Trireme vs Battleship

[Solver]

Upgrade cheapo ships? Just Decommission them.

I mean cranking out cheapo 2-1-4 and 2-1-6 ships and upgrading them the next turn so that you essentially use money to get your navy, not minerals.

[Kuciwalker]

And I don't get how navies in C3 didn't serve a useful purpose...

[Solver]

They couldn't be used to destroy enemy economy by disrupting trade routes or his food gathering. All they could do is bombard coastal cities to soften them up, but what's the point. Why would you waste any resources on ships instead of land units, other than the ships you need to get those land units in place?

[Kuciwalker]

They didn't disrupt trade routes in SMAC/X either, AFAIK, since there were no trade routes. And in C3 it actually is possible to use ships to blockade a nation.

All they could do is bombard coastal cities to soften them up, but what's the point. Why would you waste any resources on ships instead of land units, other than the ships you need to get those land units in place?

To protect those land units?

Because "softening up" is really important?

[GeoModder]

The only sort of 'real' trade routes you have in SMAC is a crawler bringing in one nut/min/energy to another base.

[KyuuA4]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
And I don't get how navies in C3 didn't serve a useful purpose...

Bring land units across water?

[Kuciwalker]

eh, that's my point. They did serve a useful purpose.

[Last Conformist]

It was pretty limited, tho. As soon as you've got one foothold on an enemy continent, you can fly in unlimited amounts of mechanized units, which leaves little incentive to maintain naval superiority in the late industrial and modern eras.

[Kuciwalker]

Only with an airport, at the very end of the industrial era. And only once you've built the airport.

Though I agree airlifting is majorly broken in C3.

[KyuuA4]

Though I agree airlifting is majorly broken in C3.

Airlifts should be executed WITH units. Funny how those airports funciton more as teleporters.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Only with an airport, at the very end of the industrial era. And only once you've built the airport.

I don't know about you, but rushing an Airport is a top priority when I establish a foothold on a foreign continent.

[curtsibling]

I played most of my CIV3 games without even caring about a Navy...And I always made coast cities a priority...

When you don't bother with navies at all, something is wack.

[DeathByTheSword]

i loved to build use battle groups of 6 battleships 1 sub and 2 carriers to protect my shore (one group for ever shore area) and send those with your transporters to attack other continets

[curtsibling]

Being able to name individual BBs was also a good feature!

[DeathByTheSword]

i never understood the destroyer in civ3 (or cruiser probably both) because they were take much more effective then ironclads except in speed...so as soon as i could build BB (always pretty fast after CA or DD) i alsways used my dedicated naval cities to only build DD and nukesubs...only until the aegis cruiser they start getting replaced