Naval strategy discussion

[Objectivist]

Hi everyone,

These are my ideas on the use of naval power throught the different eras in Civ 3. I thought i might let the community, espically those with expirence writing strategy threads like Vel, to take a look at them and throw in any ideas or comments they might have.

1. In the ancient era and during most of the middle ages naval power is only really suited for two tasks, exploration and expansion.

This is simply because during the ancient era every civilization is racing to acquire as much land as possible, and investestment in naval reasources merely subtracts from the reasources you could be putting into settlers to build more cities, into buildings to make your cites more valuable, and into land uints that could be used to protect and expand your empire. However what naval units can do during this time is allow you to expand to additional areas if your hemmed in by other civs or if you are isolated on a single island/continent. In addition naval units will allow you to explore and find any additional civs thus enabling you to trade and acquire technologies quicker. Finally naval power in this period will enable you to find and and secure reasources and luxuries that may not be available on the landmass that you initially begin on.

2. During the the late Middle Ages onward naval power comes into its owned as a force to be reckoned with. Naval Bombardment can make a signifigant difference in land battles, offensive naval units allow the control of the sea lanes between continents, and perhaps most importantly naval units can interupt the flow of trade and reasources through blockades. This last ability is perhaps the most important ability of naval forces in this era. By blockading an enemy you manage to not only limit their unit selection by restricting their strategic reasources but you also decrease the total efficiency of their empire. This is because every luxury that your opponent imports allows him to devote people and income towards productive work and reasearch that would otherwise be engaged in the production of luxuries. This, incidentaly, is why the privateer is so valuable even though it has such weak military stats, you can signifiagantly weaken another civilization without ever going to war with them. Off the top of my head I cant think of another way that you can limit another civs unit production options, reasearch speed, and income without starting a war.

3. The modern era is when the ability to blockade is finally made obsolete. This is because of three developments that render square to square naval forces less important. These developments are

a. Naval Avaition
b. Airports
c. Precision bombing


Naval Aviation, and Aviation in general allows you to reach farther inland and bombard improvements that are out of the range of regular naval units, thus limiting an enemy civs access to a reasources without the iniation of a blockade. Furthermore arial bombardment, if continued long enough will allow you to undue centuries of improvements on a civilization's countryside.

If an enemy is able to maintain air superiority, then a naval blockade might seem to be the logical solution to your problem, however this is no longer feasible in the late industrial and modern eras because of the airport. Airports allow civilizations to avoid naval blockade by simply flying the reasources. This is quite a signifigant problem and in my option the best counter to it is presented in the modern era, namely precision bombing. Precision bombing allows you to take out trade facillitating improvements such as the naval port and air port. By eliminating these facilities you eliminate the need for a blockade, simply because you opponent will be unable to conduct any shipping with areas it is not connected to by land routes.

On a side note I think blockades are only worthwhile if you are either unable or unwilling to directly attack and conquer the cities of an opposing civ. By taking the cities you permenantly expand your empire while decreasing theirs, which is much better then decreasing their efficiency temporarily. Blockades are also a good idea when the other civs have more culture then you and any cities that you take/found would be retaken through cultural.

On a final note naval power can provide the ultimate fall back in the modern era in MP. Humans players are much more sneaky then AI is capable of being at this point, and it is entirely possible that they might start a nuclear war and destray all your counter nuking abilities with a massive first strike before you begin your turn. Even if this happens, Naval power provides the ultimate insurance policty! ICBMs cost 500 shields and are immobile, forcing them to remain in cities making them easy to destroy if the other human player/s attempt a nuclear first strike against you. Tactical Nukes are not only much cheaper (300 shields each and 140 shields for every nuclear sub, saving you a total of 260 shields per 2 useable nukes built) but are also mobile. While ICBMS cannot be hidden, you can hide nuclear subs on any accessible water tile on the entire planet, making it entirely possible to retain the ability to completely obliterate your opponent if they ever decide to innitate a nuclear war against you.

[Catt]

I don't have enough experience with exploiting Civ's naval units and capabilities to their full extent. Sadly, I've found that being very good at naval tactics isn't too important to my overall success in any given game, even on an archipelago map -- though perhaps this is my own misperception because I don't fully understand the power of naval forces .

I am going to use AU 103 (note to self: gotta download that baby!) to experiment with a variety of naval strats. I am particularly looking forward to trying to employ an effective naval blockade against an entire civ - I have blockaded AI "colony cities" (i.e. those isolated outposts far from the motherland), but never tried to blockade an entire civ. With 2 or fewer native harbors and no road access to allied harbors (island civs), it should be doable.

Have you successfully blockaded an entire civ before? It always seems to me that the AI's contiguous land border with a friendly civ and/or a large number of harbor-enabled coastal cities makes a true blockade a daunting challenge.

Catt

[Theseus]

Objectivist,

Play AU 103!! It's gonna be a naval treat (or is that a Britney Spears thing?).

Like Catt, I haven't done too much advanced naval strategy / tactics, other than picket lines and some massive combined arms invasions. Oh, and the naval Ragnarok that is MT V!!

Anyway, I've just gotten to caravels, and I'm 2 turns from magnetism... as the Royal Navy toasts: "A willing foe and searoom!!"

[Cyclonic]

In recent games I have made a mental note to look for opportunities for blockade, and I haven't found one yet. It always seems to be impossible to find enough ships to cover every harbour exit square, which may mean 30 or more. What's more, the enemy can break a blockade not by building ships to attack but merely by rushing up another harbour somewhere else, ideally one on a promontery or isthmus with 5 or 6 exit squares. On one occasion this happened during the time it took to get the fleet there!

I have only been blockaded once. I built one harbour and began trading. A few turns later both my deals disappeared, and I couldn't see why. It took a good few minutes before I saw that my harbour had only one exit, in which was sitting a barbarian galley

To make blockade feasible I think a code change would be required: for ships, extend the meaning of Zone of Control so that the squares adjacent to a naval unit with ZoC are blocked squares for trade purposes, unless currently occupied by a friendly unit with ZoC. Then you would have frequent and bitter naval conflict over trade routes in the sail era, as it should be.

Actually, an even better but more complicated addition would be this: make each harbour capable of importing and exporting one trade good. If that harbour is blockaded, any deal dependent on it is ended. Meanwhile, other harbours might continue to trade.

If anyone can report successful blockading under the current rules I'd be happy to hear it, because I've almost stopped bothering to look for the opportunity.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by Catt
. . . though perhaps this is my own misperception because I don't fully understand the power of naval forces .

. . .Have you successfully blockaded an entire civ before? It always seems to me that the AI's contiguous land border with a friendly civ and/or a large number of harbor-enabled coastal cities makes a true blockade a daunting challenge.

Catt

It is Firaxis, not you, that has no idea about the power - and purpose - of naval forces.

Of course blockades are almost impossible, and rather pointless, in the current game system. I have seen many superior options, such as having ONE warship on a coastal tile within two of the city/town. But Firaxis won't do anything.

Privateers and subs should be able to attack merchant shipping on trade routes, but they can't.

So the naval aspect of Civ 3 is, as has been stated many times, very poor and another disappointment.

[Theseus]

For once, I agree.

I always thought once of the most fun things to do in Civ2 was merchant shipping disruption.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Coracle

I have seen many superior options, such as having ONE warship on a coastal tile within two of the city/town. But Firaxis won't do anything.

I really like this idea too. Brings into the game a concept of interdicting trade routes without having to re-engineer the game's whole trading system. It would do wonders for the naval aspects of the game.

It is Firaxis, not you, that has no idea about the power - and purpose - of naval forces.

Well . . . you know that I have to give you my counter-rant: I suspect that the Firaxis team probably has a pretty good understanding of the historical uses of naval forces (or at the very minimum have seen other implementations of naval power in other games ), but deliberately designed away from some aspects in their quest to build an engaging game.

Catt

[I-iZ-1337]

Nav33z r n33l33 uzelez, if j00 wantz t00 b33 a worldz powerz j00 n33d massivez goundz forcez... th33 nav33 iz onl33 uzed t00 tranzportz th33 ground unitz fromz onez continentz t00 anotherz. Givez m33 a bigz militar33 overz a hugez nav33 an33dayz.

[Objectivist]

Actually, this just occured to me but a good way to "blockade" another civilization is by using the trade embargo diplomatic agreement. The benefits of this agreement cannont be overlooked if your trying to blockade another civ. All land trade routes going through the lands of the civ you have the agreement will be cut off, in addition it MIGHT be possible that the civ you have the treaty with might help you blockade the enemy civs ports. The reason i think this is because of a the rather interesting defination of the trade embargo found in the civilopedia.

Trade embargo
An agreement that neither of you will trade or ALLOW trade with a third party.

This could have some rather severe implications because it could mean that your new blockade buddy may indeed assist in your blockading efforts beyond merely adding naval units to the effort, it may mean that this treaty civ may actually pressure other civs to cut off all trade relations with the enemy civs and sign trade embargos against the enemy civ.... Im not sure if this is true or not though, can anyone shead some light on this issue?

[Qilue]

I had influenza for the last 5 days and feeling like crap, I just watched TV, in particular, the History Channel.

Of particular interest were those programs about submarines and their role in intelligence gathering. The two types in the game (conventional and nuclear) can be used for this. Patrolling the border, searching for enemy shipping, updating coastal maps among other things.

Conventional subs can be modded to carry 2 or 3 foot units. This could allow them to function as a delivery system for special forces. Even some form of bombard cabability could be added too since most WW2 era diesel submarines did have a gun on their deck.

The second option kind of increases the incentive to build a silent service since I have no doubt the AI would use this bombard ability.