Thoughts on building navies?

[dthompson32]

I'm playing an islands map this time around, and am considering playing a more navy centric domination game.

It appears that you don't start to get decent naval units until Navigation, which is pretty far up the tech tree. Does anyone have some tips for building a navy? Build Triremes and Galleas then upgrade? Beeline for Navigation? How many units should I target for as a decent strike force?

Any advice is welcome.

 

[duxup]

Naval units are a bit gimped early on now but that makes sense me otherwise they might have become far too powerful IMO with the melee and range changes. The fact that melee units still can take cities makes them way useful. You can still sit outside the range of the city and when you finish pounding them from the land you can pull up a boat to take the city. I love that.

If it is an island map I always have a small navy handy and upgrade as I go.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

6 vessels should be more than enough (2-3 melee, 3-4 ranged), assuming the city strength isn't too far off.

 

[TallNSturdy]

For my navy games I try to build a small navy to start. 2 Triemes when available and send them on scout duty. They can't cross the ocean but on an island map they can usually get everywhere by following shallow water tiles. If you get any feeling that someone might be aiming for you pull one of them back, both if it is someone with early UA boats. Once I can build the range ones I pump out 2 or 3 depending on how far it is to the next boat tech and if an easy target is close\someone is coming to attack my cities. I'll then keep those boats around to pick off a city here or there and more importantly defend my cities.

When I get the privateer boats I try to pump out a few to keep in my fleet. Should have between 2-4 melee boats and 2-4 ranged boats at this time. Use the main boats to attack but let the privateers finish off your target. If you can keep this up for a while then you can have a fleet of 20 ships allowing you to swoop in 2 -4 cities at a time to attack.

The AI will try to keep a large army of boats near the cities it sees your navy approaching. Sometimes when I have a large fleet I will move in a strong portion of my fleet to within sight of the city I want to attack. At the same time I will move a combat group to an area just outside of sight range of the enemy at 1 or 2 other cities. The combat groups can be smaller as they won't have a sea battle to worry about just the city and any ranged defenders. After the AI notices me and moves his boats to protect the first city I declare war and pick off a unit or 2 from the first city while moving my other combat groups into position to take the other cities.

Hope that wasn't too much. I just started playing random maps so I had to figure out some strats quick when Islands came up and now I find them to be the easiet for domination by far.

 

[dthompson32]

Hope that wasn't too much. I just started playing random maps so I had to figure out some strats quick when Islands came up and now I find them to be the easiet for domination by far.

Not too much at all, thank for the tips! I've tended to shy away from the island maps, since my normal play style focuses on ground units and beelining through the tech tree. But with all the naval changes in G&K I wanted to give it a chance.

 

[Mark Havel]

Advice for the late game: beeline to submarines. Once you've cleared enemy fleets use battleships and plane carriers to take city without losing a single unit.

 

[Slvynn]

Yes, targetting promoted subs could be blast, if come really..... one shot - one kill..... and Barracks+Armory worth building in your seaport city....
4 range full Targetting Subs are so OP......., and it's not hard to achieve if you stack Barracks+Armory+MA

 

[regeneration64]

I always play as England and take full advantage of her naval advantage, i.e. unique ability and the SotL. My advice applies for all civs:

* Have two triremes to start for scouting and defence
* Build a range of units through the mid game. It's important to have both melee and ranged in order to be able to attack/defend and capture cities/enemy ships. I usually work with a ratio of 30:70 (melee:ranged). Don't forget to replace/capture lost ships! Ironclads are very useful now.
* In the late game (from submarines onwards) get the rock-paper-scissors mechanic covered fully. I find submarines the most useful and have more of these than other ships as they can take down enemy ships the most effectively and without sustaining damage if used correctly. Make sure that you escort them with battleships, destroyers, carriers too.
* In the end game (nuclear subs, missile carriers etc) one would hope that you are using upgraded units. I find that nuclear subs and missile carriers are the top dogs now. Remember to build missile carriers in cities with barracks etc. Regarding those now redundant battleships... I use them for defence but they are also good for using against small cities and small cities.

 

[knighterrant81]

Has anyone noticed that the ranged attackers (galeass/frigate/battleship) seem quite a bit stronger than their vanilla counterparts?

I have also been building up my navies slowly. Unless you are on an archipelago map, or have specific water terrain near your empire (not just having a coast, but say a strategically placed isthmus, or you build island cities early), you don't need much of a navy (just 1-2 triremes for barbarian control and for scouting) until the renaissance. Get your Caravel, beeline navigation, and then build your frigates and privateers as needed. I find the ranged units to be very strong and still capable of standing up to the assaults of melee vessels. I keep a few privateers around, just in case, though. They're also great for mop-up. The AI is still terrible in the ocean.

The new ability to raid cities gives your triremes something to do even if they aren't capable of taking the city. Run up to the city, hit it with your triremes, take the gold, and run back to your territory to heal up for the next raid.

I don't know about archipelago games but you'll probably be spending resources you would have spent on armies in a normal game on your navy anyway. Beelining naval superiority techs on an archipelago map has always made sense to me.

 

[aimlessgun]

On an archipelago map you can absolutely conquer the world with nothing but a navy (maybe a land unit or two if an enemy capitol is not on the coast).

The Dutch are excellent for this because of the Sea Beggars starting with two melee promotions and Supply (extremely important). Backed up by frigates you can take cities that have lots of adjacent ocean in 1-2 turns.

Also, the ability of privateers or sea beggars to capture enemy ships is incredible at providing you with cannon fodder. You don't want to lose any of your highly promoted core units, but luckily the AI will target the lowest HP unit on the field, which will generally be your crappy captured ships that you don't care about losing. And trust me, you won't care about losing them. My last Dutch game on archipelago I probably disbanded in excess of 20 enemy ships because I didn't want to pay the upkeep.