Relevant navies?

I am really bothered by the fact that navies are not that relevant in this game. Sure, some naval units can transport units and bomb cities, but this does not even begin to reflect the real importance of navies in history.

Navies ensured trade routes and protected merchant ships which provided important resources. In addition, navies could block other countries' trade routes or even besiege cities.

The fact the some of the greatest empires and civilizations owed their power to navies: Greek, Phoenician, Viking, England, Holland, Portugal, Spain, France, Sweden, Denmark, and most other empires makes the irrelevance of navies in this game questionable.

What I would like to see are merchant ships that function much like the Great Merchant person (they increase wealth when they reach a foreign city, depending on the size of the city and the distance) but go on water tiles only. Preferrably, unlike the great merchant, they should not disappear when they fulfill their mission but instead engage in another mission (starting in that city). If building a port or a shipyard could generate such ships this would make the sea units much more important for wealth and therefore much more relevant for the game.

Hey there Prof. I really sympathise with what you are saying, but I fear your 'solution' would only add needless Micromanagement without actually solving the problem of 'irrelevent' navies. Civ2 had caravans which you had to transport in order to form trade routes, and I STILL found myself never building much of a navy!
Possible solutions to the problem though might be:

1) Limiting the terrain that land units can reasonably travel over-thus making early naval units more important for transport and exploration.

2) Have resource trade routes show up on the screen a la CTP 1 and 2. Then allow for units to pillage these trade routes.

3) Make the blockade of port cities prevent the function of harbours, as well as preventing the use of neighbouring sea tiles (then blockades will REALLY hurt).

4) Along a similar line to harbours, perhaps have a 'Merchant Navy' city improvement which further boosts trade income from that city (perhaps requires a harbour to build!).

5) Allow naval units sitting near a trade-route (non-resource based) to actually block the function of that trade route-at least for that turn.

6) Grant naval units their own set of promotions, to allow players to specialise their fleets, to make naval combat more 'strategic', and to encouraging conflict in order to generate XP.

7) Allow early-industrial and later naval units to bombard units in a similar fashion to air units.

8) Allow certain pre-industrial naval units a chance to capture other pre-industrial naval units.

9) Improve the AI to make them AWARE of all the above abilities, as well as the existing advantages of navies, and to use them accordingly.

Anyway, those are just a few key ideas. As you can see, none of them require any kind of extensive micromanagement, but I feel they will all help to increase the relevency of navies-especially in the age of sail!

Aussie_Lurker.

I love those ideas Aussie. Trade routes on sea should be highly valuable to your civs economy, and thus take advantage of your and your enemies naval powers to protect those lines. The trade routes should be visible and should be able to be set by the player. Would make the naval part of the game more interesting, because right now there is no naval aspect to the game.

Civ5 also needs something like pirates and also needs to bring back the privateer unit, thus making you able to raid rival civs terrain without discovery.

I would also like to see the stacking of sea units into an armada type unit (to back up my constant idea for civ5 to have stacking of units into armies/aramadas to simulate real life big battles) which you could also set upon rival civs armadas. There should be some balance in the game however to discourage the constant building of armadas, only limiting it to 2 to 4 by certain age. There should be also be an option/button for your naval units to patrol and guard your trade routes.

Suspiria said:

I would also like to see the stacking of sea units into an armada type unit (to back up my constant idea for civ5 to have stacking of units into armies/aramadas to simulate real life big battles) which you could also set upon rival civs armadas.

Click to expand...

All units should be stackable, 'cause airborn units still can't. And moving them one by one seems to still date back to civ3, before the expansions.

I'd prefer NPC merchant vessels which automatically travel along trade routes, seeking to end their turns on squares occupied by friendly vessels. If the merchant is destroyed, the killer recieves an instant bonus of gold (not too much, and dependent on the value of the route) and the trade route is temprorarily severed, replaced by an overland route until another merchant successfully makes the journey. The player wouldn't have to worry about dealing with the merchants as the vessels would move automatically: He'd only have to ensure that enough friendly ships are around to protect the trade route. There could even be an "escort merchant" option when a ship occupies the same tile as a merchant, binding the ship to that merchant as a guard. Even when not at war, powers could hire Privateers (or simply re-introduce that unit for simplicity's sake) to plunder merchant vessels and disrupt enemy trade. Eventually, however, the merchants would disappear, say, no need for a merchant if both cities have an airport (or an overland route).

These are amazing ideas. I really love Aussie's ideas. They are far better than mine and would all be historically relevant. I really like the blockade idea. It works well in the Rome Total War games. I don't know if it is possible to mod the game for blockades though (hopefully developers are reading this). Certainly naval blockades have been very common and effective historically from ancient times to present day.

I think the limited terrain idea can be done in a mod.

I like the idea of trade routes as a reource. I imagine it would be much like roads on land, to be built by boat workers instead of human workers. I am not sure how to operationalize it in a mod. Perhaps a developer would know.

I think Suspiria idea of pirate ship is also very historically relevant. There were several empires that were almost entirely pirate-ship based. For example, the Phoenicians (ancient world) and the Barbary Coast states in more recent history. In Civ III it was pretty easy to make units that could move around without revealing affiliation. Does anyone know how to do it in the current version?

I think some type of merchant ship that results in wealth is necessary. I don't really care if it is automated or how it functions, but I think countries with good navies should be richer.

There are some excellent ideas for making navies more powerful militarily (like the armada idea), but I am not too dissatisfied with the fighting abilities of ships. But it feels a little silly building ships only to fight other ships when they don't really affect much in the game.

When playing this game, I feel silly playing with a pathetic navy. It loses a lot of historical realism and takes away from the fun. I am not holding my breath for future versions to fix this, but if anything can be done through a mod, that would be awesome. Any ideas for what would be moddable would be greatly appreciated.

what i kike might work is instead of destroying boats you can capture them and turn them into flaming ships. flaming ships could only bombarrd or cause collateral damage a set amount of time and the damage they do will decrease over time

I'd also like to see torpedo plains, so that planes can sink boats, instead of just damaging to certain degree. Capturing would be nice to, but don't realy see how that should work ? Perhaps with an advanced assault submarine ?

Perhaps the game could work trade something like;

In order for a city to have access to resources, it must be connected by trade routes. In order for this re-introduce Caravans (later Trucks/Rail freight) for land routes, and use Galleys (and later Galleons/Transports) for sea routes.

Upon the creation of naval vessels you would have the option to allocate them to trade/resource movement, whilst all caravans would automatically be allocated to it. Within the Trade Route Window you would have the option to take naval vessels back out.

Rather than allocate the units to specific trade routes, the AI would work out the percentage trade coverage - where this drops below 100%, it would slow down production in cities (ie; not enough iron coming from the mountains), or reduce the happiness effect (ie; silk is particularly difficult to come by).

There would perhaps be an option to prioritise cities (so you could get your Capital at 100% supply, but it would mean a far flung outpost getting even smaller dribs and drabs)

On the map, the routes would be represented (and so become viable piracy/blockade targets) by automated units....although a pirated/blockaded route wouldn't neccessarily mean no resource gets through, it would reduce the percentage supply to city (cities) for x turns (perhaps based on relative distance).

If two cities are not linked by road (/rail), then at least some of the journey would need to be made by sea.

The better the unit, the higher the transport coverage (...though conversely there would likely be more resources to transport)

Improving navies is the single biggest thing I want the developers to do in the next expansion - its what I wanted before they released Civ 4 and I guess the developers made a nod in that direction by allowing ships to occupy 9 sea squares and also to pillage fishing boat tiles. Also its easier to get amphibious units now (Civ 3 only had the beserker and the marine).

I'm pleased they did these things but they could take it further in my opinion - I like the suggestions that have already been made - ships really should play a big role in expanding/disrupting commerce. Maybe each ship has a sphere of influence which represents water tiles that are policed by the navy and trade routes yield alot more gold if protected by these ships because they prevent piracy.

Also I think ships should be able to directly attack cities but not occupy them (like gunships) - maybe then players would take navies more seriously. Naval combat prior to cannons was about ramming and hand to hand combat - so a direct attack would represent the ships crew and soldiers disembarking to raid a city. Once cannons start to dominate naval warfare I still think it should be legit for ships to attack cities as this represents ships coming in closer to make more effective bombardments but also putting themselves at greater risk from coastal defences such as barbicans

Brief rant here after finishing a game. I won but I got fed up at the AI breezing into my waters and dropping off a huge stack of troops right next to destroyers and transports. I appreciate the sneak attack/finding the backdoor approach but for me to have to put a naval unit in every square of my coast is absurd. A zone of control for certain naval vessels would be nice, nine squars for frigates, a fat cross for destroyers and battleships.

Skitters said:

Perhaps the game could work trade something like;
In order for a city to have access to resources, it must be connected by trade routes. In order for this re-introduce Caravans (later Trucks/Rail freight) for land routes, and use Galleys (and later Galleons/Transports) for sea routes.

Upon the creation of naval vessels you would have the option to allocate them to trade/resource movement, whilst all caravans would automatically be allocated to it. Within the Trade Route Window you would have the option to take naval vessels back out.

Rather than allocate the units to specific trade routes, the AI would work out the percentage trade coverage - where this drops below 100%, it would slow down production in cities (ie; not enough iron coming from the mountains), or reduce the happiness effect (ie; silk is particularly difficult to come by).

There would perhaps be an option to prioritise cities (so you could get your Capital at 100% supply, but it would mean a far flung outpost getting even smaller dribs and drabs)

On the map, the routes would be represented (and so become viable piracy/blockade targets) by automated units....although a pirated/blockaded route wouldn't neccessarily mean no resource gets through, it would reduce the percentage supply to city (cities) for x turns (perhaps based on relative distance).

If two cities are not linked by road (/rail), then at least some of the journey would need to be made by sea.

The better the unit, the higher the transport coverage (...though conversely there would likely be more resources to transport)

Click to expand...

I like this concept, except for the automated units part. Automated units are a huge drain on system resources that aren't needed. A simple route or line like in the Ctp series between the cities which can be raided (get gold but route still exists) or pillaged (get more gold and route is destroyed) would suffice.

Here's something I made off the top and in haste.

Naval commands:
A-Bombard
B-Pillage
C-Pirate
D-Block-affectively contains all value of all tiles around the unit, disables passage with active defense measure, holds the possibility to not make war if enacted. Though the intruder does sustain damage.
E-Claim seas- affectively claims all adjacent tiles around the unit, any entrance provokes war immediately
F-Claim high seas- Claims a specific area between two or more vessel tiles.

Coracle- basic transport, C affective

Galley- basic combat, B,C,D affective

Fire gally- basic offense B, C, D, E affective

Trireme- increased offense, B,C,D,E,F affective

Corsair- increased transport

Tribentine- increased offense, A,B,C,D,E,F affective

Carrack- increased transport, defensive value, A,B,C affective

Brigentine- increased offense, simple transport, A,B,C,D,E,F affective

Merchantmann- increased value from sea trade, can return cargo from piracy.

Caravel- increased trade and transport

Galleon- increased combat, A,B,C,D,E,F affective

Privateer- increased offense, A,B,C,D,E,F affective

Ironclad- advanced offense, A,B,C,D,E,F affective

troop ship- advanced transport

Battleship- advanced offense, A,B,C,D,E,F affective

Submarine- advanced combat, A,B,C,E,F affective

Destroyer- advanced combat, A,B,D,E,F affective

Cruiser- advanced combat, A,B,C,D,E,F affective

ACC- advanced alternate transport, D,E,F affective

Frigate- advanced offense and defense, missile attack, A,B,C,D,E,F affective

Nuclear submarine- Advanced submersed offense and stealth, A,BC,E,F affective

Aegis cruiser- future offense, A,B,C,D,E,F affective

Aegis frigate- future combat and defense, A,B,C,D,E,F affective

Plasma destroyer- future combat, transport, and offense, A,B,C,D,E,F affective

Stealth sub- future submersed combat and offense, missile attack, A,B,C,D,E,F affective

TOP! Some of these suggestions are amazing.

Aussie_Lurker said:

Hey there Prof. I really sympathise with what you are saying, but I fear your 'solution' would only add needless Micromanagement without actually solving the problem of 'irrelevent' navies. Civ2 had caravans which you had to transport in order to form trade routes, and I STILL found myself never building much of a navy!
Possible solutions to the problem though might be:

Click to expand...

1) Limiting the terrain that land units can reasonably travel over-thus making early naval units more important for transport and exploration.

Click to expand...

This would be good, but with mountains impassable I'm not sure there's much more we can there.

2) Have resource trade routes show up on the screen a la CTP 1 and 2. Then allow for units to pillage these trade routes.

Click to expand...

Er, no that's kind of weird...

3) Make the blockade of port cities prevent the function of harbours, as well as preventing the use of neighbouring sea tiles (then blockades will REALLY hurt).

Click to expand...

Already done in civ3 I can't believe they didn't do this as part of civ4!? Jeez that's pathetic...

4) Along a similar line to harbours, perhaps have a 'Merchant Navy' city improvement which further boosts trade income from that city (perhaps requires a harbour to build!).

Click to expand...

Sounds cool.

5) Allow naval units sitting near a trade-route (non-resource based) to actually block the function of that trade route-at least for that turn.

Click to expand...

6) Grant naval units their own set of promotions, to allow players to specialise their fleets, to make naval combat more 'strategic', and to encouraging conflict in order to generate XP.

Click to expand...

Yes definetly, this would really make it far more interesting.

7) Allow early-industrial and later naval units to bombard units in a similar fashion to air units.

Click to expand...

Yes, the civ4 bombard system is hopelessly pathetic to the point of being broken the civ3 bombard system, with a few tweaks, should be brought back and naval units should have a signifigantly increased bombardment. Battleships should have higher bombard than a bomber oes.

8) Allow certain pre-industrial naval units a chance to capture other pre-industrial naval units.

Click to expand...

Cool

9) Improve the AI to make them AWARE of all the above abilities, as well as the existing advantages of navies, and to use them accordingly.

Click to expand...

Completely necasary

Anyway, those are just a few key ideas. As you can see, none of them require any kind of extensive micromanagement, but I feel they will all help to increase the relevency of navies-especially in the age of sail!

Aussie_Lurker.

Click to expand...

Yes the other thing that needs to be done is much higher movement for all modern ships. As well as the modding of amphibious systems to require massive bombardment before the assualt begins.