Naval Commander

I have yet to see a Naval Commander guide, so I decided I would give it a try. In this guide I will give you tips, and explain how to fully utilise the Naval Commander bonus so you can take full advantage of the most powerful standard units in the game; destroyers. Don't forget the awesome transport ship range either. In combination with stacks of infantry and without the disadvantage of -1 defence of Blitz, you can play an interesting, PD style game moving infantry huge distances with ships.



With NC Destroyers have +2 attack and defence, giving them 11 attack and 9 defence. The highest attack of any unit, and the highest defence bonus of any unit (equal to one PD infantry with it's own city/defensive line bonus). It is this massive defence and attack bonus that you must fully utilise.
With NC you will find that unless there is a large stack in a port city, not much will stop 4 or 5 destroyers hopping from coastal city to coastal city in the Mediterranean or Baltic seas. A destroyers to militia/infantry scale would be impractical, so I won't include one.

Countries to pick:
In a Europe map there are several good countries to pick. UK, Sweden, Russia NW, Spain, Turkey, Greece, maybe Italy.

Whatever country you choose, your first goal is to expand to as many other coast countries as you can. From Russia Northwest, Finland or Sweden you can capture the Baltic States, Denmark, Norway and Netherlands in the first couple turns with destroyers alone.
But do not forget about expanding by land too. Use infantry to capture inland cities and countries. Since infantry do not have a range, attack or defence nerf with NC, it is best to play your land game kind of like perfect defence. Building big stacks of infantry and defending inland cities with them. All port cities can be defended with destroyers and infantry. Fortunately destroyers have a very long range and within the Baltic sea they can reach most cities from most locations.

Port Hopping

This will cause a lot of dismay for your enemies such as in scandinavia. You can easily hop to taking countries. Sweden ----> Denmark ----> Norway. 1 hop and you got. Also with 1-2 destroyers you can easily take enemies badly guarded port cities forcing them to use expensive ATs instead of transports on. 1 destroyer can take down 1-2 militia ports and 2 can take double. French ports against a Uk can be quickly taken preventing France france from loading a quick transport to the UK, and taking away their whole country bonus. Also while taking countries you will always find you have a few destroyers left over at some points. Those destroyers are best used for taking enemies small ports. Distraction is key there because it is problematic for your enemies to take the time to try to take down a few destroyers and most players don't take the time and Destroyers have a +2 bomber defence. That means your enemy will have to waste a decent amount of money on bombers just to take them down.

When you play your game on land, play very defensively, don't over produce tanks as they are expensive and that money could be used to build even stronger destroyers. What you want to do when attacking inland cities is have collect a strong stack of land units in a coastal city, along with a big stack of destroyers. If your opponent is France, Italy, Spain or Turkey capture all of their coastal cities first. It will cut down their income considerably, and they will probably waste units trying to retake the cities. In a situation like that it is good to anticipate where he will launch his attack and reinforce those cities with destroyers, because like with PD infantry, your opponent cannot see the +2 defence bonus.

NC From Spain
This is probably one of the few countries you'd consider using NC for that doesn't have a port capital, and I'll explain why. It has to do with the transport ship range. With NC you can build two ships in Bilbao, Northern Spain, then pile 30 infantry in and rush Paris. If you use the Brittany shortcut you can get your infantry within striking range of Amsterdam. I'd only suggest this strategy if an enemy has UK and nobody has France. Otherwise you should stick to rushing Italy first turn. You can risk rushing italy too but you may have fewer units and risk missing it.

Transport Range

NC transport range and infantry is a deadly combination, especially if your enemy doesn't expect you to move troops such great distances. Also remember infantry don't have nerfed range unlike PD, so you have even greater range than on PD to defend and attack cities. Defending cities from a far distance with infantry is also another great tactic. ALso combining the range of transports is key. If your ship is a bit short of making a distance, add another transport to the stack from a port nearer to your desired location. It is quite easy to play a game using NC without using a single destroyer. Starting from Spain or Turkey is a good example of this. Tons of infantry moving far distances enemies would expect is how you win without destroyers.
Read the following section to learn more.

NC On Land!

Play this similarly to how you would PD, but remember your infantry are not as strong as PD infantry. Make up for this by making even more infantry and using your great transport range to your advantage. Make the enemy throw itself at you! Build infantry to defend against your opponents attacks and lure them into battles they can't win. What do I mean by battles they can't win? Well I mean you can leave gaps open or/and not building infantry in places until the turn you think someone is going to attack and let their units attack you and obliterate their stack. You can also bring in infantry from places other players may not be able to see, in the defence of poland the opponent may not expect you to have the range for your transport to be able to transport units to Warsaw from Norway! With NC you can bring infantry from Saint Petersburg to Berlin if you ferry the transports. This is similar to PD except you need to leverage your transport movements of infantry more to make up for lower defence. Just as in PD you will advance and expand because your opponent blew his or her stack against you leaving them open for room for an infantry stack to move into their country and take it. If you like this strategy I recommend you also learn the basics of PD pretty well.

In Europe navigating the Mediterranean is a bit different than the Baltic because there is only one country with a capital on the sea, Greece, the rest are inland. There are however many coastal cities. Capturing all of the cities in Turkey, and Italy can choke that player out; they will try desperately to retake their cities consequently losing more units. You can then land a transport of infantry or tanks into one of the coast cities you have, already full of destroyers, and capture the capital city. Then once you capture the capital, you already have control of the coastal cities so you can immediately produce more infantry to hold the capital, or destroyers to hold the coastal cities or launch more attacks.

Ultimately NC is kind of like a maritime combination of PD and RA. You have the advantages of both PD for all cities within infantry range of the sea, and RA for coastal cities. You must therefore take advantage of the defence and attack of destroyers, while keeping your inland territories defendable. The best way to win with NC is to devastate enemy stacks by rushing coastal cities with big stacks of destroyers, or defending cities with big stacks of destroyers. Attacking or defending, you have a huge advantage over your enemy because of the strength of the destroyers. Obviously NC is best if you have an ally using a land strategy, but I have won World games alone using NC from Japan or Indonesia, and Europe using UK or Russia North West. Play around with the strategy, it's pretty fun and offers a unique gameplay compared to most land based strategies.

I hope this guide helped. I'm still working on my strategy with NC, but I will post more if I come up with anything new.


Know your shortcuts!
Essentially anywhere a peninsula narrows, you can try to squeeze a ship through. Let me know if I missed any.

Denmark Shortcut

Here you can send ships from Hamburg to Sweden, Denmark to Netherlands and ultimately shorten any journey into or out of the Baltic sea.


Glasgow from the East

Glasgow is possible to invade by ship from the East, and infact straight from Bergen. If your opponent leaves his Northern city unwalled, which is likely since most UK players only bother walling Birmingham and London, then you can surprise your opponent with a nice stack of destroyers in Britain. You can also get ships out of Glasgow to the East, although this is tricky.


Belfast to London (Can also be Dublin to London)

This move can include ships from Glasgow too, 3 destroyers from Glasgow + 2 destroyers from Belfast still have the range to take this shortcut to London. That's an additional 5 destroyers you can pile into London not including the additional 3 you can from Ireland.
This move involves a few shortcuts through Wales, Cornwall and East Sussex, but can be very helpful in utilising the port cities on the British Isles.

London to Nantes (Just a shortcut through Brittany)


This one is tricky and it will take practice. Cutting through narrow peninsula's is easy, but cutting through Brittany takes precision. This is especially useful if you start with UK. It is also useful for bringing ships from Spain to the UK, and vice versa. Practice this shortcut first before you intend to utilise it in a real game.

West Athens and Cutting through Italy


If you're careful you can move ships out of the West part of Athens and through the Southern peninsula of Italy. This is useful for capturing Naples with destroyers, or moving infantry with a reduced range to Rome.


Here is an example of how to 'ferry' troops really long distances. This allows you to fully take advantage of the increased range of naval transports.


In this example I had built 8 tanks in Athens and was able hop them all the way to Spain. When you combine two naval transports the distance it can travel is then averaged between the two ships. In this case, my ship from Athens was able to make it almost to Sardinia but not quite. Then I built a ship in naples, one from Sicily, Sardinia and Marseille, and was able to bring the troops all the way to Spain. This is just a proof of concept, and using four or five transports is kind of pointless, it's best just to maximise the range of two or three.

NC strong 5/5 strat would use to take caps with destroyers.

In a more serious note, nice guide We need more of these

NC UK op

Great guide, but there is something crucial you missed id like to state. Sea transports. With NC, they have the range of normal ATs and 20 capacity. NC isn't just about spamming destroyers, its about utilizing that huge transport range to hit unexpected targets or defend area's far away. Its about chaining transports take your stacks somewhere very far away. Its MOBILITY. NC isn't just brute force, its brute force and mobility: On the sea. Your infantry aren't nerfed so you can use your huge transport range to drop them off inland.

I don't have time right now, ill make my post bigger later.

लिखा द्वारा Guest, 05.04.2014 at 18:03

लिखा द्वारा RussianDiplomacy, 05.04.2014 at 15:55

I have yet to see a Naval Commander guide~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you want to work with me on my NC guide that would be helpful.

Sure I'll help. I only started using the strategy recently and have had some good results. Someone posted about UK, I must say I never tend to do well with NC and UK unless I'm fighting Spain.

I do realise I didn't say much about transport ships, but to be fair you don't use them as often as you think.

लिखा द्वारा Guest, 05.04.2014 at 21:01

NC UK op

I should have mentioned chaining transports, that is key to moving troops. I also plan on posting a bunch of shortcuts I've found myself, and others that are well known.

लिखा द्वारा The Tactician, 06.04.2014 at 00:33

I don't have time right now, ill make my post bigger later.

I agree with tact, I play a lot of NC UK and I don't really use destroyers often because as UK you're fighting either Germany, France, or Spain, so all the caps are not ports, so you can't use destroyers so often, but the transport range is the big thing. It's the monster that saves your ass.

I added pictures of shortcuts. Mind you the last one, about ferrying units by chaining transports is just a proof of concept. Don't ever use 7 transports to me 8 tanks.

GJ with the shortcut pics.
You can also cut through Denmark or Istanbul without going through the city if it isn't walled.

लिखा द्वारा The Tactician, 07.04.2014 at 00:34

You can also cut through Denmark or Istanbul without going through the city if it isn't walled.

Only if it's a friendly's city

Good guide

and btw jeesus with all the nc uk's i see knowdays,at least rename it to khal's uk, so i dont feel so bitter,thx

लिखा द्वारा Goblin, 08.04.2014 at 12:04

लिखा द्वारा Khal.eesi, 08.04.2014 at 08:16

Good guide

and btw jeesus with all the nc uk's i see knowdays,at least rename it to khal's uk, so i dont feel so bitter,thx

Dude!!! you didnt invent it, nobody seen you play it like ever Stop!!! xD

Nc uk.."winning me cws since 240d ago" i had one good thing goin for me dont take it away!! xD

लिखा द्वारा Goblin, 08.04.2014 at 12:59

लिखा द्वारा Khal.eesi, 08.04.2014 at 12:12

Nc uk.."winning me cws since 240d ago" i had one good thing goin for me dont take it away!! xD

Ok ...i use khal UK too

लिखा द्वारा Khal.eesi, 08.04.2014 at 13:08

लिखा द्वारा Goblin, 08.04.2014 at 12:59

लिखा द्वारा Khal.eesi, 08.04.2014 at 12:12

No, NC Uk is mineee duhh obv since ive been here since september only

Strong in NAzi germany Ultimate WWII

In 3k games I've been starting with Ireland. You can build 5 destroyers which is enough to take london, and if you use the proper shortcut you can do that that turn. Then whoever took portugal, belgium and netherlands who are probably spread thin trying to capture Germany, Spain and France, will be yours for the taking. You can build a transport in UK and 7 infantry to send to mainland. Also take advantage of the range of transports. Maybe wf their cities on the mainland, then head to Norway. Either way, it's a useful strategy so long as you take advantage of all of the perks and avoid the nerfs.

लिखा द्वारा Guest, 05.04.2014 at 18:03

लिखा द्वारा RussianDiplomacy, 05.04.2014 at 15:55

I have yet to see a Naval Commander guide~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you want to work with me on my NC guide that would be helpful.

Your guide is still WIP in the cln forums and hasn't been updated in months, complete it already so I can use NC

लिखा द्वारा Aqua Heartia, 10.04.2014 at 16:10

लिखा द्वारा Guest, 05.04.2014 at 18:03

लिखा द्वारा RussianDiplomacy, 05.04.2014 at 15:55

I have yet to see a Naval Commander guide~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you want to work with me on my NC guide that would be helpful.

Your guide is still WIP in the cln forums and hasn't been updated in months, complete it already so I can use NC

Support

I don't know if I am the only one who thinks this way but NC can best Pd or Imp on land especially Pd
Without coastal cities (take them with destroyers) the pd move speed becomes a fraction of NC's and unlike Pd NC can move land troops on all sides and overwhelm with a D day like strat
Pd cannot touch NC transports as the destroyers will have 9 defense (-2 if Pd using bombers) again anything that they can throw
Pd however has poor naval defense and random single sub/destroyer can tear apart Pd transports
NC can also pretty much use a powerful combo with marines and subs. I find it a good balance between MoS and Blitz's naval strats with both the awesome range/speed and powerful naval units to
back it up



Thumbs up for NC

लिखा द्वारा SergeantJames, 07.05.2014 at 23:54

I don't know if I am the only one who thinks this way but NC can best Pd or Imp on land especially Pd
Without coastal cities (take them with destroyers) the pd move speed becomes a fraction of NC's and unlike Pd NC can move land troops on all sides and overwhelm with a D day like strat
Pd cannot touch NC transports as the destroyers will have 9 defense (-2 if Pd using bombers) again anything that they can throw
Pd however has poor naval defense and random single sub/destroyer can tear apart Pd transports
NC can also pretty much use a powerful combo with marines and subs. I find it a good balance between MoS and Blitz's naval strats with both the awesome range/speed and powerful naval units to
back it up



Thumbs up for NC

note you can't go deep in land

I really like Naval Commander. I just wish there was a slight buff to ground units like Infantry and Militias to make fighting on ground more effective since you can't do all your fighting by sea.

लिखा द्वारा NewTea, 26.05.2014 at 14:24

I really like Naval Commander. I just wish there was a slight buff to ground units like Infantry and Militias to make fighting on ground more effective since you can't do all your fighting by sea.

No, it defeat the purpose of this strategy.

अवतरण:

No, it defeat the purpose of this strategy.

I understand what you mean but sky menace will always beat it because bombers aren't restricted by land and water.
They can go anywhere. Naval Commander is great but you're limited to ports. You can't really compete on a world map against sky menace.

अवतरण:

SM nub! NC will rekt you. Your bombers will fall from the skys on my still floating destroyers and subs!

What if the planes are over land?

लिखा द्वारा Guest, 02.06.2014 at 01:04

लिखा द्वारा NewTea, 02.06.2014 at 00:13

अवतरण:

SM nub! NC will rekt you. Your bombers will fall from the skys on my still floating destroyers and subs!

What if the planes are over land?

Fail quote. inf only land unit I need!

I am confused on your reasonings though since most battles take place in cities not outside of them unless you count the 1 unit wall breaking as a battle hue

Turn blocking stacks outside cities?

लिखा द्वारा Guest, 02.06.2014 at 01:04

लिखा द्वारा NewTea, 02.06.2014 at 00:13

अवतरण:

SM nub! NC will rekt you. Your bombers will fall from the skys on my still floating destroyers and subs!

What if the planes are over land?

Fail quote. inf only land unit I need!

I am confused on your reasonings though since most battles take place in cities not outside of them unless you count the 1 unit wall breaking as a battle hue

I was trying to say that all of his naval units are irrelevant once fighting begins in cities that aren't ports. He can have 100 destroyers,
but if you have 100 planes, you can own all the cities that aren't near the water.

अवतरण:

Destroyers aren't the main units of NC. Transports are. Though I agree that NC in places where there is no water luckyl the world is covered in it and the only places that NC doesn't excel in is the hearts of the continents. ex. Dzungaria, Amazonia, Inner Africa. Though mostly these areas are of little use anyways.

Makes sense. However, Blitz will get you the same range bonus on transports and then you have great range on all units. Also, for cities that aren't ports, a sky menace player will win because they have stronger bombers and you can't attack with subs or destroyers there.

@Migrax: Blitz gives u -1 def tho.

PS: NC isn't is bad as you think, its great if you know how to capitalize on the transport range (NC UK, NC Spain etc). You don't need to make destroyers for it to work. Just need a decent port city and some water; all available in certain places in EU. You can go farther and get more units via your transes. That is crucial.

Thanks for all the info as well as the tips about the shortcuts! This is the only good thorough post I've seen talking about NC strategy and it's the only reason I even bothered to try the strategy.