Tips for modern naval combat tactics

[SJN]

Hi.

Normally, when I get to modern naval warfare, I win just by being the tech leaders.

Well, yesterday I was playing a game where I was the Dutch on an Islands map. I had huge numbers of ships, but I found that even with my numerical advantage, I lost a *lot* of ships. After one very costly 5-turn war (which I won) I had to just about rebuild my decimated fleet.

I mean, I would do fine in open water.

The problem seemed to be that I'd bring a stack of ships to blockade/attack an enemy port, and his fewer ships inside the port would attack mine, the collateral damage making it so that his much smaller stack could destroy my stack pretty handily (very annoying to see transports picking off my last few missile cruisers).

So... stacks of ships are bad in the modern age? The Collateral damage of the battleship/missile cruiser seems to be very very significant. I was just doing Combat promotions, should I do first-strike promotions instead that limit the power of collateral damage? What other options do I have?

Also, because he was attacking from port, he can just stay in port and be healed a few turns later.

How do you guys engage in modern naval warfare?

-- SJN

 

[agentsmith952]

Hi.

Normally, when I get to modern naval warfare, I win just by being the tech leaders.

Well, yesterday I was playing a game where I was the Dutch on an Islands map. I had huge numbers of ships, but I found that even with my numerical advantage, I lost a *lot* of ships. After one very costly 5-turn war (which I won) I had to just about rebuild my decimated fleet.

I mean, I would do fine in open water.

The problem seemed to be that I'd bring a stack of ships to blockade/attack an enemy port, and his fewer ships inside the port would attack mine, the collateral damage making it so that his much smaller stack could destroy my stack pretty handily (very annoying to see transports picking off my last few missile cruisers).

So... stacks of ships are bad in the modern age? The Collateral damage of the battleship/missile cruiser seems to be very very significant. I was just doing Combat promotions, should I do first-strike promotions instead that limit the power of collateral damage? What other options do I have?

Also, because he was attacking from port, he can just stay in port and be healed a few turns later.

How do you guys engage in modern naval warfare?

-- SJN

It may be helpful to have a fully loaded aircraft carrier with you. Four fighters bombing enemy ships can reduce their strength before they get to you, and this can either make them do less damage or dissuade an attack entirely.

 

[Rusty Edge]

SJN, I think you might be interested in the Modpack I use, History in the Making , by Grave.

It has an Area 51 Wonder that provides 2 free scientists and a 50% aircraft production bonus, available with Advanced Flight, a lab and six airports ( I think ).

It includes JKP1187's events. The BUG mod. Influence -driven war.

It includes Dale's Combat Mod and Grave's revision of the airforces mod , (originally by The Lopez ), which allows for some more specific targeting - defenses, defenders, production, military buildings, civilian buildings- depending on techs , promotions and units. I can sink enemy ships in their harbors with stealth fighters, for example.

There are defensive promotions available to ships that that give them 15% per promo.

If that's enough to get you interested you can visit the thread by the link in my sigline. The first page will tell you about it. The last two will explain a work-around if you are using a 3.17 version of BTS., and a link to a patch that takes out a bug.



OTHERWISE- I'd say the answer to modern naval combat is to bring enough bombarding power, cruise missiles and marines to take the city in one turn .
Don't park off of the coast waiting for him to wear you down.

 

[SJN]

It may be helpful to have a fully loaded aircraft carrier with you. Four fighters bombing enemy ships can reduce their strength before they get to you, and this can either make them do less damage or dissuade an attack entirely.

Yeah, This doesn't work if they're *in* the city. That's where things fell apart for me.

-- SJN

 

[CLST]

You need to find the right mix of naval units.

Also you want to be on the attack, not the defense when taking on enemy naval stacks because the collateral damage is significant.

If your opponent is in port, can you not still attack his naval units? I haven't had a good naval battle in a long time so I do not remember.

Do not underestimate the power of Fully garrisoned carriers though. Yeah the naval units tend to have interception chances, but it still hopes to give it a good run usually, cuz most of the time you're not going to lose the unit, and air supremacy not only makes your stack look menacing, it also helps defend the skies.

 

[SJN]

SJN, I think you might be interested in the Modpack I use, History in the Making , by Grave.

It has an Area 51 Wonder that provides 2 free scientists and a 50% aircraft production bonus, available with Advanced Flight, a lab and six airports ( I think ).

It includes JKP1187's events. The BUG mod. Influence -driven war.

It includes Dale's Combat Mod and Grave's revision of the airforces mod , (originally by The Lopez ), which allows for some more specific targeting - defenses, defenders, production, military buildings, civilian buildings- depending on techs , promotions and units. I can sink enemy ships in their harbors with stealth fighters, for example.

There are defensive promotions available to ships that that give them 15% per promo.

If that's enough to get you interested you can visit the thread by the link in my sigline. The first page will tell you about it. The last two will explain a work-around if you are using a 3.17 version of BTS., and a link to a patch that takes out a bug.



OTHERWISE- I'd say the answer to modern naval combat is to bring enough bombarding power, cruise missiles and marines to take the city in one turn .
Don't park off of the coast waiting for him to wear you down.

Thanks for the tip for a mod! It sounds *really* fun. I've started winning at prince level, and was getting bored. Moving up in difficulty doesn't really sound like it would make the game more fun. But your mod does sound quite interesting.

As far as my naval combat strategies, I was doing just that... taking cities in one turn. Unfortunately, I had miscalculated the distance to one of the enemy cities and couldn't reach it with the transports in one turn.... it was a very, very costly miscalculation.

On the flip side, When I attacked Joao II a few turns later, I was more prepared and took 6 of his 7 coastal cities in a single operation. I had something like 15 cruisers (although only about 30 missiles), 15 transports, 60 modern tanks, 4 or 5 fully loaded air-craft carriers, and so forth. Six cities in one turn is my record so far.

-- SJN

 

[Rusty Edge]

See you there.

 

[JustinianVII]

Air support is important. Guided Missiles are your best friend. (Or, if you're on the receiving end, your worst enemy.) Load up the Missle Cruisers with them and waylay enemy ships. One or two missiles is all it takes to make a ship easily sinkable.

 

[SharpMango]

it looks like the problem you have is that your parking your stack outside an enemy city and probably enabling 'blockade'....
to blockade is verrrrrrry provacative to the AI and they will do anything in their power to destroy your stack...and who can blame them?
i think you need to get a bit smarter in your naval tactics in that case, if theyre charging out of port, meet them out in the open seas!
each and every single unit of yours has a specific objective, remember that. Right now, as a giant earth map player, i just invaded north africa (carthage)....
it took me about 20 battleships before i felt confident to go in...and even when i went 'in'..my ships had very specific purposes....they'd bombard and essentially provide cover for my troops to move in, this included several amphibious landings. In one particular city, there were approximately 15 enemy ships docked in the port....i parked my battleships outside, bombarded the city defences down, ran some air raids with my bomber fleet and invaded the city via off shore infantry that very turn..there were only 5 troops inside the city so i only needed 2 troop transports...
simple, i'd effectively destroyed 20 enemy units and taken 1 city for 1-2 losses (1 damaged bomber and 1 dead infantry)..
remember in situations of equality, you have to take as much advantage of your turn as much as possible, that is your moment to turn the slightest strategic advantage into a major one...
if you need to bombard but are scared of the ships inside for example...bombard then retreat...destroyers/battleships etc have considerable mobility and you should be able to get away, and in most instances, even in a naval invasion, youre own nearest city should be under 6-7 tiles away..
you have to be clinical and win even in heavily outnumbered situations...in levels like monarch up, the amount of production capacity of the enemy AI is phenomenal..given the same city sites, they WILL outproduce you and make more enemy units, the only way to beat them is via superior tactics...
good luck!

 

[SJN]

Yeah, so a lot of your comments don't seem very helpful. I know how to invade cities. I do that all the time.

What I'm hearing is, you can't blockade cities very well after modern naval technology becomes available.

And when I say "Blockade", I'm not talking about the civ IV function that blocks trade. I'm talking about blocking enemy ships from leaving a city that I'm not ready (for any number of reasons) to invade yet.

-- SJN

 

[majk-iii]

Well, maybe then... eh? ...keep your stack a little bit away from the city(/ies) and keep it "checked with subs and/or recon aircraft... perhaps deploy a few ships (albeit perhaps not stack-wise) to provoke the enemy to leave port. (?) -If possible; Then the col.-damage should begin to work in your favor instead. -Were you looking for something like that?

 

[majk-iii]

With the first "it" in above post btw, i meant the city in question... not your naval-stack.

 

[SJN]

Yeah, I guess. I guess this does answer my question about naval combat. You can't physically blockade ports after modern naval forces become available.

I am still curious about the first-strike promotion route to prevent collateral damage. Maybe I should try it in world-builder and see...

I suppose I could also spread the fleet out when blockading the port to prevent collateral damage.

-- SJN

 

[Clam Spammer]

If the enemy can do significant collateral damage, you shouldn't put all your units on one tile. This applies to land warfare as well, but even more to ships since they have much greater movement.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Well, actually, if naval combat is important to you, I might humbly suggest you check out a mod whose sole purpose is to improve the naval combat in Civ4... the Wolfshanze Mod... it does something few other mods do... it fills the gap between wooden frigates and modern WWII warships... it breaks down the ships into specific "ages" of ships... "Age of Sail", "Steam Age", "Pre-Dreadnought Age", "Dreadnought Age", "Modern Age" & "Nuclear Age" of ships... each category trumps the previous with a careful balance system... also, special naval promotions have been added, including "Gunnery Control", "Damage Control" and "Anti-Aircraft Upgrade". Not to mention carriers can now carry light bombers and dive bombers which are LETHAL to enemy ships (aircraft cannot sink ships in default Civ4). Oh... and each nation gets unique looking ships too...

If you want to spice-up your naval combat, and have more options (like destroying enemy ships with your carrier bombers), then try the Wolfshanze Mod... it's main focus is fixing naval combat... link for mod is in sig-line.

Screen Shots:

Spoiler :

 

[Cytral]

playing the wolfhanze mod

very cool

 

[SharpMango]

SJN-
You invade cities all the time, thats great, you're also pointlessly taking too large losses. that's fine. Re-read the posters comments and you'll see why you're taking them.

 

[Ravellion]

If you want to take a city (that's why you are blockading it right?), be quick and decisive. Bomb the daylights out of its defenses, then do an amphibious assault with marines, seals, or amphibious upgraded (Mech) Inf.
Alternatively, suicide a lot of artillery (without amphibious) and then ride in the tanks amphibiously (without the promotion, but that doens't matter anymore).

The fleet that was just threatening yours? Gone. The easiest way to kill ships is if they are still in port.

Basically, in the modern age, your first strike must completely cripple the enemy's war effort. Learn from the modern American military commanders in this.

 

[SJN]

If the enemy can do significant collateral damage, you shouldn't put all your units on one tile. This applies to land warfare as well, but even more to ships since they have much greater movement.

I understand this. But on land invasions, I use various tactics to offset the damage somebody can do to my stack with collateral damage.

* Promotions that inhibit collateral damage
* Promotions that are anti-siege
* Defensive terrain.

Now, in naval warfare, I can do the first of these, but not the latter two. The consensus seems to be there isn't much you can do about it.

-- SJN

 

[SJN]

SJN-
You invade cities all the time, thats great, you're also pointlessly taking too large losses. that's fine. Re-read the posters comments and you'll see why you're taking them.

My point about taking the cities is I already get that strategy. I know how to invade cities with minimal losses.

So, when I talk about naval combat, I see various "missions"

1. Home port/tile defense
2. Open seas engagements
3. Invasion support (bombarding, guarding transports and carriers)
4. Enemy ship containment
5. Resource blockading

I can do 1-3 pretty well. In pre-modern eras, I can do 4 and 5 too. The consensus seems to be that missions 4 and 5 are much harder to do with modern naval ships.

I already understand why I was taking the losses. Nobody seems to have a good suggestion for how to do what I wanted to do without the losses. I'm going to continue to investigate on my own with various strategies. I have a few ideas.

1. In this particular city I was blockading, they had only missile cruisers. Can a missile cruiser move past a stealth destroy it can't see? Maybe I could have blockaded the city with stealth destroyers

2. Maybe the no-collateral damage promotions would be useful here

3. Blockading with multiple rows of ships so that ships are not all on one tile.

-- SJN