Land based vs. Sea based

[DST1348]

Hello,

I recently read an article in the WASD gaming magazine (in German) by Arnost Stanzel about land based and sea based empires in history and how they fare in Civilization. The author, a political scientist, concludes that in history sea based powers such as the British Empire or USA generally are more powerful as land based powers such as the USSR (he quotes Sparta and Athens as exceptions). He claims that in the Civilization franchise the opposite seems to be true. It is better to build a city in land than on the coast, hence building a land based empire. A seaside city just doesn't produce enough Commerce.

I think one has to look at the different Civilization titles. I can hardly remember Civ I to CivIII. But in CivIV foreign trade routes could yield up to ten Commerce, being equivalent to two Towns, and you could have four to six trade route per city (correct me if I get the numbers wrong). So, sea and trade based empires don't seem so weak to me. Now, in CiV trades route are only possible between cities of your own empire, and you don't get any oversea bonus. This indeed favors land based empires again. This changed with G&K, since now for the first time you can take cities with naval units.

I am curious about the communities opinion on this! Do you consider sea based empires viable in Civ IV? What about CIV and the recent changes in G&K?

 

[damerell]

He claims that in the Civilization franchise the opposite seems to be true. It is better to build a city in land than on the coast, hence building a land based empire. A seaside city just doesn't produce enough Commerce.

Plenty of commerce. Just not a great deal of anything else.

Part of the trouble would seem to be that the game doesn't represent the difficulty of land movement before the railway. In reality, no-one would send any bulk cargo or large body of troops by land if it could go by water; a city that wasn't on the coast or on a major river would be cripplingly disadvantaged.

 

[AdamCrock]

For the Real World I'd say that the Sea Power (especially combined with the Air Power - read: Carriers) is the pinnacle of the military prowess of a country. For an example: one or two Carriers with escort ships can easily subdue and overpower middle sized coutry military force with ease (like we've seen in the recent combined NATO campaign including American/British/France forces in Iraq). Sea units are faster, more flexible and versatile than their land counterparts. I think that the rocketry and modern missiles capability including their radius of effectiveness (especially combined with stealthy underwater vessels) speak volumes. Of course most terrible RL weapon humankind has to offer (The ICBM) is vastly mounted on modern submarines which are mobile and cannot be detected and infiltrated so easily like their immoblie land counterparts: the missile silos.

To finish it with a nice twist and to add some flavour I'd like to present You with a nice movie from SMAC which also explains why Sea Power is important in modern warfare


Link to video.

In Civ 4 this is rather poorly executed. We start our quest for naval superiority with the amazing unit : The Privateer ! (Which is just what the game needed since vanilla to boost naval strategies.) There are many articles on this site which explains why privateers are so amazing but that's not the point Since the dawn of oil driven (or uranium reactor driven) ships however the game offers little too flavour our naval experience. There are some pretty amazing units like the missile cruiser but he just out untill too late in game. The only thing that we can do with our navy is guard our coast to prevent invasion (or mount a naval invasion on enemy) and bombard the city defenses with either (why?) only fighters on carriers or the bombardment from the ship's cannons. Marines are rather weak in game and perhaps too weak to take out some well thought defenses all by themselves so use of their amphibious capability is justified only when attacking units behind the rivers imho Of course the whole navy factor is nerfed so hard in game becouse of the "air factor". In my opinion flying units are far too eaisly countered by one too many powerfull SAM units and building like bunkers and forts so their whole impact on player's overall "power factor" is not as realistic as I would like it to be Speaking of the Air unit's : The whole Guderian's "Blitzkried" doctrine is obsoleted from the moment the enemy got their hands on SAM infntry

I dont have much exp with Civ 5 becouse I don't like it so I will not discuss it

 

[s.bernbaum]

I can't agree about marines being useless. I mostly play on fractal or archipelagic maps. When I decide to play a military game, I mostly wait until the modern era because I like that era for the naval game. A fleet with a lot of marines on transports, several carriers full of fighters, a few battleships, and a handful of destroyers will take out any port city. After the battleships knock out the defense factors and the fighters soften up the defenders, the marines easily destroy all the defenders. You just need to have brought enough of them to do the job. Typically, I bring enough to take out three or four port cities before I have to wait while the marines heal. If the cities are close enough together and I have enough battleships and carriers, I can take out two of them on the same turn.

 

[Luigiii2]

Now, in CiV trades route are only possible between cities of your own empire, and you don't get any oversea bonus

Actually, as of civ4 bts, you can trade with other overseas nations(assuming you are not using mercantilism) and the overseas bonus is also quite substantial.

 

[Manco Capac]

I can't agree about marines being useless. I mostly play on fractal or archipelagic maps. When I decide to play a military game, I mostly wait until the modern era because I like that era for the naval game. A fleet with a lot of marines on transports, several carriers full of fighters, a few battleships, and a handful of destroyers will take out any port city. After the battleships knock out the defense factors and the fighters soften up the defenders, the marines easily destroy all the defenders. You just need to have brought enough of them to do the job. Typically, I bring enough to take out three or four port cities before I have to wait while the marines heal. If the cities are close enough together and I have enough battleships and carriers, I can take out two of them on the same turn.

Aren't s.bernbaum a marathon player? I vaguely remember you mainly play marathon speed. One move units are less bad on slow speeds than higher ones.
But indeed, amphibious attacks are fleet (pun intended?) and malleable once airforces come as it brings another component that didn't exist previous era: weakening defenders from sea (it is forbidden with sieges), but doesn't change marathon is a whole different feel.

It is very important to specify gamespeed conjuncture.

 

[s.bernbaum]

Mostly, I do play on marathon. However, now and then I play on normal speed for variety. I have used the same naval/marine strategy then with success as well. Perhaps more relevant is that I am playing games where a military victory will require a successful naval assault at some point, since I don't play on pangea maps.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Fighters (especially jets) + marines can kill anything in the game easily, so if the AI has only coastal cities it's worth a look. Of course, by that point you could go sub + tac nuke + anything that can attack too and that's usually the strongest option in the late game .

If you're using a lot of 1 move units on normal speed (Rifles, cannons, arty + maybe infantry come to mind) you're going to need to stack split to do a lot of damage quickly. The only 1 mover that can really do this effectively in a majority of games is the rifle, and that's because with drafting alone you can get 60 of them in 20 turns. Add in some slow-built ones and you can easily do a 3 way stack split and lollerown anything pre rifles/grenadiers defending. Make a super medic with the resulting GG and if you move him carefully he can usually switch between supporting 2 stacks as needed. If you pre-move the rifles onto multiple sides of the AI empire using open borders with its rivals and plan things out, you can often crush+cap ~12 city AI empires in under 10 turns even on the high levels. That's pretty freaking good for a 1 move unit you can spam like no tomorrow.

Strictly speaking, cavalry are a better unit and if you have access to them + enough actual production/food to build/whip a lot of them quickly they'll do better with their higher str and 2 moves. However, remember that if you can build cavalry, you can definitely draft too. Drafting isn't too production or even food intensive, so even cavalry strategies should consider drafting in addition.

Now, on water maps? Naval superiority is good vs the AI and MANDATORY vs humans (whoever has naval superiority can fork his opponent's cities, simply razing the less defended ones since not even mounted can be in 2 places at once, while a galleon can easily attack 2 cities at once even if it DOESN'T have a single movement boost). AI actually struggles against forks also and you can cap them via city capture + raze spam (or the fun abuse of taking 2 cities and making a colony, "liberating" every city to get 2 defenders magically generated to wear on the AI without it getting war success against you when it kills them or retakes the cities).

If you're attacking form boats, 1 move vs 2 move doesn't matter lol. Your movement is whatever the transport/galleon's movement is. Marines are quite effective in their small niche role.

Coastal cities struggle for production (with a few exceptions depending on surroundings) but have more health than everything except riverside (riverside + coastal is best) thanks to harbors, and their earlygame commerce is better. They also can allow for some fun tricks with limited roads early in the game. As long as you can get a workboat on any seafood early however you're going to be just fine whipping.

 

[Sueff]

They also can allow for some fun tricks with limited roads early in the game.

Gotta agree with everything you said (especially about coastal riverside cities), but could you please elaborate on the quoted part?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Gotta agree with everything you said (especially about coastal riverside cities), but could you please elaborate on the quoted part?

If you have the right kind of map, you can skimp on workers a bit and use sailing and/or culture borders coast/rivers to do all of your trade networks for you. Combined with GLH and some careful planning you can get away with more cities faster + using workers to only improve strong special tiles at first, greatly boosting both production and commerce compared to having to build workers instead of settlers sooner in order to keep the economy afloat. This is sometimes viable even without GLH, and sometimes you'll dump the hammer savings elsewhere.

But, to pull it off you have to understand how few workers you can have and still optimize the rate at which you improve and connect (as needed) bonus resources. It's a very map-dependent thing.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Now, on water maps? Naval superiority is good vs the AI and MANDATORY vs humans (whoever has naval superiority can fork his opponent's cities, simply razing the less defended ones since not even mounted can be in 2 places at once, while a galleon can easily attack 2 cities at once even if it DOESN'T have a single movement boost). AI actually struggles against forks also and you can cap them via city capture + raze spam (or the fun abuse of taking 2 cities and making a colony, "liberating" every city to get 2 defenders magically generated to wear on the AI without it getting war success against you when it kills them or retakes the cities).

You mean you can send two stacks of galleon each to different place?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You mean you can send two stacks of galleon each to different place?

I mean that a stack of galleons can easily see both cities...take the less defended one, and raze it. Even with rails pure land defense against that is impractical.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I mean that a stack of galleons can easily see both cities...take the less defended one, and raze it. Even with rails pure land defense against that is impractical.

I assume you can capitulate the AI faster that way. Could you explain that little more? And what is the best tactic?Thx.

 

[DST1348]

Actually, as of civ4 bts, you can trade with other overseas nations(assuming you are not using mercantilism) and the overseas bonus is also quite substantial.

To clarify: when I write CiV () I mean the fifth title. As I wrote in the opening, international oversea trade can yield quite a lot of commerce.