Is there any use to navies?

I'm playing a game at the moment as the English on an Arch map. I'm the greatest power, but I have the Spanish and Byzantines nibbling at my heals. So in that sort of game, navies are really good. I've developed a taste for privateers so I can stymie the AI's naval growth and freely scout out coastlines. The man-of-war also allows me to expand my navy with very little expense. Sure, it's only a wooden navy, but they still put up a good fight against ironclads (and when the AI has ironclads, I'm usually building destroyers, anyway).

Nuke subs carrying tactical nukes aren't too bad either.
 
Carriers carrying 3 bombers and 1 fighter greatly enhance your millitary. I usually build an upwards of 6+ carriers. Now that bombers have lethal land and sea bombardment, they can strike many units with impunity and if you are attacked by another nations airforce, the fighters in your airgroup should get you some bomber kills tallied. They can crater all of the AI's terrain around their cities and much faster than marching a huge army of escorts and artillery to where you need them.
 
Playing a random continent game with the brits, they have a awesome navel UU and one that takes awhile to get out of date.

Been fighting a long war on the continent as well as with a nation or two on the other side of the world. Navel units help me to reduce how many attacking units I dedicate to sitting by shoreline in case the enemy lands. Often the enemy likes dumping two transports (8 unit stack) by my lightly defended cap.

After I got my navel up after learning magnetism I knocked it for a loop, got some free no maintenances units and forced the AI to change tactics and use frigates to escort its transporters. I strangely lose alot of units attacking single frigate's with man-O-wars even though they got twice the offense of the defenders.

But even with the free units and a fleet of 10 or so(+Magellan's Voyage), I've been trying to increase the fleets size for better shore defending plus bombarding every inch of the enemies shoreline (even without precious resources on the shoreline, thats alot of tiles to take out of commission) and its cities (its at war with its neighbor now so that has a use, even though I don't have a single land unit landed)

Navel only useful for transport? Not in my game.
 
It should be noted that the English MOW is only an awesome UU is C3C. In Vanilla/PTW it is made obsolete almost immediately since everyone gets ironclads and there's no enslavement ability.

Still I think the argument holds. Outside of a few unique situations like C3C English on Arch maps, navies are not that important.
 
I'm on a continent map. Defending my shorelines and torturing the enemies has allowed me to fight enemies at home and abroad at the same time. Couldn't do that without a fleet.

Even getting at enemies on my own continent (but not transport) has been helped by ships.

I get your point though. Its not like a smac game where you could wipe out defenders via ship(ifrc=if I remember correctly), just not take the town unless it was in the water. I suppose generally speaking ships are less important then land stuff. But having a navy on a continent map has helped a great deal, doing more then I could do with just a few more land units instead.

Ships in civ3 need speeding up (and curraghs transport) Never the less, when fighting a enemy across water, a navy helps alot, even fighting an enemy on the same continent with a good amount of shoreline is helped enough by the navy to justify creating them. Taking out all your enemies shoreline tiles (well, when their not missing all the time) and bombarding those cites before land troops attack (but not have to wait till bombardiars drag their metallic asses over) is also useful.

I wish ships blocked trade on sea squares next to them, maybe even two squares out. That way you could blockade without a impossible number of ships. I mean if a real trade ship tried to get through a blockade 1 or 2 spaces apart, they could easily be destroyed.

As far as man O wars. Almost too powerful now. It doubles the frigites attack.

The newly captured ship should be on last health and no movement when you first capture it. Otherwise you can use it to attack and create another, which can be used to attack and...so on. Also perhaps created at conscript level.
 
TruePurple said:
Ships in civ3 need speeding up (and curraghs transport)
I sure agree about the curraghs!!! It would be great if they'd carry even just one warrior to explore the inland parts of islands they find or pop goody huts. It takes too long to wait for galleys, and even then you have to go back over the same area.

Edited for spelling.
 
Stacked ships will defend each other, like artillery it fires a defensive shot. With a lot of small stacked "fleets", you can place them at choke points on the map and sink whatever AI comes by. Dont know if its the most effective use of resources, but its fun at least.

Battleships are expensive, but they last a long time and can get to the enemy territory quickly and destroy his expensive improvements and buildings. Especially good if you dont plan to take the territory, but you want to rip it up.

On certain maps they can deny a resource to the enemy, if you can take out the roads at a chokepoint to the resource or harbor. Of course artillery can do that too, but they need a transport and protective infantry and do less damage per turn due to the time it takes to move them into position. In the ten turns it takes to move the artillery into firing range for example, the battleships may have already done eight or nine turns worth of damage. If you include a transport with infantry and artillery in you battleship fleets, then you can really bring some firepower to bear rapidly.

You cant place Battleships on defensive terrain, but you can stack them, screen the big fleet with smaller ones, and add carriers with fighters to defend against air attack, and submarines to protect against that threat.

I love navies. They give you more options, the ability to react quickly, and act as early warning radar if you position them carefully.
 
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