How to fix navy?

[Dida]

Everyone agree that navy is near useless in the game, but how do you think we can fix it? It seems to require a complete rework of the game model to actually make navy useful.

[Ball Lightning]

Originally Posted by Dida

Everyone agree that navy is near useless in the game, but how do you think we can fix it? It seems to require a complete rework of the game model to actually make navy useful.

1: Make them move faster so moving units by ship is better.
2: Have sea trade routes which can be attacked by ships, which your ships can defend.

[Dida]

I agree with your first point. Regarding the second point, for any land empire that is sufficiently large, it can depend exclusively on domestic or land-based trading. In that case, ocean-going trade route pirating is none more than an annoyance, which was the case in CTP.

[Ball Lightning]

Maybe if there were pirates ships which could attack your land cities if you didn't defend them with ships? Or pillage your sea side squares.

[Seafroggys]

Increasing their bombardment abilities.

You'd think a battleship squad would wreck havoc on a port town

[bonafide11]

Originally Posted by Ball Lightning

1: Make them move faster so moving units by ship is better.
2: Have sea trade routes which can be attacked by ships, which your ships can defend.

I agree with these two points, but let me add:

3: Allow all ships that carry units to carry one extra unit. So, a galley can carry three, galleon four, transport five, etc.

This way, when the AI sends a galley with an archer and settler to an another continent with land, they'll bring a worker too so they can actually build up their city. Now they'll just build cities that never are improved.

But it just is never worth using galleys because they cannot carry any troops. It requires 4 galleys to send 8 troops, which is the minimal to take a good city, and then you need the tiremes to protect them. So it is at least 5 ships you need to build that are very slow and cost a lot of hammers. Plus you often don't have that many coastal cities to build them at. So if you're really committed to going to naval war, it's difficult to have a good land army. Instead of galleys, I'd rather build catapults and axemen and take nearby cities that I can get too way faster. Otherwise, by the time you assemble a decent naval military and transport all your units to your enemy, your units will be outdated and you'll have better units to use that are too far away to get to. BY the time you get those units over there, they'll be outdated... It's just not convenient enough because it costs so much to keep up a good navy and its not worth the troyble if you have closer rivals.

[Dida]

I agree. Warships armed with big gun or missiles should at least be able to destroy city improvement if not units. With sufficient firepower, a fleet should be able to bomb a city to rubbles, which was indeed what the US Navy did in the Pacific.

[sennomulo]

Have an AI that is able and willing to carry out large-scale naval invasions, so that a strong navy is a defensive must for any civ with a large coastline.

[TheBladeRoden]

The ability to attack any unit on a coast

[Dida]

Originally Posted by sennomulo

Have an AI that is able and willing to carry out large-scale naval invasions, so that a strong navy is a defensive must for any civ with a large coastline.

I disagree. You can always kill their troops after they have landed. As it is, the AI navy can't really do any harm to you, and just imagine you put all the hammers that the AI spent building carriers and battleships into building more tanks and artilleries.

[TheLastOne36]

I gave up, the navy is impossible to fix.

[sennomulo]

Well, perhaps if the ships had the capability to kill units in the cities, like in Civ 2... or if your ships had a defensive zone of control that have a good chance of sinking incoming transports before they reach your shores.

[marioflag]

1. (most important point) pillageable sea trade routes
2.some navies should be able to bombard coastal tiles
3.no need to make navies faster

1.With pillageable trade routes in BtS i think that now building a fleet will become really important unless you are a landlocked or mostly landlocked civ.Securing your commerce or harassing enemy commerce is already a big reason to build a huge fleet.It will also make deep sea a lot more important than before where defending the coast was 95% of fleet usefulness.
2.Option for Battleships and Missile Cruisers to bombard the coast should be available to make fleet even more important, hoping it will be AI friendly.
3.navies are already really fast, i don't see any point in making them faster, or making them able to cross an ocean in a few turns

[Dida]

I think making the navy capable of:
1) randomly destroying city improvements when they bombard
2) being able to at least bomb land unit down to half health like bombers
3) can blockade enemy coastal cities easily (ZoC is a great idea)
4) can pillage trade route (trade route must be important enough to be worth pillaging, otherwise it is just a minor annoyance)
5) can destroy land tile improvement

[bonafide11]

Originally Posted by Dida

5) can destroy land tile improvement

I'm really surprised to see this suggestion come up so much, I'd find that really stupid. Land units can't destroy water improvements, why should water units be able to destroy land improvements? It just doesn't make sense. I like the idea of naval trade routes, but I think besides that they just need to make the navies either faster and/or capable of carrying an extra unit...

[akadyer]

should be able to transport 8 units in every age , and should have bombard damage for every age as well , we want to make it interesting on all ages so forget history

[Dida]

Originally Posted by bonafide11

I'm really surprised to see this suggestion come up so much, I'd find that really stupid. Land units can't destroy water improvements, why should water units be able to destroy land improvements? It just doesn't make sense. I like the idea of naval trade routes, but I think besides that they just need to make the navies either faster and/or capable of carrying an extra unit...

This is because land based unit is already powerful enough, and as such need not be beefed up.

Regarding the ocean trade route, I really hope it is not the standard trade route that we have seen. I meant, I don't care if the AI pillaged a trade route that gives me 3 gold/turn. (this is exactly the kind of annoyance that I don't want). Instead, I think if the civ is getting resource from overseas, such as trading oil with someone, that trade will be represented with a trade route and this is the trade route that will be worth pillaging.

[taillesskangaru]

I think the trade route idea is going to be implemented.

I really like to have my ships bombard land improvements like in Civ3. Or have the AI and barbarians capable of launching assaults by sea.

[cuchulain]

Originally Posted by TheBladeRoden

The ability to attack any unit on a coast

Yeah, they really should be able to.

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

A Zone of Control concept would be nice. Battleships should have a 1-tile radius Zone of Control that affects units (or perhaps even sea tiles as well; basically a 3x3 area of sea tiles get affected by the presence of an enemy battleship alone). Also some AI tweaking should definitely be implemented to make the AI do things like blockade port cities. Too bad trade routes aren't handled in a similar manner to Galactic Civilizations or Call to Power.