Avoid a Navy at your Peril

[Zaimejs]

After playing Vanilla for so long and not having to worry about a navy at all unless I wanted to go offensive, I have just been trucking along without. I've been attacked by everyone on this pangea and easily wrestled them back to their borders while adding a city or two.

Then China shows up knocking at my door with a naval attack on one of my beautiful coastal cities. I pull back my troops from the land front, but it's too late. Two battleships and two stupid iron clads have taken my city and there is NOTHING I can do.

Add to that that I'm behind in tech... ick. I won back the city and have built some battleships, but the shame is forever.

 

[Baron2]

In most of my G and K games, I build more ships than troops, except on pangea maps.

 

[pspboy7]

Don't build navy? Be prepared to fight a hopeless war in G+K then!

 

[Rick80]

The sea wars now are very funny **

 

[Darac]

You don't need to build a navy, simply build 2 frigates and a privateer, then go and steal the rest of your navy using the privateers completely overpowered ability to flip naval units to your side.

I always end up with about 50 ships and have to delete them or suicide them on cities to retain a good amount of gold per turn.

 

[Barghaest]

I tend to sail captured ships back to my lands and delete em for gold. Kinda the purpose of it, I thought - selling enemy ships. I don't consider the Priv's ability OP since it's just one era of ship... be more worried about the Ottoman's!

 

[Darac]

It's not one era of ship. Keep the privateers and upgrade them to destroyers that can also capture ships. It's completely overpowered. I've been able to capture entire enemy navies in 2 turns in every era from privateers onwards.

I've captured plenty of battleships, air craft carriers, destroyers. I've never seen the computer build subs or missile cruisers yet but I imagine I could capture them as well.

 

[Barghaest]

Yes, I'm aware of that carrying over on upgrade; however, Ottomans get that ability starting with Triremes... which gives them all eras of capture as opposed to Priv > Destroyer (assuming you built enough Privs to have a fleet of em survive to be destroyers).

 

[Darac]

Yes, I'm aware of that carrying over on upgrade; however, Ottomans get that ability starting with Triremes... which gives them all eras of capture as opposed to Priv > Destroyer (assuming you built enough Privs to have a fleet of em survive to be destroyers).

I'm saying you don't need to build enough of them. 1 or 2 is plenty, then capture the rest. Seriously I end up with about 20 by the time destroyers come along. I capture half form other civs and half from city states.

You use a couple frigate to bombard the enemies to red health, then privateer them. Your privateer doesn't get much damage fighting an almost fully damaged ship and then the new ship magically repairs to half health.

The computer then either tries and destroy your full health ships and fails because units are stronger now, or they waste all their fire power on what was their own ship. Leaving you at full health to try another capture, eventually succeeding and growing stronger and stronger over time.

 

[mabalogna]

Prize ship is OP indeed - should be a % based ability that has a chance of not working.

 

[Darac]

Prize ship is OP indeed - should be a % based ability that has a chance of not working.

That would help, also the newly captured ship should not heal to 50% health.

 

[Barghaest]

I still don't see it as OP. My frigates tend to make short work of AI privateers. I've only had one ship ever captured. Vs a human opponent you'd both likely have privs and use them smarter so it wouldn't be so much of an issue. My point about the upgrade bit is if only a few of your privs survive to destroyers, a human would specifically target those to eradicate them, forcing you to build new destroyers w/o prize ships.

Vs AI almost anything can be OP because we (usually) tend to use better tactics. A pair of Survival III scouts can hold off and whittle down entire AI armies exceedingly well (my early armies consist entirely of scouts with warriors only garrisoning cities - the scouts track down and eradicate barb camps and slow down/hold off AI aggressors) while a human would overwhelm or outmaneuver them.

 

[smallfish]

Indeed, at this point, one could imagine calling anything in human hands as "OP"

Privateers as they are currently are alright. Haven't gotten myself into a farm session like with the ole stealth bombers with them or their upgrades, and with a few tweaks, the naval AI can be a lot deadlier than it is right now.

 

[Darac]

But in human vs human play the first strike of a navy is everything with a unit like this.

Your navy can move further than they can see and so the enemy won't see them coming, the very next turn some of their navy has been flipped and now they are in an impossible situation as they have less privateers to steal ships back.

The first striker on the other hand has more privateers and can then run away with it.

Vs humans or the Computer this mechanic has the ability to very quickly run away and become unstoppable for the first player who uses it.

Privateers need a cap, like a strategic resource requirement or something that makes them less effective in large numbers.

Perhaps a fire ship that is uncapturable deals splash damage needs to be added to stop swarms of them from being effective, and stop a player from amassing enough to be able to camp coastal cities just outside of bombard range ready to pounce on any new ships that are built.

 

[smallfish]

But in human vs human play the first strike of a navy is everything with a unit like this.

Like... a surprise attack? That's supposed to be fair and balanced?

 

[Securion]

You can even take nuclear subs... its ridiculous...
I sense an incoming patch.

 

[smallfish]

You can even take nuclear subs... its ridiculous...
I sense an incoming patch.

I'm not seeing how this is ridiculous. I've rarely gotten to that point where I need to take over someone else's modern navy and I've yet to see AI wolfpacks in action (no, not 1 or 2 subs prowling around in random directions - a real wolfpack out to smash your fleet)

The patch would be better off tweaking the AI into the naval beast it is capable of.

This is what they should be improving on

 

[Kabloosh]

I tend to sail captured ships back to my lands and delete em for gold. Kinda the purpose of it, I thought - selling enemy ships. I don't consider the Priv's ability OP since it's just one era of ship... be more worried about the Ottoman's!

That ability carries on once you upgrade them to destroyers.

 

[Barghaest]

That ability carries on once you upgrade them to destroyers.

Yes, aware of this. And as I pointed out, once you lose those upgraded destroyers it's gone for good... unless you're Ottoman.

 

[Darac]

Yes, aware of this. And as I pointed out, once you lose those upgraded destroyers it's gone for good... unless you're Ottoman.

We'll have to agree to disagree, once you have the worlds most powerful navy it is easy to protect your pirating ships and only use them in 100% safe situations. Like I said, camping outside cities waiting for new boats as the enemy can't keep 3 ships in the one city tile that they need to actually kill a ship in one turn.