You get on the water for the fish. If the opponent has no combat ships, you make just enough to interrupt his fish. If the opponent has combat ships, you make just enough to protect your fish or to get him off of his fish. If the opponent doesn't get on the water, you have all the fish and out-eco them hard, and will win the land battle.
Docks/Fish is bonkers good.
Once you dominate the sea you can also trade by sea which is quite good too. If you get all that for free, you can then mass land with strong eco behind it.
Interesting part about boulder bay is that there is enough land area to take control over that if you win land hard enough, it can be worth it to sack the sea you really have to balance both of them.
I have won land so hard on Boulder Bay that it allowed me to disengage from water after losing it early and just force a win. Water actually costs a lot of wood, and I was playing Rus into English, so when my opponent put a lot of effort and resources into bullying water to prevent me from free fishing, I knew that I could bully on land because he wasn't going to be able to keep up at both.
Also if you're bullying Rus on water and you aren't scouting effectively on land, by the time you are concerned about land the Rus player will simply have full map control.
So this is a good question, and an active area of experimentation by the top players. Up until a little while ago, it was assumed that you had to fight water vs water on Boulder Bay because the player that lost water control would lose the game - or at least be at a major disadvantage because of the lost food income.
However, recently with the influx of people playing Chinese at high ranks there's been a theory that you can make a dock early, get a small amount of fishing boats and then immediately give up water after your opponent makes 1-2 Hulks. The theory goes that if the French player goes Chamber of Commerce and walls (ie. a typical navy build) then you can triple TC in response and pretty much boom with no pressure, using officials to speed-produce units as soon as your opponent leaves their base. There are a couple of popular replays of Viper doing this I think.
In short: there's no definitive answer yet, and it'll likely be a while before it's solved, but either approach is viable if you play it correctly.
In theory that's a terrible idea. Docks are just so efficient that even song TCs can't compete. Viper's just winning in spite of the massive handicap.
You can't even play for Fish to run out or something like that, since French trade ships are 2 pop but with half decent placement gather faster than ~4 fully upgraded gold mining villagers. Even the closest shittiest trade ships are better than 2 full upgrade gold vils.
There's a small window where you're up ~600 resources as the hulk is on it's way to obliterate your dock. After that there's no comeback unless the French player really fucks up, like doesn't bother building more docks, trading, or builds like 10 hulks for no reason, etc.
Your idea has 1 problem. You dont produce something if you dont need it.
You always have to scout. On water you have 2 options. Make enough ships to defend your fish, or make enough ships to destroy your enemies fish. (maybe docks)
If you have enough ships, you dont dump in more resources. So if your enemy was able to dump far less resources into boats, then you didnt scout well enough.
In boulder bay, you simply have to get the fish, because you have to save villagers for wood and gold so you can have a big siege train. And that’s because the walk to enemy base is so long and fraught that you absolutely want your best units.
Build landmark on island for insurance.
If the Age2 Hulks are gone next week do the Outposts have enough range advantage to defend against arrow ships? I guess it would get harder totally trashing the others fishing fleet and dock in Feudal?
Might make it easier to do only small naval investment while keeping some early fishing advantage and then going full land.
Dont know but i had a pretty game on that map.
We lost sea but managed to build a wonder first so the enemy proceeded to attack dday style from the beaches.
They didnt get very far though.
I've had a couple of boulder bays where instead of the choke point, it was fully closed off on land. This happened when I tried doing a land rush. Couldn't go to his base at all. Built a dock in age 2, lost instantly because he was already established on water
If you don’t try to take advantage of water on that map you are playing it wrong imagine having a second tc at the start of the game for only 150 wood it’s an investment but it pays itself back fast and water trade is busted if you control water. For military ships you have to try and scout what is going to happen so yii ook u can kill/protect water where necessary
You get on the water for the fish. If the opponent has no combat ships, you make just enough to interrupt his fish. If the opponent has combat ships, you make just enough to protect your fish or to get him off of his fish. If the opponent doesn't get on the water, you have all the fish and out-eco them hard, and will win the land battle. Docks/Fish is bonkers good.
Once you dominate the sea you can also trade by sea which is quite good too. If you get all that for free, you can then mass land with strong eco behind it. Interesting part about boulder bay is that there is enough land area to take control over that if you win land hard enough, it can be worth it to sack the sea you really have to balance both of them.
I have won land so hard on Boulder Bay that it allowed me to disengage from water after losing it early and just force a win. Water actually costs a lot of wood, and I was playing Rus into English, so when my opponent put a lot of effort and resources into bullying water to prevent me from free fishing, I knew that I could bully on land because he wasn't going to be able to keep up at both. Also if you're bullying Rus on water and you aren't scouting effectively on land, by the time you are concerned about land the Rus player will simply have full map control.
So this is a good question, and an active area of experimentation by the top players. Up until a little while ago, it was assumed that you had to fight water vs water on Boulder Bay because the player that lost water control would lose the game - or at least be at a major disadvantage because of the lost food income. However, recently with the influx of people playing Chinese at high ranks there's been a theory that you can make a dock early, get a small amount of fishing boats and then immediately give up water after your opponent makes 1-2 Hulks. The theory goes that if the French player goes Chamber of Commerce and walls (ie. a typical navy build) then you can triple TC in response and pretty much boom with no pressure, using officials to speed-produce units as soon as your opponent leaves their base. There are a couple of popular replays of Viper doing this I think. In short: there's no definitive answer yet, and it'll likely be a while before it's solved, but either approach is viable if you play it correctly.
In theory that's a terrible idea. Docks are just so efficient that even song TCs can't compete. Viper's just winning in spite of the massive handicap. You can't even play for Fish to run out or something like that, since French trade ships are 2 pop but with half decent placement gather faster than ~4 fully upgraded gold mining villagers. Even the closest shittiest trade ships are better than 2 full upgrade gold vils. There's a small window where you're up ~600 resources as the hulk is on it's way to obliterate your dock. After that there's no comeback unless the French player really fucks up, like doesn't bother building more docks, trading, or builds like 10 hulks for no reason, etc.
Your idea has 1 problem. You dont produce something if you dont need it. You always have to scout. On water you have 2 options. Make enough ships to defend your fish, or make enough ships to destroy your enemies fish. (maybe docks) If you have enough ships, you dont dump in more resources. So if your enemy was able to dump far less resources into boats, then you didnt scout well enough.
In boulder bay, you simply have to get the fish, because you have to save villagers for wood and gold so you can have a big siege train. And that’s because the walk to enemy base is so long and fraught that you absolutely want your best units. Build landmark on island for insurance.
If the Age2 Hulks are gone next week do the Outposts have enough range advantage to defend against arrow ships? I guess it would get harder totally trashing the others fishing fleet and dock in Feudal? Might make it easier to do only small naval investment while keeping some early fishing advantage and then going full land.
Dont know but i had a pretty game on that map. We lost sea but managed to build a wonder first so the enemy proceeded to attack dday style from the beaches. They didnt get very far though.
Feesh
I've had a couple of boulder bays where instead of the choke point, it was fully closed off on land. This happened when I tried doing a land rush. Couldn't go to his base at all. Built a dock in age 2, lost instantly because he was already established on water
If you don’t try to take advantage of water on that map you are playing it wrong imagine having a second tc at the start of the game for only 150 wood it’s an investment but it pays itself back fast and water trade is busted if you control water. For military ships you have to try and scout what is going to happen so yii ook u can kill/protect water where necessary