[MP]Islands naval warfare

[pi-r8]

I recently played a multiplayer game that really changed how I look at this game. It was an islands map, each player has 1 medium size island (I can usually squeeze in about 8-10 cities, but that's packing them very tight).

After getting optics and starting to explore the world, it became clear that me and my nearest neighbor had by far the most powerful nations. I was the Dutch, and he was the vikings. I had more production, but he was more advanced, so he sent privateers to pillage me while I still only had caravels.

What really shocked me was just how DAMAGING it is to have all your cities blockaded and all your sea food pillaged. My cities started losing population VERY rapidly, since there wasn't nearly enough land room to sustain them. I had to do some very severe whipping to make caravels and then East Indiamen to kill the privateers

After I finally broke his blockade, I went on the offensive. I still had no ground army at all, so I just put everything I had into my navy, making as many East Indiamen as I could to blockade his cities, and later sending over frigates.

Once again, I was shocked at just how much damage this did. I saw one of his cities drop from size 12 to 3 . Of course most of that was from whipping, but it just shows how desperate he was. Our naval war went on for quite some time, but he eventually won out since he was more advanced and got to destroyers first. It also helped that all his ships were faster than mine, since he was the Vikings and got the circumnav bonus.

I know this was a rather long and rambling post. I'm just wondering what experiences you guys have had with multiplayer naval warfare. Most of the time I'm just concerned with building transports and shipping in ground troops to burn coastal cities, but this game has made me wonder if it's worth it to invest heavily in a real navy.

 

[Fleme]

First of all: Sounds like a fun game.

Secondly, Navy is often neglected eventhough there are some clear benefits to maintaining one. Clearly, in a SP game it's common to have a stack of transports/galleons and give them a few escorts because the AI won't counterattack your navy unless you're at war with them already - which is rarely the case when you're ferrying your sod over to their land. This in turn is what makes navies less important.

I can't say that I'd have played MP games where navy was a factor but then again all my games have been on a pangaea map so there's no point but you do make it sound like good fun. I mean, one hardly ever beelines naval military techs but it's clear how it would be beneficial in cases such as the one you present here.

 

[MadmanAtW]

Most of my games are 2 player multiplayer (the rest are AIs) with a friend who adores the naval game. So navies are incredibly important. He loves privateers (I was deeply satisfied one game where on each of my turns I moved a Destroyer from one city to the next, just hoping he wouldn't notice its approach since it never ended a turn in open water, and managed to nail his level 7 privateer by surprise), so I am unfortunately all too aware of their effectiveness, though I've never been totally blockaded like that.

We still talk about the game that we agree I would have won if we'd continued it, where the turn before he declared on me I noticed that his naval fleet was exactly at the max range of mine, so I "Pearl Harbored" him- declared first, softened him up with a missile barrage from the subs, and sank his fleet. He had troops in the transports (killed a level 16ish great general unit, what a way to go) and so he basically declared that he had no way to stop my launch.

The MP Naval game is fun.

 

[pi-r8]

Most of my games are 2 player multiplayer (the rest are AIs) with a friend who adores the naval game. So navies are incredibly important. He loves privateers (I was deeply satisfied one game where on each of my turns I moved a Destroyer from one city to the next, just hoping he wouldn't notice its approach since it never ended a turn in open water, and managed to nail his level 7 privateer by surprise), so I am unfortunately all too aware of their effectiveness, though I've never been totally blockaded like that.

We still talk about the game that we agree I would have won if we'd continued it, where the turn before he declared on me I noticed that his naval fleet was exactly at the max range of mine, so I "Pearl Harbored" him- declared first, softened him up with a missile barrage from the subs, and sank his fleet. He had troops in the transports (killed a level 16ish great general unit, what a way to go) and so he basically declared that he had no way to stop my launch.

The MP Naval game is fun.

Haha, nice job on the surprise naval attack. I've always hoped to pull off something like that, but never gotten the chance, sadly. a nuke could make the job even easier.

I don't understand the appeal of privateers. I mean, it's obvious who's sending them, and they come at the same time as frigates. Seems like it'd be better to just make frigates instead, unless you really want that 3 gold per turn pillaging.

 

[noto2]

even in SP a navy can be important for defence. It's extremely annoying when an AI declares on you and starts pillage all of your seafood

 

[MadmanAtW]

Sadly, he returned the favor in a later game, though not as decisively.

Privs are GG points without going to war, for one thing. Build a dozen and go find a civ that's still on galleys and triremes and you can get yourself one or two level 6 or so privs, which become very nice Destroyers later. Granted, if they're that far behind you can just declare on them and milk them for GG and XP, but if they have friends that has diplomatic repercussions that privs don't. Also, the gold can add up pretty nicely if you hit enough cities.

You have to use them well, which the AI mostly doesn't- a single priv is just free XP for a frigate, most likely, but send a stack of 3 or 4 to sit outside a city that gets most of its food from seafood and you can have yourself a lot of fun. Especially if you've circumnavigated or are the Vikings so your privs can mostly outrun pursuit.

 

[Ghpstage]

I don't understand the appeal of privateers. I mean, it's obvious who's sending them, and they come at the same time as frigates. Seems like it'd be better to just make frigates instead, unless you really want that 3 gold per turn pillaging.

Privateers can do several useful things;

1. They can be built with Copper OR Iron, Frigates need Iron.
2. They're not actually a bad warship in a pinch
3. Free Sentry shouldn't be ignored
4. Don't recieve (nor give I think) War Wearrines, even during war, so using them in the open ocean to soften up enemy Frigates can (Ideally) help the WW battle.
5. Privateers blockades are very powerful (explained blow)

The blockade ability often gets confused. I like to think of blockades as having 3 functions.
All ships at war get access to the first two, while Privateers do the first two during peace or war and can do the third only while at peace with the blockaded civ;

1. All blockaded tiles cannot be worked by people your at war with
   • For Privateers it obviously works at peace too
   • Starves cities
   • More painful for Maoi cities, Financial leaders and owners of the Collosus
2. All blockaded tiles cannot have trade routes of a warring party go through them
   • This blocks both routes and resource trades
   • Most typically blocks seafood resources reaching the coastal cities working them
   • At war trade routes are rerouted to other (often less valuable) cities
   • Can be done anywhere on the map, but only matters if all posssible routes are blocked
   • Privateer's blockades do this to all rivals trades while at peace or war and your routes are unaffected. e.g. You can have a route to London, even if it can't trade back (If you do starve London it would reduce value though )
3. Pillaging of trade routes, if a blockade tile (3 tiles in all directions from any ship) lands on a coastal city then ALL trade routes from said city are removed. This type of blockade is special, only available to Privateers and only against rivals they are at peace with, else only the other rules apply.
   • The Privateer earns gold equal to the commerce value of the routes **
   • ALL trade routes are removed, including land ones, and no new ones are formed till the Privateer stops blockade
   • Works through land, the only condition being that the Privateer *can* reach the city
   • Can affect multiple cities at once
   • Other cities (including yours or the enemies) can still profit from routes to the affected city
   • The trade network (resources) remains intact, provided a valid route still exists

** Theres a little exception with the gold value, the minimum gold from a *possible* route is 1. So, if a city that has no actual routes it will be worth 1 and with GLH, 3 with more added for Currency, Free Market etc etc.

I don't know of their actual value in MP, but I can see it being more than you give them credit for