Melee Naval units

[Olleus]

Its beyond comprehension why there are no naval melee units in BE. It makes explorations of the seas ridiculously difficult, makes naval battles dull, and makes late tier tanks the best naval units. Plain silly.

I haven't modded for quite some years, but I'm confident that I could bring this to life in a couple of hours...
IF I had some art work to go with it. Is there anyone who's happy to do it? Or knows where I could find some?

In the meantime I'll try brainstorming some ideas for names/combat strengths/perks. I'm guessing the AI should already know how to handle it (or rather, as well as it does in Civ5).

 

[Olleus]

Here's what I've come up with in terms of names/strength's abilities. The units are slightly stronger than the tanks at the same tier, and are slightly weaker than the ranged strength of the gun boat at each tier. Due to the very weak melee strength of gunboats however, they will easily beat them in a 1:1 fight. This seems fair enough compensation for not being to project force as well and for taking damage when attacking (and the difficulty of healing sea units).

Name: Attack Ship, Unlocked: Ballistics, Cost: (Same as gunboat),
Corvette: 14 Str, 3 Move
(Affinity 4) Frigate:+6 Str, +1 Move. +20% vs Naval OR +30% vs Cities

(Harmony 9) Scylla: +12 Str, +1 Move. +30% if no adjacent friendly units OR heal 20HP on kill
(Harmony 14) Charybdis: +28 Str, +1 Move. 25HP damage on death OR Heal outside friendly

(Purity 9) Man-of-War: +12 Str, +1 Move. +5% per unspent movement point OR + 1 movement
(Purity 14) Ironclad: +34 Str. +30% when attacking OR +2 sight

(Supremacy 9) Interdictor: +12 Str, +1 Move. +20% When adjacent to friendly OR +20% attacking wounded
(Supremacy 14) Inquisitor: +28 Str, +1 Move. +30% when flanking OR move after attacking


In order to balance out with the gun ships, I'd also change the last tier to be +20/22 str/rng str rather than +16/18.

 

[Gort]

That looks like a very solid design. The names are good too.

Is the Purity tier 4 version meant to be weaker than the Harmony and Supremacy versions, though? And what does "In order to balance out with the gun ships, I'd also change the last tier to be +20/22 str/rng str rather than +16/18." mean?

 

[Olleus]

That was a typo, just corrected.

Currently, the tier 4 upgrade to gunships gives +16 strength +18 ranged strength, with an additional +1 range for Harmony and Supremacy but +6 extra ranged strength for Purity. I would beef that up to be +20 strength and +22 ranged strength and the same extra bonuses for Harmony/Supremacy/Purity.

I'm tempted to make some placeholders using the graphics for existing ships, but I'm afraid that would be too confusing to play with.

 

[Gort]

You could import the graphics from Civ 5's missile cruiser and destroyer perhaps? Or even the submarine?

If you fancied getting your hands dirty you could even change the colours of the skins on those models to match the affinities.

 

[Olleus]

That should work for the corvette and frigate alright, wouldn't be great for the affinity special ones though.

As an aside (and a curiosity rather than worry), would there be any legal problems to using Civ5 models in BE? Seeing as you don't have to have bought the former to play latter.

 

[GeoModder]

As an aside (and a curiosity rather than worry), would there be any legal problems to using Civ5 models in BE? Seeing as you don't have to have bought the former to play latter.

I doubt it. I've introduced models from Civ:Colonisation to Civ4 in the past, and never had a "cease and desist" order.

 

[V3N0M]

What about something like torpedo boat-->submarine-->affinity sub 1-->affinity Sub 2

 

[Olleus]

That would definitely work too. It seems to me that subs are more specialised than general attack ships so maybe this would be better as a 3rd tier of naval units? Although that might then be a bit too crowded.

In other news it turns out that the SDK isn't available for mac. I could run it via an emulator but I don't know if I'll have time to get around to it.

If anyone wants to use the names/stats above, please do!

 

[Velasti]

is this mod live? It seems basically essential.

 

[DefiantMars]

I really like the naming scheme with the exception of the Harmony ships. Scylla and Charybdis are meant to be a pair: the proverbial rock and a hard place. Upgrading from one to the other doesn't really make sense to me.

Opposed to the Harmony Gunboats, Triton is Poseidon's son. So upgrading from Triton to Poseidon is logical.

Maybe it could be Siren -> Scylla instead? Scylla was said to pluck victims off of ships or simply crush the vessels in her tentacles.

On second thought, perhaps going from Siren to Charybdis would make more sense as Sirens would drown their victims by luring them while Charybdis would inhale the sea, thereby sucking ships to their doom.