Stacked naval units' defence

[John Lenin]

In my last game, building up to an invasion, I built what I grandly thought of as a 'carrier group' - 2 carriers, 3 battleships, 5 destroyers, and 8 subs. I moved the subs in a strung-out circle around the destroyers, who were in 5-star formation around the nucleus - my carrier and the battleships, who were stacked.

Cutting to the chase, I lost most of my subs and destroyers to enemy ships (I was at war with the entire world at this time and they were easy pickings for any passing vessel).

But I thought my carriers would be safe, or reasonably safe, being stacked with the battleships, who would take any attack and hopefully win or hold out long enough for me to get the carriers away.

So I was pretty gutted when the next attack on the stack saw my carriers defending (and losing), not the battleships. Why? I thought the unit with the highest defence strength automatically defended first?

 

[Tomoyo]

Were you attacked by a sub?

 

[Gogf]

He must have been.

 

[John Lenin]

I don't exactly remember, but if subs are somehow exceptional to the rule then yes it must have been. So how does that work then? If my sub attacks a naval stack, do I get to select which unit is attacked?

 

[Tomoyo]

Yes.

 

[Evincar]

Yes, subs have "stealth attack", meaning they can select the unit in the stack, rather than facing the best defender.

If you want to properly protect your convoys, try using destroyers, that are faster than Bships, to scout the seas around you, detecting enemy subs (which are rather slow), and sinking them to counter the menace (destroyers are good enough for that). Also, you can use a couple of fighter in recon mission to find enemy ships, but keep at least one in air superiority if the enemy is using bombers. I recommend not to put subs around your stack, but instead protect them as much as possible.

The AI always has a big advantage in naval war, since it maphacks, but if you are smart, since the AI is NOT, you can overperform it.

 

[John Lenin]

Thanks for the advice, I have only played 3 complete games so far and won them without bothering too much about naval power (as the AI never seems to bother much either). My current game on Monarch though is proving much tougher and I'll need every advantage I can get.