Naval units "useless"?

[deltahawk5]

I've in my fifth game now, and up to this point, I've seen no "need" to build naval units. It feels like there is very little point to them, because they require an investment into technology and city improvements with very little ROI. Whereas before (Civ5), you HAD to develop cargo and work boats, thus navigation technologies and improvements to get production bonuses (which have now been replaced with builders).

That aside, the AI NEVER uses naval combat units. Even barbarians, which in Civ 5, would aggressively target cities, kind of just shrug it off. Leaving me with the thought of "why bother"?

Thoughts?

 

[Siptah]

I've met many barbarian ships and they were really annoying. But it's true that they AI doesn't build a navy. That's sad because I like the naval aspects of civ. Harald's agenda is a joke if you fulfill it with one ship!

 

[Xenotitan]

I've fulfilled his agenda with ZERO ships. The AI is bonkers.

 

[TruthfulCake]

I think a lot of this can be chalked up to two reasons:

1. The AI's naval presence is not menacing enough. Even Harald "Too Easy to Raid" Hadrada does not come at you with his fleet. There is therefore no need to prepare for a naval invasion.

2. Land tiles are worth so much more right now than the ocean. People tend to not settle by the coast. This works both ways. First, you have less incentive to build ships because that requires you to build a functioning harbor district. Second, since the opponents are unlikely to build coastal cities either, you likely won't get anywhere even with a gigantic navy.

Basically, to fix this issue: a. fix the AI (duh) and b. make sea tiles more worthwhile.

 

[Siptah]

Some of my games were lacking rivers and moutains, so almost all of my and the AI's cities were on the coast. But still: no naval warfare, despite the great setup that cried for it.

 

[EpicWestern]

Just finished a domination game on Immortal in which naval units played a pretty big role. Battlecruisers and missle cruisers having a range of 3 is pretty important. Lots of cities, especially capitals, are surrounded by some mountains so there really aren't that many tiles to be sticking artillery on to. Having another avenue of assault makes things a lot smoother. Melee ships are also decent for swopping in to take a low health city, sometimes its tricky to maneuver a land melee unit in there. Early game though ships do indeed seem worthless, except for the fact that its best to get them when the production cost is low and then upgrade. Even for scouting they really aren't that great. Missionaries still make the best scouts.

 

[Tur4]

1. The harbor district is too expensive for what you get. If you build this you should get some great bonuses to make it worth while.

2. Settling on the coast is too inefficient. A city on the coast has probably half of its tiles filled with useless water tiles. Water resources need to be improved dramatically to make up for all the wasted tiles.

3. AI needs to use ships better. Better tiles on coast would make defending them a top priority.

 

[Jabulani]

AI never used naval warfare in all the previous civ series and civ vi is no exception, pity, shame on you devs.

 

[Disgustipated]

I've had too many harbors pillaged by barbarian ships. Yes I am building ships.

And battleships aren't bad at bombardment either. Although they aren't the powerhouses that we had in Civ5.

And I have had a game where England had Ironclads before me and did build them (or upgraded to them). So this notion that the AI doesn't use ships is false. I've seen lots of ships in my games, even from civs like Kongo- they had a couple frigates running about.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

I think the Harbor district is good as is. The trade route slot is quite valuable.

But navies definitely are too much of a sideshow right now. Buffing water tiles (they are worst they've ever been in a Civ game right now) would help. Normal coast tiles should at least be food-neutral (perhaps with an improvement) and sea resources should be great tiles. Integrating the naval part of the tech tree into the rest of the tech tree a bit more would help too. It's too easy to completely skip it; and in fact, if you're not going to build ships you absolutely should skip it, because researching those techs will raise the costs of all your districts.

 

[Iron Angel]

A city on the coast has probably half of its tiles filled with useless water tiles.

While I do agree with you, the coast tiles do however provide additional gold. 1 Gold per tile, it isn't much but at least it is something.

 

[Babarigo]

While I do agree with you, the coast tiles do however provide additional gold. 1 Gold per tile, it isn't much but at least it is something.

Yeah but a tile needs 2 food if you want that your city to keep growing. A 1 food tile must have another strong yield and 1 gold is very weak. We could say that 1 food is equal to 1 production and to 2 gold. Every specialist is worth 4 gold and the water tile is worth 3 gold which makes it even worse than a specialist. Also, you can't build districts in water besides the port which makes them to me even worse than tundra or desert. The base yield is so bad that you will never work it.

 

[Takfloyd]

The AI has in fact attacked me with naval units. Sadly, they were frigates and I was in the atomic era.

 

[bladex]

play with island plates map

 

[Iron Angel]

Yeah but a tile needs 2 food if you want that your city to keep growing. A 1 food tile must have another strong yield and 1 gold is very weak. We could say that 1 food is equal to 1 production and to 2 gold. Every specialist is worth 4 gold and the water tile is worth 3 gold which makes it even worse than a specialist. Also, you can't build districts in water besides the port which makes them to me even worse than tundra or desert. The base yield is so bad that you will never work it.

I do indeed agree. The tiles should give you more gold, or look into some districts that would benefit from ocean. You do of course later on have the oil platforms. I would not stress with going for all coastal cities, but I think one might be good, if the location is right.

EDIT: Sorry, I am de-railing the topic.

 

[Roald Amundsen]

AI never used naval warfare in all the previous civ series and civ vi is no exception, pity, shame on you devs.

in civ 4 stacks of battleships were not uncommon and they were really scary! 1upt killed naval combat

 

[Aldor]

I've played a few games where my ships were helpful to repel oversea invasions. And as said already, there are barbarian ships which can be really annoying...its good to have some defense ready. There are some nice promotions for the raider line of ships (privateers, and subs) too

Overall, while they are not neccessary most of the time, ships in Civ6 are more fun to use (for me) than in previous civ games.

 

[IllustriousYou]

Rising Tide showed us that making water tiles usable is a hard gambit to take. It's hard to keep territorial disputes alive when so much more usable space is available. Granted, Civ wouldn't open the entire ocean to colonization, but that only It reduces the scope of the problem. It doesn't eliminate it.

I wonder what kinds of mechanics might make naval superiority as important in the game as it was in history.

 

[TurboJ]

The problem is military AI in general. They don't tech correctly and they don't "play the map". In my last game about half of the AI civs had a somewhat credible navy but they didn't use it. Had I assaulted Scythia for example, I would have had to low through quite a naval defence though. It's much like earlier Civ games, the AI is bad at attacking as well as defending.

But if they get the AI tech problem (not having any relevant miliraty techs 85% of the game time) fixed, things may change as the AI will "notice" their power is relevant and use their units more.

 

[Jabulani]

The AI has in fact attacked me with naval units. Sadly, they were frigates and I was in the atomic era.

Well, typical example of AI naval warfare.

I am really curious to know which name and surname is behind the AI naval development, don't be shy little boy, show yourself in a nice tube video