Naval Doctrine experiences and opinions in 1.25?

[Snake_Squeezins]

Has anyone played around with Naval Doctrines and found anything notable?

My gut says the best deal in most cases is Fleet in Being (-15% maintenance cost) for the straightforward bonus.

Merchant Navy (+33% ship trade power) also sounds pretty good for maximizing light ship power, especially if you don't have much power from land.

As a Mediterranean-based power, I could see taking Free Oarsmen (+15% galley combat) early to gain naval supremacy. But I doubt it would be worth keeping long-term.

Ship Boarding (+33% chance to capture ships) only sounds worth taking for the achievement. I don't normally capture enough ships for this to sound appealing at all. I think the base chance would need a huge increase for this to even register as worthwhile.

The England-specific doctrine, Wooden Wall (+1 combat rolls adjacent to owned coasts), is also one I struggle to consider. Maybe it's worthwhile if you plan to turtle and play defensive in multiplayer. But as England, your navy should already be strong, and I'm not sure it doesn't make sense to just go with Fleet in Being or Merchant Navy.

So in general, 98% of the time I don't know why I'd consider anything other than Fleet in Being or Merchant Navy.

I am also not really convinced that the price to activate a doctrine is a great investment. Anyone with a decent navy will need several hundred gold to turn on a doctrine, which doesn't seem like a great use of money in the early game.

What has everyone been trying out? Do you think Naval Doctrines are a valuable feature?

 

[PhoenixG]

Currently playing as Mann for the achievement empire of Mann. And I must say Ship Boarding is damn good. While I did pick the rare ideas as Naval and maritime. After I build my initial heavies, I kinda don't need to build anymore. Since I just capture all of them. My biggest haul in one single battle is 13 ships.

 

[TenshiN]

Free Oarsmen is quite good as Ming/Japan if you are not planning on overseas expeditions. Also great as anyone mediterranean. Since i never really use tradeships (but thats because i play singleplayer, i probably would use them if playing with people where conquest is slower).
Free Oarsmen+Venice = wreck everyone in seconds just with galleyspam, which are nearly free anyways.
Fleet in Being looks kinda bad too, since you don't really need the too much heavies to dominate singleplayer, and heavies are the only kind of ship that has significant maintenance.
When playing with heavies, i use Boarding doctrine. This way i get my fleet quickly expanded for free after my initial 40 heavies. 60 ships from one war with Ming - quite possible.

 

[sparrow_ger]

I just started my first campaign after the patch and have not enabled a doctrine yet. I'm reluctant to activate one, since I'm not sure if I understand the costs: Do you have to pay the gold once, and then the doctrine stays active forever (unless you change it manually)? Is the price calculated based on the current fleet size? So if enable a doctrine when I have only a few transport ships, will it stay active without any further costs even when I build a huge fleet?

 

[leonissenbaum]

Ship boarding adds +33% chance to capture ships, as long as you have a general with some maneuver.

This means that if you have a 1 maneuver general with the ship boarding doctrine, you'll have 35% chance to capture ships, not 3%. This doctrine is amazing. It's main problem is that it can easily take you over naval force limit, though you can sell some of the ships.

 

[PhoenixG]

I just started my first campaign after the patch and have not enabled a doctrine yet. I'm reluctant to activate one, since I'm not sure if I understand the costs: Do you have to pay the gold once, and then the doctrine stays active forever (unless you change it manually)? Is the price calculated based on the current fleet size? So if enable a doctrine when I have only a few transport ships, will it stay active without any further costs even when I build a huge fleet?

You pay it once and it stay active till you change it. The cost depends on how many sailors your using to maintain the ships (heavies are more price than transport). The cheapiest way is just get 20 port and set a doctrine for 0 gold when you don't have ships.

 

[Kagerou.Echo.三葉]

The UK/England doctrine is broken. My latest playthrough is a pain in the ass since I have a catholic DoTF UK sitting happy on his island getting called in whenever I declare on catholic minors on the continent, and his giant naval doomstack of almost 100 heavies with a literal Horatio Nelson raping my fleets to pieces. And I have Spain as PU, Denmark as ally, both have fairly strong naval ideas and that broken wooden wall is destroying my combined navies.

 

[Big Bad France]

I chose the ship boarding feature in the campaign that I started as England, and I pretty quickly went about 2x my naval force limit without building a single ship, only through wars with Irish minors and Scotland. Then I sailed them around and sold the extras to various countries for a boatload of cash, no pun intended.

Between not having to build any ships and the ability to sell them, I think this is probably a better policy financially than fleet in being or merchant navy.

 

[RobRoy3]

Between not having to build any ships and the ability to sell them, I think this is probably a better policy financially than fleet in being or merchant navy.

Capturing ships is just fun! I feel a little jolt of adrenaline every time it happens. That might wear off if it becomes commonplace, but for now it's still rare enough that it still feels special, every time.

For that reason, alone, it beats all the others, IMHO. I don't sell ships (I mean, I'm usually trying to kill all opposing fleets) and it's often not giving me what I want/need, so it's probably not the best financially. Merchant Navy or Fleet in Being sound better for that, though I haven't run any numbers.

 

[Big Bad France]

Capturing ships is just fun! I feel a little jolt of adrenaline every time it happens. That might wear off if it becomes commonplace, but for now it's still rare enough that it still feels special, every time.

For that reason, alone, it beats all the others, IMHO. I don't sell ships (I mean, I'm usually trying to kill all opposing fleets) and it's often not giving me what I want/need, so it's probably not the best financially. Merchant Navy or Fleet in Being sound better for that, though I haven't run any numbers.

You steal so many ships with the policy that the maintenance cost will kill you if you don’t sell the ships off.

 

[FleetingRain]

Wait, the ship capture modifier is additive? Might be fun using it then lol

 

[Lor360]

I picked naval boarding. You literarly need only a few heavies to win the first ever battle and after that you will be swimming in ships. I find myself constantly deleting ships every war since im going over my 73 fleet limit. Only ships I ever built was 7 heavies at the start.

With that said, these naval bonuses could had just been put into the naval idea groups instead of making them a new feature.

 

[Sfan]

Yes, I don't know if that's a mistake in the code. When an admiral has a trait of 2%, and you could usually get 8% with normal nations, a whole 33% feels completely offbalance.

 

[Jon Finlay]

The naval doctrine is a fantastic feature, and my sole reason for buying Rule Britannia (even though I always play as England). The naval aspect is one of my favourite features in EUIV. So far I've only adopted the Naval Boarding, but I often get called into wars by Austria and have captured many fleets (my navy roughly tripled in a single war), which I can then sell off. I was able to clear four loans that way.

Naval support is excellent for England because it means you can be called to arms and initially just blockade the enemy ports, then as your allies gain ground you can then send in a small task force to gather loot and occupy the occasional undefended province.

Obviously you can also use the fleets to defend your island, whatever the cost may be

 

[Roguedemon]

The England-specific doctrine, Wooden Wall (+1 combat rolls adjacent to owned coasts), is also one I struggle to consider. Maybe it's worthwhile if you plan to turtle and play defensive in multiplayer. But as England, your navy should already be strong, and I'm not sure it doesn't make sense to just go with Fleet in Being or Merchant Navy.

My experience with wooden wall so far (100 years into my game) has been that I haven't lost a single battle even when outnumbered and using ships I haven't upgraded since the start of the game - honestly, I've mostly been focused on continental diplomacy. Given my previous experience of naval combat in EU4 has largely been that unless I have relatively up to date ships and outnumber the enemies I tend to get enough losses that I largely want to avoid naval combat against actual naval powers until the late game, from a purely 'gut feeling' perspective, I'm quite happy with it. All that said, I'd be the first to admit I don't really understand any of the underlying mechanics, so it may be the case that it doesn't scale well, or that it is better used against AI opponents than human ones, or perhaps even that I'm giving it credit for effects from ideas or other sources (ENG/GBR get some naval bonuses and my navy tradition is through the roof from exploring). I do think it would perhaps be useful if someone with the know how did the maths on the effect of the bonus though; if the effect from it is greater than however many ships you can afford to go over limit with from the -15% from fleet in being surely it would be more useful?

Edit: Also, is it just me, or are naval captures happening more often than they used to?

 

[evilcat]

The problem with stealing ships is that AI really likes to build transports, which you may not need as much, and you cant even sell it since everyone already has it.
But it is some idea to start with steal ships, and then turn it into combat bonus.

 

[Snake_Squeezins]

The problem with stealing ships is that AI really likes to build transports, which you may not need as much, and you cant even sell it since everyone already has it.

Yes, I tried out Ship Boarding based on the feedback in this thread - and I am probably getting about 80-90% Transports rather than other ships. But selling them for any value is tough going since most people already have reached their full force limits, or because they don't want more Transports, or because you can't easily set prices.

For more on that maddening last point, see here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...low-us-to-manually-enter-ducat-value.1083740/

 

[PhoenixG]

Yes, I tried out Ship Boarding based on the feedback in this thread - and I am probably getting about 80-90% Transports rather than other ships. But selling them for any value is tough going since most people already have reached their full force limits, or because they don't want more Transports, or because you can't easily set prices.

For more on that maddening last point, see here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...low-us-to-manually-enter-ducat-value.1083740/

Well in my case I got most of the times the useless Galleys. So yeah, it's up to RNG and which type of ships they have the most.