Is naval balanced with land now, in your opinion?

[Tyrus]

Lots of crazy changes have done down since 2010, with regards to coastal cities and naval units.

Can you now use command of the seas to project your nation's power onto the world stage, or is it more of a sideshow to the real game on land? Is it now really true that "He who has command of the sea, has command of everything?"

We now have:

• Extremely profitable/useful naval trade routes
• Embarked units that can defend themselves
• Melee vs. Ranged dynamic
• New naval promotions
• Ship capturing
• Profitable trade route plundering
• More powerful coastal buildings
• More water-based civs and UU's

However, the diverging tech paths still force you into a painful splitz as you juggle naval techs with extremely important building and land unit techs. Often I have to choose between a great navy with backwards land army, or a professional land army with a lone rubber ducky defending my coastal empire. On top of this, I'm having to spend extra time getting to those important science techs and economic buildings.

How are amphibious invasions being used now? Trade route raiding? City blockades? Do you prefer the naval aspect, use it when you have to, or avoid it? Are civs that dominate the waters able to project that power onto the land by invading with impunity, wrecking trade, taking coastal cities, and being able to defend valuable islands and peninsulas with a superior navy? How does naval power scale into the mid and late game?

EDIT: This of course depends on map type, but just give an honest answer. How much can you do with ocean, when you are given it? To what extent are you able to utilize naval power in this game?

 

[joncnunn]

G&K featured the changes; nothing new in BNW in this regard.

The proper answer though isn't on the poll, which is in the hands of a Human, Naval play is very strong, but in hands of the AI it's weak.

 

[Princeofnigeria]

Sometimes it's a war winner, other times its gravy. It depends on who your enemies are, but like other guy said AI suck at it.

 

[Tyrus]

G&K featured the changes; nothing new in BNW in this regard.

The proper answer though isn't on the poll, which is in the hands of a Human, Naval play is very strong, but in hands of the AI it's weak.

Isn't international trade a BNW feature? That to me is what defines the "new" naval gameplay, not the ship changes.

The methods for war changed in G&K, the reasons for war in BNW.

EDIT: And the poll is measuring how well a human player can use it (both against the AI and another human), i.e. how much potential power there inherently IS in the naval scene as implemented in BNW.

 

[BrokTheFanatic]

Ever since the 1upt, combat has felt odd but naval combat especially. It just seems really strange to not setup a naval fleet on 1 hex. Like when I make an archer unit or a tank unit, it represents many archers and tanks. But a battleship unit supposedly represented a single battleship. And having it represent many battleships doesn't make any sense, just isn't how fleets operate. Really wish we could stack naval units (say, 12 upt) and definitely would support 3 upt on land.

Anyways, does it work? I'd say its easier to do a naval war than before since ships can take cities. The AI is worse at naval combat than land combat, so I typically play Pangea. But their swarms of ships can sometimes take you off-guard (though usually you can just slaughter a dozen ships with minimal losses, some AI mods help but none seem to help with the issue that the AI will sometimes just keep firing rather than pulling back with its low health ships).

 

[Matthew.]

I'm going with the third option. Frigates and Battleships are crazy powerful in that the AI cannot counter them. I don't have experience with multi-player, but I imagine it is a similar scenario in that the defending player is going to have difficulty holding onto coastal land if said player isn't prepared to counter a naval force.

But it is still situational, because outside of domination games it can still largely be ignored, both for offense and defense. Extra strength trade-routes are fun and can give a reason for naval presence, but generally overall it operates the same as vanilla in the big picture: gimmick for certain map types, otherwise can safely be ignored.

 

[Ryika]

Well, a single submarine can still kill an infinite number of AI-naval units, so I wouldn't really call them balanced. Naval combat is lacking in general imho, because it's all about numbers - there's just no way to defend a much bigger fleet if it's controlled properly, because the amount of movement points they have, the fact that you're not able to barricade yourself, that airplanes are the only land units that can help against a naval fleet makes this kind of combat very one-dimensional.

 

[Uzael36]

It's going to partially depend on the map type you use. On Continents, and island based lands, even Earth, Navy is extremely powerful. You can easily move around the map and devastate your opponent. Due to the ease at which you can move from city to city, I find it superior to land based attacks and with battleships upgrade to range 4 attacks, you can defend all your coastal cities with ease. Add in some carriers, fighters and bombers to the mix, and I've won many domination victories almost entirely through navy. If it gets late enough, I load up nuclear subs and missile cruisers with nuclear bombs to take out the enemy with monster sized armies.

If your enemies capital is inland, you just take a coastal city nearest it, annex, and buy a couple land units, like paratroopers, send in a couple nukes, followed by bombers, and take it with your couple land units the next turn.

For the longest time I ignored navy, after rediscovering it, I was shocked at all the fun I was missing. This isn't new to BNW either, it was extremely powerful in G&K too, perhaps vanilla too.

 

[Heretiv]

Navy is good and powerful, but as long as you play Pangea will only be part of the answer.

 

[kaspergm]

I don't think it's balance at all. It's very hard to defend a city against naval units because naval ranged units are easily very powerful against cities (Frigates are poorly balance, Battleships downright horrible). Battleships with double-attack promotion are not too difficult to get, and if you also get extra range on them they can absolutely slaughter land units even when on land, without land units being capable of doing much against it.

I think naval vs. naval balance is ok if a bit dodgy, because there tends to be a stronger likelyhood of the one with the larger army steamrolling anybody else than is the case with land units (probably due to larger mobility). Naval vs. land unit balance is completely off however, because naval units get huge bonuses against land units (+100 % at level 3 - wtf?) whereas there are no bonuses for land units to counter them. Bombers can help I guess, but like others have mentioned AI is way incapable of handling both naval as well as air units, which can make things very one-sided.

 

[Tyrus]

Battleships with double-attack promotion are not too difficult to get, and if you also get extra range on them they can absolutely slaughter land units even when on land, without land units being capable of doing much against it.

Um, like... real... life?

I don't know of a method to make naval combat more tactical than it is right now, the ocean has no features like hills/rivers/mountains which is what makes it feel one-dimensional, but the same would be true of land if it were not for land features at allow weaker units to take on stronger units due to positioning.

Perhaps naval ZoC could be increased to 2 tiles, to prevent everyone from getting their ships where they want and emphasizing building good formations BEFORE you encounter an enemy fleet.

Honestly, I think if there's a "problem" with naval play, it's people's lack of attention toward it. Not surprising due to poor naval AI, but you can hardly blame something for being one-dimensional if people aren't even trying to figure out how to use navies, for example, sending scout ships ahead and using aircraft carriers to soften up fleets you are about to engage, or submarine placement and shipping lane control, or defending your coastline from nuclear attack with a net of subs and destroyers (like in the Cold War).

Again, poor AI limits people's motivation to explore such things. Perhaps in multiplayer? The problem in MP is simultaneous turns + extreme movement ranges + "quick movement" means that naval warfare is often a spastic clickfest of teleporting ships.

 

[Zaimejs]

You know what I would like? Some land unit upgrade that allows them better land to sea bombardment. I had this issue when I was landlocked, and I took a coastal city. The Koreans had built a bunch of ships, and I hadn't and couldn't because I had no coastal cities. Holding the city was very difficult, and had the AI player been decent at all, he could have retaken the city with just his navy many times over.

I had a cannon and maybe a gatling gun, but none of them were very potent against his ships. it would be nice if they could shoot further out to sea... were there any real-world weapons like this?

 

[Walter R]

You know what I would like? Some land unit upgrade that allows them better land to sea bombardment. I had this issue when I was landlocked, and I took a coastal city. The Koreans had built a bunch of ships, and I hadn't and couldn't because I had no coastal cities. Holding the city was very difficult, and had the AI player been decent at all, he could have retaken the city with just his navy many times over.

I had a cannon and maybe a gatling gun, but none of them were very potent against his ships. it would be nice if they could shoot further out to sea... were there any real-world weapons like this?

Totally agree - all through history navies have run scared of onshore batteries that could invariably out-range and out-power them. One solution could be to increase range by a hex for land units on a hill firing out to sea.

 

[azzaman333]

Not really, but I'm not sure how much of that is naval stuff being unbalanced in general or whether it's just the complete inability of the AI to do anything worthwhile with it.

 

[kaspergm]

Perhaps naval ZoC could be increased to 2 tiles, to prevent everyone from getting their ships where they want and emphasizing building good formations BEFORE you encounter an enemy fleet.

Yeah, that would help. Also, reducing ranged ship range by one wouldn't be bad to account for their higher mobility. And ranged ships should have a default penalty when performing land bombartment, to merit the hefty bonuses they get from the bombard promotions.

 

[Uzael36]

You know what I would like? Some land unit upgrade that allows them better land to sea bombardment. I had this issue when I was landlocked, and I took a coastal city. The Koreans had built a bunch of ships, and I hadn't and couldn't because I had no coastal cities. Holding the city was very difficult, and had the AI player been decent at all, he could have retaken the city with just his navy many times over.

I had a cannon and maybe a gatling gun, but none of them were very potent against his ships. it would be nice if they could shoot further out to sea... were there any real-world weapons like this?

Artillery works quite well against ships, unfortunately it is slow to get into position, while battleships can easily move in and out at will. Mobile artillery is really the only good counter, along with bombers. And later, I like to have a few nukes on hand when a cluster of battleships shows up in force.

 

[jlim201]

Its largely based on how many naval cities you and your opponents have. If your opponents have many coastal cities, a navy is useful for taking them and trade routes are good for gold/science.

 

[Zaimejs]

I think City range should equal a ship's range... as a player, I love the 3 hex bombardment promotion, but it is so unfair.

 

[tide15]

The AI can be very bad but it does have it's moments and can catch you when your not paying attention.
One of my nuke subs was captured by the French recently....That was a shock to me. It made me sad that I had to sink it with the rest of the wolfpack.
On the other hand a large Japanese convoy wandered into one of my wolfpack kill boxes. We where not at war but I just couldn't let the opportunity slip by. I didn't think of taking a picture at the time damn it!!

 

[Calouste]

Totally agree - all through history navies have run scared of onshore batteries that could invariably out-range and out-power them. One solution could be to increase range by a hex for land units on a hill firing out to sea.

It's not just being out-ranges and out-powered, it's also that sailing ships are really hard to maneuver quickly in shallow coastal waters with the wind being less reliable close to land, so they're pretty much a sitting duck.

Castles should give a bonus bombarding ships in civ.