Navy preferences?

[Sinner]

Since I've only played Julii so far I don't have access to the Corvus Quinquireme or Decere, else I'd use them, instead I use Quinquiremes plus whatever Biremes and Triremes that I have left over from the early years.

I prefer to group my Quinquiremes in squadrons of four ships, finding that this gives enough combat strength against most enemy fleets. If I come across a large enemy fleet, too much for one squadron to handle, then I bring in 3 or 4 of them, surrounding the enemy before attacking with the last squadron; the other squadrons get dragged in as reinforcements, giving me the firepower I need.

My Quinquireme squadrons are also used to transport my main combat armies and any worthwhile family members that're travelling alone - I don't like to risk such important units.

To avoid the need to pull entire squadrons off-station to retrain after a few battles, I transfer men among the ships so that all but one are at full strength, and then send only that one to be replenished. Sometimes that ship will merge with other squadrons en-route, either to transfer men to them, or to pick up other ships due for replenishment so that they get the safety of numbers as they travel back to base. When up against a navy-heavy enemy, I sometimes oversize a 'flagship' squadron, adding a couple of extra ships as spares to keep nearby squadrons continuously at full strength.

My older Biremes and Triremes usually get used as scouts, lurking near enemy and neutral coastal cities and ports, and as couriers for agents, the occasional reinforcement unit and the low quality family members that I use for building watchtowers, etc.

[Prodigal]

Other than prologue I've not played a Roman factoin to benefit from the later ship advances, however the tatic I've employed very sucessfully to date is a mixed combo of bireme & trireme core.

In the early stages the biremes spread out individually from the core fleet (to around half their max distance), so as to maximise the sea area you can see, when any enemy shipping moves into this area I can close the individual biremes on the enemy then attack with the core triremes, so you have the entire fleet attacking at once. Then make good any ship losses by drag-n-dropping damaged fleets onto one another so you still have a full complement while sending the damaged fleet back to retrain.

As Carthage this has stopped the Romans ever landing an invasion force in North Africa.

Another advantage of this is that you very soon have a fleet with very high experience, as drag & drop seems to bump up the fleets overall xp.

One major town upgrades the armoury & you can then produce small fleets that can be retrained to gain max armour, & as your area of influence increases you can have fleets in the different area's that you want to control, using the same "spread" tactic.

This allows you to use 1 bireme to blocade while having the bulk of your fleet on the look out for a potential threat, that can group quickly when required.

[Lichgod]

Carthage, long campaign, H/H

I eventually built up 4 fleets. I did not use single ships much.

Fleet 1 – West Med, 10-12 ships – fight Spanish, Gaul, Numedian fleets
Fleet 2 & 3 – Central Med, 12-18 ships – Fight Romans, all of em
Fleet 4 – East Med, 12-15 ships – fight Egypt and Numedia

I build Fleet 2, then 1, then 3, and 4 was last. Mix was 25% level 1 ships, 50% level 2, and 25% level 3. The big level 3 ships more concentrated in Fleets 2 & 3.

Eventually, I destroyed all navies in the Med but mine. I would actively hunt down small AI fleets and fight often at 4-1 odds or better. I lost very few ship units. I would try to end every turn in a port (Carthage) to refit. I would take my most experienced ships and use them to replace losses on newer ships to put veterans in them. I would then refit the under strengthen ships. I soon had fleets with gold chevrons. Took a long time for my first Admiral with stars. Got him from building level 3 ship in Syracruse.

One tip, try to have your fleets end their move next to each other when you spot a big enemy fleet. In the central Med, when a big Roman fleet attacked, they often found two fleets defending.

[Mori Gabriel Syme]

I try to use a stack consisting of multiples of 1 quinquireme to 2 triremes. Now that I have Deceres, I substitute one of those for a quinquireme. It's true that quinquireme-only fleets do alright by themselves, but they seem to take a lot of losses. That seems to be mitigated by using more mobile triremes to support the heavier ships.

[vodkafire]

I try to use a stack consisting of multiples of 1 quinquireme to 2 triremes. Now that I have Deceres, I substitute one of those for a quinquireme. It's true that quinquireme-only fleets do alright by themselves, but they seem to take a lot of losses. That seems to be mitigated by using more mobile triremes to support the heavier ships.

Really? Do you have any idea how the AI calculates manueverability?

[Lord Ovaat]

Navies? In this game? Snicker. I played my first campaign trying to compete with all the little boats floatin' around. Spent mucho dinero all for nothing. Still had no results at the end. I've played my last three campaigns building ONLY TWO Biremes or Triremes per port. And that's exactly where I keep them--in port. Only use them to transport when needed, or if the Senate keeps insisting I blockade someone. I don't blockade people I'm trading with, regardless what the Senate thinks. I therefore spend almost nothing on navies. I build my warchest and spend it on land troops. They ARE decisive. Unless, or untill CA changes this game and forces me to try to compete, why bother? Sea warfare is no fun, and extremely costly. I think of my fleets more like fairies than warships. NO! Not that kind of fairy. Though, there was this one cabin boy.....

[metatron]

Deceres are nigh unstoppable.

[Soulflame]

In my Scipii campaign I only built a few quinqueremes. I built huge number of Triremes.
The advantage is that these are only 1 turn to build, versus the 2 turns quinquiremes take. So you can quickly crank out an entire fleet, then go back to producing other units. Plus you can repair these at any city with only a shipwright, whereas a dockyard is less frequent, Egypt can't even build them! And since you'll probably get into some nasty naval fights with Egypt, the ability to repair ships (your whole stack of ships even) in a city you have conquered is very nice.

[vodkafire]

Navies? In this game? Snicker. I played my first campaign trying to compete with all the little boats floatin' around. Spent mucho dinero all for nothing. Still had no results at the end. I've played my last three campaigns building ONLY TWO Biremes or Triremes per port. And that's exactly where I keep them--in port. Only use them to transport when needed, or if the Senate keeps insisting I blockade someone. I don't blockade people I'm trading with, regardless what the Senate thinks. I therefore spend almost nothing on navies. I build my warchest and spend it on land troops. They ARE decisive. Unless, or untill CA changes this game and forces me to try to compete, why bother? Sea warfare is no fun, and extremely costly. I think of my fleets more like fairies than warships. NO! Not that kind of fairy. Though, there was this one cabin boy.....

Actually blockades are very useful. After the damn Egyptians dow me for no reason, I had my land forces stretched and didn't feel like expanding to that region of the world at all, so i blockaded all their ports. within 5 turns or so, they've stopped their expansion into Africa and at least 2 port cities are revolting. A few turns later they came begging for a ceasefire.