Control the crossing.
Your fleet protects trade, carries the fight to new shores and opens defended beaches. Choose ships for the threat on the route.
Hidden unless detected by nearby escorts; hunter subs detect it at 20 tiles. Torpedoes deal 3 damage and reload in 10 s.
How to useAmbush transport routes and isolated heavy ships. Stay away from hunter subs and detection escorts; once revealed, withdraw or bring support. Torpedoes leave a visible wake that can betray your position.
Sees subs at 20 tiles and torpedoes them. Fires at nothing else
How to usePatrol invasion routes and escort valuable fleets where you suspect submarines. It detects subs farther away than surface escorts, but cannot fight surface ships: pair it with a destroyer.
Unarmed picket that reveals 60 tiles around it. Easy prey — escort it
How to useMove ahead of a fleet to reveal an approach in Fog of war, keeping it behind armed escorts. It has no gun, so pull it back when enemy ships close in.
Boards merchants within 8 tiles and sails them to your nearest port for double cargo. Piracy starts hostilities
How to useSend toward non-allied merchant routes to capture trade and bring double cargo home. Keep an escape route to your port; piracy starts hostilities, so choose the victim deliberately.
Gun range 12. Very fast, lightly armed, fragile. Picket and courier
How to useUse its speed to check coasts, intercept fragile traffic and provide early warning. Avoid sustained fights with heavier ships or coastal guns.
Gun range 26. SAM range 16 (60% hit chance). Fast escort, deadly to cruisers. Short-range SAM
How to useEscort transports and cruisers, screen nearby submarines and chase enemy missile cruisers. Move ships with right-click orders after selecting them; keep them clear of heavy coastal batteries.
Gun range 22. SAM range 26 (75% hit chance). Barrage: 4 missiles, 30-tile range, every 15 s. Bombards enemy land, hunting SAM sites first. Medium SAM. Thin armor: destroyers hit it twice as hard
How to useKeep behind destroyers and near enemy coasts to bombard defenses before landing troops. Its missile barrage suppresses ground defenses, but enemy destroyers punish it at close range.
Gun range 32. SAM range 26 (75% hit chance). Barrage: 6 missiles, 36-tile range, every 25 s. Heavy guns, land missiles and SAM. Slow reload, slow to arrive
How to useSend early toward a planned assault because it is slow. Use it as a fleet anchor with destroyers and a hunter sub, then refit near a level II port for deeper cruise-missile strikes.
Carries troops to another coast. An ordinary transport sinks in one hit, losing the troops aboard.
How to useRight-click a country you do not border to send troops by sea. Clear the route and landing beach first, then escort the crossing with warships.
Replaces ordinary transports once a level II port is available. With Garrisons, the port must serve the departing area. Its short-range gun returns fire but cannot target submarines.
How to useUpgrade before a contested landing, but still escort the crossing. Extra armor helps against light opposition; paired shore guns and submarines remain dangerous.
Sails between ports that are not fighting, earning gold for both sides when it arrives.
How to useBuild ports and protect their routes to keep trade flowing. Watch for privateers; disrupting enemy trade can weaken their economy without taking the port.
Keep this handy
Open a topic for controls, timings and the detailed rules.
Cruise missiles
Select a battleship within 34 tiles of one of your level II ports and right-click water: Refit with cruise missiles, 400 gold, 30 s at anchor. It then fires two cruise missiles every 40 s at targets up to 120 tiles inland — shield generators first, then SAM sites, then anything of a nation it's fighting. They fly straight and low at 25 tiles/s (a silo missile lobs at up to 60), so a 120-tile shot takes about 5 s. Each hit craters a 3-tile radius like a bomb; SAMs engage them at 60% of normal effectiveness; a shield dome absorbs one for 1 hp. The ship shows a "CM" badge.
Submarines
A submarine base (450 gold, coast, needs a level II port within 34 tiles) builds attack subs (300 gold, 3 hp, torpedoes: 3 damage, one-shot ordinary transports, 10 s reload, 14 tiles) and hunter subs (300 gold, 3 hp, torpedo only other subs, spot them at 20 tiles). Subs are invisible — and untargetable — unless within 8 tiles of a destroyer or radar ship, or 20 of a hunter; under fog they're hidden outright. Their torpedoes aren't: a torpedo leaves a long foam wake you can see whenever the water is in view, which tells you a sub is out there and roughly where. Guns, batteries and heavy transports can't fire at them at all. They carry no SAM and don't shoot land. Attack subs engage transports headed for their owner and ships of nations they're fighting, plus loitering cruisers and battleships.
Transports
Right-click a country you don't border. Embarks from your coast nearest to them, lands on theirs; no port needed. One hit sinks it — unless it's a heavy transport: once you own a level II port (per area with Garrisons, everywhere without), every transport you send — invasions, reinforcements, gifts — sails as a heavy: 4 hp, 25% slower, and a 12-tile gun that returns fire at whatever shot it last (never at subs). A lone destroyer loses the exchange; shore guns in pairs still win.
Upgrades
Right-click a finished port or airfield to upgrade it to level II (port 500 gold / 60 s; airfield 600 / 90 s). Level shows as "II" on the icon; captured buildings keep their level; bombardment knocks a level II back to I instead of destroying it. Port II: built-in shore guns with 4 hp of their own, shown as pips under the icon (red when low; right-click the port to repair them, 25 gold per pip) — ships and heavy transports shoot back at them, and when they're shot out the port drops to level I — plus heavy transports and the submarine-base unlock. Airfield II: 6 hangar slots, light shield dome, stealth troop transports.
Salvage
Sinking a transport pays 30% of the troops aboard in gold; a merchant pays 60.
Barrage
Craters land, kills troops (20 + 0.8% of the army per hit, max 150, plus whoever was standing on the cratered tiles) and suppresses the area for 30 s: half cost to invade, bastions and SAM sites there knocked out. Hunts SAM sites first.
Merchants
Every port sends one every ~20 s to any port you aren't fighting. Both sides earn gold on arrival. Blockade an enemy port to starve it — or send privateers: they grapple any non-allied merchant within 8 tiles — it heaves to while the privateer comes alongside, then 2 s of boarding, which then sails to your nearest port and pays double cargo on arrival. One capture per 10 s per privateer; piracy starts hostilities.
Choose your approach and landing
Right-click the destination and choose Send troops here from an area you click, then select your source holding. A bordering source attacks by land; a sea crossing lands on the reachable coast nearest your destination click. Garrisons uses that area's troops; regular mode uses your global total. Regular mode has no reinforcement order.
Animated red rings show an invasion landing and yellow rings show reinforcement. Select your inbound transport's ring, then drag it to another reachable shore to preview and redirect the route. Its troops remain aboard and the ship turns from its current position. Each of your transports reserves a separate landing point; nearby free coast is selected when needed. A captured reinforcement shore becomes an invasion destination, while peace agreements still protect allies.