Best Naval Civilization?

[PYITE]

Tough call between Harry and Gidget but I’ll have to go with Indonesia because of the faith buying of naval units and that they get goddess of the harvest probably 90% of the time on island maps.

 

[OneMoreTurnPerTile]

Ottomans for sure. Love capturing others Navies...

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

A few patches back norway gained and extra +50% while producing ships

Magnus + card + Norway = 250% chop

Mercenaries is a long way off

I'm not sure that they do - I've tested the chop with them and I didn't seem to get nearly that many hammers and the Marque policy seemed to have no effect at all in a dark age. That being said I still voted for Norway. I think they are underrated - they also have healing in neutral waters, a super early UU that can capture coastal cities almost immediately and coastal raid with all ships which is super useful on island maps. I don't have the Indonesia DLC so I can't really compare them.

 

[acluewithout]

Does England still lose its +1 movement if it upgrades its ships? Or has that been fixed?

+1 movement from RND is grand , but so is getting more Great Admirals pound for pound. England is slightly hampered by a weak unique naval - the Sea Dog. But with extra movement and great admirals, sometimes England feels like all its units are a “unique unit” when playing.

I’ve no idea who is best overall. But England and Norway are a hoot at sea.

 

[Victoria]

I'm not sure that they do - I've tested the chop with them and I didn't seem to get nearly that many hammers a

I’ll test again when I can but 250% definitely worked, I see no reason this has changed.

 

[Rosty K]

Norway also has the raiding ability long before Privateers, adding some more to what's been said already.

I haven't played R&F yet, so not sure, maybe it's not that useful with all the changes...

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

I’ll test again when I can but 250% definitely worked, I see no reason this has changed.

Not for me - I can post the screenshots later but Letters of Marque had absolutely no effect on turns to complete naval units, Magnus base chop, or overflow. I got an identical result to just having Press Gangs in but maybe a mod was throwing it off (I was using Rule with Faith).

 

[Bizrock]

Rise and Fall actually nerfed Norway ability to early take coastal cities, the loyalty system hurt Norway very much. On the other side, England has Royal Navy Dockyard that gives bonus loyalty in other continents. So I think Norway x England is a very close match.

 

[tedhebert]

Playing my first Norway game ever after reading this thread... If you guys don't mind, newb question... I just haven't found a single instance yet (and i'm 100+ turns into the game)
where the coastal raid icon was activated on my longships... What am I missing... I have parked some longships on coastal tiles of enemies while at war, but couldn't raid anything... doesn't it work like pillage ?

needless to say, not finding out how to effectively coastal raid takes out a lot out the advantages of Harald !

 

[Bizrock]

Playing my first Norway game ever after reading this thread... If you guys don't mind, newb question... I just haven't found a single instance yet (and i'm 100+ turns into the game)
where the coastal raid icon was activated on my longships... What am I missing... I have parked some longships on coastal tiles of enemies while at war, but couldn't raid anything... doesn't it work like pillage ?

needless to say, not finding out how to effectively coastal raid takes out a lot out the advantages of Harald !

Even though I found the ability to coastal raid not that helpful, AI is not stupid anymore to move around settlers or workers without protection and most of the coastal improvements I found was farms. which don't bring a good pillage

 

[Rosty K]

Playing my first Norway game ever after reading this thread... If you guys don't mind, newb question... I just haven't found a single instance yet (and i'm 100+ turns into the game)
where the coastal raid icon was activated on my longships... What am I missing... I have parked some longships on coastal tiles of enemies while at war, but couldn't raid anything... doesn't it work like pillage ?

needless to say, not finding out how to effectively coastal raid takes out a lot out the advantages of Harald !

Pillage, yes. You can also grab settlers and workers.

 

[Jackanape]

Dido and Carthage from Civ V. She was the only reason I ever played a naval game. There are no naval games in VI.

It's the price we pay for districts, I suppose, and a fair trade at that. But no more naval game or civs.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Norway is good for Pangea/Continents production, but lack of unit "galley" make it progress slower in the naval tech tree.(unable to get the 2 "galley" eureka) So it is actually maybe the worst Civ among all in a map where Civs are splitted by ocean.

In naval, time is the most important, upgraders and Magnus choppers don't care about production very much. If I'm a little bit ahead to get frigates all of your coastal cities and navies will be destroyed very quickly.

So Indonesia is certainly the best. Despite it's UU have lower strength, higher prod cost and poorer ability than the Dutch, the unlock time is so early.

The 2nd one on such map(Civs are splitted by ocean) may be Korea or Sumeria.

 

[Arilian]

I voted for England, however it is really map dependent and victory condition dependent.
Indonesia and England are the clear best ones for the reasons stated for Indonesia, but if England can settle on 'another continent' (Like an archipelago map) where they can build many royal navy dockyard (which is dirt cheap), they can overcome Indonesia advantage.
Norway 250% sound good, but it is only 25% more than the normal 200% with magnus, not very relevant.
They maybe good in custom terra maps where all civ start in an old world and no coastal route can be found to the new world (so about never)
The other are just weak or too late.

 

[ezzlar]

Playing my first Norway game ever after reading this thread... If you guys don't mind, newb question... I just haven't found a single instance yet (and i'm 100+ turns into the game)
where the coastal raid icon was activated on my longships... What am I missing... I have parked some longships on coastal tiles of enemies while at war, but couldn't raid anything... doesn't it work like pillage ?

needless to say, not finding out how to effectively coastal raid takes out a lot out the advantages of Harald !

I found the Norway +100 gold for attacking improvements very useful. It works on all kinds of improvements so a coastal city can easily give you 4-500 gold.

 

[Softly]

Even though I found the ability to coastal raid not that helpful, AI is not stupid anymore to move around settlers or workers without protection and most of the coastal improvements I found was farms. which don't bring a good pillage

I've found that the most use I've gotten out of Norway's coastal raid is the ability to pop tribal villages and clear barb camps. Even in the mid-late game goody huts and barb camps are common at the southern and northern poles.

I'm surprised that no one on this forum is really talking about how the R&F nerf to range units affected the naval game. Was a very good change IMO and makes walls much more important in coastal cities.

 

[ezzlar]

Yeah, thats true. Meaning that you are free to pillage while they throw them useless arrows on you

 

[acluewithout]

...I'm surprised that no one on this forum is really talking about how the R&F nerf to range units affected the naval game. Was a very good change IMO and makes walls much more important in coastal cities.

Agreed. Also provides another reason to build bombard units. Awesome.

 

[Equilin]

Norway is good for Pangea/Continents production, but lack of unit "galley" make it progress slower in the naval tech tree.(unable to get the 2 "galley" eureka) So it is actually maybe the worst Civ among all in a map where Civs are splitted by ocean.

Really? I'm pretty sure their UU work for the eureka for Shipbuilding. Was this changed in a patch?

 

[Bizrock]

Really? I'm pretty sure their UU work for the eureka for Shipbuilding. Was this changed in a patch?

Yes, they work, at least for me.
But again, if you don't have loyalty bonus like England have, settle in other continent is dangerous to lose to a city to loyalty pressure (Like real colognes in history, funny thing). So the early travel to the ocean with Norway is not that useful like it was before.