Navies still have only situational use in gods and kings

[kolpo]

Hello, I just got the gold version of civilization 5. I played vanilla before, but while I like most of Gods and kings, do I feel that navies have still only very situational use.

Not only does that enemy city need to be at sea, but it also needs to be in a location that can be reached by your navy in a reasonable amount of time.

Each hammer that is spent on a ship is not spent on a land unit, spending it on a land unit still seems the best choice in quite all cases.

Am I missing something here, is there a successful navy focused strategy in civ 5 Gods and kings? Can any civ use it's navy to dominate like victorian britain did?

 

[Tabs]

Two words: island map.

 

[Seabastian Civ]

Hello, I just got the gold version of civilization 5. I played vanilla before, but while I like most of Gods and kings, do I feel that navies have still only very situational use.

Not only does that enemy city need to be at sea, but it also needs to be in a location that can be reached by your navy in a reasonable amount of time.

Each hammer that is spent on a ship is not spent on a land unit, spending it on a land unit still seems the best choice in quite all cases.

Am I missing something here, is there a successful navy focused strategy in civ 5 Gods and kings? Can any civ use it's navy to dominate like victorian britain did?

Galeasses have 2 range. Frigates, too. This means you can hit units that are on the coast as well as units 1 tile in from the coast. Battleships have 3 range. They can dominate the coast.

If you take land targeting upgrades, your ranged ships will wreak havoc from the seas.

Don't think of ships as only naval power. Consider using them to supplement your land army. Is the city within 2 tiles of the sea? Soften it up with your ships. If not, send your ships up and down the enemy coast, destroying anyone foolish enough to come into range. Move your own units along the coastline. They will be covered by your ships.

Never forget the quote from a previous civ, "He who controls the seas controls everything."

 

[Smokeybear]

Never forget the quote from a previous civ, "He who controls the seas controls everything."

Except on a pangaea map where nobody is even doing much of anything near the coasts.

 

[Love CiV]

Seabastian's post did a great job explaining it.

In addition, late game navies, especially carrier groups are even better than land units. The only downside is that you can't capture cities with a bomber

 

[joncnunn]

Even on Pangena; a good navy in G&K will easily over run the coastal cities.

Now the first ranged naval unit is rather weak to end a turn within range of a city's bombardment, but its an excellent pre-build to Frigates. (In the mean time, it does indeed bombard units from safe tiles; if your opponent has a navy then that, otherwise land targets. Can even bombard a civilian if there's nothing better to do just for more XP to get it closer to +1 range.)

Carriers are much more situational in Civ V where cities have unlimited support. If you already have a city close enough to your target city; you won't need them. But the bomber not being able to capture city shouldn't be a down side as you should have a Destroyer or two as part of your carrier group anyway. (Bombers first bombard the city and that Destroyer that started as a Privateer (in a city with an Armory) and so has Coastal Raider III easily takes the city.)

 

[WChrisMullen]

There's also nuclear submarines you can load with nuclear missiles.

 

[Callonia]

Well... do you want? An Skies of Arcadia world? Oh wait, taht's what you was really looking for XD YEAH I get your feeling, I would like to see skies of arcadia mod too lulz.

And plus, it seems you're forgetting the navy will make your coastal cities safer and making an land invasion easier than it would be in first place. And they also make local land forces stronger by simply being there and harassing the enemies.

 

[DemonMaster]

The goal for having ships is to support land units and move land units. In order to do that safely, you need to have a navy that can both protect your own support and "transports" and to destroy your enemies.

There was a quote in an old board game that was something like that you can't win a war with a navy but you can loose it if you don't have one or something like that. In one of my latest games I had a tall empire with only one coastal city. When I (and an ally) needed to stop a runaway I attacked his city nearby (nearby through land), but my problem was that he had a large navy to support his units there and I couldn't reach that sea from my "sea" (ice stopped anything but subs). This was a terrible and very costly war that took way to long to finish (I lost that game).

Sure, a navy isn't this important in every game, it depends on the map type and also what civs you have.

 

[Zezima]

I'm confused about how there could possibly be a scenario where naval units aren't situational. Naval units perform in sea battles and have more limited use in land base battles, just as they do in reality.

What others have said pretty much sums it up, naval units supplement land units by escorting them and assisting in establishing beachheads.

Spending hammers on land units is not always optimal. Try assaulting an endgame Elizabeth on another continent at equal tech level with purely land units. I guarantee it will end in a bloodbath.

 

[Koiranputki]

I wouldn't say I'm great with the naval battle scenarios, but it is something I'm working on. I think you have to try to anticipate that you may need a navy well ahead of any immediate requirement.

Often once you become aware that there is a runaway civ on some other continent, it may be getting a bit late in the day to start scrambling to build a navy. And often they seem to have their capital just out of reach for naval bombardment alone....or maybe most frustrating, when only one battleship at a time can hit their capital... So you will likely need carriers and aircraft as well as your landing party....

If you do it right...or get lucky I guess, you can take them down....I have done it, though not consistently.... And the sooner you can nail back the runaway the better.... All part of the reason you need to be out there exploring as soon as possible...along with keeping on top of the "millions" of other things that seem more pressing ....

 

[Loucypher]

Strong navies can completely cripple Civs. I've played more then one game where a well-timed naval strike flung a dangerous opponent back in the tech race enough for me to take the game over. I do play mostly on Small Continents which does favor having a strong navy, but even on most other scripts, this holds truths - most civs will have at least one or two coastal cities which provide them with beakers...

 

[s0nny80y]

The AI mounts some pretty dubious sneak attacks by sea. Unlike land maps with it's many natural chokepoints, monitoring every enemy port can be taxing, let alone trying the impossible task to patrol the seas.

 

[kirbdog]

To quote a marine, "I like you Navy boys. Whenever we have to go somewhere to fight, you folks always give us a ride."

If anything the navy in Civ 5 is more powerful than it is in reality. In Civ 5 G&K the navy can not only carry missiles and planes and nukes, just like in real life, but can also take any coastal city without anything more than the crew on board. The only thing it doesn't do is go amphibious and take all the inland cities too.

 

[Altisma]

Navies would be more useful if they still had the transport role.

Also how has nobody yet complained about how triremes are worthless other than scouting?

 

[Bechhold]

Navies had never really had any use besides staying close and defending the rare cross ocean invasion, and scouting of course. In BNW it seems there will be some use in protecting trade routes(the 40 tiles length anyways), but all depends on Piracy, and Privateers if they are indeed actual Privateers.

 

[kolpo]

I now tried a game on an archipello map where I decided to build quite no land units, I did defeat the mongols their land focused army by using a ton of ranged ships and a few melee ships to finish the city. This was with many galleass + a few caravels. The ranged ships seems to be the most usefull ones ecxept finishing off a city with no hit points are ranged ships the best.

I shall later test how this strategy works agains a run away India that is an era ahead of the rest

 

[Matthew.]

I'm confused about how there could possibly be a scenario where naval units aren't situational. Naval units perform in sea battles and have more limited use in land base battles, just as they do in reality.

What others have said pretty much sums it up, naval units supplement land units by escorting them and assisting in establishing beachheads.

Spending hammers on land units is not always optimal. Try assaulting an endgame Elizabeth on another continent at equal tech level with purely land units. I guarantee it will end in a bloodbath.

Agreed with this post.

What would the opposite of "situational" be? Sailing your battleships up on to land and cruising along roads?

 

[Smokeybear]

What would the opposite of "situational" be? Sailing your battleships up on to land and cruising along roads?

Navies are just naturally sea-tuational.

 

[kolpo]

With battleships was it very easy to blast the indians and everyone on the archipelo, this was an easy domination victory. I didn't build enough of those ranged ships before.