Historically, weren't Frigates the first ships that started bombarding city fortresses? In Civ5, I wouldn't think about firing on a city with any naval units earlier than a Frigate. Once there (and upgrades to Destroyers), they're great for attacking cities and other naval units. But I do like the idea of improving naval combat.
I hope they make ships more important.
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The issue may not just be that AI doesn't build them. Unless I get a coastal start, or am going for a major conquest, I rarely build them as well.
One of the issue with ships is the game mechanic can discourage it unless you're all out warmonger/conquering the world or had a start close to a coast. If you had a landlocked start and later acquire a port city later on, there is a lot of hidden structural costs to unpuppeting a coastal city for the sole purpose of ship production.
Culture cost for next SP goes up. National Wonder costs go up and those deep in the builder tree (think Hermitage/Oxford) will be less accessible until you can get the new city up to speed. Which will take turns. More pressing is that coastal improvements,luxuries are hard to access without a productive/unpuppetive port city. And you can't defend the already improved pearls, fishery or whales you captured because there is no way to build a warship if you had a largely landlocked start.
The opportunity cost to building a navy is extremely high in this context and we get this really weird situation that we don't normally see in a Civ game, where things go unimproved. And where landlocked civs have limited visibility of the map and rival placement until satellites because the cost to have a navy, defend a coast and explore is too high. The same issue with the AI as they never unpuppet their conquered cities.
There needs to be a way to fix 2 issues
1) Though somewhat unrelated to the issue, devs should make the AI unpuppet key strategic cities away from their core to offset production
2) perhaps consider building of warships / workboats in puppet cities.
3) Introduce an alternate mechanic to allow for ships to be built. Perhaps a 'transport' mechanism whereby one can built a ship in a landlocked city and ship it to a port city.
I really hate not being able to build workboats and warships to defend my coasts because the cost of unpuppeting is too high.
One of the issue with ships is the game mechanic can discourage it unless you're all out warmonger/conquering the world or had a start close to a coast. If you had a landlocked start and later acquire a port city later on, there is a lot of hidden structural costs to unpuppeting a coastal city for the sole purpose of ship production.
Culture cost for next SP goes up. National Wonder costs go up and those deep in the builder tree (think Hermitage/Oxford) will be less accessible until you can get the new city up to speed. Which will take turns. More pressing is that coastal improvements,luxuries are hard to access without a productive/unpuppetive port city. And you can't defend the already improved pearls, fishery or whales you captured because there is no way to build a warship if you had a largely landlocked start.
The opportunity cost to building a navy is extremely high in this context and we get this really weird situation that we don't normally see in a Civ game, where things go unimproved. And where landlocked civs have limited visibility of the map and rival placement until satellites because the cost to have a navy, defend a coast and explore is too high. The same issue with the AI as they never unpuppet their conquered cities.
There needs to be a way to fix 2 issues
1) Though somewhat unrelated to the issue, devs should make the AI unpuppet key strategic cities away from their core to offset production
2) perhaps consider building of warships / workboats in puppet cities.
3) Introduce an alternate mechanic to allow for ships to be built. Perhaps a 'transport' mechanism whereby one can built a ship in a landlocked city and ship it to a port city.
I really hate not being able to build workboats and warships to defend my coasts because the cost of unpuppeting is too high.
bcaiko
Emperor
The cost of unpuppeting one city is not that high. I do agree with you that the AI needs to learn to unpuppet in certain situations.
Not that high or my comment of extremely high is naturally a subjective judgement. I'm speaking in terms of opportunity costs.
The takeaway really is that aside from AI never unpuppeting cities, thus potentially have zero port cities they can build ships from, for the human player, this is the first time where there is a cost to taking control of a coastal city that isn't merely the cost of gold to rush a courthouse.
Even if you disagree on the cost, it is at the very least a disincentive to unpuppet a coastal town and then from there have to build all the infrastructure to make sure your national wonders aren't too delayed and then on top of that build ships.
The obvious answer of unpuppeting a 2nd coastal city naturally runs into the issue of further compounding the issue.
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
I don't agree with that. The benefit of puppets might be more, but the cost is no more than building a city yourself, which, if you wanted a coastal city, you would presumably have done if you had the option.
Well the discussion is about lack of navies and there many reasons for it.
For the AI, they don't unpuppet cities which means you have to chance that they settled on a coastal city early on.
For the human player, it's about incentives. There is only the most passing incentive to settle near the coast if you
1) start near one
2) there are nice resources
Otherwise, the only port cities you may have are acquired.
The point is that there are active disincentives to unpuppet that extra coastal city or on the same token settle on the coast with a fresh city. The 'opportunity cost' -- extra culture required to progress through the SP trees compounded for the rest of the game; delay in national wonder availability; and extra cost of said wonders -- are relevant.
One can argue the costs are 'little' or 'extreme' but that's not something I want to dwell on. Just as governments use taxation to incentivize or disincentivize behaviour, you can see the game mechanics as a disincentive to building ships.
I had proposed the option of allowing puppet cities to build ships, or to alternatively allow landlocked cities build ships and move them over-land to the port cities. This would not be historically unrealistic.
But my 2 core issues are
1) AI needs to unpuppet cities
2) we need to find a way for everyone to field a navy, regardless of starting position. And forcing people to unpuppet a conquered city or settle a city, essentially city+1 is not an ideal answer.
Edit: I should probably clarify the problem I am describing is most pronounced in Pangea large maps for obvious reasons. It probably isn't a problem at all in smaller continents maps.
I really hope the navy will be more important. The way to do it is to make it a good strategy to control the seas with lots of benefits if you do. At the moment you can easily win a game without fielding a single sea unit and that needs to be changed.
- Movement by sea has always been the most cost effective and fastest way of movement if you need to move a lot of stuff (like an army or supplies). I think they should increase movement at sea so that seamovement is faster than roads. Especially early in the game.
- We need a port hex- improvement so you can give cities without a coastalhex a possibility to conduct trade by sea. The port should also give bonuses to trade, embarkement and disembarkment.
- we should have visible trade routes at sea to protect and to pillage.
If these things were implemented a player would suffer severe disadvantages if he chooses to ignore his navy.
- Movement by sea has always been the most cost effective and fastest way of movement if you need to move a lot of stuff (like an army or supplies). I think they should increase movement at sea so that seamovement is faster than roads. Especially early in the game.
- We need a port hex- improvement so you can give cities without a coastalhex a possibility to conduct trade by sea. The port should also give bonuses to trade, embarkement and disembarkment.
- we should have visible trade routes at sea to protect and to pillage.
If these things were implemented a player would suffer severe disadvantages if he chooses to ignore his navy.
Lots of ideas in this thread. But let's be realistic, there are no major changes coming to naval warfare or they would have announced them.
So what I find interesting, which melee and ranged naval units will be there?
My guess is that there won't be ranged naval units until frigates.
Trireme/Galley=Melee
Caravel=Melee
Frigate=Ranged (stronger than caravel in melee combat as well though)
Ironclad=Melee
Everything after=Ranged
Submarines=range of 1
Carrier=melee unit, not meant to attack obviously.
Missile cruiser=melee unit, not meant to attack
So what I find interesting, which melee and ranged naval units will be there?
My guess is that there won't be ranged naval units until frigates.
Trireme/Galley=Melee
Caravel=Melee
Frigate=Ranged (stronger than caravel in melee combat as well though)
Ironclad=Melee
Everything after=Ranged
Submarines=range of 1
Carrier=melee unit, not meant to attack obviously.
Missile cruiser=melee unit, not meant to attack
Building ships in a productive inland city and moving it on your roads to a port isn't a combat suggestion. 
The more I think about it, the more I like it. I think it's an effective way to not penalize civs without a port they directly control to field a navy, without having to overlay another system that may unbalance the game.
On a strategic level production trade offs still apply: do I build another land unit or switch over to a workboat + frigate to acquire a sea resource and defend my coasts around a puppet city?
The more I think about it, the more I like it. I think it's an effective way to not penalize civs without a port they directly control to field a navy, without having to overlay another system that may unbalance the game.
On a strategic level production trade offs still apply: do I build another land unit or switch over to a workboat + frigate to acquire a sea resource and defend my coasts around a puppet city?
this is something I always thought was wrong with Civ games. I can't blockade unless I build a million ships to cover every square inch of water. You should be able to create a controlled area around larger newer ships. Another idea is that if the enemy tries to get by you, you get one free shot per space. If it gets by, fine, but it would take damage in the process.
Do we have flanking anymore in this game at all?
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I like the idea of a Port tile improvement. Make it so that it has to be within a certain distance of a city and on a land tile adjacent to the ocean and connected by roads to a city. Then the city can can produce naval units which pop at the port.
Callonia
Deity
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They don't unpuppet cities cuz they have direct control of cities that's been puppeted anyways.
It made me rage really hard cuz i was gonna snag this puppeted city only to see it now have walls and castle so i world builded a couple of paratrooperes and stormed the cheater hiawatha cheater.
And i promptly proceeded to quit that game save, no fun when cheats happen. Its been spoiled, immersion broken.
How do you know the AI has direct control/is cheating?
Walls and defensive fortifications are usually the first things puppets build if they are in range of an enemy civ.
Someone said something about landlocked cities building ships... I think this should go with the canal threads. If you build a city on a river that flows into an ocean/sea then there should be a way to transport ships down river... with a canal improvement or something. Throughout history, cities on large rivers have been able to build ships. When I was in New Orleans traveling on the Mississippi I saw a naval cruiser being produced... pretty awesome.
the best suggestion, and i really like it, is a tile Improvement 'port/harbor', must be within city borders (3 tile radius), and connected with a road. that way it would have a relatively high pricetag (lose a tile for production,road maintenance), but definitely woth it.
On that account they could as well bring mining colonies etc back, like more costly tile improvements for ressources that are out of your city borders.
The other problem with ships is opportunity cost. Teching ships sets u quite a bit back in terms of science and other units, considering that sea units are nowhere as versatily and useful as land units, i think the tech-tree could get a little revamp there.
On that account they could as well bring mining colonies etc back, like more costly tile improvements for ressources that are out of your city borders.
The other problem with ships is opportunity cost. Teching ships sets u quite a bit back in terms of science and other units, considering that sea units are nowhere as versatily and useful as land units, i think the tech-tree could get a little revamp there.
ShahJahanII
Homesick Alien
I agree with the OP 110%.
Ships are waaaaay more important in history than they are in the game.
I think melee ships are a step in the right direction.
The Dutch apparently have a ship that can steal gold from cities.
Now that embarked units can defend themselves, I think navy will need to be focused on more.
So they are doing a good job so far
Ships are waaaaay more important in history than they are in the game.
I think melee ships are a step in the right direction.
The Dutch apparently have a ship that can steal gold from cities.
Now that embarked units can defend themselves, I think navy will need to be focused on more.
So they are doing a good job so far
I suggested something like this but in the other thread on canals.
Yes, it needs to be pricey as the idea is to ration these things but allow integration of ports into your transportation network so that players can effectively create shortcuts accross 1 tile land bridges,
The navy idea though, I think we need to be more careful about asking for tile improvements that seems to solve another problem entirely, when the solution is much closer.
I still think allowing production of ships inland and shipping it to your puppet ports is a more practical answer. Granted if ports as a tile improvement, that would be a bonus, but ports/harbour tile improvements in my suggestion would be purely a nodal point where players can cross with ships or heal a ship and not be producing ships themselves.
Production should be left to cities, but I think the more pressing issue is how we incentivize players to build ships if they're landlocked to begin with.
The same for the AI given landlocked AIs will not have access to fresh ports although it seems like as a default AI civs will try to settle a port city themselves as part of their objectives. Human players dont
Callonia
Deity
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Easy, Turn 1 My troops surrounding the puppeted city with no walls and castle.
Turn 2, Troops now in position to charge da city, but all of suddenly walls/castle poof into existence magically and city is still a puppet. It was in my full view of my whole army.
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