Do you ever hire Admirals?

[Nikolaj-11]

Just curious.

I find myself only ever using Admirals if my navy is slightly inferior to my enemies', do any of you guys use them more often than when it's convenient?

 

[Me_]

Every time I fight a lucky nation on the sea. It's dangerous to fight anything a lucky nation uses without a leader.

 

[BaronNoir]

At least for my part, I always use an Admiral on the fleet that is most likely to engage the bulk of the ennemy forces. (and I usually play England)

 

[Nikolaj-11]

Okay, I usually relax on it if I have more heavies, or in the Mediterranean; galleys, than the enemy. But I get the one with the Lucky Nations, that's a good call. I usually play without Lucky Nations so maybe that's why I'm more lenient.

 

[Thrake]

Not often. Typically, I don't use to really bother with fleets (lights mostly and usually a good share of transports). When I invest heavily into a fleet though, then I do of course, though then it's an explorer, unless I don't need any anymore. This way it does the fighting and the exploring.

 

[birincikalite]

No because I'm always at limit anyway...And If I'm a colonial, I have an explorer anyway.

 

[FreeSoc]

I tend to as the Dutch, because at some point you're going to have to obliterate the Royal Navy and conquer England if you want to really rake in the ducats, and even with Dutch income + naval forcelimits you'd have to be crazy to go up against the Royal Navy without a top-quality leader - which the +2 naval leader fire from your NI helps you to get. So too, arguably, for Portugal, although there the benefits are less obvious because your admirals will probably not be as good and you don't really need to fight England/GB as often/at all.

For anyone else (like the Malayans and Spaniards in particular, who have the income to do this) I just make sure my navy is bigger than anyone else's and use an explorer instead of an admiral, although I will sometimes keep a dedicated admiral after I have the two special military buildings at Tech 19 built and am at 25 or more PP.

 

[AurochsAway]

Only late game when more slots are available and only if I feel like it. So long as you make the money, you can still brute force the numbers.

 

[BaronNoir]

The performance difference between a leaderless 20 ships squadron and a 20 ships squadron with a leader can be drastic. Even with a mediocre leader.

Question here however...

Does decisions/ideas like, Excellent Shipwrights, Naval Cadets, 'Britannia Rules the Waves'...work without an admiral actually commanding the fleet ?

 

[Georgian]

Majority hires advisers based on their level if no other choice, so if there is level 2 admiral I can afford, I don't really care what is his bonus, if there is no other level 2 adviser...

 

[Nikolaj-11]

FreeSoc, do you ever take naval ideas? I've never really found myself in a situation where I felt it was extremely needed, but I have taken Maritime.

 

[Baxil]

I usually use one admiral to patrol my main trade node and eventually bring him into fight, if i don't need any general of course.

 

[BaronNoir]

This. Admirals can be quite the money maker, if you have a good trade node (hint : Channel and 400 frigates)

 

[FreeSoc]

FreeSoc, do you ever take naval ideas? I've never really found myself in a situation where I felt it was extremely needed, but I have taken Maritime.

I have literally never taken Naval or Maritime Ideas at all, ever, even in fairly heavily navally-focused games like Netherlands, Portugal, Great Britain, Spain or Malacca. I've just never needed them, given that you get all the forcelimit you need from provinces and Quantity (which I take pretty often, especially as a coloniser). As naval battles are generally a combination of how many heavy ships you have and who has the most ships in general, once you blob you can just overwhelm the enemy with numbers.

 

[BaronNoir]

Taking both would be overkill, takine one (Naval or Maritime) is interesting. Especially Maritime.

For instance, if you are England and you already have Exploration and Trade....

 

[Nikolaj-11]

I find Maritime useful with late game hordes and Russia. Covering a lot of land and having coast many places but not necessarily a lot of coast, it helps

Most times I end up with a batch of coast in China, Europe and by Basra before connecting them, depending on difficulty.

 

[supersamuel]

Just curious.

I find myself only ever using Admirals if my navy is slightly inferior to my enemies', do any of you guys use them more often than when it's convenient?

Only when I have to colonize, then I hire explorers. But admirals, only when for some reason I have three leader slots, so I use two generals and one admiral

 

[hauptman]

The only time I hire an admiral, is when I need to sink somebodies 500 stack of light ships... like when I want to transfer my trade port to antwerp.

Maritime is awsome... one single idea is the only reason I take it, and I actually take it often. Repairing ships outside of port is OP. The spice never has to stop flowing. Or the straights that I am blocking, dont have to be left undefended because I just had a fleet battle.

 

[atwix]

If you hire admirals, please do so after taking maritime.

And let that admiral sink all colonizer trade fleets while they are unguarded.

Or that Austrian fleet after they had Burgundian inheritance.

Or fight off Spain and Portugal (trade) fleets inside meditterean

After that, invade those colonizers, and dismiss the admiral

.. So to speak.

 

[Snake_Squeezins]

I only get an Admiral if I don't have Exploration and if I am planning to take out a massive stack of enemy ships. Once that singular task is accomplished (which happens maybe 2-3 times per game), I stick them on my largest trade fleet for the slight bonus and let them die of old age. It's very rare that I need to deploy the same Admiral twice in a campaign. I find them to be very limited in their utility. Admirals and naval warfare in general could definitely use an overhaul in EU4, they just don't have much of a role.