Any useful strategys on dominating the oceans?
I'm 1v1 the AI and i'm constantly getting smashed in Naval combat no matter what I do.
My bombers get taken out by fighters, my ships get taken out by bombers and my subs seem ineffective against everything.
Then my defences get swamped by nukes from subs + silos and I can't do a god damn thing.
Naval Warfare: Getting stomped consistantly
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TheHappyFriar
- level2
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- Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2006 7:59 pm
- Location: upper left
Carriers and You
Carriers are your most useful asset on the sea, seconded by Subs.
Carriers are the most versatile, hardest hitting, most amazing thing on the sea. Their fighters need launched in the direction they're moving periodically, to ensure that they have some cover fire, but avoid being to close to the coast of your enemy, as a silo will remove your fighters from the air. Keep at least two groups of three in antisub mode and sweep your own coastline, while two groups of six battleships take care of the other six as they approach your enemy coastline. Sneak elsewhere with your subs, you'll want to avoid combat at all costs with them, until you can pop out, and blow up some nuke silos with them.
Once the carrierrs are in position, launch fighters to find the enemy defensive silos, and the entire bomber contingent of six carriers should take care of them. Then nuke anything that is still standing with your subs. That should just about do it for sea tactics.
After your subs have finished with all their nukes, set them to active sonar, and sweep your coast again, kill anything subly.
That's just what I've seen as useful in the first day. I'm still not so good at actually executing the fighter sweeps, but hey..
That's what we watch for.
Dae
Carriers are the most versatile, hardest hitting, most amazing thing on the sea. Their fighters need launched in the direction they're moving periodically, to ensure that they have some cover fire, but avoid being to close to the coast of your enemy, as a silo will remove your fighters from the air. Keep at least two groups of three in antisub mode and sweep your own coastline, while two groups of six battleships take care of the other six as they approach your enemy coastline. Sneak elsewhere with your subs, you'll want to avoid combat at all costs with them, until you can pop out, and blow up some nuke silos with them.
Once the carrierrs are in position, launch fighters to find the enemy defensive silos, and the entire bomber contingent of six carriers should take care of them. Then nuke anything that is still standing with your subs. That should just about do it for sea tactics.
After your subs have finished with all their nukes, set them to active sonar, and sweep your coast again, kill anything subly.
That's just what I've seen as useful in the first day. I'm still not so good at actually executing the fighter sweeps, but hey..
That's what we watch for.
Dae
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TheHappyFriar
- level2
- Posts: 236
- Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2006 7:59 pm
- Location: upper left
I actually utilise subs in naval combat. If I know the enemy is at a certain location, I usually dispatch one fleet of subs to cause a bit of damage before moving off to prepare for a strike. I never let them stray too far from a fleet though, becaues that way it encourages the enemy to use fighters instead of having the carriers sweep for subs. Then I just quietly move in, cause a bit of chaos and quietly leave.
Though I'm pretty careful with it, subs are far too useful to be thrown around.
Though I'm pretty careful with it, subs are far too useful to be thrown around.
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Ridiculous Hat
- level0
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The subs are very, very powerful, but you absolutely have to kill every carrier they've got. Once the carriers are done for, put your subs on active sonar and sweep the seas to eliminate all the battleships you can see. If you have any carriers left, hopefully you can prowl for subs as well, but a lot of the time your enemy (the AI etc) will go for the same tactic of destroying carriers. The defensive aspect of carriers is unmatched, but when your subs get loose, their fleet just seems to disappear.
The most terrifying thing I've seen from playing so far is a fleet of 12 subs materializing off my eastern coast and a swarm of missles annihilating my major cities in one fell swoop. Make sure that doesn't happen to you-- or ideally, do that to your opposition.
The most terrifying thing I've seen from playing so far is a fleet of 12 subs materializing off my eastern coast and a swarm of missles annihilating my major cities in one fell swoop. Make sure that doesn't happen to you-- or ideally, do that to your opposition.
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rowenlemmings
- level1
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My friend and I played our first online game of DEFCON earlier today, and he kicked ass in the naval department, whereas I started strong and got my fleet decimated halfway through. Here is his advice to me, which I now pass to you:
Carriers hide.
Carriers are weak little scraps of metal barely afloat on the open sea -- think of them that way. They do, however, host your most powerful assets in DEFCON and that is the airforce. A fleet of carriers is more damaging than a fleet of submarines, because carriers can damn near attack like silos can -- as long as you're in the same OCEAN as your intended target, their bombers WILL reach.
They're also amazing at scouting for buildings, of course, with their fighters. To top this all off, with good radar coverage and recon, their mobile air force can decimate anything in the sea.
However, if something gets close to them, they die.
Do NOT let your carriers sink -- if nothing else they are your safeguard against a grand total of 60 nukes (the enemies' subs). Truly, they are your first weapon against the enemy, as well. Losing a couple carriers is fine, but do not throw them around like they are mere playthings.
Send in battleships, with a seperate force of carriers just behind. This way, when you encounter the enemy your battleships will take the beating they're supposed to, while your carriers are behind playing bowling with the enemy fleet. If possible, micromanage your bombers to hit their carriers first (for obvious reasons), and your fighters to clear the skies for your extremely powerful bombers.
I'm an MMORPG man myself, so I will put it thusly:
Battleship = Tank
Carrier = Support
Air Force = DDs.
Subs = Rogue (in WoW, though I don't play that, there's really no other comparison).
That being said, you want everything to hit the Battleships, NOTHING to hit your Carriers, let your planes do the brunt of the damage while your subs sneak away to bomb their mainland.
Certainly people are smarter than me in regards to submarine usage, but I honestly have never been able to use them in naval combat without them being obliterated.
If you can, count how many carriers you kill as you kill them, so you KNOW if they have any left.
Also, I learned this in the last game I played, though it seems rather mundane, bombers, after launch, require a good amount of time before they can launch their nuke. That being said, do not make the mistake of putting your bombing carriers right next to the coastline if your nuke targets are also on the coastline. Your bombers will fly over the top of the target, drawing AA fire, and then turn around with time still left on the SRBM timer to launch the nuke, succeeding in nothing but losing bombers and nukes.
Your bombers have a HUGE range -- USE IT.
Carriers hide.
Carriers are weak little scraps of metal barely afloat on the open sea -- think of them that way. They do, however, host your most powerful assets in DEFCON and that is the airforce. A fleet of carriers is more damaging than a fleet of submarines, because carriers can damn near attack like silos can -- as long as you're in the same OCEAN as your intended target, their bombers WILL reach.
They're also amazing at scouting for buildings, of course, with their fighters. To top this all off, with good radar coverage and recon, their mobile air force can decimate anything in the sea.
However, if something gets close to them, they die.
Do NOT let your carriers sink -- if nothing else they are your safeguard against a grand total of 60 nukes (the enemies' subs). Truly, they are your first weapon against the enemy, as well. Losing a couple carriers is fine, but do not throw them around like they are mere playthings.
Send in battleships, with a seperate force of carriers just behind. This way, when you encounter the enemy your battleships will take the beating they're supposed to, while your carriers are behind playing bowling with the enemy fleet. If possible, micromanage your bombers to hit their carriers first (for obvious reasons), and your fighters to clear the skies for your extremely powerful bombers.
I'm an MMORPG man myself, so I will put it thusly:
Battleship = Tank
Carrier = Support
Air Force = DDs.
Subs = Rogue (in WoW, though I don't play that, there's really no other comparison).
That being said, you want everything to hit the Battleships, NOTHING to hit your Carriers, let your planes do the brunt of the damage while your subs sneak away to bomb their mainland.
Certainly people are smarter than me in regards to submarine usage, but I honestly have never been able to use them in naval combat without them being obliterated.
If you can, count how many carriers you kill as you kill them, so you KNOW if they have any left.
Also, I learned this in the last game I played, though it seems rather mundane, bombers, after launch, require a good amount of time before they can launch their nuke. That being said, do not make the mistake of putting your bombing carriers right next to the coastline if your nuke targets are also on the coastline. Your bombers will fly over the top of the target, drawing AA fire, and then turn around with time still left on the SRBM timer to launch the nuke, succeeding in nothing but losing bombers and nukes.
Your bombers have a HUGE range -- USE IT.
=- Rowen
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=- || No, I won't fix your computer.
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=- || No, I won't fix your computer.
rowenlemmings wrote:My friend and I played our first online game of DEFCON earlier today, and he kicked ass in the naval department, whereas I started strong and got my fleet decimated halfway through. Here is his advice to me, which I now pass to you:
Carriers hide.
Carriers are weak little scraps of metal barely afloat on the open sea -- think of them that way. They do, however, host your most powerful assets in DEFCON and that is the airforce. A fleet of carriers is more damaging than a fleet of submarines, because carriers can damn near attack like silos can -- as long as you're in the same OCEAN as your intended target, their bombers WILL reach.
They're also amazing at scouting for buildings, of course, with their fighters. To top this all off, with good radar coverage and recon, their mobile air force can decimate anything in the sea.
However, if something gets close to them, they die.
Do NOT let your carriers sink -- if nothing else they are your safeguard against a grand total of 60 nukes (the enemies' subs). Truly, they are your first weapon against the enemy, as well. Losing a couple carriers is fine, but do not throw them around like they are mere playthings.
Send in battleships, with a seperate force of carriers just behind. This way, when you encounter the enemy your battleships will take the beating they're supposed to, while your carriers are behind playing bowling with the enemy fleet. If possible, micromanage your bombers to hit their carriers first (for obvious reasons), and your fighters to clear the skies for your extremely powerful bombers.
I'm an MMORPG man myself, so I will put it thusly:
Battleship = Tank
Carrier = Support
Air Force = DDs.
Subs = Rogue (in WoW, though I don't play that, there's really no other comparison).
That being said, you want everything to hit the Battleships, NOTHING to hit your Carriers, let your planes do the brunt of the damage while your subs sneak away to bomb their mainland.
Certainly people are smarter than me in regards to submarine usage, but I honestly have never been able to use them in naval combat without them being obliterated.
If you can, count how many carriers you kill as you kill them, so you KNOW if they have any left.
Also, I learned this in the last game I played, though it seems rather mundane, bombers, after launch, require a good amount of time before they can launch their nuke. That being said, do not make the mistake of putting your bombing carriers right next to the coastline if your nuke targets are also on the coastline. Your bombers will fly over the top of the target, drawing AA fire, and then turn around with time still left on the SRBM timer to launch the nuke, succeeding in nothing but losing bombers and nukes.
Your bombers have a HUGE range -- USE IT.
Beautiful. Exactly what I was looking for.
I find that using smaller groups of ships makes for better flexibility and easier micromanaging. And yeah, a single carrier in anti-sub mode puts paid to entire groups of lurking subs. Took me awhile to figure that little gem out =/
And, no matter what I do, using subs in combat just gets them sunk. I tend to weasel them towards enemy coastlines and leave them there until the time is right.
a single carrier in anti-sub mode puts paid to entire groups of lurking subs.
That's what I keep hearing, but my last game I had 6 carriers 2 on anti-sub attack a fleet of 6 subs I only killed 3 while he killed 2 of my carriers and he seemd to get away
Is there something I'm missing here? Did I click a move button at the wrong time which made my carriers stop attacking or what? it had to be something I did cause I know I've had enemy carriers totally decimate my sub offences.-
The GoldFish
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Don't use fleets of size 6. It's stupid. Unless you're baiting someone...
Launch your bombers in advance so you can have them ready in naval combat mode and your fighters out all at once. (MASSIVE advantage)
Use small groups of subs so you can split them up, so if one carrier happens to come across them you don't lose them all, and so you can use sub attacks in many places at once, rather than in only one place. If you DO use small groups of subs, they are AWESOME in combat because you can actually control them, and spread them all out if a carrier gets near.
Use several groups of pairs of carriers on your coast line to sweep for subs late in the game (one on sonar one on bombing attacks so they're always sub sweeping)
Try to avoid being in naval combat as soon as defcon 3 starts, you'll take lots of losses (so will they) - the idea is to trounce them...
Have a bomber nuke their naval units - it won't really do anything but they'll probably think it's a good idea and waste lots of nukes on you trying to do the same thing, hehe.
Launch your bombers in advance so you can have them ready in naval combat mode and your fighters out all at once. (MASSIVE advantage)
Use small groups of subs so you can split them up, so if one carrier happens to come across them you don't lose them all, and so you can use sub attacks in many places at once, rather than in only one place. If you DO use small groups of subs, they are AWESOME in combat because you can actually control them, and spread them all out if a carrier gets near.
Use several groups of pairs of carriers on your coast line to sweep for subs late in the game (one on sonar one on bombing attacks so they're always sub sweeping)
Try to avoid being in naval combat as soon as defcon 3 starts, you'll take lots of losses (so will they) - the idea is to trounce them...
Have a bomber nuke their naval units - it won't really do anything but they'll probably think it's a good idea and waste lots of nukes on you trying to do the same thing, hehe.
-- The GoldFish - member of former GIT and commander in chief of GALLAHAD. You could have done something, but it's been fixed. The end. Also, play bestgameever!
The GoldFish wrote:Don't use fleets of size 6. It's stupid. Unless you're baiting someone...
Eh. I have to respectfully disagree. There's an advantage to splitting up your carriers or subs, but I can't really see one for splitting up your battleships. My advice is this: Don't mix up your fleets with different ship types. The AI will, and they tell you to in the tutorial, but it's not a good idea. Carriers, battleships, and subs are good at such radically different things that having more than one type in the same fleet only hampers them.
Is splitting up your navy really a good idea? So far I've found that keeping my entire fleet together allows me to achieve total superiority over whatever area of sea I choose. Sure, I can't be everywhere, but I can make sure the other guy isn't where I am--and if I meet any naval units, chances are I'll butcher them with little/no losses. This also means that I'm pretty well guaranteed to saturate the defenses of whomever I attack, as I'll have all my subs + carriers together, allowing me to overwhelm and annihilate silos and then take my time with the cities.
Yeah, this means I'll inevitably be vulnerable to sub attacks, but that's why A: my silos don't go into ICBM mode until the victory counter starts, B: my airforce doesn't move until after they start throwing nukes my way from their subs. Sure, one or two nukes may get through, but that's about it.
Yeah, this means I'll inevitably be vulnerable to sub attacks, but that's why A: my silos don't go into ICBM mode until the victory counter starts, B: my airforce doesn't move until after they start throwing nukes my way from their subs. Sure, one or two nukes may get through, but that's about it.
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JoDiamonds
- level0
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- Joined: Sun Oct 01, 2006 5:42 pm
It seems that keeping 90% of your leetle boats together can be very powerful (whether or not you group them into little or big fleets). I'd strongly recommend splitting off a few single carrier groups to protect against subs, though. They are just too deadly otherwise.
It's also a big gamble. You might annihilate 50% of someone's force, while the other 50% comes and wrecks your other coast.
It's also a big gamble. You might annihilate 50% of someone's force, while the other 50% comes and wrecks your other coast.
mxlm wrote:Is splitting up your navy really a good idea? So far I've found that keeping my entire fleet together allows me to achieve total superiority over whatever area of sea I choose. Sure, I can't be everywhere, but I can make sure the other guy isn't where I am--and if I meet any naval units, chances are I'll butcher them with little/no losses. This also means that I'm pretty well guaranteed to saturate the defenses of whomever I attack, as I'll have all my subs + carriers together, allowing me to overwhelm and annihilate silos and then take my time with the cities.
Yeah, this means I'll inevitably be vulnerable to sub attacks, but that's why A: my silos don't go into ICBM mode until the victory counter starts, B: my airforce doesn't move until after they start throwing nukes my way from their subs. Sure, one or two nukes may get through, but that's about it.
My guess is that you have been playing against the AI, a real person would trounce you for leaving half of your coast line completely exposed.
On Subs: They can be used to great affect in naval battles to help turn the tide, but are a little slow to rely on, but while your surface ships are pounding it out in the middle of the ocean they can get a few shots in as they glide underneath.
On carriers: Definitely definitely definitely have at least the majority of your carriers behind your battle lines. Have 1/4 or 1/3 of them on fighter, and the rest on bomber. Launch the bombers and tell them to attack whatever is necessary, usually carriers, but if your battleships are giving way they may need immediate assistance. Then tell them to move sideways to the battle. They will stay, if you do it right, at the edge of their range hammering the enemy, and their range is much greater than the range of a battleship. The only thing which will be able to touch them is the enemies fighters. If they are coming not only will they have to make it through your screening wall of battleships, but your 1/3 or 1/4 carrier fleet is going to be ready to launch it's covering fighters. If this is done properly you will own the (top) of the ocean with almost no bomber casualties, and enough fighters left for suicide scouting and miscellaneous duties.
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