemy in the first place, you realize that having an Empire where the Sun Never Sets is really no sweat at all.
