Navies....and my problem

[General Rommel]

I'm a ground war guy. I only use airplanes to 1)be my long range artillery and/or 2)to help take a city out for me. I 've never ever been a navy guy. In fact I only produce about 6 ships during a game most of the time, which makes me very weak. I want to stop that. I usally have about 12 Armies (they consist of 2-6 foot infatry or MI,1-3 cal, or tanks, and 1-3 howitzers), a 4 Air Wings (each with about 6 fighters and 3 bombers...enogh for me to hold a front). I'm willing to sacrifce 1-4 armies, and 1 to 2 airwings to make a nice strong Navy. I've noticed though that ships do take longer to build. I want a Navy that can go far and take damage and kill some more. So whats a nice size navy? I mean how many ships should I have all together in my navy? How, where, and when should I use it? Help a man get his sea legs here!!

 

[The Mass Leader]

Well, I do the thing this way:
You must build some very cheap ships, and surround your land with them. When the enemy sink them, you´ll know an attack is coming.

But if you want to attack, the system is different. You need a Battleship. Better, you need 2 Battleships.

You also need a Carrier with some Fighter and Bombers inside.

And you need a Transport with 3 Marines, 1 Howitzer and 4 Armors inside.

Well, now it´s time to move. Keep all your ships together when travelling. They will defend one each other, and all of them will protect the Transport.

When you reach enemy lands, just bomb the coastal cities with airplanes - they are good to kill strong defenders;

The Battleships are perfect for weak-guys destruction, so, bomb the city with Battleships. Then, just disembark the Armors inside the town. Leave one Armor there for defense, and go to the other beach town.

 

[geofelt]

The only navy I ever use is for transporting units and caravans. On rare occasions, I use navy to attack coastal capitols. If you use ships to attack, then make them veterans. Port facilities are like barracks, they build vet units. Lighthouse builds vet units, but it expires too soon, and the early units are weak. Try building sun-tzu, and send your navy along the coast looking for weak units to attack and become veteran.

 

[EquinoxOmega]

I usually have many cheap vessels to controll the keypoints on the map. Furthermore I stationed a couple of heavy ship in my coast cities or in the sea around my territory. If it's possible I also have a couple carriers and a medium fleet of transporters next to my main ground-army.

In the beginning of the game I use ship occupied with settlers and horesmen or knights(or better) to explore and colonize the world.

 

[bkwrm79]

You also need AEGIS Cruisers. Otherwise your battleships will be blown away with cruise missiles. Speaking of which, putting a couple cruise missiles aboard your carrier or subs is also good - that way you can damage enemy battleships enough that you can sink them with your battleships or bombers without too much risk of losing your own unit.

In the modern age, or playing scenarios like WW79, AEGIS Cruisers are generally the backbone of my fleet. I generally have one for each transport I'm escorting, often two to protect battleships or carriers, and usually some extras for scouting/sub-killing and to reinforce as needed.

 

[Maniacal]

hmm, thanks guys, now i can stop losing so many ships..though in my last game there wasnt much of a navy to fight agianst...it was a pacific map, i mostly used ships to move troops from BC to asia, and i took out there ports quickly, i never got better than cruisers, and the strongest ship i fought was a destroyr..wow...my grammer is bad..ugh..eat then sleep...not other way around..zzz