Pace of expanding watercraft fleets

[CrazedCossack]

Apologies if this is redundant in regards to another thread that may already exist on the topic, but...

I was wondering if anyone could offer a few pointers on how quickly you should be developing your water fleets. I'm really lost in the sauce when it comes to galleys, caravels, workboats, etc. I'm not really sure how many I should have and how to use them to my advantage.

Any pointers would be much appreciated!

 

[coanda]

Welcome to the forums!

Regarding your question...
Whether you go workboat-first or worker-first on a start is going to depend, but generally getting workboats to hook up your seafood resources should be one of your highest priorities (spending 30 hammers to start getting 2-3 per turn extra is an extremely good deal). You may even build a workboat a bit in advance in one city so that it shows up at the new site the same turn as the settler makes the new city, and you can work a new seafood tile there immediately.

On maps where AIs are likely to be on accessible islands (e.g., Archipelago), one or at most two early workboats for scouting and contacting them is useful.

If you have seafood tiles to protect and a lot of coast (or nearby islands) so you can't just spread cultural borders everywhere to stop them from spawning, you'll probably want a galley to defend against barb galleys at some point. When you get this galley varies depending on map and difficulty level; get a galley before you get your fourth city would be my very rough estimate of typical time to do so. As you expand, you may want another galley/trireme or two to defend.

Get galleys as needed to escort settlers to new islands on water-heavy maps; you may end up with 2-3 this way. Often your barb-defense galley(s) can do double-duty helping with this.

Two caravels when you get Optics can be nice. One heads east, the other west. Both hopefully contact other civs, and ideally they get you the circumnavigation bonus of +1 movement.

Beyond that... you get the navy you need. In single-player, naval warfare generally isn't worthwhile before Astronomy and Steel (so you only get navy as you need troop-transport capacity). After that, it's going to depend completely on the game.

 

[Seraiel]

Workboats: As many as you got Water Ressources + 2 for scouting the map.
Galleys: As many as you need to transport Settlers to Islands.
Caravels: As many as you need for guarding your Galleys.

 

[happyturtle]

Never hurts to have a couple extra workboats on auto, ready to grab seafood that falls into your expanding cultural borders. But don't do that until the mad rush for hammers in the early game is past.

 

[Handel]

1. If you have sea resources harvested you need a galley around 2000 BC if you can to afford it because the barbarians can appear any moment. Replace it with a trireme when possible. You may need 2 ships if you have more sea resources.
2. If you are the first to get optics you need a caravel ASAP to grab the +1 movement bonus (obviously not that much important if you are on Pangaea and the navy warfare is supposed to be minimal). You can consider producing a trireme and upgrading it to caravel (if you have the gold of course) in the same turn when you get the optics to shave several turns. No need to replace the resource guarding triremes with caravels ATM.
3. You may consider building few caravels with +1 sight and putting them in open sea when the AI starts to get astronomy and can launch a sea attack.
4. If you are the first to get chemistry build a lot of privateers. On any other maps besides Pangaea a sizable force of privateers can through the AI back in the dark ages if it is late with the chemistry (and it often is but some civs favor it). Besides the privateers are on self-support even on Pacifism and and on other civics give you in average 1 gold per turn/privateer pure profit (after paying for their upkeep)

 

[Grashopa]

4. If you are the first to get chemistry build a lot of privateers. On any other maps besides Pangaea a sizable force of privateers can through the AI back in the dark ages if it is late with the chemistry (and it often is but some civs favor it). Besides the privateers are on self-support even on Pacifism and and on other civics give you in average 1 gold per turn/privateer pure profit (after paying for their upkeep)

I'm glad to see someone else joins me in my love of piracy.

 

[ben-jammin]

I've often had frigates come in handy right up through the cavalry/rifles/cannons stretch. If your targets have a bunch of coastal cities the benefits are obvious. If you have a sufficiently backward target they'll also usually have a bunch of enemy caravels to level up on (the AI tends to move them around in convenient groups of no more than 4, in my experience). It's amazing how many of your cavalry wont die without cultural defense to fight through, and bombarding with frigates doesnt slow you down.

 

[elmurcis]

I'm glad to see someone else joins me in my love of piracy.

It's awesome Privateer+Great General gave me 20 XP to start.. (stacked with 5 more Privateers just to defend it cause AI will attack 1-2 Privateers but only after Frigates with 3+ stack).
Than got Blitz promotion as next.... and when AI finally got Frigates I ended my piracy age by upgrading that ship to Blitz Destroyer with +75% Strenght and 30% withdrawal chance.. Whatever happens next.. it was fun