If Battleship and Destroyer aren't obsoleted by MissileCruiser and StealthDestroyer?

Considering that:
Battleship 40 Strength cost 225
Missile Cruiser 40 Strength cost 260 +4 missile load, causes collateral damage

Destroyer 30 Strength cost 200 can defend Transport, can see Submarines
Stealth Destroyer 30 Strenghth cost 250 can see Stealth units, cannot defend Transport, can not see submarines

Wouldn't be wise if Battleship and Destroyers don't get obsolete by these units?
Battleship costs 35 hammer less (on Normal) than Missile Cruiser, Missile Cruiser has +4 Missile load and collateral damage.
While Missile Cruiser has these good advantages it isn't always better than Battleships, because to defend your coast or control the sea you usually build a lot Missile Cruisers with an inadequate number of Guided Missiles (at least from my experience it's nearly impossible to supply a great fleet of Missile Cruisers with adequate number of missiles).Collateral damage is another advantage but on sea except when destroying an invasion fleet you don't need that bonus.Considered that, Battleship could be a "light" version of Missile Cruisers, less costly, same strength but without special abilities.
Stealth Destroyer and Destroyer are clearly complementary, unless there are some changes made to Stealth Destroyer.
So what do you think?

Well missile cruisers did obsolete battleships historically. Also don't forget missile cruisers have an extra movement over the battleships. So I think thats a good upgrade, more expensive but also much better especially when you add missiles.

The stealth destroyer can remain invisible and also has a 50% aa vs the 30% aa compared to a regular destroyer. The only thing about the stealth destroyer is it can't see subs, it certainly should be able too. I never tried one yet but I wonder if subs are considered to be stealth? If so then they can see them. So I like it other then this.

Another thing I wonder, can transports carry missiles as cargo? I never tried this either and don't think it works. If they could, there is an answer for keeping missiles supplied to cruisers and subs. This may make cruisers and subs too powerful though since you can stay off an enemy coast and keep filling them with missiles.

What needs to be done to allow a stealth destroyer the ability to defend a transport, or any ship for that matter?

I thought battleship also has the collateral damage capability

Well, I personally think Battleships and Destroyers shouldn't be obsolete in the game by Missile Cruisers and Stealth Destroyers. Especially since in the game you can (if you research in certain orders) still build Grenadiers when you have Infantry or Cannons when you have Tanks.

Kind of--odd.

battleships do cause collateral damage

The problem seems to be more the destroyer to stealth destroyer upgrade, since the loss of the ability to detect subs and defend stacks doesn't make it a natural upgrade but more of an alternative.

AFAIK battleships can cause collateral damage with the barrage promotion whereas missile cruiser cause collateral damage out of the box

The battleship to missle cruiser upgrade I don't see as that drastic a problem. The extra cost is fairly minor for the additonal power of being able to carry missles, and the trade off of higher cost for additonal power is consistent with all other upgrades. Crucially there is nothing a battleship can do that a Missle cruiser cannot do as least as well.

The Stealth destroyer on the other hand doesn't work properly as an escort, and so either needs a fix there, or to be removed from the upgrade path of the destroyer, which is a more effective escort.

There is a similar discussion here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=236389

Well what they really need to do is improve the Stealth Destroyer so that it Can defend Transports, and Can see Submarines

Otherwiise I think it is a good idea for the upgrade paths to stay as they are

Stealth Destroyers don't need any further benefits, just remove the fact that they obsolete regular Destroyers and it's perfectly balanced. 50% Intercept and immunity to attack except from other Stealth Destroyers is hugely powerful already. Tacking on the ability to attack subs is too much egg in their pudding.

Plus, it means another type of naval unit. Think about it, you've normally got four units on land that counter one another (Knight --> Pikemen --> Macemen, with Crossbowmen added in for good measure) why not at sea as well?

MrCynical said:

The battleship to missle cruiser upgrade I don't see as that drastic a problem. The extra cost is fairly minor for the additonal power of being able to carry missles, and the trade off of higher cost for additonal power is consistent with all other upgrades. Crucially there is nothing a battleship can do that a Missle cruiser cannot do as least as well.

The Stealth destroyer on the other hand doesn't work properly as an escort, and so either needs a fix there, or to be removed from the upgrade path of the destroyer, which is a more effective escort.

Click to expand...

I mostly agree with all what you say, but i don't think that the additional cost of nearly +15% hammers is always worth.
The additional power a Missile Cruiser get is clearly worth additional +15% hammers but how much times do we need or have missiles loaded on our ships, how much times collateral damage does matter in naval warfare? The problem of Missile Cruiser is that it's special abilities are mostly situational.
If you have for example to attack a single enemy Battleship or Destroyer or another Missile Cruiser a 15% cheaper Battleship is often a better choice, because
-your Missile Cruisers are not always armed with Missiles
-collateral damage in this case is not applied
-if you lose a Battleship in combat it's less 15% costly than the Missile Cruiser

Let me put it this way... Have you ever had a Missile Cruiser with four Guided Missiles in it before? I don't mean that as a provocation, mind you, but an actual, honest question.

Because if you have, then you'll immediately see why they're worth the price. Hell, I'd pay +30% hammers for one of those babies...

Even on Marathon, my secondary production cities are able to build Guided Missiles at a rate of 9 per 10 turns (the first takes 2 turns, with the overflow constantly spilling over onto the subsequent ones) while my primary city does them in 1 turn from scratch. So two or three cities producing an endless supply of missiles will give you that edge you need.



Also, remember that nothing in this game stands alone on its own. So you have to think in context of the rest of your fleet. Missile Cruisers + Aircraft Carriers + Destroyers = Naval Dominance.

Again, I do tend to agree that Stealth Destroyers should not entirely replace regular Destroyers, otherwise you're relying on Missile Cruisers to defend your fleet and, well... Eh, that's not a good idea.

Marioflag said:

I mostly agree with all what you say, but i don't think that the additional cost of nearly +15% hammers is always worth.

Click to expand...

It's a fair point. If I was rebalancing naval warfare I'd give missle cruisers another couple of points of strength, to give them a slight edge over the much older battleship even without missles. I find guided missles very effective though, and well worth the extra expense.

how much times collateral damage does matter in naval warfare?

Click to expand...

I'm finding the answer to this to be VERY frequently. A stack of 30 odd destroyers or battleships with transports underneath is a very common sight in BtS. It's arbitrary however as both battleships and missle cruisers do collateral damage.

I have no mod skills, so please forgive if this is a stupid question - but can you mod the game so that stealth destroyers can defend?

Further apologies if this has been covered already here - I know this topic has been discussed before...

Lurking Liu said:

Let me put it this way... Have you ever had a Missile Cruiser with four Guided Missiles in it before? I don't mean that as a provocation, mind you, but an actual, honest question.

Because if you have, then you'll immediately see why they're worth the price. Hell, I'd pay +30% hammers for one of those babies...

Even on Marathon, my secondary production cities are able to build Guided Missiles at a rate of 9 per 10 turns (the first takes 2 turns, with the overflow constantly spilling over onto the subsequent ones) while my primary city does them in 1 turn from scratch. So two or three cities producing an endless supply of missiles will give you that edge you need.



Also, remember that nothing in this game stands alone on its own. So you have to think in context of the rest of your fleet. Missile Cruisers + Aircraft Carriers + Destroyers = Naval Dominance.

Again, I do tend to agree that Stealth Destroyers should not entirely replace regular Destroyers, otherwise you're relying on Missile Cruisers to defend your fleet and, well... Eh, that's not a good idea.

Click to expand...

As i have already said Missile Cruisers are far more powerful than Battleships, and i agree that a Missile Cruiser with 4 missiles loaded, is really deadly but in terms of cost/efficiency i don't think having a fleet of only Missile Cruiser and other ships is better than a fleet with Battleships,Missile Cruisers and other ships.
If on a sea tile there is only a single enemy ship, is better to attack with a Battleship than a Missile Cruiser which has no missile boarded considered it's cheaper.If you are also patrolling sea with a single ship on a tile and it's attacked it's also better that this ship is a Battleship than a Missile Cruiser again because it's cheaper.
The relation Battleship/Missile Cruiser is no that different from Marines/Mech Infantry relation.
The only drawback of that implementation is that it's unhistorical, but we have so much things which are unhistorical in civ4 that it shouldn't be a problem.

Hey Modders,

What in CIV4UnitInfos.XML does one need to modify so a unit is not obsoleted by the upgraded version of the unit? I think just allowing continued access to Destroyers and Battleships would be a quick and easy fix.

But there's the problem, see? You don't do anything with a single unit for a start. Also, you don't use Battleships to patrol. You use Air units to perform Recon--It's infinitely more efficient.

So, ideally, your main fleet is in a centralized location, and you've got about two turns of advance notice.

I don't think you have always your ships stacked, particularly when you are not invading or you are not defending from an invasion.In any case AI don't stack always its units, you find a lot of times single units in a sea tile.