z00mz00m wrote:
Carking the 6th wrote:
That’s very much a past thing. These days crusiers were debuffed and others buffed. Destroyers have a nearly 1-1 ratio with subs to the point where you’ll need lots to survive on larger maps. Crusiers are no longer cost effective against battleships. If you’re not hyper active you get obliterated by large sub stacks or high battleship range. Things more balanced, and carriers with naval bombers have a place on larger maps as well.
They have nerfed cruisers repeatedly, and they are still the best naval unit 
Cruisers defeat bombers, that much is clear. You need them when sailing into enemy air space. So you have to research and build them, and keep up the research levels to match enemy bombers.
Against ships, cruisers are not as good as battleships, that's also clear. But are they good enough in most cases? Yes. If the enemy comes at you with 10 battleships, then of course you're not going to go at them with your cruisers. But if the enemy is sending 1 battleship at a time, then 10 cruisers is enough. And if your cruisers are level 3 while the enemy is producing level 1 ships (of every kind), then your cruisers win. Because your research is focused, and his is scattered.
Against subs, cruisers are fast enough to get away. Shoot and scoot, just keep doing that until the subs are dead. Try that with battleships. First, they are too slow, the subs will catch you. Second, battleships deal very little damage to subs, so even the shots you get off are not effective.
Cruiser speed also means you can get the guns in the right place at the right time. You can clear the coastal city, invade, and keep going, while the battleships are still sputtering toward the target.
The one exception is Pan Asian battleships, those are faster and more powerful, and worth building sometimes. Especially if you can rely on those awesome Pan Asian interceptors and naval bombers to protect your battle wagons. But in most doctrines, battleships are a waste of time. Just ignore them, sail around them, and then ambush them with subs or naval bombers. They will never get off a shot.
Disagreeable, but maybe they should be nerfed further if that is the case. Still, the situations you describe tend to be inaccurate. Usually you’ll have level 2 of everything, not one, and it’s rather unfair to consider the opponent as a an idiot who only sends one unit at a time constantly. Scooting and shooting is not always viable. If the enemy out maneuvers you using a single fast destroyer and then splits their subs to surround you so you can escape, your cruisers are lost. If you go to sleep and the enemy strikes then, your cruisers are lost. Very, very micro intensive and you can still outsmart it with the right strategies. Clearing coasts is also useless, you will get destroyed by enemy artillery which does more damage to you than you can do back. Convoys are still slow and will take just as long as battleships to arrive, so it’s rather pointless to use them for naval invasions. I’m sorry, cruisers only is antiquated, they really can’t stand alone anymore. Even naval bombers alone are cost effective enough to wipe you out alone, combine that with artillery and they become even worse for coastal fighting. The range of battleships is a very large disadvantage for cruisers. Their numbers and bonus may make them only useful with Comintern, elsewise they become easy to defeat alone. Getting the three basic ships is really the most balanced method in sea wars.
For some anecdotal evidence, I played a game with @TheZhukov once, in which he used cruisers only for his navy. The fighting did take place late game, but I was also handicapped and was unable to have a fleet size that I would have liked. Even then, I managed to preform rather well against his fleet, doing more damage to them than vice versa. Maybe the rules if the game were too weird to make it count, though. I have fought other games with enemies using cruisers and one destroyer only and they tend to be rather east to defeat, with the added perk of me being able to easily sea bombard an enemy without needing to worry about artillery.
CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate
