Ships are ridiculously powerful.

[Browd]

I've seen the AI build some impressive navies. In my last game Gandhi had a relatively big navy, it was IIRC 3 battleships, 2 carriers, 3 destroyers and 2 ironclads which he used to attack me with, although it's a bit less impressive when you consider that he forgot to put any aircraft of his large air-force on his carriers.

I see empty carriers all the time -- in fact, can't recall the last time I saw a carrier with planes. That's a pretty glaring AI fault that should be patched.

 

[Shadow717]

In my current game navies are how wars are fought. I've spent 2 eras fighting off Spain's massive fleet, and at one point even lost a city to it. Jerusalem was on a small Island between our two continents, and it was captured by the spanish 3 times, liberated by me twice.

I finally started making headway after my outdated navy of frigates and a lone privateer captured a Spanish battleship. After quite some time I've now managed to take several Coastal cities with my highly promoted navy. Once frigates get +range and 2x attack cities fall fast.

In the same game Hiawatha also has a large navy sailing around, and it's been picking off Spanish cities north of me while I was working on the south. I can already see that Hiawatha and I are gunna be fighting a nasty slugfest in the Irish sea (I'm using British Isles map), complete with subs and carriers loaded with aircraft, including atomic bombers

edit: overall I've been seeing the AI do fairly well with navies recently, I've even suffered several full force attacks from different (although nearby) continents

 

[Stellarnight]

I see empty carriers all the time -- in fact, can't recall the last time I saw a carrier with planes. That's a pretty glaring AI fault that should be patched.

I have seen Carriers with planes on it before. The AI had two carriers, one with 3 planes and the other with 2. Slowed down my land campaign and i have to build some ships to go hunting for the carriers.

 

[compwiz1202]

When I played vanilla, I found my navy did about 40% of my world conquering while playing as England. With every ship being able to attack at range, it made sacking cities easy.

It has taken me a bit to get used to melee only ships, but they are quite deadly with enough of them, and all ships shall not be taken lightly.

I was going for a science victory with Germany and had my fair share of conquering others, but Pacal had consistently been ahead of me tech wise. My navy is what turned that around. Subs wiped out his ships and embarked units, my battleships pounded his coastal cities and my infantry took care of the rest. And I nuked him...just because I had them...and I could.

Did you nuke him in 2012? They should have an achievement for that one too.

 

[compwiz1202]

Appears intentional; they've had years to change how it works if wasn't intended.

If your playing Darius and get a golden age (and that promotion) you can fire 2X and move with Crossbows. (And if playing the Huns in Fall in Rome where your composites have 4 MP, you can move 1 tile, fire 2X, and move back with them with that promotion.)

Is there a way to control the City States in the game, so you could play Darius with the military City State with Chu-Ko-Nus so you could attack 3x during Golden Ages?

 

[smallfish]

Actually, I think I'm going to expand more on those two shots I posted a page back. Context is important to understand the situ, I think:

Me and the Consul were great friends for quite a while. I had to tech up to Battleships to finish off Hiawatha's inland cap because even +1 range frigs are limited by firepower and range (and yes, we fought a 100-turn war the moment that new yawker settled one city too many). Which was a shame because Battleships would have made for a great endgame bang for some of the other inhabitants of this map

Like my good friend, Nappy

Spoiler :

He was embroiled in fighting two other runaways (Warmongering Isabella and Wonderspamming Pachacuti), so I did not expect him to have much in the way of garrisons...

Beachhead was quickly secured and two GW Bombers were brought in to support the advance

Spoiler :

As well as a couple Lancers and a cavalry; my calculations were indeed correct, his lands were empty and ripe for the taking!

Spoiler :

The only problem was that unhappiness... and that Nappy had managed to wiggle out a peace with two of them in the interim. Rouen was speedily taken but that proved to be a BIG mistake because -17 unhappiness

And Bonaparte began shifting all of his attention towards ME

Spoiler :

We fought for Rouen a lot, then I managed to nab Paris but this was when I suddenly lost two Logistics BBs and Nappy retook Orleans as well

Spoiler :

The bigger shock came with Napoleonic submarines... the best way to kill battleships other than through judicious airpower. Happiness was back to normal with the acquisition of Paris (Notre Dame) and some other lux trade plus an Eiffel (IIRC) and mercantile CSes

Spoiler :

It was too late however, since Nappy had already gotten the initiative despite me repaying Pacha to DOW him again. I had lost all of my melee ships (poor Turtle Ironclads ). Millions of French Legions and artilleries and stuff began making their way home west, to get rid of this Korean pestilence

Spoiler :

In addition to ONE TURN CAPTURING Colombo out in the middle of the ocean, the Grand Consul began applying wolfpack tactics on Korea's tediously long supply lines

Spoiler :

as well as hitting the sole harbor link Joseon ever had to the outside world by taking Canadaigua Lake here (after this, gpt fell from 161gpt to 99gpt) WHILE going on the offense on his own mainland

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

And I really wished there was a "Fire Your Military Advisor" option. That guy talks nothing but defeatism

Spoiler :

At the end of it, victory felt more... satisfying? This AI really fought viciously hard with its navies and didn't relent until way much later, and he did it while having to fight off two other much larger opponents (which was half the reason why he ended up offering me a nice peace deal instead)

 

[Ajuga]

What kind of map is that? The northern part is completely unsettled?

 

[smallfish]

What kind of map is that? The northern part is completely unsettled?

Tilted Axis.

Its completely barren (all snow) and empty of settling spots... unless you have AI growth bonuses, are Pachacuti (terrace farms) or you want to grab all that free uranium, oil and aluminum there.

Be careful though - TONS of barbs spawn there. Like tons. Armies.

 

[Shadow717]

Tilted Axis.

Its completely barren (all snow) and empty of settling spots... unless you have AI growth bonuses, are Pachacuti (terrace farms) or you want to grab all that free uranium, oil and aluminum there.

Be careful though - TONS of barbs spawn there. Like tons. Armies.

Tilted axis is worth playing everynow and then just to send out scouting parties to the wild north and try and survive the barbarian onslaught haha

 

[WChrisMullen]

Korea was at least one era ahead of me in tech, so I went after his coastal capital with a bunch of battleships and destroyers. Despite being in the Information Era, he neglected to upgrade his Turtle Ships. I was able to conquer Korea with no land units.

 

[Gucumatz]

Ships are incredibly strong in human hands. I am always afraid of playing with humans on MP on water maps because of the lack of defensible terrain with most watermaps. With AI you can abuse their navies far too easily and is why I try to avoid water maps on singleplayer

 

[Ajuga]

Tilted Axis.

Its completely barren (all snow) and empty of settling spots... unless you have AI growth bonuses, are Pachacuti (terrace farms) or you want to grab all that free uranium, oil and aluminum there.

Be careful though - TONS of barbs spawn there. Like tons. Armies.

That sounds like a lot of fun, I always play with raging barbarians on.
Will do it after I finish beating Rome with my Battleship armada.

 

[smallfish]

Tilted axis is worth playing everynow and then just to send out scouting parties to the wild north and try and survive the barbarian onslaught haha

Never tried it that far for Tilted Axis, to be honest. But I've seen the absurd spawn rates of barbs on Frontier eek and I'll give this a shot someday.

Besides all that empty space up there has tons of uranium

That sounds like a lot of fun, I always play with raging barbarians on.
Will do it after I finish beating Rome with my Battleship armada.

Aye, sometimes all the continents are connected through that snowspace to boot (like Pacha's lands to Hiawatha in those shots).

Loads of fun to be had for wide open space maps as these and Frontier.

 

[krc]

Tilted Axis.

Its completely barren (all snow) and empty of settling spots... unless you have AI growth bonuses, are Pachacuti (terrace farms) or you want to grab all that free uranium, oil and aluminum there.

Be careful though - TONS of barbs spawn there. Like tons. Armies.

... but the last time I played Tilted Axis, both the Fountain of Youth and El Dorado were way up in the frozen north -- and blocked off from access to all units by a layer of impassable snow tiles. I only found them after I got satellites. What a waste....

 

[krc]

I have seen Carriers with planes on it before. The AI had two carriers, one with 3 planes and the other with 2. Slowed down my land campaign and i have to build some ships to go hunting for the carriers.

And that's what submarines were made for. It's incredibly satisfying to sink a fully loaded aircraft carrier with a single torpedo.

 

[Love CiV]

Because of G&K, I'd agree.

In fact, in my current game, the first part of my victory plan revolves around a naval blitzkrieg of China. And then later on, my navy comes back in to nuke Hiawatha. I still see that last part as a 'definitely going to fail' idea, but aside from a massive amphibious attack, I don't see another option.