countering the naval 'sneak' attack

Some great points made.

I am against the cultural boarders movement penalty simply because anything effective would be unrealistic. saying that by some penalty a 4 movement transport suddenly cant make the 2 moves across cultural boarders to shore just seems a bit extreme. the land movement penalty is meant to simulate supply lines, secure movement practices and hostile locals. those issues dont really exist on the open waters except possibly in the directly beach front shallows represented in the game by 10% defensive bonus.

I think that as the game is now the most realistic and effective suggestion is the patrol zone similar to the button that allows your ship to engage ships attempting to destroy sea resources. something based on that or the blockade function would allow the defender to place fleets in defensive zones around cities or coasts specifically to engage enemy ships landing amphibious assaults. it would also allow attackers to get full benefit of the sneak attack if the defender has not bothered with naval defenses. ... in order to counter exploits the defender may even get a chance to chose weather to intercept so that units arent killed in futile attacks or tricked away in feints. (this additional option may require some tricky coding as it would mean that the defender gets to make game decisions on the attackers turn.

Oldskaald makes a great point. The game relies heavily on sneak attack. I mean... i cant imagine going to war of my own accord without an overwhelming sneak attack.

the game needs some mechanic that limits the effectiveness... or penalizes in some way.

I am going a bit off topic but the first thing that comes to mind is the war wearyness / unhappy citizen mechanic.

something that say allows you to declare 'threat of war' against an opponent. in game terms you simply declare the threat but it would represent warnings, propaganda, diplomacy and warmachine preparations. effectively it would cause you to get some kind of bonus to war weariness.

or maybe declaring war without 'threat of war' incurs a large immediate war weariness penalty which decreases the longer you have 'threat of war' in place before attacking.

or possibly a simple "world considers you a villain" penalty for declaring war which is reduced by 1 or 2 for every turn that you have 'threat of war' against your target before declaring your attack.

I actually think this would be an awesome addition... get the people motivated for war or ignore their feelings for the advantage of a sneak attack. Some of the crazy AI may have a tendency toward one extreme or the other... even certain civics may effect the effectiveness or required duration of 'threat of war' or provide bonuses to war weariness when attacked








Kochman - other than raids by vikings, pirates and pearl harbor i cant think of any time in history that any nation has launched a serious amphibious naval sneak attack outside of a declared war. The reason is this. transports cant stay on the water indefinitely so the attacking country has to build up forces in his home port which (gives plenty of warning), then load and get seabound (more warning). Even if some how, for some reason a nation loaded up a bunch of transports and appeared in the defendes waters totally unannounced the defending nation will have patrol boats and random fishermen who can warn the defending navy allowing them to engage the enemy before landing craft can wallow up to the beaches.
 
Some great points made.
Kochman - other than raids by vikings, pirates and pearl harbor i cant think of any time in history that any nation has launched a serious amphibious naval sneak attack outside of a declared war. The reason is this. transports cant stay on the water indefinitely so the attacking country has to build up forces in his home port which (gives plenty of warning), then load and get seabound (more warning). Even if some how, for some reason a nation loaded up a bunch of transports and appeared in the defendes waters totally unannounced the defending nation will have patrol boats and random fishermen who can warn the defending navy allowing them to engage the enemy before landing craft can wallow up to the beaches.

If you are interested in sneak attacks, there is the Japanese sneak attack at Port Arthur in 1904.
 
I was just thinking that, given game mechanics, a Pearl Harbor style attack is actually impossible. You cannot attack naval units in a city (except with nukes) other than using ground units to walk in and scuttle them.

Good point. Another thing, I was disappointing where played Civilization IV in start and realize that air units can't completely destroy ships and submarines. I mean, almost entire pacific war is about sending planes against enemy fleet. And ship were sent in bottom of the sea. I guess i wall have to manually change that.
 
Didn't the Germans invade Norway that way in 1940?
not really relevant since the two countries shared in effect cultural boarders, there was already a general state of war so troop movements were to be expected and norway did not have much of a military anyway.
Port Arthur in 1904
- naval battal, not an amphibious assault.

in both casses there was some form of diplomatic build up to the events and navies were engaged by defenses, as opposed to the uncontested landings that CIV allows.

the bottom line being that no matter how you want to find a loop hole for no other reason than to be right about something, the current civ4 mechanic which allows totally uncontested sneak attacks even when you know the enemy is coming, is broken and should be modified in future game builds.
 
... the bottom line being that no matter how you want to find a loop hole for no other reason than to be right about something, the current civ4 mechanic which allows totally uncontested sneak attacks even when you know the enemy is coming, is broken and should be modified in future game builds.
Very well put. :)
 
not really relevant since the two countries shared in effect cultural boarders, there was already a general state of war so troop movements were to be expected and norway did not have much of a military anyway.

Norway and Germany was not in a state of war before the attack. Yes, WW2 was well underway, but Norway was neutral untill this point. So the attack came pretty much out of the blue.
 
Vidar is correct above. It included airborne assaults as well, and caught the Brits and Norway by suprise. Also, Germany and Norway hardly shared cultural borders, as England's naval power definitely dominated the North Sea.

Kochman - other than raids by vikings, pirates and pearl harbor i cant think of any time in history that any nation has launched a serious amphibious naval sneak attack outside of a declared war. The reason is this. transports cant stay on the water indefinitely so the attacking country has to build up forces in his home port which (gives plenty of warning), then load and get seabound (more warning). Even if some how, for some reason a nation loaded up a bunch of transports and appeared in the defendes waters totally unannounced the defending nation will have patrol boats and random fishermen who can warn the defending navy allowing them to engage the enemy before landing craft can wallow up to the beaches.
So, other than those often repeated events, you can't think of times? Hahaha, that's funny.

Your reason, that's not the only reason why it isn't very frequent... It's not as simple as that.
1) Through history, most wars were against neighboring countries, on the same continent. The example of vikings is a perfect example of where there was actually the need to use the seas... but usually it was unnecessary. In Europe, the only people to get attacked overseas was generally the British Isles/Ireland...
2) Most wars, through history, were not started with sneak attacks, period.

Other examples of overseas attacks... the Roman invasion of England. Greek war against Troy (the face that launched a thousand ships)... Crusades...

Generally, you need a pretty sturdy supply line (this was touched upon in earlier posts), and the ability to form some beachhead that can be supplied. Intercontinental projection of power was such a major effort for so long, that it didn't happen often. It is a huge risk, and often nations weren't so unfriendly with nations that were out of the sphere of influence.
 
OK Kochman, your right. it has happed before in history. you win the point.

my question to you is this.

does that make it a good mechanic to represent essentially the only reasonable way to go to war? barring your very specific instances. and understanding that this is a game and not a fully realized "sim" do you think that maybe... by some fathomable reasoning... a better mechanic could and should be introduced which allows a defending navy in the vicinity of an amphibious sneak attack to be able to defend its shores?

or do you think its more reasonable and historically representative for your entire fleet which is ancored right in front of your city to just sit there having tea time, while an enemy declares war and waltzes up to an adjacent tile that touches the city diagonally, bombards the city to 0 defense, and land hords of troops directly into main street.

for some reason that second option does not seem very reasonable or accurate to me.
 
OK Kochman, your right. it has happed before in history. you win the point.

my question to you is this.

does that make it a good mechanic to represent essentially the only reasonable way to go to war? barring your very specific instances. and understanding that this is a game and not a fully realized "sim" do you think that maybe... by some fathomable reasoning... a better mechanic could and should be introduced which allows a defending navy in the vicinity of an amphibious sneak attack to be able to defend its shores?

or do you think its more reasonable and historically representative for your entire fleet which is ancored right in front of your city to just sit there having tea time, while an enemy declares war and waltzes up to an adjacent tile that touches the city diagonally, bombards the city to 0 defense, and land hords of troops directly into main street.

for some reason that second option does not seem very reasonable or accurate to me.
I don't know.

I mean, if you strike first, you strike first.
How often does the USA, or Britain, or France, etc... put a fleet right at someone's doorstep, without firing a shot? Quite often. War isn't war until it is war. If Iran, for example, where to launch an all out attack on our fleet in the Persian Gulf, the world would say Iran did it. Really, globally accept national water boundaries only extend out for a matter of miles (let's say 1 tile), after that, you are in international waters.

That being said, we know the AI isn't going to station a fleet right at your door in an attempt to influence your national policies...

I don't think I was arguing that the system isn't flawed at all. I even gave some ideas, that while somewhat unrealistic (impeded movement in cultural borders), would help the game mechanics.
 
I think Wolfblue should get hot with writing a mod that meets his demanding expectations. I won't be using it though, because I like the way naval warfare works in CIV 4.
 
This is just the limitation of a turn based game, isn't it? It's no different than say, I get a bunch of commando tanks and knock out a bunch of your border cities before you can react.

That said, warships should certain have an interdiction order.
 
I’ll give it a shot.

There is already a “sea patrol” function that you can set ships to perform, which will apparently cause them to attack any units that attempt to pillage your seafood in adjacent tiles. (I say “apparently” because while I have set ships to “sea patrol” at times, I can’t recall a case where someone attempted to pillage my seafood and triggered an attack.)

I propose extending the “sea patrol” function such that ships set to “sea patrol” will attack the first enemy ship that comes into their visibility range (a 5x5 grid surrounding the ship) when the sea-patrolling ship's owner is at war with the enemy ship's owner. That's the gist. Some nuances might be:

-extend the "sea patrolling" grid to 7x7 if the defender has Physics (assume air patrols). Extend the grid to 9x9 if the defender has Satellites.

-the "sea patroller" can attack interlopers multiple times, if it has Blitz

-interlopers don't benefit from the Coast defense bonus when being attacked by "sea patrollers"

So in a nutshell, if an AI violates your borders and declares war, any ships within 3 tiles of the AI's path (and set to “sea patrol”) get a free attack. Of course, the AI will have the same ability to defend against your sneak attacks with "sea patrol"

This might promote more strategic positioning of ships. Probably could be exploited by humans, too. Possibly the mechanics could stand some tweaking, but you get the idea.

The downside is that you wouldn’t be able to control which of your ships attacked which AI ships… presumably strongest would attack first (you wouldn’t want your Ironclads attacking AI Destroyers while your Destroyers took on, say, AI Frigates). And planes on Carriers would be ignored at best, misused at worst, no doubt. Presumably, lack of fine control of your defending units would reflect the confusion that usually ensues from a surprise attack.

You could also add in an event where your troops mistakenly attack someone with whom you’re not at war. Results could be a relations hit, reparations, or a DOW with the attendant consequences. Chances of the event occurring would be nil if no units were set to “sea patrol”, and increase as you put more ships on “sea patrol”
 
I’ll give it a shot.

There is already a “sea patrol” function that you can set ships to perform, which will apparently cause them to attack any units that attempt to pillage your seafood in adjacent tiles. (I say “apparently” because while I have set ships to “sea patrol” at times, I can’t recall a case where someone attempted to pillage my seafood and triggered an attack.)

I propose extending the “sea patrol” function such that ships set to “sea patrol” will attack the first enemy ship that comes into their visibility range (a 5x5 grid surrounding the ship) when the sea-patrolling ship's owner is at war with the enemy ship's owner. That's the gist. Some nuances might be:

-extend the "sea patrolling" grid to 7x7 if the defender has Physics (assume air patrols). Extend the grid to 9x9 if the defender has Satellites.

-the "sea patroller" can attack interlopers multiple times, if it has Blitz

-interlopers don't benefit from the Coast defense bonus when being attacked by "sea patrollers"

So in a nutshell, if an AI violates your borders and declares war, any ships within 3 tiles of the AI's path (and set to “sea patrol”) get a free attack. Of course, the AI will have the same ability to defend against your sneak attacks with "sea patrol"

This might promote more strategic positioning of ships. Probably could be exploited by humans, too. Possibly the mechanics could stand some tweaking, but you get the idea.

The downside is that you wouldn’t be able to control which of your ships attacked which AI ships… presumably strongest would attack first (you wouldn’t want your Ironclads attacking AI Destroyers while your Destroyers took on, say, AI Frigates). And planes on Carriers would be ignored at best, misused at worst, no doubt. Presumably, lack of fine control of your defending units would reflect the confusion that usually ensues from a surprise attack.

You could also add in an event where your troops mistakenly attack someone with whom you’re not at war. Results could be a relations hit, reparations, or a DOW with the attendant consequences. Chances of the event occurring would be nil if no units were set to “sea patrol”, and increase as you put more ships on “sea patrol”


So its just making the computer do what a human should do.

They should add one where the fleet stays in formations like a task force.
:D
 
The easiest way to solve the problem would be to forbid sneak attacks alltogether, and that would be very easy to implement with these 2 steps:
1. War has to be declared before the invasion (you can no longer trigger war by invading).
2. Declaring war ends your turn.

edit: yes, that means leaving the initiative to the AI for the first turn of war. Not that this should help them a lot...
 
what do you mean by this? T though better AI is built in BTS
or in BUG and BUFFY

so how is it?

Better AI was incorporated into the release of BTS, but the better AI mod has continued to be developed since the release of BTS in 2007. Better AI has come a long way since then...

BUG is just a user interface mod. Unaltered gameplay.
BUFFY is BUG + Hall of fame mod, which doesn't alter gameplay, but adds more advanced user interface improvements. I don't know a lot about buffy as i have never used it.


The BAT team is close to releasing a BAT+Better AI package:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=395437
BAT includes a lot of art mods + BUG + BULL. When this is ready i think it will be CIV IV nirvana, awesome visuals and challenging game-play.

There is also a better bug AI (BUG + BULL + Better AI):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=354019
BULL adds the same advanced interface features you get in BUFFY.
 
The easiest way to solve the problem would be to forbid sneak attacks alltogether, and that would be very easy to implement with these 2 steps:
1. War has to be declared before the invasion (you can no longer trigger war by invading).
2. Declaring war ends your turn.

Seems just #2 would do it--> Invade one square in and that is all you have for that turn.
 
I think Wolfblue should get hot with writing a mod that meets his demanding expectations. I won't be using it though, because I like the way naval warfare works in CIV 4.

Naval warfare in civ IV is a complete 1-sided advantage for the human. While trouncing the idiot AI this way can be fun now and then, it would be much better if the setting was more fair.

Also notable about naval warfare is that it is the ONLY pre-nuke situation where war favors the ATTACKER. Even in human vs human games, it's disjointed to have defending so strongly favored in most cases only to have it swing the complete other way at sea. It's an interesting problem, however, since it would really suck to cut the importance of naval combat. Although its odd, it isn't imbalanced per se' other than how the sneak attack vs pure naval defense aspect screws with diplo (human players will not care about this anyway and most 3rd party humans will understand and even favor a pre-emptive DoW to take care of large transport stacks at sea! They might declare on you anyway for their own gain, but likely not out of some anger for DoW friends unless they're idiots).
 
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