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Author Topic:   Naval Power

PrinceBimz posted 05-21-99 09:33 PM ET
I enjoy building a large amount of ships for various uses. I find that controling the seas can be very important at times especially on water heavy maps. Its like, GIVE ME NAVAL FORCES!
So how do some of you guys use naval power and what strategies do you like doing with ships? Come up with any interesting ship designs?

Plato90s posted 05-21-99 10:04 PM ET
The really important thing about naval forces is scouting. Because naval unit can move very fast and you have no radar coverage, scouting is very important. Needlejets are good when you are under air cover, but it's often a good idea to build a few scout cruisers to prevent your high-cost cruisers from being ambushed.
Air attacks aren't that much of a big deal after you get AAA since most needlejets won't do well against an AAA armed cruiser. But be careful when you hit cites with artillery units, since land-based artillery units can return fire and get a 50% bonus.
Empath posted 05-23-99 06:54 AM ET
Back in Civ2, I was a firm believer in sea power. I would often hold entire fronts with battleships & cruisers. No land unit could stand up to them. Once my ground force was ready, I would bring up some subs and/or carriers & use missiles and/or stealth fighters (or sometimes nukes) to clear a path away from the shore before my troops landed.
In SMAC, I find myself making only the occational armed boat. I use them for scouting, and sometimes for air defense, but not for offense. With battleship weapons on infantry, and all the ways to get across water, I find myself not needing them on the attack.
Earwicker posted 05-23-99 07:49 PM ET
Two SP's I almost always go for are Maritime Control and Xeno Dome -- those two, esp. together, give a huge advantage on the sea. You can then exploit that naval advantage for finding pods, capturing Isles of the Deep, and mapping. Good money from energy pods and killing off isles, occasional production pod or artifact.
When the other folks get busy with sea colonies, the extra movement helps mobilize your force, and the extra morale from sea units is great against the native life.
sandworm posted 05-24-99 11:51 AM ET
The extra movement from Maritime Control also permits your cruisers to withdraw from an enemy cruiser attack, just like a rover would from an infantry attack, often permitting you to counterattack or sail home for repairs on your next turn. Its a great solution to the lack of radar coverage your ships have (without requiring air support to scout ahead).
Darkstar posted 05-24-99 02:19 PM ET
Naval Power hasn't the significance that it had in Civ and CivII. The cause of that is ships don't survive contact with the enemy. This means you can't truly control vital sea areas. Add in the fact that the computer ALWAYS knows where all your units are and acts accordingly, and that makes ships a waste of resources except for early mapping, transporting troops, and attacking naval bases.
I do build the Maritime SP, but only because I think its movie is so cool. Love that space cruiser to sea cruiser transfiguration.
-Darkstar
Urban Ranger posted 05-25-99 02:21 AM ET
Naval power is important. The most important use is to kill off transports carrying invading armies. With a large fleet you can starve off an invasion indefinitely before you launch an invasion of your own.
Another good use of naval units is the sea probe. Just stick a probe on a cruiser and it's ready to go. Slap on deep radar (free for naval units) and you get a cheap explorer. Don't use it to pop pods, however.
Sea probes are awesome against computer players, simply because of their tendency to build sea bases. Heck, you can even bribe enemy sea colony pods to build your own sea bases.
sandals posted 05-25-99 01:39 PM ET
If the AI is building a bunch of sea bases, I'll build 1-1-cruisers, use needlejets/choppers to clean out the defender, take over the base with the cruiser & move on. Naval counterattacks to retake the base generally don't come.
Mcerion posted 05-25-99 04:02 PM ET
I didn't find naval forces to be particularly useful in Civ 2, but I use them a lot in SMAC. I find the AI in SMAC doesn't use them very effectively, except rarely.
Beta1 posted 05-25-99 06:49 PM ET
Naval power is less important than in CIV2. In CIV2 my favourite tactic was the carrier battle group - mixed naval group with 1/2 carriers, 2-3 battleships, couple of missile loaded subs & a few cruisers/subs spread out away from the fleet to provide extra radar coverage.
In SMAC the only unit I always use is the cruiser probe team. Its long range makes it very usefull compared to land probes. I have experimented with the super-cruiser (heavily armed & armoured, AAA, +deep radar or pressure hull etc.) but I rarely build more than one or two. Another unusual ship I have used is the SAM foil/cruiser - Heavily armed but no other upgrades to make it as cheap as possible - you wait for the oppositions airforce to stop nearby and then shoot them down with your boat. Its not a great tactic but I was desperately trying to find a usefull role for ships in SMAC.

Plato90s posted 05-25-99 07:49 PM ET
Actually, a cruiser force can be quite forceful and dangerous long before copters become available. I often build Chaos Silksteel AAA Cruisers. 5-6 of these can roam the sea with impunity in the early game.
It's also quite fun to build SAM cruisers, as has been mentioned, and nail the needlejets as they transit between islands. With cruisers, you can isolate each island on its own, making them easy targets.
High Priest posted 05-25-99 09:24 PM ET

I never used naval units much in Civ2.
The main reason was that they came in contact with shore bases and units. Kinda useful for wiping out an engineer, but a real defencive unit would damage you battleship quite a bit.
In SMAC, you can bombard with impunity(provided they don't have bombards as well), and not get damaged.
The other main reason is the sea base. In sea base warfare, all your power rests in an air force and a strong fleet. Send a Chaos plasma AAA Cruiser at a distant enemy see base, and you'll have it on the next turn, with little counterattack.
I've also found that many large sea bases will lack defenders. Sneak a cruiser in and take it. Your fleet is your first line of defense, and with sea bases acting as barriers, or the heart of your empire, it becomes much easier to repel enemy ships with a strong fleet.
Often as not, I'll end up wiping out most of their transports before they can land. The MCC is a project I always strive for in any serious game.
High Priest
Plato90s posted 05-26-99 12:25 AM ET
Yes, the artillery bombardment part is great. That's the fastest way to deliver artillery firepower to the front, and unlike artillery units, cruisers can move on to other targets after the bombardment is over. 4 Cruisers bombarding for two turns can do about 20-30% damage, which can be pivotal when you are pitting Chaos Guns against Silksteel armor behind perimeter defense.
Darkstar posted 05-26-99 01:41 PM ET
Urban - I find that a good air patrol will eliminate any transports headed for me. Deep Radar is free for Air units, just like Sea.
You can ignore Naval control in SMAC, and not even notice the loss. Without Carriers to base Air units off of, Naval units are targets waiting to sink. Their only use in my games is to transport an excursion force overseas. Although Naval Probes can be fun to play with. Bombarding doesn't seem effective until about Chaos weapons, which I rarely see (about 1 in 8 games lately).
But whatever keeps you afloat...
-Darkstar
Plato90s posted 05-26-99 02:33 PM ET
If that naval transport is escorted by an AAA-cruiser or two, you might find it a bit difficult to kill it before it reaches your shore.
With the MCC and fusion engine, a transport can move up to 8 squares. That means needlejets must stage from cities within 4-5 squares of the target landing zone or they won't even be able to reach the transport. And an AAA-cruiser would make life difficult for attacking aircraft, especially since there is no collateral damage.
A cruiser task force of 2 cruisers and 2 transports can definitely sneak up on your shores unless you happen to have a minimum of 4 needlejets within a 5 square area of the target city. 2 is needed to hit the cruisers [and that assumes you sink them on the first try] and 2 more for the transports. I don't know about you, but I rarely keep that many needlejets in a single base and my experience is the AI needs 2 needlejets to kill an elite AAA-cruiser.
Darkstar posted 05-26-99 04:06 PM ET
Plato - That sounds like it would do the trick to get in, but it might be better to let them land, pop the AAA with worms and and Rovers. But as I play Single Player most of the time, I don't need much in the way of shore patrol. The AI just doesn't coordinate its naval transport in such a fashion. That is why they were given AAA Transports.
Against Humans, I think whatever I could cook up, they could find a way through. I am willing to use the Ocean Watchers as reserve air units and coordinate with naval sweepers... improves the coverage that way, and gives those naval units something to do as their transports fill back up...
-Darkstar
Plato90s posted 05-26-99 05:07 PM ET
Then again, that invading army could be packing a few Trance/Empath units along with ECM garrisons. After all, once ashore, they only need 1-2 AAA units to shield them from your troops. If the transports carried lots of marine units, they can be in your base before your counterattack gets there. Again, I do not garrison my cities against attacks by 8+ amphib units - so it'd be far better to sink the transports before they get withing range.
Tres posted 05-28-99 12:09 PM ET
naval power is essential in huge ocean worlds. i usually play on planets sized around 230 * 190 squares, 90 % ocean.
without a great fleet you don�t have a chance. even the evil planetbusters are playing a secondary role (due to the limited fuel).
it�s cool to see your combined fleets of battleships, aircraft carriers, spy cruisers and troop transports roaming the seas.
laurens posted 05-28-99 12:23 PM ET
On a huge ocean map, it is needless to say that naval power is essential.
On the average to big land mass, naval units serving offensive purposes are less useful due to the greater number of cities that are found on the mainland. Furthermore, it is pretty obvious that sea cities are certainly more vulnerable in SMAC, and hence the naval aspect of the game is somehow undermined.
It is also risky to ferry a cluster of units on sea transports - even having the AAA, 1 or 2 non-air superiority units should finish these transports fairly quickly. In my opinion, the only real advantage given to the waters here are the isle of the deep. In fact, this advantage makes it all too powerful.
Col Crap posted 05-28-99 01:36 PM ET
NAVAL POWER RULES. You can control the world with a huge navy.I played a game once were i had about 30
Chaos Crusiers surrounding my island and i never ever got attacked(early game)!
I always have a big navy.
Col. Crap
cbraga posted 05-28-99 11:46 PM ET
The SMAC combat system is TOTAL CRAP!
It simply doens't make sense that a ship can't defend itself to the point that a combat between equal ships will ALWAYS be won by the ship that attacks first.
The armor stuff doesn't make any sense to begin with. So, can guy with the toughest armor and no weapons at all kill an armed foe? And a 12-1-2 vehicle can't defend itself against a 2-1-2!!!
It's TOTAL STUPIDITY and something that should really be changed in SMACX. The best system was the one in Civ/Civ2 where a unit's ratings reflected it's ability to attack and defend.
A catapult would get, say, 4-1-1 since it was really impossible to defend against enemies with something made to shoot far away. Battleships and cruisers and stuff had equal offense/defense ratios, and it made sense.
PrinceBimz posted 05-29-99 02:16 AM ET
I look at it this way, I almost always need to transport land units across the sea. Sometimes its a very big sea too and they have a long way to go. For this reason, I need escorts all the time. I would say that about 75% of my transports going across the sea get sunk without escorts. Even if I am not at war with anyone those Isles of the Deep seem to get on them everytime.
Man, it hurts losing loaded transports and it got me so mad one time that I punched my comp desk so hard my monitor was shaking! :-) I thought I was going to pass through safe waters but I made a very bad mistake and lost 2 loaded xports! Talk about get me mad!Anyway, in my games I can't do without some kind of navy.
PrinceBimz posted 05-29-99 02:26 AM ET
Another thing too, I like moving my ships near an enemy coastal city and just bombard the enhancements.
Krushala posted 05-29-99 11:14 PM ET
ships are great for taking over peackeeper sea bases which he builds a lot of if he's stuck on a small island. On a huge map I use them to explore pods. I have funded an entire war from sea pods. At the higher levels my shore bombardment doesn't work hardly at all. I can't even damage terraformers.
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Author	Topic: Naval Power
PrinceBimz	posted 05-21-99 09:33 PM ET I enjoy building a large amount of ships for various uses. I find that controling the seas can be very important at times especially on water heavy maps. Its like, GIVE ME NAVAL FORCES! So how do some of you guys use naval power and what strategies do you like doing with ships? Come up with any interesting ship designs?
Plato90s	posted 05-21-99 10:04 PM ET The really important thing about naval forces is scouting. Because naval unit can move very fast and you have no radar coverage, scouting is very important. Needlejets are good when you are under air cover, but it's often a good idea to build a few scout cruisers to prevent your high-cost cruisers from being ambushed. Air attacks aren't that much of a big deal after you get AAA since most needlejets won't do well against an AAA armed cruiser. But be careful when you hit cites with artillery units, since land-based artillery units can return fire and get a 50% bonus.
Empath	posted 05-23-99 06:54 AM ET Back in Civ2, I was a firm believer in sea power. I would often hold entire fronts with battleships & cruisers. No land unit could stand up to them. Once my ground force was ready, I would bring up some subs and/or carriers & use missiles and/or stealth fighters (or sometimes nukes) to clear a path away from the shore before my troops landed. In SMAC, I find myself making only the occational armed boat. I use them for scouting, and sometimes for air defense, but not for offense. With battleship weapons on infantry, and all the ways to get across water, I find myself not needing them on the attack.
Earwicker	posted 05-23-99 07:49 PM ET Two SP's I almost always go for are Maritime Control and Xeno Dome -- those two, esp. together, give a huge advantage on the sea. You can then exploit that naval advantage for finding pods, capturing Isles of the Deep, and mapping. Good money from energy pods and killing off isles, occasional production pod or artifact. When the other folks get busy with sea colonies, the extra movement helps mobilize your force, and the extra morale from sea units is great against the native life.
sandworm	posted 05-24-99 11:51 AM ET The extra movement from Maritime Control also permits your cruisers to withdraw from an enemy cruiser attack, just like a rover would from an infantry attack, often permitting you to counterattack or sail home for repairs on your next turn. Its a great solution to the lack of radar coverage your ships have (without requiring air support to scout ahead).
Darkstar	posted 05-24-99 02:19 PM ET Naval Power hasn't the significance that it had in Civ and CivII. The cause of that is ships don't survive contact with the enemy. This means you can't truly control vital sea areas. Add in the fact that the computer ALWAYS knows where all your units are and acts accordingly, and that makes ships a waste of resources except for early mapping, transporting troops, and attacking naval bases. I do build the Maritime SP, but only because I think its movie is so cool. Love that space cruiser to sea cruiser transfiguration. -Darkstar
Urban Ranger	posted 05-25-99 02:21 AM ET Naval power is important. The most important use is to kill off transports carrying invading armies. With a large fleet you can starve off an invasion indefinitely before you launch an invasion of your own. Another good use of naval units is the sea probe. Just stick a probe on a cruiser and it's ready to go. Slap on deep radar (free for naval units) and you get a cheap explorer. Don't use it to pop pods, however. Sea probes are awesome against computer players, simply because of their tendency to build sea bases. Heck, you can even bribe enemy sea colony pods to build your own sea bases.
sandals	posted 05-25-99 01:39 PM ET If the AI is building a bunch of sea bases, I'll build 1-1-cruisers, use needlejets/choppers to clean out the defender, take over the base with the cruiser & move on. Naval counterattacks to retake the base generally don't come.
Mcerion	posted 05-25-99 04:02 PM ET I didn't find naval forces to be particularly useful in Civ 2, but I use them a lot in SMAC. I find the AI in SMAC doesn't use them very effectively, except rarely.
Beta1	posted 05-25-99 06:49 PM ET Naval power is less important than in CIV2. In CIV2 my favourite tactic was the carrier battle group - mixed naval group with 1/2 carriers, 2-3 battleships, couple of missile loaded subs & a few cruisers/subs spread out away from the fleet to provide extra radar coverage. In SMAC the only unit I always use is the cruiser probe team. Its long range makes it very usefull compared to land probes. I have experimented with the super-cruiser (heavily armed & armoured, AAA, +deep radar or pressure hull etc.) but I rarely build more than one or two. Another unusual ship I have used is the SAM foil/cruiser - Heavily armed but no other upgrades to make it as cheap as possible - you wait for the oppositions airforce to stop nearby and then shoot them down with your boat. Its not a great tactic but I was desperately trying to find a usefull role for ships in SMAC.
Plato90s	posted 05-25-99 07:49 PM ET Actually, a cruiser force can be quite forceful and dangerous long before copters become available. I often build Chaos Silksteel AAA Cruisers. 5-6 of these can roam the sea with impunity in the early game. It's also quite fun to build SAM cruisers, as has been mentioned, and nail the needlejets as they transit between islands. With cruisers, you can isolate each island on its own, making them easy targets.
High Priest	posted 05-25-99 09:24 PM ET I never used naval units much in Civ2. The main reason was that they came in contact with shore bases and units. Kinda useful for wiping out an engineer, but a real defencive unit would damage you battleship quite a bit. In SMAC, you can bombard with impunity(provided they don't have bombards as well), and not get damaged. The other main reason is the sea base. In sea base warfare, all your power rests in an air force and a strong fleet. Send a Chaos plasma AAA Cruiser at a distant enemy see base, and you'll have it on the next turn, with little counterattack. I've also found that many large sea bases will lack defenders. Sneak a cruiser in and take it. Your fleet is your first line of defense, and with sea bases acting as barriers, or the heart of your empire, it becomes much easier to repel enemy ships with a strong fleet. Often as not, I'll end up wiping out most of their transports before they can land. The MCC is a project I always strive for in any serious game. High Priest
Plato90s	posted 05-26-99 12:25 AM ET Yes, the artillery bombardment part is great. That's the fastest way to deliver artillery firepower to the front, and unlike artillery units, cruisers can move on to other targets after the bombardment is over. 4 Cruisers bombarding for two turns can do about 20-30% damage, which can be pivotal when you are pitting Chaos Guns against Silksteel armor behind perimeter defense.
Darkstar	posted 05-26-99 01:41 PM ET Urban - I find that a good air patrol will eliminate any transports headed for me. Deep Radar is free for Air units, just like Sea. You can ignore Naval control in SMAC, and not even notice the loss. Without Carriers to base Air units off of, Naval units are targets waiting to sink. Their only use in my games is to transport an excursion force overseas. Although Naval Probes can be fun to play with. Bombarding doesn't seem effective until about Chaos weapons, which I rarely see (about 1 in 8 games lately). But whatever keeps you afloat... -Darkstar
Plato90s	posted 05-26-99 02:33 PM ET If that naval transport is escorted by an AAA-cruiser or two, you might find it a bit difficult to kill it before it reaches your shore. With the MCC and fusion engine, a transport can move up to 8 squares. That means needlejets must stage from cities within 4-5 squares of the target landing zone or they won't even be able to reach the transport. And an AAA-cruiser would make life difficult for attacking aircraft, especially since there is no collateral damage. A cruiser task force of 2 cruisers and 2 transports can definitely sneak up on your shores unless you happen to have a minimum of 4 needlejets within a 5 square area of the target city. 2 is needed to hit the cruisers [and that assumes you sink them on the first try] and 2 more for the transports. I don't know about you, but I rarely keep that many needlejets in a single base and my experience is the AI needs 2 needlejets to kill an elite AAA-cruiser.
Darkstar	posted 05-26-99 04:06 PM ET Plato - That sounds like it would do the trick to get in, but it might be better to let them land, pop the AAA with worms and and Rovers. But as I play Single Player most of the time, I don't need much in the way of shore patrol. The AI just doesn't coordinate its naval transport in such a fashion. That is why they were given AAA Transports. Against Humans, I think whatever I could cook up, they could find a way through. I am willing to use the Ocean Watchers as reserve air units and coordinate with naval sweepers... improves the coverage that way, and gives those naval units something to do as their transports fill back up... -Darkstar
Plato90s	posted 05-26-99 05:07 PM ET Then again, that invading army could be packing a few Trance/Empath units along with ECM garrisons. After all, once ashore, they only need 1-2 AAA units to shield them from your troops. If the transports carried lots of marine units, they can be in your base before your counterattack gets there. Again, I do not garrison my cities against attacks by 8+ amphib units - so it'd be far better to sink the transports before they get withing range.
Tres	posted 05-28-99 12:09 PM ET naval power is essential in huge ocean worlds. i usually play on planets sized around 230 * 190 squares, 90 % ocean. without a great fleet you don�t have a chance. even the evil planetbusters are playing a secondary role (due to the limited fuel). it�s cool to see your combined fleets of battleships, aircraft carriers, spy cruisers and troop transports roaming the seas.
laurens	posted 05-28-99 12:23 PM ET On a huge ocean map, it is needless to say that naval power is essential. On the average to big land mass, naval units serving offensive purposes are less useful due to the greater number of cities that are found on the mainland. Furthermore, it is pretty obvious that sea cities are certainly more vulnerable in SMAC, and hence the naval aspect of the game is somehow undermined. It is also risky to ferry a cluster of units on sea transports - even having the AAA, 1 or 2 non-air superiority units should finish these transports fairly quickly. In my opinion, the only real advantage given to the waters here are the isle of the deep. In fact, this advantage makes it all too powerful.
Col Crap	posted 05-28-99 01:36 PM ET NAVAL POWER RULES. You can control the world with a huge navy.I played a game once were i had about 30 Chaos Crusiers surrounding my island and i never ever got attacked(early game)! I always have a big navy. Col. Crap
cbraga	posted 05-28-99 11:46 PM ET The SMAC combat system is TOTAL CRAP! It simply doens't make sense that a ship can't defend itself to the point that a combat between equal ships will ALWAYS be won by the ship that attacks first. The armor stuff doesn't make any sense to begin with. So, can guy with the toughest armor and no weapons at all kill an armed foe? And a 12-1-2 vehicle can't defend itself against a 2-1-2!!! It's TOTAL STUPIDITY and something that should really be changed in SMACX. The best system was the one in Civ/Civ2 where a unit's ratings reflected it's ability to attack and defend. A catapult would get, say, 4-1-1 since it was really impossible to defend against enemies with something made to shoot far away. Battleships and cruisers and stuff had equal offense/defense ratios, and it made sense.
PrinceBimz	posted 05-29-99 02:16 AM ET I look at it this way, I almost always need to transport land units across the sea. Sometimes its a very big sea too and they have a long way to go. For this reason, I need escorts all the time. I would say that about 75% of my transports going across the sea get sunk without escorts. Even if I am not at war with anyone those Isles of the Deep seem to get on them everytime. Man, it hurts losing loaded transports and it got me so mad one time that I punched my comp desk so hard my monitor was shaking! :-) I thought I was going to pass through safe waters but I made a very bad mistake and lost 2 loaded xports! Talk about get me mad!Anyway, in my games I can't do without some kind of navy.
PrinceBimz	posted 05-29-99 02:26 AM ET Another thing too, I like moving my ships near an enemy coastal city and just bombard the enhancements.
Krushala	posted 05-29-99 11:14 PM ET ships are great for taking over peackeeper sea bases which he builds a lot of if he's stuck on a small island. On a huge map I use them to explore pods. I have funded an entire war from sea pods. At the higher levels my shore bombardment doesn't work hardly at all. I can't even damage terraformers.