Advice on Sea War (Little Upsilon)

This time I have questions about a sea war -
1. If I have 100 Aircraft carriers & have 2 enemy locations, can I buy a 2nd fleet command & separate the fleet?
2. If so - how does one get half the fleet to follow the 2nd fleet command?
3. If I use a sea cruise ship on a land target such as a city - is it the same power as using a Land Cruise missle/
4. Whats the diff between a Guided Missle & a Navy Cruise missle? When does one use either?
5. When does one use a conventional missle with solid fuel?
6. Are navy Missles defensive - like a Navy interceptor missle?
7. Is there a wepeon guide with this game? LOL
Thanks again,
madison

1. Aircraft carriers, helicopter carriers, and fleet commands are all examples of command ships. The command ship itself doesn't do anything (it's similar to a garrison or Long Range Division). It's the weapons that you put IN the command ships that do the attacking. The command ships just hold the weapons. As such, having 100 command ships would be unwieldly and probably useless. For each command ship you own, you can activate up to 20,000 naval weapons (similar to the military base/weapon rules). Fleets are separated based on command ships.

If a command ship is destroyed and there is a nearby command ship that can hold the weapons, your weapons will auto transfer to that command ship. If there isn't a nearby command ship, the weapons will be lost. Your last command ship of each type cannot be destroyed, only 99% damaged. As such, many people just buy 1 of each command ship. With just these 3 command ships, you can have as many as 60k weapons activated for your navy, which is enough for most people.

2. Using the War -> Navy -> Organize Fleets screen, it will list all your command ships. Select any two command ships, and you can organize the weapons between them as you wish, within the following two restrictions:

Only aircraft carriers can hold navy fighter planes.
Only helicopter carriers can hold navy helicopters.

There may be more, but these are the only two I've ever noticed.

3. As you know, Land Based Cruise batteries are based in your offensive military bases and are fired from there. If your offensive military bases are destroyed (or, if it's your last one, 99% damaged), you can no longer fire any land based cruise batteries. Relatedly, Cruise Missile Ships are the naval equivalent of Land Based Cruise batteries. They fire from command ships instead of offensive military bases. If the command ship is destroyed, you can no longer fire your Cruise Missile Ships. By and large, Ship Based Cruise Missiles are slightly more powerful than Land Based Cruise Missiles. Consult the weapons documentation for more detailed info.

4. Guided missiles are the ammunition for Guided Missile Frigates, another type of ship. They're smaller, less powerful versions of Cruise Missile Ships. Cruise Missiles Ship Based are the ammunition for Cruise Missile Ships.

5. Conventional missiles (and many other missiles) are constructed with (among other components) solid missile fuel. Once the item is constructed and you've purchased it, you no longer need to concern yourself with it. Conventional missiles are fired by Conventional Missile Batteries, which are more powerful, MUCH longer ranged versions of Land Based Cruise batteries, and are also based in Offensive Military Bases. Many people feel that the added expense for their ammunition is not worth the added range and damage they can do. You can consult the documentation to make your own determination. However, given you can buy 15 ship based cruise missiles for the price of 1 conventional missile, I've rarely used conventional missiles, except when you REALLY need to take that far away country now.

6. Navy Missiles and Navy Missile Interceptors are both defensive naval weapons. Navy Missile Interceptors (like their land-based Missile Interceptors) protect your fleet from incoming missile fire. Navy Missiles (similar to the land-based Defensive Missiles) are used automatically in retaliatory attacks against the attacking units.

7. Yes, and you'll find it invaluable. From the Simcountry Portal, click on Documentation at the top (in the same row as 'Live Chat', 'My Blog', 'My Site', and 'Forum'). Then, select '7. More Game Features - Weapons'. It will tell you anything you want to know about every weapon.

Though some of the info may be a bit out of date :p

It would be nice if they updated the game documentation to account for all the recent (lol!) game changes. However, it is still a valuable treasure trove of information, inaccuracies and all.

Thats interesting - I experimented the other day on a C3 & began using Land based cruise on the cities & it took 1 shot per city. But when I attacked with 400 Navy planes assisted by Cruise Missle ships, (and guided missle friggets) I lost all the missle ships on the 1st attack & did no damage to the cities. Only the Navy jets were effective using 3 attacks each.

That guide would be helpful -
HORDO

You can use up to 1000 Land Based Cruise missile batteries to attack, while you can only use up to 400 Cruise Missile Ships.

However, it should only take approximately 100 Cruise Missile Ships to destroy a city, and it should take approximately 125 Land Based Cruise batteries to destroy a city (which is well under either maximum).

Both are vulnerable to helicopter counter-attacks, so you need to eliminate the air defense before attacking using either Navy Fighter Planes or Fighter Planes.

Navy Fighter Planes and Fighter Planes are both very inefficient for attacking structures such as factories/cities/capitals.

I suspect in your second example, you hadn't eliminated all the air defense. Interceptors will respond to air attacks (such as Navy Fighter Planes, etc). Helicopters will respond to land attacks (i.e. Land Based Cruise batteries, Cruise Missile Ships, land units, etc). It's important to always attack the defenses of the country (via the Attack Defenses button) to eliminate any air defense, regardless of your attack method prior to attacking the structures.

Cool stuff - If Any ship can be a fleet command - then why even have a fleet command? perhaps just to assemble the supply ships?
That guide is helpful

again thanks

No, there are only 3 command ships: the fleet command, the aircraft carrier, and the helicopter carrier. The final command ship of each type you have cannot be destroyed, only 99% damaged (which still prevents you from attacking but does not destroy the naval weapons themselves). By purchasing one of each, it allows you to have up to 60k in naval weaponry.

Great info. I haven't messed much with the naval portion of the game. The information here will definitely help.

My questions: How do the defensive ships fit into the equation? ie What are destroyers used for? What about supply ships?

thanks

Defensive ships react much as land def weapons do. They only react when they are attacked. Supply ship operate the same way land supply units do. They do their jobs automatically, you dont actually 'control' them.

Excuse the thickness here but,...

Do you need a Helicopter Carrier, and Navy Helicopters to Defend your fleet from retaliatory attacks on your attacks? It seems these Heli's are for attack and not defense?

In other words, how do you protect your ship based cruise missle batteries from counter attacks from Defensive helicopters/Missle batteries?

- Will NFP attacks on Air Def and Land Def bases eliminate this threat effectively, so if you destroy the AD/LD before launching navy cruise-based missles, you won't have to worry about this?

- Do Navy Def Batteries fit on all carriers, and are they evenly distributed on your carriers if you simply buy them and the ammo?

- The docs say Navy Def Batteries only attack the defensive batteries that fire against your naval attack, and not the missles themselves. How you you protect against the first wave of missles or subsequent attacks if you don't destroy all the batteries?

A broader question. I've read elsewhere, it's not really profitable to conqeur a country smaller than 25M pop. After the first C3 conquering, is it every profitable to take a second inactive country, since all are around 10MM pop and 2T assets after they reset? Do you need to find a built up slave to make it profitable? Can you war on/take a recently abandoned country and maintain the built-up assets after you conquer? Or is it that it just doesn't make economic sense, in the near-term, and is simply a massive investment to get more land under your empire?

Thanks in advance for any comments.

B.

Navy helicopters are for attacking, not defending.

To protect your Ship Based Cruise Batteries from counterattack, you need to first destroy the air defense (in order to eliminate all the helicopters) with NFPs.

Once the helicopters are gone, it's usually wiser to destroy the defenses of the land target with NFPs, before destroying the target with Cruise Batteries.

Navy Missile Batteries and Navy Missile Interceptor Batteries are usually evenly distributed across your carriers when you buy them. It's your job to reorganize them from the War -> Navy -> Organize Fleets screen. They only defend the carrier that they're on, so if all your aircraft and ships are on the aircraft carrier, put your defensive naval weapons on that carrier as well.

Navy Missiles are the sea analog of Defensive Missiles. They attack the source of the missiles attacking you. Navy Missile Interceptors are the sea analog of Missile Interceptors. They will attack the incoming missiles.

It is not profitable to RAID a country smaller than about 25M population. Even with minimal defenses, the cost and effort to take it usually negates any raiding you can do.

If you want to add an additional country to your empire, on the other hand, it's usually a toss-up. If you're very good at rehabilitating countries, then taking an inactive is usually a great method of getting a 15M - 25M population country. However, because they're usually inactive, they're usually in very abysmal shape (typically you'll find 25% employment, 40 health and education indexes). You can't declare war on a recently abandoned country. Once it's green, you can't dec on it anymore until it resets.

If economic rehabilitation is not something you prefer, then it's usually easier to build up a c3 instead. The key with starting a c3 from scratch is fix the personnel issues first (through building the education system and fixing the priorities and give it a little time to stabilize) before adding large quantities of population.

Either way you go, they both usually have the same profit potential. It might cost a few more GC to build a c3 from scratch, but the conquest will cost less and it takes less time to fix a 10M country than a 20M person country.