Post G&K naval design

[Txurce]

Originally Posted by Ahriman

If it is unambiguously better to spend your oil on battleships on a continents type map, then that just means bombers and tanks aren't powerful enough.

This approach balances the issue about as much as it can be. It's a way to build from the VEM model.

[Tarquelne]

I think the fundamental problem with making naval power as important in the game as it was historically is that so much of what ships did is either handled automagically - logistics between cities, for example - or handled by the land units themselves: the very generous embark/debark and sea-movement rules for land units.

So ships are left with a pretty small fraction of what they actually did. Not only aren't they needed to move stuff around, they don't do much toward keeping your opponent from moving stuff around. (Which is why I said navies are more important later - they can do more in the arena the game focuses on: The land.)

Enhancing the direct support role to move pre-modern navies closer to their historic importance does indeed help. To that end I at least early melee ships (pre-Ren?) should be quite powerful against cities. (I think the rule-of-thumb for powerful enough might be that you want to sink the melee ships near your attacked city before the ranged ships.) Maybe add a melee ship to keep the line up to date.

But I too would welcome further elaborations on naval power.

How about:

Create merchant ships that act something like Great Merchants in that they give you gold when sent to a distant city? Or to whoever takes them. Could make having an open sea-route elsewhere very valuable. Especially pre-modern. (Hmm... or culture or science, depending on what you build?)

That's the only thing I can think of that involves something as simple to do as adding a unit.

Allow sea-routes to increase strategic resource yields? The idea is that the game's current yield assumes a land-connection. But a resource near a coastal city with a un-blockaded harbor connection gives (for example) x1.3 more, because the resource can be shipped over water. Your opponent has too much iron? Blockade Ironport. He'll have less.
(A higher multiplier, especially combined with lowering the current yields a bit, might see coastal cities cities/empires much more interesting. Though it'd be nice to also reward river connections, too.)

Make sea-borne commerce routes yield more gold? Even if you've got a road connection harbors would be valuable.

A version of the foreign trade route system that (perhaps inevitably) emphasizes over-water connections.

Make blockades more damaging? (Do they currently cut-off resources? Could they? How about drain gold in addition to block commerce?)

Originally Posted by gunnergoz

Thal, I can't say as I agree. Are you saying that airpower was more important than seapower in, say, WW2 in the Pacific? Or the Atlantic, for that matter?

True, aircraft can sink ships, but only ships can supply a nation with trade goods, food and military supplies.

The level (scale... whatever) you're talking about matters. At a tactical level - which the game focuses on once the units are in play - air power was more important. But on the larger scale, yeah, sea-power was still the most important. You'd lose today's battle without air power. You'd lose the war next year without seapower.

But in civ it may as well be planes as ships supplying distant outposts, armies, and cities. Or it could be teleporting elves. (Which I think the documentation specifically mentions is how planes re-base.)

[Stalker0]

Originally Posted by Tarquelne

Make sea-borne commerce routes yield more gold? Even if you've got a road connection harbors would be valuable.

Its an interesting idea if it can be coded.

[Stalker0]

Originally Posted by Thalassicus

I feel maintenance is an even more important distinguishing factor than build cost, because build cost is over and done with in a few turns, while maintenance lasts for the rest of the game.

I agree to a point, though in my experience coastal cities tend to have less hammers than land born ones (though depending on how your harbor/sea port works that may not be the case) so base cost is still an important factor in what ships to build.

I like including a "spotting" category as well (light ships).

I personally don't feel spotting is important enough in CivV to be the basis for a whole ship class. I recognize the spotting of subs is important, but other than that I would much rather have power than spot range anyday.

The fundamental question is how do we prevent players from using battleships to destroy the enemy navy, and kill the cities?

We could use the new siege model here. Battleships can have the same base attack strength as destroyers, but they get a big bonus to attack cities (or maybe land units too). So while they still have a range advantage over destroyers, a group of destroyers can more easily kill battleships.

[HG_CassiusA]

I oppose making battleships follow the new siege model. I prefer they be more useful, but more expensive as well, whether that expense comes through increased production time or through requiring a strategic resource. I wonder if it's possible to add additional gold maintenance to units?

On the whole I like Ahriman's design, although I think the roles of the privateer and the galleon in his design should be swapped. To me anyway, using a privateer to capture a city INSTEAD OF fight and capture an enemy ship would just feel wrong.

I also would not mind the addition of a modern carrier/supercarrier a la whoward69's Supercarrier mod.

[Txurce]

Originally Posted by Stalker0

I personally don't feel spotting is important enough in CivV to be the basis for a whole ship class. I recognize the spotting of subs is important, but other than that I would much rather have power than spot range anyday.

We could use the new siege model here. Battleships can have the same base attack strength as destroyers, but they get a big bonus to attack cities (or maybe land units too). So while they still have a range advantage over destroyers, a group of destroyers can more easily kill battleships.

I agree on both points. Destroyers can have spotting to see subs, if need be, and that's about all the spotting realistically needed in Civ 5. Focusing battleships more on cities is also a clever, easy way to not have them quickly dominate the seas.

[gunnergoz]

Originally Posted by Ahriman

Historically, even moving around Europe or the coastal US or Japan, most freight moved by sea. Nowadays, much more freight moves by road or rail. So yes, I think naval trade is relatively less important as a proportion of total trade goods. It's obviously still important for intercontinental trade, but most trade is domestic.
(snip)

Never heard of the "global economy", eh?

World trade exports amounted to $15.2 Trillion in 2010. Most countries depend upon foreign trade for their energy supplies and much of their food. The bulk of that trade goes by...ship. Sure, in most countries there is a lot of trade domestically...of items that came into the countries as imports via ship.

Just sayin...Anyway, this doesn't really have much to do with Civ V since we all agree it is not a global economic simulator.

[Grunthex]

If I can jump in with a few thoughts, I just played a pair of fairly heavy naval games (one a multiplayer game with some major fleets happening), and had a few thoughts that may or may not be of some interest.

Mainly, I agree with the position that as things stand, melee ships are too weak. Minus the final blow for the capture, you don't want any. So I wanted to find a way to make them useful, and sorta came at it this way (in theory... not tried).

First - give all melee ships a submarine type promotion that is +50% to attack. I thought about lowering ranged ships base strength to make the melees more dangerous, but this makes them vulnerable to everything (other ships, passing longbows, cities). Giving the melees +50% attack means they should be able to hit harder and take less damage when they get through.

Second - if the +50% to attack works against cities as well, you throw the balance off vis-a-vis melee ships and cities. In that case, a -33% city attack penalty would reduce them back to 100% vs. cities, and should have no other effect.

Optional - design/include a promotion for ships that reduces ranged damage (similar to the cover promotion). Balance wise, I could see arguments for making this require 1 or 2 promotions to take.

Again, while I haven't tried any of this (I use mods, I don't much make them these days), it seems this gives you a reason to have a good solid core of melee and ranged ships in any given battle group. The ranged are still somewhat superior, but they generally require a resource.

[Dunkah]

Is it possible to put a hard limit on the number of Battleships that are allowed? Possibly saying something like you need to have 4-5 Destroyers before you are able to build 1 Batlleship?

[MortalD]

Originally Posted by Dunkah

Is it possible to put a hard limit on the number of Battleships that are allowed? Possibly saying something like you need to have 4-5 Destroyers before you are able to build 1 Batlleship?

I still opt for the idea of a prereq building like drydock for BIG ships.

As long as AI will be fine with it, it should decrease player ability to spam only capital ships by a lot. Especially in war time when u need to pop that extra navy unit here and there, but only ur main 2 cities have drydock. U r way better off building smaller vessel rather then 1st drydock then battleship - even if u rush buy it, it will still take 2 turns and be really costly.

[mystikx21]

Wasn't the VEM combat values for a BB ~80/40 instead of 55/65? (with a promotion against city/fortified)

Some idea of moving ranged ships toward a position of relatively strong but with somewhat weaker strikes make them still hard to sink but less advantaged against cities and melee naval than melee ships?

[rhammer640]

Originally Posted by MortalD

I still opt for the idea of a prereq building like drydock for BIG ships.

As long as AI will be fine with it, it should decrease player ability to spam only capital ships by a lot. Especially in war time when u need to pop that extra navy unit here and there, but only ur main 2 cities have drydock. U r way better off building smaller vessel rather then 1st drydock then battleship - even if u rush buy it, it will still take 2 turns and be really costly.

I second this idea and like that if you want to have a real naval power you have to really invest in it instead of just suddenly being able to build them. They would have to be worth it as an investment though.

[Stalker0]

Originally Posted by MortalD

Especially in war time when u need to pop that extra navy unit here and there, but only ur main 2 cities have drydock. U r way better off building smaller vessel rather then 1st drydock then battleship - even if u rush buy it, it will still take 2 turns and be really costly.

Maybe its because I'm generally a peacenik, but I rarely have more than 2 cities building ships. Heck, I rarely have more than 2 cities building units at all, generally I specialize a few for the job and leave it at that.

The drydock might delay the big ship armada but it wouldn't stop it.

[mitsho]

After having played one naval game, I must say the Trireme is incredibly impotent versus land. It can take cities, but only cities. And as there aren't many coastal tiles, you need a few of those. Theoretically, one enemy trireme could stop an attack for long enough to stop the attack. So it's basically a strategy against city states. A Quinqureme rush is very strong however, since you can pump them out very quickly. But war is but one function of the tirereme in the game, the others are barbarian hunting and exploration, where it fails. The unit (and the uniques associated with it) feels very poorly designed to me as they are either very helpful, or not helpful at all.

If you wage a landwar, the trireme can't support your land units, it just sits there watching them die. If you go exploring and find a ruin, you can't pop it and have to bring a slow scout in tow, micromanaging and poor design. If you find a barbarian hut off coast, you can't attack the camp at all. If it's on a one, two or three tile island, you are basically powerless until the ranged naval units comes around as you can't land a unit on the island filled with barbarians.

Thus, following propositions, not sure if they are all viable, but I guess they are more possible than allowing the melee trireme attack a barb camp or land units...

• The Trireme gets a ranged attack in addition to its basic attack. This attack should be poor against cities, ships and probably also units, but have a bonus against barbarians or barbarians in camp. Also one range...
• The scout gets the same power as the Great General gets with the Swedish/Finnish Hakkapellita, namely it takes over the moves of the trireme on which tile it is at the start of the turn.

This way, you can set up a team of Trireme+scout and not lose the scout trailing behind, the trireme can do something against land units and with a bit of luck, the scout/vanguard can pop the barbarian hut. A reason against it is that probably the AI will not understand the system...

[Txurce]

Originally Posted by mitsho

After having played one naval game, I must say the Trireme is incredibly impotent versus land. It can take cities, but only cities.

But war is but one function of the tirereme in the game, the others are barbarian hunting and exploration, where it fails. The unit (and the uniques associated with it) feels very poorly designed to me as they are either very helpful, or not helpful at all.

Triremes have a slight edge vs barbs, can explore, and can take weakened cities, but are very fragile, and provide no help vs land units. Isn't that what they were supposed to be: an early melee unit?

The only UU associated with it that I've seen is the Quinquereme, which as you noted is a killer. And it was never meant to make camp-popping easy.

I see where you're coming from, but wanted to state my different perspective.

[mitsho]

Don't the Byzantines have the Dromon as a Trireme replacement? (or ist that a Galleon one making the Byzantines and Carthaginians at least somewhat different, haven't played with Byzantium yet).

I do see you're points, but then there needs to be a ancient age ranged unit.

The chance is high that as there are few units running around, there will be nothing to do for your triremes, even in a war otherwise. You blockaded the ports, but are too weak to attack. Also long-distance naval attacks (which would be a beautiful new strategy "hey, let's conquer that city all the way over there") would be not possible as the Trireme can't defend itself against archers, catapults and cities, can it?

[Txurce]

Originally Posted by mitsho

Don't the Byzantines have the Dromon as a Trireme replacement? (or ist that a Galleon one making the Byzantines and Carthaginians at least somewhat different, haven't played with Byzantium yet).

I think the Dromon is ranged.

You blockaded the ports, but are too weak to attack. Also long-distance naval attacks (which would be a beautiful new strategy "hey, let's conquer that city all the way over there") would be not possible as the Trireme can't defend itself against archers, catapults and cities, can it?

Yes, I think exploring and blockades are what they do in a war (other than clear out enemy ships, which does help your peace prospects). Actively taking down a healthy city is what Quinqueremes do. Making triremes stronger would require doing the same for quinqueremes, which in my opinion would throw off the game's balance in that era.

[Tarquelne]

Originally Posted by Txurce

I think the Dromon is ranged.

It is: "My words are backed by the power of GREEK FIRE!"

A trireme taking a city and then scooting off and allowing it to be recaptured could represent a successful raid. The trireme getting whacked before it can leave... not so successful, but it still might be worth while.


(I just happened to read a history of the second Schleswig-Holstein war. The Danes totally complained about how the navy should have been allowed to contribute more to the land war. There wasn't enough for them to do.)

[Stalker0]

Originally Posted by Txurce

Yes, I think exploring and blockades are what they do in a war (other than clear out enemy ships, which does help your peace prospects).

So the question is, does that justify them enough to warrant building them?

That's always a critical question especially in the very early game. You don't have a lot of cities, and you often have a lot of units, buildings, and wonders that you would like to build. Hammers are a precious thing, so anything you spend them on has to provide a major advantage.

[Txurce]

I build them to explore. With increased naval activity, I would also want them to keep my trade routes open. That's enough justification for me, even if I never use them to take a city.