Naval War

[MrJedi]

Do you use ships?

I make an effort to control the seas and have the best ships. It gives you alot of flexibility in attacking over distances. Once you get spread out, it makes it easier to get reinforcements from the homeland to the front.

I haven't really gotten into the trade part of it though...is it worth the time?

[Alrowan]

ships are great for trade, you can get most of your mid-game income this way. just make sure your not at war with everyone though

ships are really good for a fast invasion, but i tend to use the for defence and trade.. i find a deap strike is not always effective unless you are planning on dividing thier empire

[MrJedi]

Quote[/b] (Alrowan @ Dec. 03 2002,07:35)]ships are really good for a fast invasion, but i tend to use the for defence and trade.. i find a deap strike is not always effective unless you are planning on dividing thier empire
Yeah, pincer moves aren't very effective on the strategy map.

[KukriKhan]

Absolutely MrJedi http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

With a connected string of ships to provinces with ports and trading posts, you can get 4X (or more) income than with mere land-based trading. Until the blasted Byzies decided to start sinking my barques, my Danes were pulling in 9-10K florins/yr.

Thus the down-side of naval trade: your boats and ports are vulnerable to the navies of bad-guys.

[SmokWawelski]

Ships; they are quite important in the later period, when you are maxing out your income from the taxes to support your large forces and need to supply distant provinces with high quality troops. The trade income is very important, like it was mentioned here, but I found in several situations, that my provinces, not connected by land suffered also loyalty penalties, when not connected to the King by a sea route. I also find that it is much easier to conduct an aggressive military politics, when you do not need to leave your troops protecting all your sea-bordering provinces.
It might take a while though to build up a sizable navy, as the training time for ships is at least 4 years for the smallest ship, so prepare ahead of time.

[Vlad The Impaler]

wellcome MrJedi. i say the ships are vital not only important and i dont see how even in Early , factions like danes , english or aragonese could have smthin to say without it

[TakaRatta Yamamoto]

Ships are by far the most neglected part of a persons first games of W:TW. You must have them if you want to play for any length of time, and they are almost a necessity when it comes to playing a GA game and you need to send crusades deep into the Promised Land...

Snorri

[MrJedi]

Yeah, I think it would be neat to do sea battles...

but thank you everyone for your advice http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[Musashi]

Trade income is all important in my opinion... Early and middle game it will be the single biggest factor in paying the support costs of your armies. Just remember that even though you're making nearly 30k a year from trade, you still need to build your agricultural upgrades and mines because eventually that trade money will dry up as you eliminate former trading partners.

Navies are also instrumental in achieving the old Roman strategic ideal of rapid response. If you can cover the entire sea with your navy, you can have reactionary forces in any territory on the map within a turn or two.

Personally I start one of my territories building ships on day one and keep it going until I have enough ships to cover the entire sea map and a few spares for fighting enemy navies. I build ports in every coastal territory, whether it has trade goods or not, and traders in every port town where it's possible.

-Musashi

[SmokWawelski]

Musashi: Are you building ports even if the province has no tradable goods http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Foreign Devil]

I'd say yes, for moving troops, either to or from that provence.

[Alrowan]

ships are great, and i also made the mistake early f neglecting them... i play as denmark my first game, negelected ships and titles, and conquered half the world then went bankrupt... now i know why

[Foreign Devil]

I'd say the easiest faction to control the sea with are the Italians. They start out with some ships, they have the facilities to build more right away, and they are in a good position to form a trade empire.

But watch out for sicily.... oooh boy, did I have to teach them a lesson...

[HopAlongBunny]

I think most of the points have been covered; trade is essential and ability to react is very nice.

Personally, I find the naval game a bit of a pain ;P The cheapest boat you can build seems to be the best boat to build for the entire game. I remember finally getting a cog built and watching it get sunk first turn at sea by a barque. A mass of cheap ships, or a cheap ship with a good leader can handle most anything.

I also build caravels (contradicting myself a bit:)) They can travel more than 1 zone per year; if you need to support your barques that is very handy They can also hang-out in deep water zones. Might help to keep a trade route open by bypassing an enemy fleet. Caravels and some other ships have a lower maintenance cost at sea as well. Can be important if you're running low on florins.

Almost all the factions have some historical goal at sea. Be prepared to get ambushed by anyone with a fleet. The Byzantines have no GA at sea, they attack just because they can http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Musashi]

Quote[/b] ]Musashi: Are you building ports even if the province has no tradable goods

Yup. That way I can get agents in easily, and I always know I can send troops from any coastal province to any other coastal province in one turn. Handy that, lets me build two or three really strong armies instead of a hundred little ones since I can move the big ones so far so fast and put out brushfires without needing garrisons everywhere.

-Musashi

[lordex]

So do you guys always try to maintain an exclusive control over the seas, or just share them with other navies? I'm playing Danes and gradually extending my naval chain into the Mediterranean, while the English are doing the same thing slowly. I sense that at some point we are going to have a naval war. What would you guys do?

[TakaRatta Yamamoto]

The only time i engage in naval engagements are when i have a trade route blocked off or i am going to war with a faction who has a ship in my sea zone, fo control of it. Other than that, sharing the sea zone is needed for trading.

Snorri

[Musashi]

I almost never make a pre-emptive assault on any faction, I find it's generally better to let my enemies choose me... The only exception is when I play Turkey, I like to hit Egypt early to get the rich provinces of Antioch, Tripoli, and Egypt, plus that way I only have one province to defend on my southern front and I can get down to business. But even as the Turks once I've taken Egypt I play purely defensively.

Just amass a lot of extra ships for when the english decide to make their move and keep them just outside the territories where the english ships are. When they declare war you can sweep in and crush them quickly.

-Musashi

[RunAway!!]

At first, I was content to let other navies share the oceans with me. But when Italy declared war, sunk half my fleet, and started a crusade, my ideals changed. Now I'm finding it better to keep the oceans cleared, so there is never any surprise interruption to my trading, and my armies always have access to whatever nations they need to punish for the latest crusades.

[HopAlongBunny]

I usually wait (like a lamb for slaughter) until the AI attacks. A useful thing to remember is that if you do not share borders with a faction, a one turn naval war will not place you at war. Well it will-but you get an auto-ceasefire the next turn provided no other aggressive actions take place. The AI uses this to deny you trade routes, so you may as well take advantage of it too http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[LadyAnn]

Uh, no, I don't use SHEEP... and my NAVEL superiority is clear. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Annie
Note to myself: behave before you get decorations...

[Marvellosa]

Maybe a very stupid question, but I don't seem to manage it: How do I get my armies on ships so I can attack overseas? I tried draging them over a ship, but that won't work. Can anybody help me? Thanks a lot.

[chilling]

You don't put armies on ships you put them in the province where you want them to go. The ships are just the transport layer, your men never actually board the ship on the campaign map the transport is invisible. Just drop them where you want them, as long as you have a shipping chain to that province they'll be there next turn.

Remember each turn is a year, plenty enough time to get anywhere on the map by boat.

[Bhruic]

I actually try to avoid making too much money from sea trading because the computer is so bad at it. My navy generally just hugs my own costlines, or extends into areas I'm about to conquer. The ability to move troops around speedily is invaluable. And it's something the computer -does- do, when it has the chance, so I don't feel cheesy. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Bh

[chilling]

I limit myself too now Bhuric. I'll have a boat adjacent to any province I own and have one outside any province boardering one of mine, sort of 'one extra for trade'.


If I'm after sending a crusade half way across the map I use my fleet, a large stack at the border of my influence that I have to roll out across the sea to get to the target of the crusade, before I can move it there. This limits the ammount of trade I get making the game harder but also means I can send an expiditionary force to a far off land when I want to.

[Gregoshi]

Welcome Marvellosa. Though your efforts to drag your armies onto your ships didn't work, thanks for dragging yourself here to the Org to get an answer - which you did. Stay for a while and join the discussions, won't you?

[Marvellosa]

Thanks a lot, although I found an even better explanation in the Main Hall forum, in the table of contents. (The possibility of a blockade was mentioned there) Anyway, glad to have some feedback.

[Asus]

I'm hoping for future expansion that includes real time Naval warfare like in the Age of Sail series.

[Dimeola]

Trade is a good source of income for lands that have trade goods. I build ports and merchants early in all my coastals and place a line of ships as far as I can. When I conquer I try to go to internal enemies so I can have coastal trading partners. Try to make alliances with nearby seapowers....if you fight them they blockade your trade. And yes you can strike via sealanes. If you cannot support a war of conquest you can take a coastal province and sell all the buildings once you take the province. This also allows you to take war across the sea to the Holy land...etc.
It`s not right for every position or situation, but can be an excellent startegy.
Dimeolas