How do you make Naval work?

[acluewithout]

I usually play Emperor/ Immortal, Continents, Standard size. I try to push coastal cities, harbours and navies most games. Not because it’s efficient - it’s really not - but because it’s fun.

Thing is. Unless I have a very isolated start, I find it very hard not to get pulled off course and end up settling more cities inland; researching along the machinery tech path (mines, iron etc), district tech path (campuses, commercial hubs etc), and military (knights etc). It’s even worse if I try to grab a religion too (which I like to do with both Norway and Japan), because then there is just way too much to do.

The best strategy I’ve found for pushing navy, without totally borking development generally, is to place a strong coastal city as my second or third expansion (so 3rd or 4th city), and then have that city focus on naval related Eurekas. But even then I feel like I get to navy very late. Basically, it’s a bandwidth issue.

Thoughts? I’m playing Vanilla, but comments for R&F welcome. I’m guessing R&F makes all this easier because of better chopping (Magnus), Reyna and other stuff.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

Try playing England on TSL Earth. It requires a very focused push to acquire a navy, although I am not the best person to break that strategy down.

 

[Victoria]

Thoughts?

Well I am a good person to answer because I play naval a lot .... sadly the answer to your problem seems to be self control.

what I would recommend is to try playing England and see if you can get a classic golden age with harbour hub triangles and Reyna to get loads of science off your hubs/harbours.
Its a very challenging game and ideally you need to play a few games to get the hang of it and to get a bit lucky. It does make you concentrate on navy more.

There is a TSL thread around also and has an england strat in it, you just really have to concentrate.. but also consider science.

 

[acluewithout]

Thanks. All good advice.

I play England quite a bit, and Naval strats, and agree a big part is self control (discipline). If you push naval, you have to forgo other things. That’s how it works.

A few things I find really help are being totally focused on Eurekas, to really conserve science and culture, and then on the other side maximise science where I can. Harbour specialists help a lot, as does trade routes to city states - you give up food and production, but gain science and or culture.

I also usually have to work with just warriors and archers on defence, because I can’t be focusing lots of science and production on land military. That sometimes gets a little hairy.

With all that, I find that success often depends on having a good capital and ideally a strong coastal. I need a strong cap because the settler I send to the coast is basically not going to pay for itself in the short term, so I’ll need to get more settlers out to more productive locations pronto; and I need a strong coastal, because that city needs to be self sufficient building infrastructure and getting eurekas, so I don’t have to keep dragging on my economy.

In some ways, Norway is a little easier, because you can get naval units out faster, embark earlier, and you’re rewarded with extra goody huts. I love England, but so many bonuses are tied to its Harbour, and getting to and building Harbours can be a bit of a pain.

The biggest sticking point I find are builders and embarking settlers. With builders, you need two builder charges for the eureka for harbours (improve two sea resources). You still have only three charges per builder then, so that’s a big investment versus say ‘build a quarry’ ‘build an iron mine’, ‘farm a resource’. I actually think it’s a bit rubbish you need to improve two sea resources versus all those ‘improve one’ type Eurekas. They should all be two or one IMO. I do sometimes explore the ocean with my builder - high risk, but it does squeeze out a little more value from an extra builder.

With embarking, getting a settler into distant shores is a lot of work, because it takes so long to get to the right tech. I can’t imagine settling foreign shores has got any easier in R&F.

[One more point: good suggestion re playing more England; but honestly, I just can’t bring myself to play them at the moment. I just get cross, which is a bit counterproductive when you’re playing game to have a bit of fun / let off steam... ]

 

[Mr. Shadows]

Reyna + harbor/hub triangles in a golden age might work wonders... that's an idea I should think about. Getting a golden classical age is going to take a lot of work and maybe some luck too though.

 

[acluewithout]

Yeah, this is top of my list of things to try once I upgrade to R&F.

Another option is to delay naval shenanigans until you’ve had time to get Campuses down, and can them accelerate research. That works fine when I play England, but it’s a bit sad if you play say Norway.

 

[General Tso]

Well I am a good person to answer because I play naval a lot .... sadly the answer to your problem seems to be self control.

what I would recommend is to try playing England and see if you can get a classic golden age with harbour hub triangles and Reyna to get loads of science off your hubs/harbours.
Its a very challenging game and ideally you need to play a few games to get the hang of it and to get a bit lucky. It does make you concentrate on navy more.

There is a TSL thread around also and has an england strat in it, you just really have to concentrate.. but also consider science.

What is a harbor hub triangle?

 

[acluewithout]

City Centre, Harbour and Commercial Hub, built in a triangle so you maximise adjacencies. You need to build the city on the coast, and ideally at the mouth of a river (for the freshwater and CH adjacency).

 

[General Tso]

Thank you for the answer.

What is a CH?

 

[acluewithout]

Commercial Hub.

The Harbour gets an adjacency bonus (+2) from adjacent city centre, and then another +1 from having two adjacent districts (the city centre and the CH).

The CH in turn gets a +2 adjacency from the Harbour, a +1 for two adjacent districts (city centre and harbour), and +2 from the river.

So, the triangle alone nets you an extra +6 gold, plus adjacency from any sea resources next to the harbour. Profit!

 

[General Tso]

Thank you for the detailed answer.

 

[Karpius]

Thing is. Unless I have a very isolated start, I find it very hard not to get pulled off course and end up settling more cities inland;

That, precisely, is one of the areas where I believe Civ6 works well. Despite what you may want to do, the game might steer you another way. Much like real history.

I enjoy building navies as well, but how fast I get to that is hugely dependent on how the game is going. Even if my second settlement is on the coast, and I get that first harbor built, I may put off building any navy if the situation doesn't call for it. Except perhaps that first galley just to explore the coast.

And always, always, always....make sure you get those Venetian Arsenal and Halicarnassus wonders. They are just awesome wonders!

 

[Rosty K]

I'd ask the question 'why do you need a navy earlier?'. Well, you've said it's fun. Though the real fun starts with Frigates and Privateers, I believe. In my normal game I'd have 2 galleys for 2 eurekas (one for having galleys, and another one when they become caravels), one of which I'll normally buy to spend production on something else and really start building ships after Square Rigging, or even when I already have Venetian Arsenal. And that's right in time to screw everyone else dominate the seas. Oh, and two well placed coastal cities (so there's space for Arsenal, Mausoleum and maybe Colossus) is enough, no need to spam them unless you want to take all the admirals.

 

[Disgustipated]

I often don't build a Navy until later. It usually isn't needed. Navy isn't that fun early on due to low movement and bombard range.

That said, my advice is to play Norway. That civ is geared for early Naval warfare action, and this is the best way to expand as this civ. Just take as many coastal cities as you can. And usually loyalty problems won't be too difficult this early in the game, though bank on conquering more than one coastal city to help reinforce loyalty.

I would like to see another civ in the future geared for early Naval warfare. Perhaps in the next expansion.

 

[The_Quasar]

Try playing Indonesia (R & F) on either an archipelago or island plates map. I just did both, and had great games in both. Indonesia is very naval orientated, as are those maps, so they go very well together.

 

[Scaramanga]

If you're not isolated by water or have any seafaring abilities, I don't see why you would go naval either. It's always nice to corner all the great people of one type though, like admirals, because their abilities compound together.

 

[KingCheops]

The big gap between galleys/quadrireme and caravels/frigates are the clue to me that naval is a mid-late game thing. I build the 2 galleys/1 quadrireme early using the policy card and then unless I am getting swarmed by enemy/barb naval I wait until Renaissance. England is really good for naval because they get the cheaper harbors and harbors are wonderful things. You're playing vanilla so you don't have super-charged coastal cities thanks to governors so the less hammers for RN Dockyards is good.

Once you get the +100% adjacency bonus for harbors policy cards and shipyards is when the coastal cities really start to take off. Another reason to not worry overly about navy until renaissance. That's also where you start to see a lot of the fun colonialism cards show up as well and your privateers/sea dogs. At this point a strong navy becomes important as you are starting to conquer/settle overseas and your best defense is your "wooden walls." With the Native Conquest card, the card that gives cities on a different continent more money, and your adjacency card for harbors you can roll in the cash very quickly. Raider class ships get really valuable with the Loot promotion and the cards that provide bonuses for pillaging or just barbarian farming.

Civ 6 actually does a pretty good job of role-playing with the civs. England wasn't a big naval power until after it defeated the Spanish Armada during Elizabeth 1's reign. Historically it focused on internal development and consolidation of power before it became a naval powerhouse and empire. Playing early raider stuff with Norway is good and all but the real fun for navies doesn't start until later in the game.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

The big gap between galleys/quadrireme and caravels/frigates are the clue to me that naval is a mid-late game thing.

This is something else Civ 6 does right. Better than Civ5. The caravel and frigate (and era equivalent Chinese junks) were a quantum leap forward over medieval ship technology and completely revolutionized ocean going travel and combat. Viking longships and Polynesian outrigger-canoes were outliers that can safely be assigned as unique units as they weren't duplicated (unlike some game "uniques" which are really just "things we did first").

Mind, the value of frigates before inventing gunpowder is somewhat dubious ...

 

[Ellerby]

Is there no way to remove improvements once you've placed them? I'm trying to set up a RND/Hub triangle that's being mentioned in a couple of threads tonight. But I've built a fishing boat on the reef where my RND needs to go.

 

[UWHabs]

Is there no way to remove improvements once you've placed them? I'm trying to set up a RND/Hub triangle that's being mentioned in a couple of threads tonight. But I've built a fishing boat on the reef where my RND needs to go.

You can't remove a reef. Need to plan the Harbour/RNDY site away from reefs.