Missing point of navy in eu4

[Helmeri321X]

Lets think it about for a second, why would you ever build huge fleet? There is no point of having navy in this game other than trade ships and troop transports. Even though timeline of eu4 1444-1821 is consired that who had irl biggest fleet could dominate globe(england.spain.portugal etc). Now this doesnt work in eu4 like in real life. Yes i know this is game not rl. Another example of naval war on eu4 is when i declared war as spain against britain, We had roughly same sized fleets. What did britain ai do? Well ai parked theyre whole fleet on London like what? I think ai should be more agg on naval war and not park whole royal navy to London. Here is some examples to fix navy. Give yearly pres. Give yearly legitimacy. Give huge boost to power protection. Give navy tradition. Those were only some examples. I really hope that some day we see huge naval rework. Also naval ideas... Do i need to even speak of them? I have about 700h on eu4 and i only picked once maritime ideas ONCE! What you feel about navy in eu4? Post below.

 

[gia257]

-2 to sieges, extr awarscore when troops not available/defeated, faster travel, and denying these to your enemies

 

[HRErceg]

-2 to sieges, extr awarscore when troops not available/defeated, faster travel, and denying these to your enemies

So nothing

 

[Isildur9526]

Many rivers were navigable by ships; in EU4 there is no such river that can be navigated by a ship, therefore a lot of the depth of naval strategy is sadly missed out on.

 

[Sharples88]

Biggest problem is naval AI. You can get away with landing troops despite your enemy having tons of heavy ships, either because their priority is to blockade during war time or their ships are too far from the landing spot to reach you in time. You get almost nothing in terms of naval tradition and prestige for destroying an entire nations navy. Sailors become too disproportionate once you reach about 1000 development. You can sit at thousands of sailors and never run out.

As for the ideas, they're far too weak in comparison to what the others give. You either dominate the sea or you lose at the sea. You don't need bonuses that I'd consider 'Win More'. There needs to be an overhaul on how the system works. It also would be nice if naval leaders affected the siege of forts, or if you could train naval leaders through something like sea trials at the expense of additional maintenance or sailors. But IMO, by far the biggest concern is the naval AI. It needs way better priorities and preparation. It also shouldn't be sending 50,000 troops to the new world to sit on a single colony. (And that's without natives because I killed them).

 

[bradles0]

Navies are really good for early Mediterranean island hopping (knights, corfu, naxos, maybe venice?), really good for britain (because they can't win if they can't get on your island), very helpful for trapping enemy armies on islands, transports are faster than walking, and siege speed is very nice.

 

[Piotrzeci]

I feel like paying the full price of a ship to upgrade it is one of the issues. It's hard to afford having a great and up-to-date fleet. It's even harder to justify spending so much money when you get not so much from it. It's good to have fleet, but sometimes giving up on it entirely can lead to no problems.

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

Naval dominance is great when it can be afforded. It's often the key to taking on nations you couldn't otherwise, like the early Ottomans.

A good navy and good naval management are also very important in areas like South East Asia where you can easily use a navy to out maneuver and shut down opposing forces. In those areas Quality Ideas take a huge bump in effectiveness because at some point or another you're going to have to acquire naval dominance over a country with naval NIs. Of course you can always just keep double the heavies of your two strongest neighbors, but that is expensive and inefficient.

Last I'd like to bring up MP. Its very hard to understate the importance of a good navy in MP.

 

[sigeena]

Naval dominance is specific to a few nations and their geographical position. When I play Venice, I consistently make sure I have a naval superiority over Ottomans. This allows me to buzz around the Ottoman armies.

And later, when I start taking provinces in the Gulf of Aden and India, I'll usually have 2 main fleets, 1 in the Mediterranean and the other in India. It's going to take awhile before the Suez canal is available.

 

[Yxklyx]

I took Maritime first as The Knights because the only way I was going to beat the Ottomans was with a stronger navy. I could take all the islands pretty easily.

 

[Regaccio]

The naval game in EU4 definitely takes a backseat to land armies, but ships are useful for some things.

• Light ships can protect trade, which means in certain circumstances they pay for themselves or even turn a profit.
• If you're a colonizer and aren't Russia or already in the New World, you basically need ships or you're never going to get anywhere.
• Hunting Pirates stops the Berbers from raiding your coasts and costing you money.
• Naval blockades contribute to warscore and they also devastate enemy's coastal provinces.
• Naval landings can be used to easily circumvent fort systems if used properly, having complete control of the seas means you can land anywhere anytime.
• You can use ships to scout enemy troop movements (mostly useful in MP)
• Transporting troops by ship is far faster than by land. So much faster than if an enemy army is retreating to a coastal province, you can often beat them there and stackwipe them for free.
• This is a little cheesy but fleet size is also weighted by the AI when determining your strength. Having no navy will make it harder to form alliances and may make coalitions more likely to declare war.
• Obviously if you're an island country having naval supremacy is very important, it's like having an extra layer of forts the enemy can't siege. You're basically invulnerable if you micro enough.

 

[Incompetent]

Sailors become too disproportionate once you reach about 1000 development. You can sit at thousands of sailors and never run out.

The game needs sailors in order to put a cap on the light ship <-> trade income positive feedback loop, and especially to ensure TC-heavy countries don't have infinite ship spam capabilities. Sailors don't put much of a restriction on naval *warfare* between major powers with many coastal states, but that's not an issue for the balance of the game. If you cut the supply of sailors down to the point where replacing sailors lost in battle becomes a major problem for a France-sized country, you'd completely kill the light ship trade/privateering game for lesser powers.

 

[Regaccio]

The game needs sailors in order to put a cap on the light ship <-> trade income positive feedback loop

Doesn't Naval Force Limit already do this? Each ship over your force limit progressively increases maintenance more and more, meaning at some point it stops being profitable to simply add more trade ships. I don't see why sailors are necessary for this. The only usefulness to them I can see is to prevent countries with little coastline from building giant fleets and to prevent countries from building massive navies all at once.

 

[mhaell42]

Heavy Fleet is expansive. You only need one if you are going to focus heavily on naval warfare (ie island country or planing to invade one).
Seems about right.

Sadly maritime ideas fall into the good ideas, but there are better ideas for this category to pick.

 

[makaramus]

I will agree with anyone say maritime(%95 of time there is very specific %5 window its good ) and naval ideas are useless
but no... naval alone is not useless
1)its good when protecting trade
2)its good to prorect aganist pirates
3)its good to make sieges faster
4)its really important at multi contident wars
5)Must have at colonization
6)Some nations simply cannot be conquered without a navy(venice,england)
and trust me: devolping your navy %100 worth it

 

[Incompetent]

Doesn't Naval Force Limit already do this? Each ship over your force limit progressively increases maintenance more and more, meaning at some point it stops being profitable to simply add more trade ships. I don't see why sailors are necessary for this. The only usefulness to them I can see is to prevent countries with little coastline from building giant fleets and to prevent countries from building massive navies all at once.

In theory, sure, it will eventually become unprofitable in terms of ducats to spam ships, but on the good routes we're eventually talking about thousands of light ships here, several times FL (and the FL of a country with lots of trade company land is already quite large). Initially it's about trade power, but it eventually becomes more about trade steering: the main source of trade steering bonus for most countries is naval tradition, and the main source of naval tradition is sending fleets to protect trade.

 

[MrReaper182]

Because with a large naval no over sea's powers are invading your country. Also because wooden ocean going sail ships look super sweet.

 

[heliostellar]

Blockading a port of a fortified fortress can significantly speed up a war and reduce attrition your troops take. I wouldn't ever call that insignificant. In fact, if you do it right it can be a decisive advantage. There is also exploring, which is pretty important for colonization.

 

[I'm gaming]

Navy is nearly useless, but naval and maritime ideas are powerful. If navy becomes meaningful like real history, naval and maritime ideas will be nerfed. Those ideas aren't picked at current game for useless navy, not for their own weakness.

 

[makaramus]

I belive if you are playing as england gave up lands from france it makes sense to pick naval ideas. so you can simply conquer india and china thanks to dominating navy

but I agree navy itself is weak not ideas