Balance: Frigates

tommynt said:

If they werent that strong they d be kind of totaly useless to build as their use is kind of limited and they got like no upgrade path.

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Eh? Battleships...

Smote said:

However, if we look at history, cannons in forts do quite well vs frigates. Thus I suggest this change

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With forts being somewhat useless yet having huge power IRL, I think they should provide a huge boost to cannons and maybe further bonus on coast. I've been playing with the "forts spread cultural boarders" mod and it makes distant resource grabbing more fun. Forts cost 5 gpt and need a unit in it to keep boarders active but it really adds a new strategy. Now if only the AI could use it...

Nelsonius said:

With forts being somewhat useless yet having huge power IRL, I think they should provide a huge boost to cannons and maybe further bonus on coast. I've been playing with the "forts spread cultural boarders" mod and it makes distant resource grabbing more fun. Forts cost 5 gpt and need a unit in it to keep boarders active but it really adds a new strategy. Now if only the AI could use it...

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I always thought that constructing a fort, and then "manning" it by positioning a unit inside, should allow the fort to bombard, as if by a city. If this were the case, I may actually consider building one. As it is, I only build forts in the fourth and fifth ring of a city, and then only when the worker has nothing else to do. Perhaps a late game technology would extend range.

To me frigates are Op the same way CBMen are, or artillery, or bombers... All of them can be deadly if used effectively. On water maps just be sure you have your own frigate at the city and a privateeer blocking here and there, and scout with carabels if fearing a sea attack. A few turns is all you need to prepare the enemy a warm welcome if you have the units.

The difference between frigates and the rest is that in the same era frigates are only counter-able with frigates/privateers. You can fight crossbows with knights, artillery with cavalry, bombers with anti-aircraft guns... but frigates with frigates. They are annoyingly dominant in the Renaissance.

Smote said:

The difference between frigates and the rest is that in the same era frigates are only counter-able with frigates/privateers. You can fight crossbows with knights, artillery with cavalry, bombers with anti-aircraft guns... but frigates with frigates. They are annoyingly dominant in the Renaissance.

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What do you want.... an renaissance era submarine?

They are dominant and so they should be. Take the Opium Wars as an example. England wanted to open up China to sell their opium to them and get their luxury's. China, who through out history have been one of the greatest powers ever of course refused. Who are this tiny European island coming to us with demands? Well, the English had their fleet and bombarded the Chinese coast line, forcing them to accept and embassy, open borders etc so that missionaries and merchants could get access to China. They also got Hong Kong. And this was all thanks to the British navy was so superior to anything else that was around at the time. It was a very costly wake up call for China and they still have not recovered fully since then and it lead to several civil wars, rebellions and other not so nice things.

I really wish you could demand open borders and an embassy in a peace treaty. Could really make the cultural victory more interesting since I often find an opponent closing their borders once my culture start to become dominant and no matter how much gold I offer them they wont open them for me. Probably does not help that I have 2-3 great musicians waiting at their border
And a humiliating defeat should affect the nation a bit more in Civ. Up set the nation.

I think I have to say they aren't imbalanced. If you have coastal cities, you have to defend them with a navy just like you have to defend a landlocked city with a land army. Sure, you could make the point that naval combat has less variety, but I don't really think Renaissance era naval combat was all that more complex than bombard or board.

If anything was to be done though, I guess you could give Crossbowmen and Cannons the Targeting upgrade line (+20% against Naval units) after picking between Barrage/Accuracy.

It doesn't really sound like the point of the thread is that Frigates are too powerful, just that naval combat isn't interesting enough?

It´s a bit like saying bombers are to powerful. Well they are and they should be. You can always buy units to counter it. I often have a cannon and a ship with ranged attack placed in my coastal cities. That, along with the cities own defence is enough to wear the attacker down unless he or she attacks with a large fleet. But they rarely do in Civ. If you want naval superiority you can get it since most AI´s dont focus much on it.

I think in the 'age of sail' naval power SHOULD be totally vital until the age of flight.. and yes the royal navy is an excellent example of what a powerful navy can do.

Nothing to fix imho.

Another reason why I think Denmark is so mistreated. They had the Vikings who could travel over oceans, up rivers, land on beaches etc early on that gave them the ability to treat the English as they later on treated China. But in Civ that is not something that can be done since the Danes dont have any longships and the Berserker comes along late in the middle ages when the renaissance is not so far away with all the more modern gun powder units and bigger and better ships. They really screwed up the time line there. Anyway, I will stop talking about the Danes (4th post I do so in...)

Smote said:

The difference between frigates and the rest is that in the same era frigates are only counter-able with frigates/privateers. You can fight crossbows with knights, artillery with cavalry, bombers with anti-aircraft guns... but frigates with frigates. They are annoyingly dominant in the Renaissance.

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I don't see what's wrong with having to build your own navy to counter frigates.
I think it is a good thing that players are forced to build their own navies if they wish to counter enemy ships. The whole point is to make navy important. I recall previous iterations of civ where naval units were basically useless and land units was the way to go.

Smote said:

The difference between frigates and the rest is that in the same era frigates are only counter-able with frigates/privateers. You can fight crossbows with knights, artillery with cavalry, bombers with anti-aircraft guns... but frigates with frigates. They are annoyingly dominant in the Renaissance.

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Crossbows do just fine at repelling Frigate attacks, especially if you have Privateers (or even Caravels) to clean up when your opponent tries to limp his damaged ships back to safe harbor.

If you're defending a cape city, it can be a little difficult to line up ranged attacks because ships can surround you there, but if you're building cape cities, it's fair to say you should be able to build yourself a navy to protect them. Cities in a bay or even a straight coast, though...you should be able to set it up so that at least one ship attacking your city is in range of 2-3 Crossbowmen.

Polisurgist said:

Crossbows do just fine at repelling Frigate attacks, especially if you have Privateers (or even Caravels) to clean up when your opponent tries to limp his damaged ships back to safe harbor.

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This!
And as the attacker I've run that gauntlet plenty of times when playing as England - it means you need range promotion for your ships and get rid of the opponents navy first (which may get you up to range promotion) - or look for a softer target.

What Smote is trying to explain is that the first (human) player that reach Navigation and get iron has the huge ability to whipe out a couple of coastal cities without a problem. I repeat : without a single problem.

I played many games where the opponent has built many Xbows around. But what if i bring 6 frigates and destroy the first 2 Xbows before they can do something about it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Most places cannot be well defended aginst them. Rare that you see a very clustered spot where only 1 or 2 frigates can approach a city. If you have this luck well good for you.

Maybe what we need is a land unit that can be strong enough to counter frigates. A kind of grenadier maybe?

How about giving siege (cannon/artillery) bonus damage against naval? Makes sense... I'd think a cannon shot into the side of a wood-based ship would do significant damage compared to crossbows and the like

It doesn't completely remove naval dominance (nor do I think it should), but gives a separate option instead of trying to match with your own frigates.

Frigates are basically on par with Musketmen and Lancers, but the problem is basically ranged land units are totally crap compared to them. Probably the biggest problem is the gap between cannons and artillery.

Tabarnak said:

What Smote is trying to explain is that the first (human) player that reach Navigation and get iron has the huge ability to whipe out a couple of coastal cities without a problem. I repeat : without a single problem.

I played many games where the opponent has built many Xbows around. But what if i bring 6 frigates and destroy the first 2 Xbows before they can do something about it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Most places cannot be well defended aginst them. Rare that you see a very clustered spot where only 1 or 2 frigates can approach a city. If you have this luck well good for you.

Maybe what we need is a land unit that can be strong enough to counter frigates. A kind of grenadier maybe?

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NO, just no.

However I can agree to coastal fortresses. But land ranged unit, no just no. Otherwise we would've just waved away the british royal navy with our minutemen back when we rebelled from british.

Firaxis' refusal to add in coastal fortress = period of dominance during age of sail, and age of sail is way more cooler than boring planes, and thus I don't mind whatsoever. And another fail from firaxis is that Ship of the Line is a UK unique unit, wat. Plenty other factions used it as well.

I think it makes sense that way though...when ironclads first saw action(in the American Civil War) the only way to sink one was with another ironclad and the battle between the Monitor and the Virginia lasted hours. No wooden ship or cannon at the time could compete with an ironclad.

In general, I don't have much of a problem with this; there are just a couple epochs in the game where one type of unit is king, and dealing with the advent of frigates or bombers or composite bowmen is just one of those things. They're hard but not impossible to defend against.

But if you went for the bottom of the tech tree, you could have cannons when your opponent has frigates, and you can make your coastal forts by using forts...on the coast, and plopping cannons in those.

(cue everyone saying how they don't ever build forts) BUILD FORTS! At least build forts during the time that you need them and tear them up later on.

If you aren't going naval, don't build cities on the tip of capes, where they can be surrounded by 15 Frigates, build them on straight coasts where you can defend them with land units.