Best Navy

**Spartan156** · March 03, 2007, 04:40 PM

What faction has the best Navy? Which is better for a navy, cities or castles? Are tips on a good navy?

**Little_Mikey** · March 03, 2007, 05:15 PM

Spain's navy is solid

**Captain Blackadder** · March 04, 2007, 12:19 AM

byzantines have one of the best navy units in the game the fireship. the danes also have a good early navy with the longboats.

**Plutarch** · March 04, 2007, 12:27 AM

Originally Posted by Spartan156

What faction has the best Navy? Which is better for a navy, cities or castles? Are tips on a good navy?

spain imo has the best navy. ive never played real extensively with them but its what i hear

**Jackster** · March 04, 2007, 12:29 AM

Spain with their crazy Grand Carrack.

**Tajir** · March 04, 2007, 12:39 AM

Venice by FAR!

In all of my campaigns, the Venice AI is always something to the mess with.

Byzantines are a far second, but still above the rest.

**Spartan156** · March 04, 2007, 12:46 AM

Lets say im playing as the Sicilians, what is best, cities or castles?

**Plutarch** · March 04, 2007, 12:49 AM

Originally Posted by Spartan156

Lets say im playing as the Sicilians, what is best, cities or castles?

Youre going to want a good mix of both, if youre going to be fighting in a region for awhile, i would construct a castle near the front. Otherwise cities are alot more beneficial for income, however, make sure you have the means to run the city efficiently. i.e have Governors available.

**Tajir** · March 04, 2007, 01:10 AM

No matter which faction you play as, ALWAYS have a 10:1 ratio of cities/castles.

If you have 8 cities, have 1 castle. Castles are pointless and eat up florins.

**Kesxex** · March 04, 2007, 03:56 AM

Early game: Danes and any faction with access to galleys.
Middle game: Any faction with access to war galleys (especially with upgrades to their cannons).
Late game: Spain with their 75 man Grand Carrack - the Great Carrack of other nations only has 67 man.

As far as cities or castles go, it doesn't matter for a navy. You can build all port upgrades in either of them.
In a way it also depends on whether you play a mod or vanilla. Some mods (LtC for example) increase the number of recruitment slots in castles. So it is possible to build ships and some military at the same time.
On the other hand the capacity of cities is normally not tapped that much so cities can be used to build an effective navy while castles provide the necessary land force.

A fixed ratio of cities to castles is rather stupid. Cities provide more income (due to trade buildings) so it is important to have as many cities as possible. On the other hand you will need to have castles up to the late game to provide good units to fight with.
Personally I look at the map and have castles near my borders. If I expect very heavy fighting (and the attrition associated with it) I have 2 or 3 castles in a region. For example in my HRE campaign (Poland out, Hungary pushed to the south) there are 3 castles as border frontiers. This is to prepare against a Byzantine push and the expected Mongol invasion.

**Jackster** · March 05, 2007, 12:02 AM

I wonder why English dont have good navy? Didnt they beat back the Danes back in the days of Alfred?
I never quite understand why galley are better ships? (historic wise)

**Ippius** · March 05, 2007, 02:34 AM

Overall Spain has the best navy. Also it is the closest to the new world.

**parvus** · March 05, 2007, 02:39 AM

Venice's one is pretty good. and it's central

**michag** · March 05, 2007, 03:14 AM

Venice has the best navy. It is stratigically placed in one of the "mouths" of Italy (Venice). And if you pinch Genoa off the Milanese, you control the major ports of Western Europe. Then the Venetian navy will easily crush the Spaniards and control the high seas!

**mic111** · March 05, 2007, 07:06 AM

portugal is also OK as well as Sicylians

**Samuel Adams** · March 06, 2007, 04:37 PM

what about the HRE? It sucks to crusade with them, you almost have to go land marching the whole time. You have like one port in the MED to start with, and all my moneys go to fighting the land enemies; thus I've found it more effective to hire a merc ship to make small jumps via the sea, i.e. Italy to greece, 1 turn, land the army and march cross Greece, sail the ship around and if it doesn't get jumped use it to take your army to Asia Minor, 1 turn, then march from west-central turkey south east to the coast and jump into a ship for the last leg. It's still pretty fast (Bern to Antioch with a crusading army in 6 turns) and doesn't risk (as badly) your army being annihalated by pirates or enemy vessels.