Okay, so everybody knows that naval combat in FFH is pretty tame. I'm sure many people have ideas of ways to spice it up... for starters, just more naval units, and a bunch of naval UUs would go a long way to encouraging diversity.

But you'd still have the problem that ships take a long freaking time to build and don't really accomplish much other than fighting other ships. So why not make it easier to mass produce them? Say, a national wonder that halves their production time?

Maybe a World Ritual, something similar to Nereid Alliance, which causes Nereids to occasionally spawn in the coastal cities of the builder? Tritones would also work... it'd be cool if both were in the game somewhere, although not using the same mechanic.

It only takes two civilizations going for naval supremacy for the fighting to get pretty intense, so all you'd need to do is add a Good (or Neutral) aligned obvious enemy for OO (Nereids fit, I think, as would Mermen and some sort of dolphin thing), and buff the navies of a couple civs that aren't Lanun, and you're set. That said, here's some straight-out-of-my-ass possible benefits for a few of the civs:
Luchiurp: "Battleship" UU with slow movement but impressive strength.
Doviello: "Longboat" UU, low strength but incredibly low cost, easy to spam, perfect for transporting a large army of raiders but vulnerable to attack
Amurites: "Arcane Vessel," a UU upgradable from Arcane Barge which gets +1 strength and Channeling II.
Khazad: Dwarven Juggernaut, UU using Dwarven Cannon technology, giving it average strength for late-game naval, but massive bombard and extra collateral.
Both elven civs: Elven Sails, UU replacing Dragonboat, +1 movement.
Kuriotates: Ichthyocentaur, basically centaurs that can swim.

Anyone else got any ideas?

Really, what we need most of all is a lot of Barbarian spawning in the water. Maybe add a new early game barbarian naval unit that spawns often and dies easy, fulfilling the double purpose of requiring you to protect your workboats, and feeding much needed XP to your developing navy? I'd go with Undines for this... water spirits that drag you under so you drown; the scourge of swimmers and fishermen, but not much of a threat to a warship.

Gess what?
The Leviathan is allready in. :p Just the way you proposed it. :D (Just not every single game though...)

Agree that water should be a bit more interesting. But maybe Marnoks mod soon offers that. (it allready has improved the naval part a bit. Lets see what is still to come...)

It is? I guess I've just never seen it... when was it added? I haven't gotten around to getting the new BtS patch yet so I'm a few patches behind (friend and I wanted to finish a hotseat game first, didn't want to break saves).

My bad. Edited it out.

Some time now. I belive since 0.30 or 0.31.

Just look it up under heroes in the pedia.

I like the "Naval routes" that Xienwolf suggested in his spare Ideas thread. If they were to boost naval speed by 150-200% then they would automatically force all players, including the AI, to fight over them because they would increase the speed of sailing by such a large margin.

Leviathan is the water equivalent of Gurid or Margalard, the big apes. It is a beast class unit that can spawn though random events.

Give all boats +2 moves so at least they can drop off their cargo before getting obliterated by maelstrom and fireball.

I like the OP's ideas to make naval units easier to acquire, either through a national wonder, through spawning friendly naval units, or (why not) through just making ships cheaper. My problem with ships in both BTS and FFH is that unless I'm planning an invasion, they don't do enough for the hammers. I would always rather have another 2 axemen than a caravel. On the other hand, if I could spam caravels because they only cost 40h, and if all my neighbors were spamming caravels for the same reason, the high seas might get interesting.

I think really the issue here isn't in interesting naval combat, but rather that crossing oceans, and water in general, is fairly trivial in FFh. You don't have Carriers later on, nor subs and nukes. The entire water zone simply has less to get out of it. No number of naval units is going to help that. What you need is more impetus to want to the rule the sea.

Increase bombard abilities, ship movement and sea resources.

Combine this with faster, more diverse ships and the ability to build the odd "off-coast" improvement of consequence and I'm sure the sea will become more interesting.

Also, PLEASE get rid of the annoying "Lanun-only" pearl monopoly. It's silly and drains so many useful sea tiles from non-Lanun players who look at the coast and see barren sea tiles for miles (lame 1f 2g squares)!

Al

Naval changes I'll probably add in my modmod:


I'm thinking that in my version the most advanced ships will have rangeD attacks (as will archers and siege units, excluding battering rams), so naval bombardment will be able to hurt (but not actually kill) units on the coast.

The strongest ships should be the slowest, and the fastest ships the weakest.

I may let some ships carry other ships as cargo. Unfortunately, a unit cannot carry a unit with cargo as cargo.


I may add some navel UUs too. For example, there will probably be some (very strong, but slow) Dwarven Ironclads and some Dwarven and Illian Ice Breakers (slow units that can move through sea ice....hmm...this could be a problem if I add impassible Coral too--unless I change ice to work like Flames and require enough cold immunity to pass instead of simply making it impassible.) An Amurite Arcane Barge UU with Spell Extension and Air 1 and 2 is also a must.


I'll probably add some Ocean Lairs that spawn barbarian monsters. Including some water walking land units.

I may make ships faster, and will probably made the circumnavigation bonus larger too.


When I add advanced temples, an OO one will grant extra hammers from water.


I'm adding the Levee and Customs house buildings form BtS, and giving the Lanun the UB of each.


The Lanun will get a workboat UU that can carry cargo. I may see about making workboats work like workers instead too.


(Given these boosts to the Lanun, I may decide to go ahead and let everyone see/use pearls)


The Starting Settler Promotion will grant water walking, so you can relocate to an island if you like. (Settlers won't be able to enter oceans though, since I couldn't resist the urge to circumnavigate the world and get lots of goodyhuts on all continents before settling down)


Naval units will all gain the ability to enter oceans when you research Astronomy. (If someone adds the ability is schema, I may instead make a promotion give the ability.) Water Walking OO UUs will be able to enter oceans at Malevolent Designs.


Water Elementals will be able to carry DOMAIN_SEA units as cargo, letting your ships cut across short sections of land.

Cultists won't have water walking. Instead, Speakers will have a spell that grants a temporary (randomly wearing off, the Speaker could autocast the spell to give ti back though) water walking promotion to units in their stack. (Probably only disciple/melee/civilian, and maybe causing the units to be slower. If the schema is changed to allow it, these units won't be able to move in oceans until Malevolent Designs.)


I'm going to see about possibly (eventually) adding a Coral Feature that can occur on coasts. This could boost production and/or commerce, but would be impassible to most ships. (I wonder if borrowing the Planetfall mod's xenofungus graphics would work for this?)


I'll probably remove the Privateer and Pirate units. Instead, I'll add the Letters of Marque and Piracy promotions, which would be available though spells that cost gold and must be cast in a harbor. Letters of Marque will allow the unit to attack while at peace, but will not hide who is doing the attacking. Piracy would be like HN plus cause the unit to steal gold from combat. Letters of Marque would be available to most civs, while the Lanun and Barbarians would use Piracy instead.

If I can figure out how, I'm thinking that I'll add a "Hire Pirate Crew" spell that any ship on a Pirates Coves/Ports/Harbors can cast. This would trigger an event that would let you give your units/hire units with Piracy and Boarding (stronger units form more advances coves). However, it is much more likely that the pirates will instead take your money and your ship, giving you nothing in return. Your units may die, or turn barb. Or, occasionally turn Lanun.


I'm probably going to make Boarding be available to any melee unit with Amphibious and Combat V, at Military Strategy. The Lanun Boarding Party UU will be removed, and the Lanun harbor will grant Boarding as a free promotion to all melee units build there.

What about mid-ocean resources? Maybe some deepwater sea serpents that can be harvested? Or maybe some mana nodes in the middle of the ocean? Obviously there would have to be some way to establish ownership of the resource outside of cultural borders--possibly you would have to park a specialized ship type on top of it. Which would then have to be defended with a navy, etc.

Those are great ideas MC.

What if ships' bombardments injured units in the city as well? I believe this is how it worked in some version of Civ that I've played, and honestly makes more sense than, "Your Man o' War opens fire. However, the enemy's walls have already been knocked down, so there was no effect." Huh?

Personally, i would settle for an AI that can sucessfully traverse water for settlement or even for mass invasion. Would like to play maps other than Pangea but the AI does not seem to handle any of the water heavy map types well.

I like your ideas Magister Cultuum

I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!

or maybe some ill tempered sea bass.

What about a Calabim or Balseraph ship that has a chance to create a slave when it beats an enemy ship? You know, people captured in the boarding before scuttling the ship?

What if ships' bombardments injured units in the city as well? I believe this is how it worked in some version of Civ that I've played, and honestly makes more sense than, "Your Man o' War opens fire. However, the enemy's walls have already been knocked down, so there was no effect." Huh?That was Civ III, and it was also how artillery worked... similarly to how Air Strikes work in IV.

Well, I'm sure it could be done in a similar manner in FfH, specially since (as I know firsthand) FfH is so XML editin friendly.

I like the "Naval routes" that Xienwolf suggested in his spare Ideas thread. If they were to boost naval speed by 150-200% then they would automatically force all players, including the AI, to fight over them because they would increase the speed of sailing by such a large margin.

Also choke points. Also maybe if we could see the traces of large flotillas in the water, the traces of their passage it would help the hunting aspect of maritime warfare.

Personally, i would settle for an AI that can sucessfully traverse water for settlement or even for mass invasion. Would like to play maps other than Pangea but the AI does not seem to handle any of the water heavy map types well.


That's my biggest problem. I never see the AI do Mass Invasion. It ain't very realistic.

There are too many ships with canons. Even the mid game caravel uses them while the land canon itself appears at the end of the game. Maybe more magic ships, bigger galleys, galleasses, quintremes?

There are too many ships with canons. Even the mid game caravel uses them while the land canon itself appears at the end of the game. Maybe more magic ships, bigger galleys, galleasses, quintremes?

That is an idea. Hmm...less cannons. More medieval style. I like that.

Most Seawars have been fought to avoid Pirates to pillage the colonies. But the game discourages colonies. If every civ. could build outpost like the kuriotates, just for resources, without upkeep and without production or gold gain, it would be more interesting to colonise the world. And if this routes could be blocked (and perhaps the resources gained) that would be awsome.

Perhaps it would be good, if the arcane Bark could improve the range of the fireball. Or, perhaps even better, give mages the ability to melt into ships (like the fleshgolem).
And something like submarins would be cool.

My last idea, perhaps a funktion like pillage for seeresources would be cool... as long as you park the ship, you gain gold (or perhap a resource).

And the last ship should´t be the best in all things.
So the bombardmentship (perhaps the arcane bark) shold be weak in power.

And the lurchips should have a ship that could drive on land. (Normal landunit with transport and waterwalking ).