NAVY Strategies

[zaphod2016]

Great question Villainwill.

Do privateers hurt your rep?

Also, re: air superiority. I find that 12-18 bombers is enough to completely destroy all improvements surrounding the border of my territory in 3-10 turns. I can usually avoid serious wars by simply destroying enemy infrastructure. A good tactic for keeping warmongering neighbors in check.

When I am warmongering, I like to be one tech level ahead of my enemy. i.e.:

- Modern Armor v. Mech Inf
- Tank v. Infantry
- Cavalry v. Musketmen
- Knight v. Spearmen

I find that killing riflemen with cavalry, or mech inf with tanks, is waaaaay too expensive to be worthwhile. Keep in mind, I play vanilla, so far away cities are worthless due to corruption.

 

[gmaharriet]

Is that true!?! Even if I don't blatently give up my nationality?

On an earlier game, I made a half-a-dozen or so privateers and patrolled my entire continent (and others too, for fun) attacking anything in sight. Their mood towards me wasn't too polite, but I didn't attribute it to the Privateer attacks...

If that's true, what's the point of those blasted things?!
I kinda liked building them

When you attack another civ with your privateer, it is not an automatic declaration of war like it would be if you attacked with a Frigate.

Do privateers hurt your rep?

No, but "rep" and "attitude" are two separate things. Rep affects your ability to do per turn trade deals and things like ROPs. Attitude is just how much they like you...or NOT. Attacking with a privateer may affect their attitude toward you, but not your rep.

 

[Villainwill]

Ah, that makes sense. So maybe now, when I sink their galley w/ a settler in it, I'll just gift em a couple gold. That's if I really care about their attitude.

Thanks for clearing that up, gmaharriet.

 

[Light-Giver]

I love a strong navy, i always build multiple stacks of a few battleships, 1 or 2 loaded carriers, a bunch of destroyers surrounding the cruisers and battleships on all sides (to protect them from subs) mabe a few sups around them for extra elimination of fog of war, i make at least 2 of these special stacks so i can if i declare war i can send the closest 1 to that country.
I like to build gallies to protect againsed pirates, they dont stand a chance if their attacked but if they attack its a 50-50 chance, i love pirateers to gain superiority in the seas early and prevent others from expanding (1 time i stoped india from colonizing a good size island and they send a few waves of frigates and galleys towards me)
The pirateers are there for agressive nations who want to gain superiority in the seas or just to get thoughs countryies who dont understand the concept of borders out of your cost.

 

[scoutsout]

Thumbing through the thread I saw a couple of comments I thought I'd "reply" to.

On upgrading naval units - In C3C there is one upgradeable naval unit aside from the galley/caravel/galleon/transport line. The Cruiser can be upgraded to an AEGIS Cruiser - for free. They're nifty, but marginally useful since the spaceship victory condition is so close at hand. Of course, if you disable that VC....

On controlling the seas in the AA... the Byzantine Dromon is capable of doing just that.

 

[pickle]

i love to have a strong navy, in my current game as england, archi, 80% water i got magnetism a bit before the other civs so by the time they had got there i had a good fleet of man-o-wars, so i killed all their privateers and got even more ships
other than that it really depends on the map and how strong your competitors are.

 

[Aceman101]

Thumbing through the thread I saw a couple of comments I thought I'd "reply" to.

On upgrading naval units - In C3C there is one upgradeable naval unit aside from the galley/caravel/galleon/transport line. The Cruiser can be upgraded to an AEGIS Cruiser - for free.

Wasn't another one added too? The Ironclad -> Destroyer upgrade path. I can't quite remember if that was in vanilla or not but I think it wasn't. Also, I didn't know cruisers could be upgraded to AEGIS cruisers for free. That almost seems like they have the same value.

 

[scoutsout]

...didn't know cruisers could be upgraded to AEGIS cruisers for free. That almost seems like they have the same value.

I don't remember what the stats are, but they're not drastically different. AEGIS Cruisers can spot submarines. I also think they look cool.

 

[PaperBeetle]

An extra movement point iirc. And the AEGIS has a weaker bombard, but gets range 2. And yup, it looks cool.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Doesn't the AEGIS also get a better defense vs aerial bombard (or something ... I know in 2 they gave it double defense vs planes/missiles and 4x vs helicopters)?

 

[PaperBeetle]

Yeah, that rings a bell. And radar line of sight too (i.e. it can see two tiles away, irrespective of terrain)?

 

[ecuwins]

The Cruiser and AEGIS both cost 160 sheilds, hence the free upgrade. The difference is in the required resources - Aluminum and Uranium vs Oil. Also the AEGIS gets an extra movement point, ZOC, 1 less bombard point but 1 extra bombard range, and 2 better defense against planes.

 

[psweetman1590]

To be frank, I find them pointless. Their AA is too weak to defend much against bombers. Their bombard is UTTERLY CR...errrr, a bit on the weak side, if you're trying to hit modern units, especially in cities. By the modern age, you shouldn't be using ships to attack other ships, either - that's what airpower is for. If you want to defend transports, why not just use cheaper destroyers? I mean, I'm totally at a loss over what the heck to do with these ships.

 

[Aceman101]

To be frank, I find them pointless. Their AA is too weak to defend much against bombers....

Yeah... Urr, this might be true if it wasn't for them having the strongest AA capabilities, and... Urr, their cool animation makes up for their utterly horrible bombardment strength.

I don't think AEGIS cruisers' are meant for primary assault force operations, but rather their Anti-Air and their submarine-detecting capabilities.

 

[psweetman1590]

You want air protection? Get jet fighters. Put them on carriers. This will give MUCH better air protection than 4 AEGIS cruisers do, and if you include bombers on that carrier with the fighters, that'll give MUCH more offensive capbility too. You want anti-sub missions? Get destroyers, they're cheaper.

Heck, I don't even like the animation. I mean, when it attacks/bombards, what I see is this puny little main gun firing. AEGIS CRUISERS DON'T HAVE MAIN GUNS. They attack with missles. Not guns!

 

[anaxagoras]

AEGIS CRUISERS DON'T HAVE MAIN GUNS. They attack with missles. Not guns!

Actually, they do. A single 5-incher. It is 62-caliber, so it looks extremely long and skinny. It fires extended range munitions (essentially, gun-fired, radar- and GPS-guided rockets) which have a range of 60 nautical miles. It looks stupid, but it seems to work.

They also have a lot of missiles, too, of course. They usually carry a few anti-ship and land-attack missiles to go with their 100 or so anti-air weapons. In they game, they are way too weak against air units.

 

[Aceman101]

You want air protection? Get jet fighters. Put them on carriers. This will give MUCH better air protection than 4 AEGIS cruisers do, and if you include bombers on that carrier with the fighters, that'll give MUCH more offensive capbility too.

Well I never really knew that jet fighters could do air superiority on a carrier.

You want anti-sub missions? Get destroyers, they're cheaper.

But with AEGIS cruiser's, sub radars AND AA missions are amalgamated into one unit! Saves me having to buy a carrier packed with jet fighters PLUS another destroyer.

Ok I admit, the AEGIS cruiser's AA capabilities are not top-class. But they're not THAT bad either. I mean, what are the success rates for jet fighters doing air superiority? 50%? That's only 10% more than an AEGIS cruiser's chance of knocking down a plane.

Heck, I don't even like the animation. I mean, when it attacks/bombards, what I see is this puny little main gun firing. AEGIS CRUISERS DON'T HAVE MAIN GUNS. They attack with missles. Not guns!

Ok, once again, I admit the animation wasn't spectacular, but just the AEGIS Cruiser itself (not shooting) looks pretty good.

btw, AEGIS CRUISERS' DO SO HAVE GUNS!!! sorry for the caps, just imitating you.

 

[brennan]

The basic economic 'unit' in Civ is the city.

Can a navy capture a city?

No. Therefore they are pointless.

Their only use is to transfer the units you should be building to where they are needed, this requires whatever transports you have available + some escorts.

Enemy navies bombarding your coast may be irritating, but just count the resources they've spent to do it, and consider how easy it is to repair the damage...

 

[anaxagoras]

The basic economic 'unit' in Civ is the city.

Can a navy capture a city?

No. Therefore they are pointless.

Pointless? No. Ancillary? Yes. There's a difference.

I like playing with toys, personally, so I'll build a navy if I have a chance. But I would agree that most naval units aren't essential to victory, and in most cases aren't the most efficient use of resources. I won't build a navy if I'm focused on maximizing victory. But naval warfare is fun. The worst part about it in the game is that the AI sucks at naval war.

 

[Marsden]

The only naval unit, excepting transports of course, that could be important to winning that I've found is a Dromon. They are very deadly to land units with other units at the ready for the killing blow. I've posted all around about how I love them, they're floating catapults that move 4 (only on water) and carry two units.