Why always the sinking!

[JeebusGreen]

Does anyone else feel as though whenever they have a ship battle they are at an innate disadvantage?

I swear, I lose such a disproportionate amount of sea battles on odds that should give me a fair chance I tend to stay out of the water as much as possiblee

[Ari]

One issue with naval combat is that it really boils down to having the most ships. Far more so than on land, you'll simply trade units with the enemy until one of you runs out of local navy. There's all sorts of reasons why on land 1 of your units units might hold out against two of an enemy unit (promotions, fortifications, forest, hills, city, etc). At sea, 2 on 1 leaves you toast. Worse is what happens if you see a stack of ships and attack with your slightly inferior stack. It's quite possible, far more so than on land imho, that the enemy might walk away with no losses when you fail to sink *any* ships. You need numbers to double-team those damaged ships, and lacking them, you'll suffer. Truth be told, if I see 5 destroyers coming my way, and I only have 5-6, it might well be worth my while to get them into a city ASAP, since going after destroyers parked on a coast risks me losing my entire navy to no effect.

In that time period, airships can start to even the odds, but you'll be lucky to get enough in one place to be all that useful, and worse, if you've got multiple enemy destroyers parked next door, you probably also just received an invasion, which means those airships are needed elsewhere.

The real trick is to get on the other side of that curve. Don't bother taking on the enemy navy until you're *sure* you can win. If you have the time to leave 2 or so cities building ship after ship, eventually you'll reach the point where you're the one who can wipe out his navy. You'll take losses, of course, almost 1 for 1 pre battleships, but once the navy's wiped out, all the enemy can do is send lone ships after you one at a time.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Ari
Truth be told, if I see 5 destroyers coming my way, and I only have 5-6, it might well be worth my while to get them into a city ASAP, since going after destroyers parked on a coast risks me losing my entire navy to no effect.

I prefer to send in some stealth bombers.

[Crossfire]

If only those stealth bombers could bomb ships, eh?

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Crossfire
If only those stealth bombers could bomb ships, eh?

You misspelled "kill". You can attack and damage ships with bombers. When down to 50% strength, they become easy targets for boats, even transports.

[Tattila the Hun]

I think the problem is not having means to get few extra exp's for my ship from the get-go. Perhaps a minor wonder for additional naval exp... (Could I give the Moai +exp for naval units?) Now, only the civ-wide "exp-for new units and units from cities with religion" work, untill drydock.

There really should be a way to mimic the inferior numbers, superior training regime...

And why does every ship on shore get the +20% defence? I'd figure there should be some bonus within one's cultural borders, you know, better knowledge of reefs and winds?

[Supr49er]

I take my triremes along the drill line of promotions. With the extra strikes and less colatteral damage, they tend to survive battles and become good destroyers.

[Theben]

Promotions go a long way towards turning those losing battles into wins.

Although my triremes suck. I lose more often than win when attacking galleys, which in theory they have a +50% bonus against.

btw, it's +10% coastal.

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by Supr49er
I take my triremes along the drill line of promotions. With the extra strikes and less colatteral damage, they tend to survive battles and become good destroyers.

Yeah, I think naval combat just feels like more of a crapshoot. No terrain. Generally, you have fewer ships than land units, so each loss hurts more. First you need vast numerical superiority, then you get promotions and can scale back a little on the numbers game.

So, Drill line or Combat line? What's preferred?

Honestly, I often end up taking flanking then sentry for at least one ship per stack. The rest get the combat line. I haven't used Drill for ships.

[JeebusGreen]

Originally posted by Theben
Although my triremes suck. I lose more often than win when attacking galleys, which in theory they have a +50% bonus against.

Yeah this is what I was getting it.

I see 'Odds of winning: 89%'
and I still think...

I'm going to need to build another ship.

[Solomwi]

When you're in that situation (and I'm right there with you often), the 11% looms larger than on land because the loss of that one trireme opens up your entire home water for pillaging and denial until you can get another built or moved in, which is usually several turns. Rarely do we put ourselves in an analogous situation with land units.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by Ari
At sea, 2 on 1 leaves you toast.

Right, very true.

One thing the AI seems to have figured out quite well is that 2 attacking destroyers almost always seems to beat 1 defending battleship. The first destroyer hurts you, and the second one finishes you off, pretty consistantly, so the AI basically ends up trading a destroyer for a battleship.

If I have good ships but not many of them and am trying to defend, I usually try to wait until he's close enough to my city so I can send my ship out, sink one of his, and get mine back into my city before the end of the turn.

[frenzyfol]

Sea combat might be more interesting if it was able to use zone control (like in civ2?) and concepts like enfilade and defilade.

I always thought that units should have a direction as well as a position. That would make flanking more important.

[joncnunn]

First shot matters a lot in naval battles.
If you want to win naval battles, go with Drill X promotions.

[Ari]

I'm pretty sure naval units never exerted ZoC in any civ nor in SMAC.