Naval units "useless"?

[Matthew.]

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

I agree. Harbor district may not be super high priority, but the additional housing, food, production, gold, and especially trade-route make it much more appealing than many other district options.

Of course this is besides the point, since you can have a 95% land-based city and still build the harbor district so the district alone isn't giving incentive for players to place their cities actually upon the coastline.

 

[Agent Zero Range]

aircraft carriers are great (they carry bombers now) and you will want some escort vessels so a small navy can be useful. though this is more about mobile air power. 12 range lvled up bombers can reach most cities just used one on a pangea map firstly to take out a civ locked behind mountians with a lot of troops clogging the passes then to just carpet bomb any other cities in range. also great for destoying district if you just want to stop an ai war effort without taking cities. but that is just the air power the navy is what makes it mobile.

 

[deltahawk5]

I agree. Harbor district may not be super high priority, but the additional housing, food, production, gold, and especially trade-route make it much more appealing than many other district options.

Of course this is besides the point, since you can have a 95% land-based city and still build the harbor district so the district alone isn't giving incentive for players to place their cities actually upon the coastline.

While the additional trade route is nice, the removal of cargo ships as a naval unit has done more harm than good. Trade was probably one of the things that was perfectly executed in Civ 5. I don't see why they found the need to change it.

 

[Brutus2]

I will say that I have played all continent maps so far and in the later game I have lots of trade routes going to the other continent which were getting pillaged before I decided to invest in some naval units to patrol the sea. In fact some barbarians also pillaged two of my sea resources and a shipyard.

Coastal raiding is such a great feature and a major improvement to Civ5. At last our naval units can truly protect the trade routes because the can actually remove island barb camps on their own (and tribal villages) without having to wait for an embarked land unit to slowly sail half way around the world just to walk into the empty barb camp.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The problem is nothing of economic value in the sea.
Exception-the harbor's trade route.. But that is one tile.

To change it.
Trade: routes get 0.1 gold per water tile they cross, and have an automatic trade post at any harbor they cross(still needing harbor/coastal city center to embark/disembark)

Water tiles: allow fishing boats on all coastal tiles (with shipbuilding) and on Ocean tiles with square rigging (and whales should give production) maybe allow offshore rigs on any ocean tile

General issue: recon units get non combat experience, so should carriers (probably 1-2 per combat one of their air units are in)

 

[redwings1340]

Naval units are really powerful, you only need a few of them to take cities. If you fast tech to a medium navy you can conquer costal cities really easily, and a few naval units is good in costal or near costal cities to defend against barbarian ships or protect costal trade routes. The ships barbs send out is almost identical to the ships they send in V, and it can be nice to have a few ships to defend your harbors.

 

[Assault Lemming]

Be nice if they would make sea trade routes a real thing with a mechanic to encourage attacking and defending trade routes. Increased gold for every water tile in a trade route, but raiding a trade route does not cause war unless an enemy military unit witnesses the piracy.

Basically what happens at sea stays at sea

 

[redwings1340]

Be nice if they would make sea trade routes a real thing with a mechanic to encourage attacking and defending trade routes. Increased gold for every water tile in a trade route, but raiding a trade route does not cause war unless an enemy military unit witnesses the piracy.

Basically what happens at sea stays at sea

That would be hilarious.

"Your trade route has been pillaged by an unknown player."

(send ships)

(sees carpet of 30 spanish frigates in the area ship was pillaged)

Spain: "It was... barbarians. I promise!"

 

[Amrunril]

I'm not sure yet whether this is purely an AI issue or an issue with the underlying mechanic. That is, whether naval control is a potentially powerful advantage that the AI is unwilling or unable to exploit or whether naval control simply fails to provide sufficient advantage even when it is appreciated.

Naval power should be important for two reasons, protecting trade and projecting power overseas. There's no real reason to invest in naval power for the former purpose because naval trade routes aren't any more lucrative than land ones (which I think is a mistake for both gameplay and real world reasons). It's less clear whether it's worthwhile for the second purpose. Naval power shouldn't allow the easy capture of well defended coastal cities (as it did in Civ V), but it should be essential to moving troops (and later air and nuclear power) to distant conflicts and to support and to creating and defending colonies. To evaluate how important any of this is requires a competitive mid-late game, and to evaluate how well a navy can do it requires competent play on all sides. Neither of these is something I've experienced enough of to draw firm conclusions. So, while I can definitely say that the AI is terrible at investing in and using a navy, I can't say yet how important naval power would be if AI's use of it improved.

 

[Chinese American]

protecting trade routes seem like pointless micromanagement. traders don't even follow the rules of 1UPT. there's no way to escort traders. even so, you're wasting one or more units following around another unit with minimal interaction. on-map trade routes present a slew of movement issues per this post : http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/protecting-traders.601023/#post-14517209.

 

[Larsenex]

I just wanted to say the Ai DOES fleet up and will escort its units. Although the upgrading issue remains this shows the ai England has a fleet of Frigates escorting 5 knights into my territory.

 

[fatgordy]

The only naval unit I could justify building are carriers for jet bombers sporting thermonuclear warheads. I played a space race game on a tiny map the other day and killed off all of the AI on my continent, leaving one large AI on the other main continent. I just kept building nukes and dropping them on her cities from the carriers. Even though she had some naval units, she never once thought to send them after my carriers to stop the attacks. Space Race victory achieved.

 

[esoba]

Oh man, I love naval units. They are exceptionally powerful against cities and have a decent range. In civ5 one of my favorite units was artillery for it's ability to pound cities, but this go round it is naval units. With just a couple I can run amoke across the entire map even on the highest levels.

 

[WankIT]

I have been bombarded by AI Missile Cruisers.
The things I have noted though (I play pm continents)

AI not smart at building its navy. There is one wonder where one square is water, and guess what, they built harbor, etc. and the one water is filled with a lone missile cruiser. In land lakes, as I call it, no bigger than 4-6 tiles, they spawn AI naval units.

My recommendation, i play on a low level without the intention of steamrolling everybody. I like to keep a strong military to keep the status quo, and to enforce it...hence the AI catchs up on tech...so they eventually spawn naval units.

 

[Resipsa]

+1 food on sea tiles and +1food with lighthouse would be fine. Bonus sea tiles could be toned down.

 

[chazzycat]

So far I've played 3 games: 1 pangea, 1 continents, 1 islands.

The AI built quite large navies on the islands map, but much less on the other two. Small sample size, but maybe the map type could be part of the calculation...

 

[EgonSpengler]

The naval and maritime game in Civ V was terrible. I'm disappointed that it hasn't improved, but ah well...

 

[Ascote]

The AI being bad at naval combat only makes my battleships more appealing. Also, Harbors are insanely good, give +1 trade routes, production on internal trade routes, housing, food and production to city, my only gripe is that most great admirals aren´t worth much.

 

[Big J Money]

Navy in Civ VI is fantastic. Build some privateers and notice how you can pillage land tiles. Or easily take coastal cities with Ranged or Melee ships. Or use an aircraft carrier. I actually prefer naval combat to land combat since it's faster.

Now the AI... isn't much of a naval threat. I would like to see that improve. But that doesn't mean navies are no good!

 

[bcaiko]

Yeah, as several of us predicted: Coastal cities are bad, and without coastal cities, there's no need for a navy. They are strong units, but totally unnecessary. Why build something that serves little to no purpose?

Naval units are really powerful, you only need a few of them to take cities.

That's if there are any coastal cities worth taking. In my last game there were exactly 2 AI coastal cities on the entire map of 8 AIs. I took those cities with two ships, and I didn't really have to take those cities in any event.

Because coastal cities are bad, navies are bad. This was entirely predictable. And it was indeed predicted.