Any point in building a Navy?

[Pantastic]

If I have a coast I build at least one ship to kill those annoying barbarian ships that keep sailing by and popping up notices. If there are islands (like SE asia on an earth map) you'll want 1 or 2 so you can kill barb ships, find any CSs, collect your easy huts and camps, and later settle the good spots. If there's a land chokepoint, you need a ship or two to keep the AI from just bypassing it by embarking. And ships can act like artillery, especially later ships.

I really like the navy in Civ5, once they patch the AI to build enough naval units I'll actually play some island and small continents maps. I never bothered with more than 1-2 games of islands in Civ1-4, handling naval units was just too irritating and time consuming.

 

[cman2010]

ships are great for aiding an attack on costal citys, since the ai does not do naval warfare properly they can feel a little overpowered.