Naval Strength

[George Garrett]

Hi War4ever and Sieve Too,

Gentlemen, it may be that the difference in our experiences lies in the fact that you two probably, habitually, battle in the upper echelons of Civ, while chicken -hearted I, mostly play Chieftain (can't win there, either!)

I dunno how it was in the long -gone days (1400 B.C. ?)since you played at that lowly level, but I tell you that weird things are happening there, today. I KNOW that riflemen, and ironclads are supposed to out-perform musketeers, and heartily wish that they would, in my games, me, being the by-the-book
tactician that I am (I should sign myself under the truly unique monniker of "He-Who-Reads-Manuals"!), but, in view of your remarks about your experiences - and I look forward to sharing them, when I graduate to Warlord, and upward, and onward ( 2700 A.D.?) - I felt that I had to let fellow - Chieftain players know that there were other possibilities inherent in the Chietain game, in which, it seems to me, that anything zany can happen...e.g. a caravan besting a naval unit - and being awarded veteran status for it! This really happened to me, at the Chieftain level.
[This message has been edited by George Garrett (edited March 22, 2000).]

[klesh]

A large Navy isn't neccisary for SP, but it sure is fun to have. I like to name my fleets, that's right fleets (plural)

Generally my battlegroups consist of:
1 Battleship, 4 AEGIS, 2 Regulation Cruisers, 4-5 Destroyers, and a few subs.

Because of their poor movement points I send out subs in packs of 4 or so...These roam by themselves looking for easy targets. I put 5 cruise missles in 1 sub only, the rear one. The cruise missles are perfect to scope out the waters ahead. 2 for recon, 3 for damage. Subs should have better movement points so they can keep up better with the main battlegroups.
I usually have at least 2 of these battlegroups going at any one time, preferably 3 or 4. I know that it is overkill, but like I said it's hella fun!
Magellan's it a MUST HAVE for an overpowering late game Navy. It never expires....even better!

BTW, wouldn't it be great if the game allowed you to attach a name to your capital ships.
USS Klesh comes to mind!

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I am the Ukrainian Anti-Pope!

[poppawoppa]

Do you really consider this an honest win? I'm amazed that you would do this but even more amazed you would so proudly admit to it.
As War4Ever said, it's my game to play, so what difference does it make? The cities I was attacking were defended with 6 or 7 Mech, Riflemen, Alpines, plus a Cruise Missile or two. The support shield indicator said the city was supporting 15 units. Now, when I kill off AI units, it shows up in the Defense Casualty report for my civ and the other AI civs, but units disbanded due to the city being taken over do not show as "destroyed" by my forces. So, I was curious how many of the other (15 - 7 = 8) units were Navy ships or maybe just troops that were temporarily in other cities or off on another island, or maybe they had just stepped outside the city walls to have a smoke break. ("Light 'em if you got 'em.") So, this way, I was able to see how much the 'enemy' was losing by having their city reduced to rubble in my campaign to unite the world. Sorry if I offended your sense of fair play, justice and fatherhood, but if you know of another way to find out that information without triggering the cheat switch, I would be glad to hear from you. As THAT information did absolutely nothing to win the game, or even win it one turn sooner, and was useful just to satisfy my curiosity... big deal.

[poppawoppa]

Previous is in reply to Sparrowhawk's scathing rebuke of my other posting in this topic.

[mindseye]

I'm sure what happened was that Sparrowhawk did not realize that Poppawoppa's investigatory work was all in the name of SCIENCE and improving the gaming experience for us all!

Poppawoppa, thank you for your tireless research, and Sparrowhawk, thank you for your moral vigilance!


Now then...

Does anybody have any alternate naval units they routinely add to their unit mix? I gather some players have favorite default land units such as Mobile SAMs, but I haven't come across the equivalent for the high seas. Speak up now, and I will try to include your unit in my on-the-verge-of-release graphics patch!

- mindseye aka Tim Smith


[This message has been edited by mindseye (edited March 23, 2000).]

[My Wife Hates CIV]

A better sub. In my units.gif I have a sub with better defense and slighty faster.

I also have a shield unit. The shield is classed as a air unit so carriers take them. The graphic is cool, when two types. One for cities and one for ships. They both have movement 0. The ship attacked (ship or city) it becomes visible, like any unit, but looks like a big defense screen protecting the defender. kinda like a furture energy shield. Of course I also have some other more advance weapons to counter it. I love all the extra slots in CIV II MP rules.txt/units.gif.
[This message has been edited by My Wife Hates CIV (edited March 23, 2000).]

[Scouse Gits]

Bohlen 50% ?? where did you get this figure - I was, until this thread, under the impression (fostered by these boards) that sub carried cruise were invisible and sub borne nukes carried large warning stickers - can anyone formally verify or deny this?

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[My Wife Hates CIV]

maybe in cheat mode you could see what the AI *sees* if you switch which civ the human controls??

[Bohlen]

SG(2): Knocking out all of one enemy's ports and moving to the next civ sounds like a very good strategy. No ports=no navy. An obvious and true statement, yet my semi-tactical mind sometimes does not think in that way. I tend to just pound and strike the enemy whenever the chance arises (sometimes not very effectively), which is completely different from your strategic initiatives. Please keep sharing your strategies...I'm learning something from them.

I too love shore bombardments and agree that the inability of a sub to participate in this is its biggest drawback. However, when attempting to control the sees, subs are great because they come earlier than the bigger ships and completely shred those ironclads and rickety wooden ships.

SG(1): I picked 50% arbitrarily. The % is probably much higher and what I attempted to point out is that most sea vessels cannot spot subs until they are one space away. I believe AEGIS, Cruisers, and Subs are the only ships that can spot subs 2 spaces away. Is this correct?

This discussion just might turn me into a naval junkie!

[The Mad Monk]

Actually, subs cannot see other subs, according to the original RULES.TXT. This annoyed me so much that I had to change it to 'can see subs' on the spot. I also reduced the subs' sight from two spaces to one beacuse that didn't make much sense, either. By the way, has anybody here read "Run Silent, Run Deep?"

[mindseye]

MyWifeHatesCiv -

I can definitely include alternate sub graphics, but the energy shield.... my graphics style is to carefully scale down photographs. Photos of subs are easy to find, photos of energy shields.... sounds like you already have a nice graphic any way. I like the idea of the shield appearing when under attack!

Anyone else want any particuliar alternate naval (or other) units? Caveat - should be something I have a chance of finding a photo of.

- mindseye aka Tim Smith

[Sten Sture]

I rarely build a fleet of naval vessels. Maybe because I don't swim very well...

Tim -

A sub graphic that was slightly modified to look like most of it was below the water would be pretty cool!

I like some of the Supercarrier graphics I have seen on mods (including hiRes?)

The transport ship could use a make-over, maybe make it more of a freighter rather than a military landing ship.

(Speaking of freight - how about one of those annoying WebVan's instead of the 1940s pick-up truck?)

[mindseye]

Sten Sture -

Are you not using my HiRes modpack? Jeez, what did I do all that hard work for? The Sub is mostly submerged, and the Transport is vastly improved, its actually a freighter instead of that bizarre Microprose thing with the catwalks hanging on the sides. The next version of HiRes (1.5 weeks or so) has an improved Carrier over v1, & a better Freight as well ('33 Studebaker 2-axle truck). I'll see what I can do about a WebVan...

- Tim
(where do you live in SF? I just moved from down the street from SF General to the Richmond near the Four Star)

[Scouse Gits]

mindseye - I love the HiRes pack, but as I am playing (and creating) a lot of comparison games at the moment I can't live with the modified rules.txt - and I'm far too busy (read lazy) to make the units.gif changes to bring them into line with the standard rules - have I missed an unmodified version somewhere?

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[Sten Sture]

Now that sounds like good reason for concern!

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Back to naval tactics for a minute:

I have used a series of transports with a dip for a moble picket. I am sure others do this as well. What other active defense pickets do you guys use?

(love the screen shots MWHC; on #4 I was initially thinking that I would split the Aegis to the east and subs to the west, but if the blue wagon chased the green aegis back toward port, the subs would be left by themselves.)