Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
We got to talking about restructuring naval units particularly from the modern era onward and these are some of the most pertinent quotes from elsewhere on the subject:
Well... at least I think you've become more fully aware of the mess.
I agree with much of your assertions though the Invisibility prereq on those ships... do they HAVE the invisibility ability that tech grants some units? I don't know without looking further.
I have to say I like a lot of the thinking you're giving this. I'd like to add that we need to consider the chain of naval unit types as has emerged:
Piracy Ships
Type Unit <Type> Base Withdraw Base Pursuit Early Withdraw bFlying cost mv STR
Wooden Ships
Dromon UNIT_DROMON_FIRE_SHIP 10 10 70 2
Brigantine UNIT_BRIGANTINE 20 20 200 4
Sloop UNIT_SLOOP 35 30 200 5
Frigate UNIT_FRIGATE 25 25 300 5
Ship of the Line UNIT_SHIP_OF_THE_LINE 20 20 360 4
Man'O'War UNIT_MANOWAR 20 20 450 4
Iron Frigate UNIT_IRON_FRIGATE 20 30 600 5
Piracy Ships
Dragon Ship Pirate UNIT_DRAGON_SHIP_PIRATE 15 10 50 75 2 5
Barbary Corsair UNIT_BARBARY_CORSAIR 25 20 50 190 4 12
Privateer UNIT_PRIVATEER 30 25 50 230 5 17
Assault Ship UNIT_ASSAULT_SHIP 45 40 50 800 6 55
Somali Pirate UNIT_SOMALI_PIRATE 50 40 50 800 6 55
Unmanned Pirate Skiff UNIT_UNMANNED_PIRATE_SKIFF 60 50 50 2000 12 100
Cruisers Cruisers should be a str above destroyers Cruiser line needs aligning!
Coast Guard Cutter UNIT_CG_CUTTER 30 730 6 43
Heavy Cruiser UNIT_HEAVY_CRUISER 35 1200 7 60
Cruiser UNIT_CRUISER 40 1020 8 60
Missile Cruiser UNIT_MISSILE_CRUISER 50 1540 10 94
AEGIS Cruiser UNIT_AEGIS 50 1750 10 80
Littoral Combat Ship UNIT_LITTORAL_COMBAT_SHIP 55 3000 11 110
Fusion Cruiser UNIT_FUSION_CRUISER 60 4500 12 130
Destroyers
Torpedo Boat UNIT_TORPEDO_BOAT 25 25 490 5 40
Destroyer UNIT_WW1_DESTROYER 35 45 1100 8 46
Modern Frigate UNIT_MODERN_FRIGATE 35 60 1540 10
Modern Destroyer UNIT_DESTROYER 40 50 1600 9 62
Unmanned Destroyer UNIT_UNMANNED_DESTROYER 50 40 2600 9 105
Stealth Destroyer UNIT_STEALTH_DESTROYER 65 40 2010 11 80
Fusion Destroyer UNIT_FF_DESTROYER_I 60 70 5200 13 120
Submarines
Nautilus UNIT_NAUTILUS 50 75 600 5
UBoat UNIT_UBOAT 50 50 890 6
Submarine UNIT_SUBMARINE 60 75 890 6
Attack Submarine UNIT_ATTACK_SUBMARINE 70 65 1400 7
Nuclear Submarine UNIT_NUCLEAR_SUBMARINE 70 75 1840 7
Stealth Submarine UNIT_STEALTH_SUBMARINE 85 85 2010 8
Unmanned Submarine UNIT_UNMANNED_SUBMARINE 80 50 2600 9
Fusion Submarine UNIT_FUSION_SUBMARINE 100 75 4900 12
Other Naval Fusion Transport UNIT_FUSION_TRANSPORT 70 50 3500 10
Stiletto Boat UNIT_STILETTO_BOAT 75 50 1700 10
This particular table is located in the Combat Mod Units document and not only is it growing to need some re-evaluation on its original intent which was to develop out withdrawal/early withdrawal and pursuit values, it could be useful for determining what grid x, strength, and actual tech they should be placed at... rearranging them directly there would help me a lot to re-evaluate the fight or flight tags as well.
There's some concepts that emerged here...
1) Battleships
Basic Function: The heavy hitter strongest ship line.
Special Ability: Collateral and VERY strong bombard
Most Weak To: Subs (Battleships can neither see subs nor can they pursue and subs are horrifyingly powerful at withdrawal despite being weaker than Battleships so can wear down these larger behemoths.) (Also somewhat weak to air units as they can't intercept.)
Less Weak To: Destroyers (Destroyers can be seen by battleships and easily overpowered but again, withdrawal is strong for Destroyers and Destroyers are fast enough to escape battleships or stay out of reach of counterattack.)
Strongest Against: Cruisers (Cruisers aren't as strong as Battleships and have little to no withdrawal ability)
Against Itself: Pretty much just like 2 elephants fighting, or the Hulk vs the Abomination. The benefit in taking a battleship up against its direct equal - another battleship - is that you'll deal collateral to the whole stack and if your ship is more promoted you'll probably win.
2) Cruisers
Basic Function: Medium Strength ship with powerful pursuit and Strong Bombard.
Special Ability: Amazing carrier of cruise missile type units that can make this the most lethal unit on the board if it unloads its payload.
Most Weak To: Battleships (They're simply not as powerful and have no valid defense against them with the exception of their missiles which are limited and battleships may be able to take the hit.)
Less Weak To: Subs (Can't see the subs but can pursue so when attacked may be able to lock down the subs into combat they aren't quite ready for as they should be a touch stronger than contemporary subs. Not being able to see them means they can't really use their missiles against them without a 'spotter' unit in the stack)
Strongest Against: Destroyers (Destroyers have nothing against cruisers except some ability to intercept means they might defeat the missiles the cruisers carry - so the cruiser simply attacks. Destroyers are weaker units than Cruisers and rely more on withdrawal for survival in combat and are thus completely countered by the pursuing cruisers.)
Against Itself: Even fight that depends on which one launches missiles first or which is more promoted.
3) Destroyers
Basic Function: Fast Low Strength ship with powerful pursuit and Sub Spotting technologies.
Special Ability: Equipped with the ability to intercept they fulfill the SAM unit role of the naval stack.
Most Weak To: Cruisers (As Noted - they do have a little better move than a cruiser though)
Less Weak To: Battleships (While massively outpowered by the battleship, the battleship has no pursuit so the destroyer can often get away and the destroyer has a lot better movement than a battleship so hit and run against them - but since they remain visible to the battleship they might be able to be hunted down eventually)
Strongest Against: Subs (Destroyers are completely capable of taking down subs. They can intercept the missiles some subs carry, pursue subs effectively, SEE them, and are a little stronger than them - AND can withdraw FROM subs if they get in over their head.)
Against Itself: They might take a number of jabs at each other before they make any final victory against one another.
4) Submarines
Basic Function: Lowest Strength ship with invisibility to most units and an incredible ability to hit and run with withdrawal/invisibility tactics.
Special Ability: Does carry some long range missiles in many cases - nowhere near the volume a cruiser can carry but can be enough to inflict a nasty early short range nuclear surprise attack on an unsuspecting nation and weaken battleships and cruisers with their missiles before going in. Subs can also hide under ice, which greatly assists in their hit and run tactics.
Most Weak To: Destroyers (As Noted)
Less Weak Against: Cruisers (Cruisers may carry missiles but unescorted they can't see subs any better than battleships can. They can pursue but the missiles can wear them down enough to make them not want to pursue the sub lest it lock itself into a battle it's not winning. But Cruisers are significantly more powerful than subs and again.. they CAN pursue so they're quite dangerous to subs when they can see them or when not worn down and being attacked by them.)
Strongest Against: Battleships (Unable to see subs, unescorted battleships can easily be destroyed by the sub who can launch surprise missile volleys and dart in like piranhas to take chunks out of the battleship until its worn down to the point another attack finishes the beast)
Against Itself: Unlike Destroyers which would have a hard time locking each other into a battle to the death, Subs are quite good at pursuing one another (or will be once those tags are implemented) and are otherwise quite equal and it will be determined by which ship is more promoted/healthy.
What all this means is that unit strength ratios of contemporary equivalent ships should be something along the lines of:
Battleship (4) : Cruiser (3) : Destroyer (2) : Sub (1)
Or perhaps something more like:
Battleship (8) : Cruiser (7) : Destroyer (6) : Sub (5)
So if we take a multiplier of a base strength for a given stage, like say, 10 for the Modern, then we get:
Modern Battleship (80 str), Modern Cruiser (70), Modern destroyer (60), Modern Sub (50)
Then extrapolate out keeping them in a similar ratio with each era advance (or walking backwards, each era retraction) on each line. We can skew these values a bit where one of these units is a little offset on the grid x access a step or two away from where the majority of the units take an upgrade but I think you get the overall balance idea right?
Does this make sense? From what I've seen, starting with this sort of thinking, we could (and maybe should) rework all of those core naval unit lines and let the rest of the naval units work themselves in around them.
There's also Carrier and Transport and the Carrier is big and slow but a little stronger and of course, carries air units which are very valuable in naval warfare while the Transport can be very fast and capable of withdrawal but is by far the weakest ship type and is the gem to be protected in the stack above all others (if loaded - if not it can be used as a sacrificed distraction.)
So along the strength ratios established above, adding those in we get:
Modern Battleship (80 str), Modern Cruiser (70), Modern destroyer (60), Modern Sub (50), Carrier (40), Transport (30) Or something along these lines.
Now about the stages of upgrades... wasn't the Fusion line supposed to be by far the most advanced an unchallengable upgrade for all naval vessels? (After Unmanned in many cases.) I dunno... intentions of old can be changed I suppose but the CCs given reflect that concept of them being the pinnacle in every way.
Also, keeping them all upgrading to the same stage within a range of 3 x grid would be advisable. The carrier to modern carrier upgrade points above show just how out of whack our current structure really is! And trying to keep that center point for contemporary naval upgrades on the x grid evenly spaced away from each other roughly in distance equivalent stages would also be highly valued.
They also should come later in the Tech Tree. Like nav I with Stargazing, Nav II with Navigation and Nav III with Satellites.
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recently he add some ai diplomacy improvements and this naval promotionvlije to AND 2
