naval hegemony

[nokhor]

has anyone achieved naval hegemony on vh? where your fleets rule the seas?

with autocalc tipping the balance in the ai's favor i tend to just build enough of a fleet of troop transports and blockades ships. i use the alexandrian strategy of taking the ports of my enemies to eliminate their fleets, or at least turn them into rebel fleets. even when i gain land hegemony over the mediterranean, i still embarassingly have to ship my boys from one end of the empire to the other overland, because the fleets of my enemies will surely defeat mine, unless i can have them end each turn in a port. so just wondering if anyone has achieved naval dominance without having to sacrifice land dominance or economic power.

[Lonewarrior]

To answer your question Nokhor, not yet.

[vodkafire]

Yes, play on medium.

[Sinner]

Prior to fixing the admiral's command stars bug, I managed it on VH in my only Scipii campaign, although I believe that was partly because I lucked out with a couple of my admirals - one in a Decere! - when they started with a Priest of Neptune and a Seamaster for one, and a Priest and a Shipwright for the other, giving them 4 and 3 Command respectively. By making sure that they both always used their full movement allowance, I eventually picked up a Navigator, boosting their Command to 6 and 5. I also had another 3 admirals with one of the 3 possible starting ancilliaries and they, plus a few others, eventually gained Navigators as well, giving me a small pool of lesser admirals rated from Command 2 to 4.

A fleet of 6 Deceres with my Command 5 admiral became the core of my main 'hit squad' for taking out the larger enemy fleets. To avoid the irritation of the enemy fleets continuously sailing away until I finally whittled them down, I used wolfpacks of small squadrons to surround and pin them in place, while also being dragged in as reinforcements to the actual attack led by my admiral.

In addition, I pursued an aggressive campaign of attacking the source: blockading ports with 3 or 4 ships under a lesser admiral, immediately destroying enemy ships as soon as they were built; sending assassins to sabotage ship building facilities; and capturing or bribing key cities, then either keeping them for myself or exterminating the population and destroying all the buildings before abandoning the settlement if I felt I couldn't afford to hold it at that time.

Although it took some effort, I also kept my ships at full strength as much as possible, replacing losses in my battle fleets from either spare ships intended just for that purpose or the fleets I designated as my transports.

Eventually I owned the Mediterranean, occupying every coastal province and placing large blocking fleets at the Straights of Gibraltar and the Dardanelles to stop foreign fleets from sailing on my sea!

Since I fixed the admiral's command star bug it's even easier: there are always lone enemy ships to pounce on, gaining a cheap victory to go towards boosting my admirals' command ratings - this is especially true of the blockade fleets which have now become my primary method of containing the enemy navies. In my current Julii campaign I have a pair of Command 9 admirals leading my main battle fleets, with a number of Command 5 to 7 admirals blockading the enemy ports or commanding my main transport fleets. I still sabotage and raid or occupy certain enemy cities, but overall I've found this an easier campaign since I don't have to get into land wars just to achieve naval dominance.

[Hurin_Rules]

What exactly is the command admiral bug, and how do you fix it? I've never gotten an admiral with more than 2 stars, which makes naval warfare very difficult.

[Sinner]

The bug is that unlike Generals, Admirals don't gain/lose Command rating for winning/losing battles. You need to edit a text file to fix the bug as described in this thread.

Oh, the reason why you got Admirals with command stars before was either that they gained one or more ancilliaries - Priest of Neptune, Seamaster and/or Shipwright - when recruited, or later gained a Navigator... all provide 1 or 2 Command stars.

[Hurin_Rules]

Thanks mucho!

I'd been bothered by that for some time; great to know I can fix it now.

[Doug-Thompson]

i use the alexandrian strategy of taking the ports of my enemies to eliminate their fleets, or at least turn them into rebel fleets.

Me too.

[nokhor]

sinner,

do you think it is viable on vh to gain naval hegemony if playing as a barbarian faction? i.e. you get to only use low level boats.

i'm thinking of starting a naval variant of the game where my armies can only move between cities and ports on land. for all other movement they have to go by sea transport. so i would build an army in my city, take it to that city's port. transport it by sea to an enemy port, and move from there overland to the port's corresponding city by the shortest distance. cities without ports can't be attacked, and perhaps an army can travel out of a city [to deal with adjacent rebels] but must end turn back in the same city. haven't decided yet whether to restrict agents to primarily naval movement too or whether to allow them to travel overland, but i figure the end result will be to force me to concentrate on ships, trade, islands etc.

[Sinner]

Not 100% certain it's possible as a barbarian - primarily due to my lack of experience with them, since I'm sticking purely as a Roman player for the time being - but I don't see any reason why it would be impossible.

You'd no doubt have to use larger numbers of boats to compensate for their inferior combat capabilities compared to the civilised factions' ships, but that can be handled by taking on enemies one at a time, destroying their shipbuilding potential completely, maybe even conquering them, before moving on to the next.

Try taking on other barbarian navies first to build up experience both for admirals and crews and when you do finally go for a civilised faction ensure that you hit their biggest stack with a wolfpack of fleets that surround them so that they can't escape afterwards. That should hopefully leave you with a few smaller 1 or 2 ship fleets to run down plus blockading their ports until you can otherwise deal with them.

[Sin Qua Non]

I achieved total naval superiority with Spain, (VH/H i think) so it is possible to be a barbarian naval superpower, especially with the admiral stars bug fix. You're just going to use more boats in more stacks, and if you happen to go up against a fleet with several corvus quinquiremes, you need a strong admiral with well placed stacks. Upkeep costs will be your worst enemy unless you've secured some good land.

[SpencerH]

I ruled the seas with the selucids on medium and quinquiremes. On hard as the brutii I havent won a single engagement against those master warship builders the gauls.

[MajorFreak]

sending assassins to sabotage ship building facilities

excellent tip, thanks! I also did the raid, exterminate, blow everything up and leave tactic...worked for about a dozen turns too!

I've gotten the admiral MOD because i'm eyeing some might huge Egyptian fleets and i'm seeing alot of admirals with stars IN OTHER FACTIONS.