Navies!? Yes, but why?

[gunkulator]

Once you've crossed the ocean, the Dromon should be used mostly for coastal bombardment of tiles. Just like you should check every turn to buy workers from the AI, you can negate the effectiveness of workers with bombardment. Doing it early and often can cripple an AI.

 

[sir_schwick]

First I usually establish a submarine net around my coast, just for recon. Then I put a submarine near every coastal city of my opponent civs starting with the most dangerous(monitor production). Then if I have the excess resources(i put a secondr ign of subs around the first. These just act like sentires, since they are invisible. it gives me a good idea if the AI is invading. if they are I can shift bombers/artillery a turn early.

 

[jkp1187]

Do you have trouble with the AI accidentally running into your submarine nets and forcing a war with you?

 

[sir_schwick]

I never had that happen to me.

 

[Prince David]

I've come to many of the same conslusions about navies myself. As for coastal defense a good road/railroad network and some reserved artillary and bombers (redline and sink, respectively) usually do the trick. I currently play reagent and I don't know if the AI gets more aggressive with navies at higher levels, but so far they're more of a nuisance than a threat.

As a slight refinement on your invasion stragtegy, AEP, stick a worker in your invasion stack and use them to build an airfield. Faster and cheaper than rushing an airpots (no support cost, too!) and works even during unrest. If you have a couple of defensive units ready for airlift right away they can act as de facto guards between turns.

 

[AEP]

As a slight refinement on your invasion stragtegy, AEP, stick a worker in your invasion stack and use them to build an airfield. Faster and cheaper than rushing an airpots (no support cost, too!) and works even during unrest.

Yeah, you're right! Didn't occur to me since I'm playing with the vanilla version (on Mac)

Anyway, just to change the subject for a sec... Now this thread has been running for a while and quite a lot interesting comments have been made about the use of navies, I don't know if there's much more to cover on this subject. So how about compiling some of this into a possible article for the war academy - or is that just wishful thinking?

 

[Geofflightning]

I think that your navy article is wonderful, and I think it should be put onto the War Academy. Last I checked, they had nothing on navies there, and I think this would be a splendid addition.

 

[AEP]

Just out of curiosity - how does an article get in the war academy? Who assesses it, how do you submit an article and so on

 

[kb2tvl]

For Navies, I suggest you play the Napoleonic, WWII and Middle Age conquests.

For Nap conquest, play Britian. The navy is critical part of transport.

For WWII, airports and air lift American troops and tansports move troops.

For Middle Ages, try the Byzantines. Ships move settlers much faster than workers can build.

For most games, the AIs navy gets obliterated early and destroying the rogue ship becomes standard fair. The AI has a bad habit of 'using' navy units.

 

[justp360]

i like using a fleet of subs to sink enemy ships , when they try to land on my land.
fighters help too to protect cities.
plus placing sonar buoys around the coast lines helps find enemy ships.

 

[Kietharr]

I usually just buy navywise:

10 battle ships
10 subs (transporting tactical nukes saves you 300 shields rather than buying an ICBM)
5 carriers with stealth bombers
and about 15-25 transports to make transport trails (or in modern times just to transport)

 

[Apocalyptic]

Here is my navy experience and this may or may not interest some of you. Yes...I realize that I am new to the forums kinda still but hear me out on this I am now playing ONLY on Monarch mode until I get better. Anyways...I got a Persian Monarch continents game. 70% water and 30% land. (Technically the IRL world is 29% land and 71% water but anyways...) Sedentary barbarians, 5 billion, temperate and I forget da others. At any rate...I started out on a continent with just Japan in a HUGE world with all da other civilizations listed as random and all slots taken. Okay...so I backstabbed Japan and took them out and then secured my continent. Had the eastern half of the major continent that I was not on explored by then.
Said to myself...I don't like those Byzantines...they are close and a good spot to do an invasion. Got 3 carriers full of bombers, backed up by 4 battleships, 3 destroyers, and 1 sub thrown in for good measure. 3 transports full of tanks were in this stack as well. Also I might add taking over Byzantines would give me that strategic resource I needed that apparently noone else was willing to trade me for Modern armor So 2 turns of bombing at most brought their cities to population 2-3 with 1 unit left guarding it at most...usually nothing left and I am talking size 8-12 cities here typically. Anything went down in 3 turns no matter the size. Any ships that tried to invade...I gave them priority as bombing targets...units that were trying to invade my tanks that made landfall...they got bombing priority too. Basically...I only lost 2 tanks tanking out half of the huge continent. Every city they attacked had no defensive units cuz I had killed them all. Thats right people...I took over an entire half of a huge continent of a HUGE map with just 3 transports worth of tanks and this huge mock navy I had built up. Did owning my own secured continent have alot ta do with it? YES. Did me getting every single nation to go to war in endless combinations to use their distraction as a benefit help me? Most likely...that was my goal of course...although not to say I didn't haveta fight a few off
The point is...I used little land units and basically just went city to city along the cost wiping them out. Now heres the problem...inland cities...I'd used diplomatic manipulation(btw I was a hated guy...a lil costly) to get civilizations to attack them. They were more than happy to wipe them out with help done by me. (This is where I lost a few tanks) I would grab certain key cities I felt were worthwhile and speed build airports and bomb the close inland cities(3 at most left, sometimes 4) and followup with tanks. I didn't start losing alot of tanks until I got to the Sumerians who were my scientific equals. Note: I barely finished the game in time before 2050 Were there alot of things I could have done better to have gotten a quicker Conquest victory? Probably. The fact is I think its impressive in my opinion that I was able to fight a modern era kinda war and pull it out on a HUGE map. So what do you think people? My navy and carrier bombers did like 85%+ of the work btw. Most of the cities that I took over...there was noone left for my tanks to fight and they just went on in It was pretty funny. If I had ta do it over...I would have gotten 2 more battleships, 1 more carrier of bombers and bringing more tanks into play(I coulda done that...was kinda lazy about it) Also mebbe using key cities with speed building airports woulda helped with the inland fighting...(I HATE SUMERIANS when they computer plays them! GRRR!) At any rate...I got a Conquest victory

 

[Apocalyptic]

Sorry for the messy post I will make future ones alot cleaner and less wordy.

 

[Ringo Kid]

AEP, I take you point about a Navy being of limited use, though I differ a bit in my strategy for actually using it. I think the best use is at that point in the game where all the AI's decide to gang up on some poor civ, and that seems to happen in every game at about the same point where you get the techs for battleships and tanks and such.

What I suggest you try is to build a good number of transports, and a few battleships /destroyers to protect them. Then you fill the transports with Marines, some Infantry, a bit of Artillery, and those now obsolete Cavalry units, and some settlers and workers. Then you park your fleet in the ocean somewhere, all ready to jump on whatever poor civ gets picked as the "Rogue State" in that particular game.

When you figure out where the best landing spot is, where you can grab a luxury or something, you send the fleet there. First land the cavalry, artillery and infantry within bombardment range of the city, then on the next turn you bombard the target city with your Navy, and Artillery , then attack with your Marines, and if needed, the cavalry.

In this case though, dont rush the Airport, instead rush a temple, a Library, a Cathedral , disbanding a transport or warship each turn and adding cash to rush with. The city will grow (borders expand I mean) in Four turns, at which time you move a settler out to within range of another enemy city, and in that turn build a city, move the artillery into range- bombard and attack with your now rested cavalry. Then you repeat the rush building process, disbanding Cavalry or Marines and adding cash. Then you take your other two or three settlers you brought along in your original invasion, and make some new cities three squares outside of your newly expanded borders, (another four turns) and when those new cities expand their own borders, you will have a nice chunk of enemy territory added to your empire.
Remember that in this situation, the "Rogue State" will be very weak, and not put up much of a counter attack, and there should be plenty of open space left by the other AI civs razing cities left and right.

Then at this point you are probably going to want to build an airport and bring in your shiny new Tanks, or whatever military you want to add, in case the AI decides its time to gang up on YOU next.

Dont disband all your transports and warships though, because you will need them to tranport settlers and workers to the new territory and build some more new cities. (The settlers and workers cant use the airports, oddly . )

This is particularly good if you are in Democracy, as you will actually do very little fighting, and will have lots of cash for the rushing. In fact,.if the situation is right, you can just bring extra settlers but fewer military and start your new cities in the open territory, without ever even declaring war at all.

Think of it as trading the shields used to build the "D Day Fleet" for some new territory and hopefully new cities and luxuries.


And in response to your question about adding to the War Academy, at the bottom of that page it says this : "If you have written a strategy article, you can post it to the Strategy Articles forum inside the Civ3 Strategy & Tips forum and we will consider adding it to the War Academy. Also, let us know if you see any good strategy threads in the forum. Please include the URL and thread title in your email. "

 

[Ringo Kid]

Apocolyptic, sounds like a fun game! What version? Are you saying your bombers killed defenders before your tanks got there to finish the job?

 

[Trev]

I have found that late in 3rd age and in the 4th a largish navy is essential, but I use it primarily as an escort for fleets of carriers and aircraft. I may have up to 15 carriers in a group escorted by a dozen or more destroyers, cruisers and battleships carrying in excess of 50 bombers. This then makes invasion of islands and continents very simple as the bombers empty the target city of all units at which time a marine can walk into the city allowing transports to offload a multitude of armies ready to move onto secondary cities. As I often will empty the cities of defenders several times before my first landing, usually the AI has moved a lot of their free units into the city for slaughter including some of their attacking units, so that the counterattack upon the capture of the first city is much weaker than usual. The bombers are always kept offshore in carriers as they are never attacked there by the AI whereas if based in cities,some could be lost to enemy bombardment by ships or bombers as they are always the first unit hit by bombardment in cities

 

[scoutsout]

@AEP: I'm glad you enjoyed my piece on Marines. Some general thoughts:

Regarding England: The Man-O-War lends itself to naval dominance in that period from Magnetism to Combustion. A late middle/early industrial era naval strategy for the English should probably look very different from any post-combustion naval strategy. Re: Man-o-War v. Ironclads... note that in C3C Ironclads are a separate, optional tech (and IIRC there's a movement differential there..)

I like your general idea that navies are 'stepping stones'. I think you have correctly concluded that ground combat is generally more important in this game than naval warfare.

I think your ideas for using airlift following an amphibious assault are on-point, and make for a sound variation on the tactics I described. Those tactics in the Marines article are written in a general way so that they can be applied in or games. In a C3C game you could use a worker to build an airfield outside a city you just captured, and reduce the size of the navy you'd need for following up "D-Day". You'd only need enough of a navy for the initial assault...and you wouldn't need to cash-rush an airport. @Prince David - writing as I'm reading the thread, and just noted you caught that.

I'm curious about your use of Battleships as escorts. I tend to build few Battleships, preferring a larger number of Destroyers and (in C3C) Cruisers. I just love the speed of Destroyers in C3C... on occasion I've been known to forego invading another continent (pusuing spaceship or diplomatic win). In those games I will build a fair number of Destroyers, and with them I can see any coming invasion, and generally own the seas.

@sir schwick: Subs are a love-hate thing with me, and since C3C destroyers can detect subs I rarely build many of them... though Planetfall shared a "wolfpack" tactic with me once that looked really good for picking off an enemy carrier that was harrassing him in a game he was playing. jkp1187 makes a valid point about the risks of submarine nets. "Accidental wars" have been known to happen in C3C games.

Anyway, just to change the subject for a sec... Now this thread has been running for a while and quite a lot interesting comments have been made about the use of navies, I don't know if there's much more to cover on this subject. So how about compiling some of this into a possible article for the war academy - or is that just wishful thinking?

Another @AEP: On getting something in the War Academy, here's my experience: Write something, and have some good players (hopefully good players who also write well) review it privately. Then you re-write it, revise it, re-write it, and post it in the Strategy Articles forum (where a bunch of people who think you wrote it over a cup of coffee will promptly rip you). If your article survives the 'ripping' and if it's original, fundamentally sound, potentially helpful, and well written, there's a chance that it'll get picked up in the War Academy. Any weaknesses in those areas and the chances of it getting picked up in the way go down. Both my Marine and Paratrooper articles are admittedly weak on that last count the "potentially helpful" issue, as many games are decided before those units come into play...

Personally, I'd like to see a good article on naval tactics in the War Academy, but I'm not sure how many others would share that sentiment. There are a couple of things that make it a bit hard:

• As others have pointed out in this thread and elsewhere, naval warfare is normally of secondary importance to ground warfare in this game.
• Many of the best players win (or at least decide) their games before the Age of Sail", let alone Combustion. See the GOTM spoiler threads...
• There are big differences between the way naval units perform between and .

I'd have to dig way, way down in the forums to find the discussion of naval tactics that included Planetfall, myself, and others. I outlined a "Cavalry screening with destroyers" tactic in that thread, and Planetfall's "Submarine Wolfpack" tactic is in that thread. (Note: surfed for it, it's gone now. That's a shame, there was some good discussion there...)

Keep an eye out for Planetfall if you enjoy discussing naval tactics. He's a good one for that.

 

[Smartsquid399]

I actually find navies usefull in Conquests like WWII in the Pacific. They are very important and are the key to victory.

 

[seanos08]

An easier way to get a city on another continent is to take a settler and build it - preferably on or adjacent to a lux or res you want. Then rush an airport to bring in more troops, a barracks to heal units and a harbour.

The enemy will throw lots of cav etc at your invasion force and having a city allows units to heal.

 

[smallstepforman]

Another naval strategy (not discussed) is using them to escort carriers to enemy capital. On large maps, I often find that the closest invasion point is far from the capital (its closer to my territory, and less susceptable to cultural flip). I usually have around 4 loaded carriers and supporting naval fleet for protection waiting close to the capital - once the invasion starts, I use bombers to cut the capital off from the rest of the enemy civ. With no cities having access to rubber/oil, the enemy is crippled within 10 turns, allowing my 2nd invasion force (the first only grabs 1-2 cities, and takes the brunt of the enemy counter attack) to finish off the weakly defended cities.

My games end up using at least 2 fleets - one to protect the initial transports, one to protect the carriers operating deep in enemy territory. A third fleet is left at home for protection.