Dralix
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There was also a coastal fortress in Civ2 that doubled the defender's strength against naval attacks.
Balance: Frigates
- Thread starter Smote
- Start date
There was also a coastal fortress in Civ2 that doubled the defender's strength against naval attacks.
Silverfuturist
King
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My solution to frigates - if a coastal city must be made, make sure it only has a few ocean tiles. And when you are attacked, throw scouts and even workers in the water to slow down the naval attack. A cornerstone of naval defense is the defending city makes a cheap unit per turn and throws it in the water to become a floating meat shield. Having barracks/armory is helpful, as you give melee units the amphibious promotion so they can absorb more hits while they project zone of control to block enemy ships. The big problem is if you have several coastal cities, the attacker will switch to a different coastal city but only after throwing a land unit on your road and pillaging it, so no land reinforcements can come and your city dies.
Giving cannons a big bonus vs wooden ships would be add more balance. Cannons are so incredibly weak compared to frigates. What is a frigate? A wooden boat with cannons on it! In Civ the cannons gain magical strength when placed up on a boat, as a cannon fortified in a coastal forested hill is weaker than a cannon on a big piece of wood without cover. Plus I never understood how it is possible to make frigates without the knowledge of gunpowder first, I mean frigates should require navigation and chemistry.
Another solution - the cost involved. A frigate is kind of like a caravel (well not exactly of course) with cannons added. But a caravel and a cannon require many more hammers than a frigate. Make the hammer cost = caravel + cannon so the frigates are not so cheap. The death-per-hammer ratio of frigates is what makes them so unbalanced.
With the discussion about frigates being really OP or not... for the non-believers find a MP game with strong players on a water map... I am sure Tabernak and Smote would be happy to give you a demo... however you risk being so frustrated with your destruction that you might uninstall civ and delete your steam account.
Giving cannons a big bonus vs wooden ships would be add more balance. Cannons are so incredibly weak compared to frigates. What is a frigate? A wooden boat with cannons on it! In Civ the cannons gain magical strength when placed up on a boat, as a cannon fortified in a coastal forested hill is weaker than a cannon on a big piece of wood without cover. Plus I never understood how it is possible to make frigates without the knowledge of gunpowder first, I mean frigates should require navigation and chemistry.
Another solution - the cost involved. A frigate is kind of like a caravel (well not exactly of course) with cannons added. But a caravel and a cannon require many more hammers than a frigate. Make the hammer cost = caravel + cannon so the frigates are not so cheap. The death-per-hammer ratio of frigates is what makes them so unbalanced.
With the discussion about frigates being really OP or not... for the non-believers find a MP game with strong players on a water map... I am sure Tabernak and Smote would be happy to give you a demo... however you risk being so frustrated with your destruction that you might uninstall civ and delete your steam account.
Polisurgist
King
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You can do that, or you can, as a human player, play an AI game against Polynesia, England, Portugal, Korea and the Ottomans, rush Navigation and see how easily you can steamroll the world. If this is some 100% guarantee in MP, it should be even more obvious when the human is doing it to the AI, and...it just isn't the case.
Sturmgewher88mm
Kaiser
I like this idea. It'd make for some interesting strategy (especially the "deathstar of coastal fortresses")
I dunno, IMHO naval domination is perhaps the easiest win in Civ, and the rampage generally starts with navigation. I mean the AI is useless on water maps, and all the capitals are on the coasts, so you can just sail up to them and attack directly, without having to battle through all the other cities/units (or deal with the unhappiness of controlling a bunch of puppets). If they have a large navy, you just pay them to DoW someone else, run in and grab their capital before their ships can make it back, and sue for peace.
I.E. two weeks ago I played a game on large islands as Babylon on immortal, going for a cultural victory, not even domination. I got to navigation first (of course, as I was Babylon, and it's en route to archaeology). The Ottomans, who were on the neighboring island, DoW me sort of unexpectedly (we were friendly, damn it!) - I just had like two frigates and a privateer for defense. He had like 20 ships - caravels and gallaes, though they didn't all come at once. I immediately bought another privateer and a frigate.
It was a massacre. I tore through his navy, and between my privateers, and the caravels I captured from him (which had the capture ship promotion, since it's his UA), I doubled the size of my navy from captured ships alone (along with pounding out a few more ships in my cities). I took most of his cities (except the crappy tundra island ones), and then at that point, just decided heck with it and went for the domination win with no problem.
Polisurgist
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Yeah, it starting with Navigation is obvious (though it can start earlier if you're playing an early naval civ), but it doesn't end with Navigation. The tone of this thread is that the first civ to Navigation can jut steamroll the planet with a handful of Frigates and a single Privateer, just going from continent to continent sniping capitals. I'm not disputing that naval combat is a pretty great to gain superiority over the coasts, I'm disputing that the Frigate (which is what this thread started out being about, not about Navigation in general) is in itself overpowered enough that a major fix is needed.
Light Cleric
ElCee/LC/El Cid
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But you *can* steamroll the entire planet with a handful of Frigates and a Privateer on water maps. Look at Deity Challenge 6: I don't think it's a coincidence that this game got about 10x as many players as the other Deity Challenges. Yes, it's G&K, but that doesn't really affect this. If you're arguing you can't steamroll a Pangaea with Frigates...well, yes, but that kind of goes without saying.
The silliest thing about them is how they can get get Range at level 3 and the AI having absolutely no clue about naval combat. Like really, Bombardment I -->Bombardment II --> Range seems ridiculously fast to me.
1) Play duel multiplayer match with average - capable opponent
2) Have capital or important cities on the coast
3) Don't load all of your science for the entire medieval into upper part of the technology tree, where in the end there are frigates
4) Your enemy has Navigation something like 10 turns before you
5) You lose
The end. No land unit can stop frigates. Nothing can stop stack of frigates attacking naval city, except from extremely bad coast line shape which allows to put here lots of cannons, or something (situations like this are really rare) No naval units before the frigates and eventually big amount of sea beggars can stop frigates. There is no counter against the frigates... except of, of course, more frigates. This is not balanced.
The same think with water waps - you have frigates while your enemies, for example, went into cultural/world congress techs in renaissance? Spam frigates, win. There is no counter against frigates until industrial era. This is simply ******ed.
Yes, well point 2 says it all for me - nobody forces you to put your cities on the coast. I think someone already said that if you want to put cities on the coast build a navy. Personally, I just don't buy the 'not balanced' argument.
kaspergm
Deity
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I guess more than in point 2, I see the problem lying in point 3 ... if you completely negate naval line (particularly if your major cities are coastal), it's not too much of a surprise that you will get squashed if someone has prioritized this line. While I won't say Frigates aren't too strong and/or too cheap (they may well be), it's a symptom of a much larger problem (imo.) that you can completely negate the lower part of the tech tree without having to fear invasion by land. That says a lot about how poorly balanced cities vs. units are.
As for the Frigate issue, I definitely think a coastal fort building to give you increased defense against naval bombardments would be welcome, it both makes sense realistically and from a gameplay pov. I also think the extra range promotion of frigates comes too early, this should definitely require Bombardment III/Targeting III just like the land equivalents need all three levels in respective promotions before they can get extra range.
Sturmgewher88mm
Kaiser
Firstoff, there are no stacks, just "carpets".
Secondly, the answer is to build your own frigates or a huge navy. If you build a frigate or two for defense when you know you'll be attacked by at least 6 frigates and a privateer, then you're just asking to lose that costal city, TBH.
eldiablonoche
Chieftain
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For something that is "so terribly broken and OP", I have never been run over by it. I must be a much better player than I realised. 
Seriously though, there are a lot of factors that Team OP are ignoring (terrain and having a balanced tree being big ones) that it is hard take the argument, well, seriously. There are several times throughout a game where you can be run over **if you aren't prepared**, it's part of the challenge.
Seriously though, there are a lot of factors that Team OP are ignoring (terrain and having a balanced tree being big ones) that it is hard take the argument, well, seriously. There are several times throughout a game where you can be run over **if you aren't prepared**, it's part of the challenge.
Galgus
Emperor
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Ah, I see.
Would it be more reasonable to fight against if there were more levels of the Navy tech line, so the Naval unit just before Frigates wouldn't be so vastly outclassed by them?
Hmmm. I certainly use privateers as well. The frigates provide most of the firepower, but the privateers ability to convert enemy ships certainly helps things along nicely. I can quite often complete naval domination against the AI with just frigates and privateers (before any more advanced naval units come into play). However, I usually play on small maps, so it's usually pretty quick from capital to capital.
To not founding cities on coasts - yeah, especially when capital starts on coast and you have damn good spots on coasts, yet no matter how strong do you are or how many units you have, if they are anything other than frigates and enemy attack you with frigates you simply can't defend. Xbows can be countered with knights/great wall, artillery by cavalry, damn I even saw one guy defending with knights against 10+ keshiks and winning (and in the symultanic turns 
). Tanks are destroyed via anti -tank guns, bombers via anti -air, in modern era there are few countering types of ships and few ways to kill them. Frigates are stopped only by frigates - xbows, cannons, obviously all melee land units, caravels, sea beggars, galleas - until artillery/modern ships/air units frigates are unbalanced cuz there are unstoppable by anything other than more frigates.
In my last two multiplayer matches, with good league players, I won because of extreme science push and getting Navigation when they were stronger, only with... Astronomy. I managed to produce more frigates and kill their smaller number of frigates, delayed by these ~10 turns, crush all their other naval units with ease, and cannons were too weak to stop these ships. I cannot find any other situation in which getting certain unit is so crucial because of its (over)power. Damn, I once got artillery and my enemy stopped it using cavalry spam and few tactic ideas - with frigates it is impossible, either you get them faster than your enemy or you need to produce them and only them faster than your enemy.
Good ideas. Also +33% against all land units after 10 experience points is ridiculously big bonus, even more devastating for poor land units which have NO BONUS AGAINST WATER UNITS ;/
). Tanks are destroyed via anti -tank guns, bombers via anti -air, in modern era there are few countering types of ships and few ways to kill them. Frigates are stopped only by frigates - xbows, cannons, obviously all melee land units, caravels, sea beggars, galleas - until artillery/modern ships/air units frigates are unbalanced cuz there are unstoppable by anything other than more frigates.In my last two multiplayer matches, with good league players, I won because of extreme science push and getting Navigation when they were stronger, only with... Astronomy. I managed to produce more frigates and kill their smaller number of frigates, delayed by these ~10 turns, crush all their other naval units with ease, and cannons were too weak to stop these ships. I cannot find any other situation in which getting certain unit is so crucial because of its (over)power. Damn, I once got artillery and my enemy stopped it using cavalry spam and few tactic ideas - with frigates it is impossible, either you get them faster than your enemy or you need to produce them and only them faster than your enemy.
Good ideas. Also +33% against all land units after 10 experience points is ridiculously big bonus, even more devastating for poor land units which have NO BONUS AGAINST WATER UNITS ;/
kaspergm
Deity
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Yes, that's kind of funny actually, I never really thought about that because I don't focus heavily on naval combat normally, but the large bonus against melee units would make more sense if they had a native penalty for attacking land units, or just a low overall combat strength with a bonus against their target domain (similar to how siege weapons work, except Frigates wouldn't specialize in cities but ... what?). But with a strength of 28, they sit naturally between Musketmen (24) and Riflemen (34), so it's not like they are naturally underpowered, and like you say, melee units have no way of countering their attack, so they are basically just sitting ducks even without the bonus. I think the promotion was originally +20% rather than current +33% (according to this page, so they even upped it somewhere along the way, wonder what the motivation for that was?
Exactly. This one unit being so powerful requires that your strategy must revolve around it. Optimizing # of galleasses to be upgraded and having gold ready, as well as Navigation asap, with as many extra caravels as possible. And then, whoever wins the first naval battle has an overwhelming advantage.
This is silly. There should be more than 1 strategy in sea maps.
What about dropping the range of Frigates from 2 to 1? I've always thought it was strange that naval ranged units could hit land units that aren't even on the coast. And it seems absurdly easy to get the +1 range promotion and then destroy cities safely out of range of any counter-attack. But maybe 1 range is too restrictive.
Also, I agree that the first promotion being +33% land bombardment is egregious.
It's like, naval units were so easy to ignore in so many iterations of the Civ series, that they decided to buff naval units until we couldn't ignore them, because they're actually stronger than the corresponding land units.
Also, I agree that the first promotion being +33% land bombardment is egregious.
It's like, naval units were so easy to ignore in so many iterations of the Civ series, that they decided to buff naval units until we couldn't ignore them, because they're actually stronger than the corresponding land units.
