Favorite Naval Civ

[weregamer]

If you are playing with unlocked leaders, I'd go with Portugal but Willem. Dikes are insanely good, but so much of the game is over before you get them. And DEI are only a nice improvement on their base unit.

Creative is almost as good for spamming cities as Jao, but Financial stacks with the Portuguese UB to rival Dikes, and a whole era earlier. Ahd Carracks, oh I sing the praise of Carracks. They not only fight better than their base unit, they also carry real cargo so you can colonize with just Optics. If you managed to get Stonehenge (which is particularly sick with Creative), put off Astronomy a while longer to get your colonies up and running faster.

 

[Lord_Megahertz]

I wouldn't know, I haven't played all that much with Portugal, but thanks for the information

 

[Slobadog]

Carracks do not have any combat advantage over Caravels. Perhaps you just got some lucky RNGs.

 

[Fjordson]

Dutch - because willem is awesome

 

[Winston Hughes]

If you are playing with unlocked leaders, I'd go with Portugal but Willem.

If I was playing with unrestricted leaders, I'd still choose Ragnar of the Vikings as the best naval combo.

But it's tough to call between that and Hannibal of the Vikings. The latter is weaker in the initial Berserker rush, and doesn't get the cheap Barracks and Drydocks, but Charismatic means quicker promotions for both troops and ships, whilst extra happiness is always welcome (and mining is a better starting tech than hunting).

 

[Elandal]

Starting techs are by civ, not by leader. Hannibal of Vikings would thus have the same starting techs as Ragnar of Vikings.

 

[Slobadog]

Agreed, Its amazing how many times people get their facts wrong on this board system.

 

[GeneralMatt]

English, just feel right.

They have nothing extremely great about them, but I just cannot help play them.

I actually played a Standard Size, Prince, Archipelago, 18 civs and just finished. Lots of fun. I fought quite a few wars were the navy was very important. Took 3 of Pacal's cities from large size to 2 or 3.
He was annoying me. He had the Apostolic Palace, and I must have had the religion somewhere as I kept getting the option to vote to stop trading with my friends. I didn't have much of a say so I kept stop trading with my buddies. Very aggravating. So I finally got fed up and took a few tanks and took the city, haha. The nice thing though was the Romans were at was with him to, and since everyone else was making permanent alliances, we decided to get in on the act..

 

[Winston Hughes]

Starting techs are by civ, not by leader. Hannibal of Vikings would thus have the same starting techs as Ragnar of Vikings.

My mistake. Apologies for any confusion caused.

Agreed, Its amazing how times people get their facts wrong on this board system.

There was no need for this comment whatsoever - it adds absolutely nothing to the discussion.

And that's a rather superior tone you're adopting there. Have you never made a mistake on a minor detail in one of your posts?

 

[Shakauvm]

Finishing my marathon viking game right now. Berserkers can still be built well into the rifleman period. So every round or so my capital produces a berserker (free combat I and amphibious upgrades) which I then upgrade with City Attack III (which gunpowder units don't get) and then upgrade into Riflemen (260g or so).

And amphibious city attack III riflemen... rock. With a 7 movement frigate and galleon navy, I sail up to an enemy coastal city, bombard the defenses (optional), kill everyone inside from the ships, raze it, and rinse and repeat every round. If I wanted to capture the city, I could do so easily, but right now I'm going for the win by simply destroying 80% of the enemy cities in the world (there's a lot of water on the map, so almost all cities are coastal).

Without berserkers, the trick wouldn't work nearly as well, since you'd have to waste two promotions just getting amphibious.

 

[TM Moot]

The Dutch get my vote.

While I wasn't too keen on a non-land UU, it works out really powerful if utilised correctly.

And the dikes . They don't arrive early, but when the they show up, its party time.

Add in the Maoi Statues and a Golden Age or two, then check out the . Marvellous.

 

[Galileo44]

Yeah, once the dikes show up, it's over. I have had 5:1 production advantages on Emperor. Albeit tiny islands, but nevertheless, having a city with no land tile expect the center with 21 base hammers is awesome.

However, as dikes come late, you can gain a huge advatage early with Ragnar or Joao, so it's still up in the air to me.

 

[Slobadog]

Fast Viking ships can also guard coastlines more effectivly. You can patrol much of the sea with a concentrated navy instead of spreading your ships out. Good recon combined with concentration of strength is very effective. The Dutch may have a stronger ship but can they gather enough of them at any single point before its too late? Maybe Not. Vikings are efficient.

And that's a rather superior tone you're adopting there. Have you never made a mistake on a minor detail in one of your posts?

Dude Chill out.... i only used the emoticon.

 

[Party]

Dikes FTW.

LOL I was about to make that exact same post, word for word!