Ruling the Oceans in Conquests...

[Aqualung71]

As has been noted by others, ruling the oceans in Conquests is a very different concept form PTW. Gone are the days when you can just build more battleships than the AI and slowly dominate by a process of attrition. Lethal aerial bombard of ships now makes your fleet so much more vulnerable than before.

Having only played one epic game to the modern age so far, I have only just started to experiment with updated naval strategies, so I'd like to hear from others on how they approach it now.

I now tend to build less battleships, but more cruisers (for the AA) and destroyers (stealth detection). The other complete change of concept is that I now build carriers (which I never did in PTW)....my battle fleets now cruise around the oceans, stealth bombing every enemy ship that can be found and if necessary, finishing them off with a few naval shells.

But how do you protect your fleets against the same tactics from the AI? I've noticed that the AA capability of the cruiser does not come into play too often. I've never tried stationing stealth fighters on carriers to perform air superiority - can you do this, and is it effective?

Needless to say, modern age intercontinental invasion has now taken on much more depth and unfortunately now requires us poor humans to start thinking harder rather than just pushing the remote control button of "send over the transports with a bunch of battleships and it's all over".

What do you all think?

[jackl]

I try and keep ALL my ships under my Carrier borne fighter cover. Each Fleet is accompanied by at least one carrier with a full compliment of fighters on air superiority. If i need to get in close to Enemy shore with ships now i try and wait until after a couple of turns have passed to let them bring their bombers to bear. If they have tons...i stay back and make quick...bomb and run raids.

I too build way fewer BS but end up with lots and lots of cruisers and destroyers and many more carriers. But i find that the main threat to the fleets are now subs. With that new stealth attack they can slip in and whack your carrier (and full compliment of planes) right under your nose.

Ive found that where i used to have a huge fleet spread across many squares i now have a massive fleet all in one square with a picket line of destroyers and subs a few squares away to spot the pesky undersea buggers. If they take out your carrier and air cover you can guarentee they'll have a carrier just squares away, waiting to pound your ships.

Carrier to carrier air battles are usually a one turn affair as a single hit will have the AI running for port but they still dont seem to use their fighters at sea as well as they can.
The bottom line is i now won't risk my fleet in one on one combat until i'm sure they're gonna come out tops...and in CivC that is a much harder thing to be sure of.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Picket lines? Screening for subs?! EGODS! That sounds shockingly close to real-world sea combat.

Next thing you know we'll need supply lines for our tanks.

Honestly, the only complaint I have on the new naval arena is that I feel carriers don't have quite enough capacity - if you want to keep fighter cover over your ships - a very good idea; in MP, carriers either have to be impossible to spot or hyper-heavily guarded - and still do some bombing, you have to take a carrier for fighters and a carrier for bombers, whereas most modern-day carriers can load enough planes to serve in both roles.

[Kuciwalker]

There should be a Nuclear Carrier that comes with Fission and carries 6.

[Aramis]

I keep one fighter and three bombers on each carrier, and move carriers in groups of three, accompanied by cruisers and that 'picket line' of destroyers. For PtW I modded the carriers to have a capacity of six, but I don't really like modding the game--I have an unholy desire to give myself too much of an advantage .

[SpencerH]

An effective anti-ai strategy can be to station carriers with fighters beyond enemy bombing range then use a sacrificial-lamb to entice enemy bomber attack. It works on some humans too

[Cookie Monster]

We probably have to thank C. Kibler and the WWII scenario in C3C for all this new naval goodness. I am very happy with the new naval combat system.

I've changed my pre C3C naval strategies WRT modern naval combat. I do find that ancient - medieval naval combat still is essentially the same as it was before C3C.

[Gunter]

In CIII vanilla I edited the carrier to carry 8 ,so less traffic to manage and better proportion ( IMO ) .

I had this with air / sea lethal too.


Gunter

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Cookie Monster
I've changed my pre C3C naval strategies WRT modern naval combat. I do find that ancient - medieval naval combat still is essentially the same as it was before C3C.

Give pre-galleon naval units bombardment capability of 2.1.1, along with AI Strategy of Naval Power, and you won't have to deal with naval warfare still being the same.

(Yes, I did it with PTW also)

[dexters]

Originally posted by Thriller
As has been noted by others, ruling the oceans in Conquests is a very different concept form PTW. Gone are the days when you can just build more battleships than the AI and slowly dominate by a process of attrition. Lethal aerial bombard of ships now makes your fleet so much more vulnerable than before.

Having only played one epic game to the modern age so far, I have only just started to experiment with updated naval strategies, so I'd like to hear from others on how they approach it now.

I now tend to build less battleships, but more cruisers (for the AA) and destroyers (stealth detection). The other complete change of concept is that I now build carriers (which I never did in PTW)....my battle fleets now cruise around the oceans, stealth bombing every enemy ship that can be found and if necessary, finishing them off with a few naval shells.

But how do you protect your fleets against the same tactics from the AI? I've noticed that the AA capability of the cruiser does not come into play too often. I've never tried stationing stealth fighters on carriers to perform air superiority - can you do this, and is it effective?

Needless to say, modern age intercontinental invasion has now taken on much more depth and unfortunately now requires us poor humans to start thinking harder rather than just pushing the remote control button of "send over the transports with a bunch of battleships and it's all over".

What do you all think?

Cruisers to me IMO seems like one of those tween ships that I've never seen the AI build. (note that I've only played 3 epic games to the modern area) Build these for your own vanity, for variety, for extra AA, and for the expected upgrade to Aegis later on.

My advice to you, and you can read my Debug part 2 game report (in my siggy) is to build and form fleets like the AI do. Make destroyers the workhorse of your fleet. Stack them with your expensive ships and they take the hits first. Destroyers make excellenet scouts and having the most movement of all ships, you can move them out to scout a few tiles ahead and move then back and still have the big capital ships end their turn stacked with the destroyers.

The new Navy is amazing. If they fix the city bombard preference for ships then I'll be even happier

[Dis]

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
Picket lines? Screening for subs?! EGODS! That sounds shockingly close to real-world sea combat.

Next thing you know we'll need supply lines for our tanks.

Honestly, the only complaint I have on the new naval arena is that I feel carriers don't have quite enough capacity - if you want to keep fighter cover over your ships - a very good idea; in MP, carriers either have to be impossible to spot or hyper-heavily guarded - and still do some bombing, you have to take a carrier for fighters and a carrier for bombers, whereas most modern-day carriers can load enough planes to serve in both roles.

well modern carriers cannot carry most bombers. It's a thing I don't really like in the WW2 scenario. Carriers cannot carry very heavy bomber planes. The navy uses the F18 and F14 as both a stategic bomber and interceptor. The navy also used to use the A6- but that is retired. The navy does not have heavy bombers on carriers.

[PrinceBimz]

Good stuff indeed! With modern navies, my fleets vary depending on map and ocean size. If I have narrow waterways or channels to cover, I will build a few destroyers to patrol. If I have large seas to protect, I will build fleets of about 4 ships each. If I am planning an invasion and have to cross a large ocean, thats when my large fleets come into play. These usually consist of 1 or 2 carriers, 1 battleship, 2 cruisers, 3 or 4 destroyers and transports. I will also get some subs around enemy port cities to try and sink some tonnage. I need to add, the main ships in modern naval warfare are carriers. Carriers are very useful, can do alot and are a must have!

[Dis]

you guys didn't mention subs.

I haven't actually used navies because I don't play the epic game.

But in the WW2 scenario I mainly used subs and destroyers to scout. And I kept my carriers in stacks combined with heavy cruisers, battleships, tranports etc. I also kept a destroyer on my carrier stack just in case I miss a sub somewhere. And I also try to keep a sub on my carrier stack- though that isn't necessary.

I didn't find the heavy cruisers all tha useful in that scenario- but maybe I wasn't paying attention. But the enemy ai did not use air power against my ships- well they did, but my planes shot them down.

Naval warfare is more about air warfare now. But that is good- because as in real life- air power changed the face of naval tactics. This is as it should be. You don't see ship to ship engagements anymore. WW2 saw the last of those. The designers finally did a good job with naval combat. This is better than Civ2's now.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Dissident
well modern carriers cannot carry most bombers. It's a thing I don't really like in the WW2 scenario. Carriers cannot carry very heavy bomber planes. The navy uses the F18 and F14 as both a stategic bomber and interceptor. The navy also used to use the A6- but that is retired. The navy does not have heavy bombers on carriers.

Considering that the B-17 only carried a payload of 2,500 pounds, it is easy to consider that each one is replaced by 4 or 5 dive bombers with a 500-750 pound payload; or some number of torpedo bombers. B-17's were piss poor at high-level bombing of naval units anyway.

The F/A-18 Hornet has about the same payload as the A-6 Intruder. And, of course, the avionics and smart-bomb technology is much better.

[PrinceBimz]

Subs certainly. They have their uses thats for sure. Such as how I mention stationing them near an enemy port city. Then any ships that would depart from that port can be attacked with the sub.

[Cookie Monster]

The ability of subs to single out a target in a stack is so cool!

This more accurately models real life.

[spy14]

Originally posted by Cookie Monster
The ability of subs to single out a target in a stack is so cool!

This more accurately models real life.

Very true. But aircraft with precision bombing capability need to be able to select targets too. I'd like my stealth aircraft to be able to target SAM's and any interceptors on the ground, so I can then move in with vulnerable-but-cheap non stealth's to do the donkey work.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by spy14


Very true. But aircraft with precision bombing capability need to be able to select targets too. I'd like my stealth aircraft to be able to target SAM's and any interceptors on the ground, so I can then move in with vulnerable-but-cheap non stealth's to do the donkey work.

If you look at Conquests.biq in the editor you will see that stealth aircraft and F-14s are flagged for 'stealth attack' (the ability to select your target). Unfortunately I think the programmers forgot to extend stealth attack to bombardment. (I have a thread about this somewhere).