Last, but not least, comes the Ocean map. Completely devoid of terrain, this three-cap map seems to be viewed by players as either their doom or a very comfortable location – and this attitude will tell you whether the person expressing it has become accustomed to their ship.
I’ll spare you the screen shot here, I figure you know what a big blue square looks like.
Teams start in the NW and SE corners, and the three caps are equally spaced from the SW to the NE corners (A in the lower left and C in the upper right, B center).
Did I mention this map has no terrain on it?
Because of this, the outcome of this game will depend entirely on how your team members can play their ships strengths against the weaknesses of the enemy. It also means that as a fleet, you must take actions with intent to achieve the primary goals as laid out in the beginning of this guide. To recap those:
- Points – establish the cap point closest to your fleet as soon as possible, and cap B (center cap) at the same time. If you can’t cap B, at least deny it to the enemy team. You need to put them at a disadvantage early in order to both build game momentum and team morale effects.
- Eyes – blind your enemy team by wiping out their destroyers as fast as you can, and by sinking any carrier they might have put on the field.
In service to #2, during the very early period when the first caps are being secured, get your big guns aimed right at the target cap(s) and fingers on the trigger – as soon as your own ships light up the enemy destroyers, melt them with everything you have. On this map, a team that has an unopposed DD has a truly huge advantage.
Carrier planes are also highly important here for their ability to keep tabs on where the enemy fleet is going. Since there aren’t any islands to block movement or fire, a good CV player can light up the enemy for long-range bombardment while the fleet is moving to take its chosen cap point. As well, CV bombers can harass DDs (or keep them exposed to fire) and pick off stragglers much more successfully.
I’m not going to make separate sections regarding the two start points for this map, as both work roughly the same. Instead, I’m going to point out the differences in your approach vectors using ‘clockwise’ and ‘counter-clockwise’ as viewed on the minimap.
Clockwise Start
The clockwise direction pushes your fleet towards B cap and also towards the closer of the two end-caps. I see this about 70% of the time (not counting the cases where you get a rogue donkey in a cruiser or battleship who thinks (s)he’s going to take a cap alone). It secures the closer cap, contests (or captures) B quickly, and sets up the fight to be a meet-in-the-middle where both fleets are coming at one another from the opposing end-caps.
This method is best for gun-centric fleets, since the limited mobility in mid-game of the counter-clockwise start forces a complete turn, which for most ships means your guns will be out of action while the turrets traverse.
Counter-Clockwise Start
Moving against the clock, your team will very likely (as I said, about 70% of the time) end up head-to-head with the enemy fleet contesting the end-cap there. This fight will get bloody very quickly, as both teams will run out of space to maneuver and will have to turn, showing broadsides to one another. If your team is pursuing this course, then dispatch your fastest ship (you brought DDs to this fight, I hope?) to the opposite end-cap to secure it and then return through B cap to the fight.
If you’re running a torpedo-heavy force, this can be very successful, as setting up a “torp soup” for the enemy either forces them to move – hopefully turning faster than their guns can handle, taking them out of the fight for a moment – or they eat your torpedoes, taking them out of the fight completely. Just remember not to throw torps in front of friendly ships.
It is entirely possible, though rare, that both teams will go counter-clockwise, in which case you’ll have a result just as if you went clockwise – a fight over B cap. The difference here is that instead of fighting with your captured area safely behind you, the end caps will be laid out to either side of the opposing fleets. This makes dipping in and out of the enemy cap a tempting way to un-balance the score in your favor, and adds a difficult defense equation to your battle.
