(9-059) Battleship Buff

[redrum68]

Motivation
Battleships are outclassed by the units that unlock around the same time such as 8+ range planes, 3+ range land units, and 3 range cities. Mine fields also seriously hinder naval bombardment and invasions. To make battleships more viable, they should also be given 3 range so they can compete with all the other long range units. Missile cruisers (battleship upgrade) are also given 3 range and Dreadnoughts are given Indirect Fire so there isn't such a large jump between them and battleships. Yamato (Japan UU) already has 3 range so is bumped to 4 range as late game UUs should be strong and unique since many games are decided before its even unlocked and they need to make a big impact. They will be the only 4 range ship but can still be countered with planes, ships, and land units with the range promotion.

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Proposal Summary

• Dreadnought
  • Gains Indirect Fire Promotion
• Battleship
  • Range increased from 2 to 3
• Missile Cruiser
  • Range increased from 2 to 3
• Yamato
  • Range increased from 3 to 4

 

[hokath]

These guys don't get access to the range promotion themselves, do they?

 

[Tekamthi]

3 range ships were once a thing but it was decided that the high moves + 3 range was too OP for the AI to handle. Are we in better shape now?

I'm not sure I like a UU as the only 4-range ship, or even 4-range ship at all, but I'd give the 3-range battleship a spin

 

[paul_soryu]

Battleships are also the first Naval Ranged unit to have Indirect Fire. Coupled with +1 Range this would be a huge jump in power from Dreadnoughts.

I had a lot of naval warfare in my recent games, and I did find it very limiting that Dreadnoughts couldn't strike two tiles into the land. I think they should be given Indirect Fire alongside these other changes to make the transition from Cruisers to Dreadnoughts to Battleships more smooth.

 

[redrum68]

These guys don't get access to the range promotion themselves, do they?

Nope.

 

[redrum68]

Battleships are also the first Naval Ranged unit to have Indirect Fire. Coupled with +1 Range this would be a huge jump in power from Dreadnoughts.

I had a lot of naval warfare in my recent games, and I did find it very limiting that Dreadnoughts couldn't strike two tiles into the land. I think they should be given Indirect Fire alongside these other changes to make the transition from Cruisers to Dreadnoughts to Battleships more smooth.

Dreadnought change makes sense to me. I'll add that to smooth out the progression.

 

[redrum68]

3 range ships were once a thing but it was decided that the high moves + 3 range was too OP for the AI to handle. Are we in better shape now?

I'm not sure I like a UU as the only 4-range ship, or even 4-range ship at all, but I'd give the 3-range battleship a spin

Yamato is probably the weakest UU right now and it comes SO late that it needs to be crazy strong to be worth it. I'm open to keeping it 3 range but then it needs other considerable buffs to make it a lot better than the proposed battleship.

 

[Legen]

Yamato is known for possessing extreme range. At a time the Americans prided of engaging their battleships at 20 km, and considered fire at 26 km a waste of ammunition, Yamato showed accurate fire against an aircraft carrier at nearly 32 km.

Moreover, Yamato used a special type of shell that could travel underwater, turning their shells into torpedoes. The Imperial Japanese Navy estimated that it effectively doubled the size of Yamato's targets. That said aircraft carrier was heavily damaged this way with a single near miss, whose underwater explosion caused so much damage (and visible smoke from that carrier), both sides thought the ship was lost. It survived, thanks to extraordinary damage control by its crew, but was unable to continue fighting for the rest of the war and was relegated to ferrying duties.

If there's one UU that should be allowed to have extreme range, it is the Yamato.

 

[Tekamthi]

Yamato is known for possessing extreme range. At a time the Americans prided of engaging their battleships at 20 km, and considered fire at 26 km a waste of ammunition, Yamato showed accurate fire against an aircraft carrier at nearly 32 km.

Moreover, Yamato used a special type of shell that could travel underwater, turning their shells into torpedoes. The Imperial Japanese Navy estimated that it effectively doubled the size of Yamato's targets. That said aircraft carrier was heavily damaged this way with a single near miss, whose underwater explosion caused so much damage (and visible smoke from that carrier), both sides thought the ship was lost. It survived, thanks to extraordinary damage control by its crew, but was unable to continue fighting for the rest of the war and was relegated to ferrying duties.

If there's one UU that should be allowed to have extreme range, it is the Yamato.

how many naval units have 4 vision tho? (i honestly don't recall, and our new civpedia.org seems to leave out vision values) -- AI is potentially gonna get hit from beyond its sight... and on top of this yamato is gonna move 4 plots and then shoot another 4 range all in 1 turn... if AI can't see and hasn't markedly improved at guessing where units are likely to be, its gonna be human-favoring

 

[redrum68]

how many naval units have 4 vision tho? (i honestly don't recall, and our new civpedia.org seems to leave out vision values) -- AI is potentially gonna get hit from beyond its sight... and on top of this yamato is gonna move 4 plots and then shoot another 4 range all in 1 turn.

At this point in the game, you tend to have a lot of vision from cities and fighters.

 

[hokath]

Yes and even if you didn't, Yamato is such a special case it's probably ok?

 

[Tekamthi]

i'd prefer to see base 2 range with a selectable promo to increase to 3 & yamato gets 3 for free (+other buff maybe)

imo we want max land range to exceed max naval range by 1 to account for easier movement & attack positioning at sea

you guys are probably right that its not a huge factor to have only one unit type with this extra range, most of the time... but skilled human should be able to leverage this into a pronounced advantage when playing japan

 

[Legen]

Yamato is an exceptional case, being the latest UU in the game; 2 tech columns after the second latest one, the French SPAD S.VII. The latter comes with Air Logistics (two attacks per turn) and extra range, all of which are obviously very powerful on an air unit. Yamato has that as a baseline for what an even later UU has to bring.

Moreover, Yamato also comes with a 11% production cost increase over the base battleship, plus a bounty to the enemy for sinking it. To justify all these drawbacks, the unit needs to be exceptionally powerful, even by UU standards; not many UUs come with 1 drawback, much less two.

 

[Tekamthi]

ultimately balance comes down to vision and/or AI competence at inferring where attacks are originating from -- admittedly I see this stage of the game much less frequently than early and mid and don't have a good sense of how AI is performing in this regard. I'm reluctant to endorse on this basis, but if y'all are confident that AI has been sufficiently upgraded to grapple with these units, thats all that matters

 

[redrum68]

ultimately balance comes down to vision and/or AI competence at inferring where attacks are originating from -- admittedly I see this stage of the game much less frequently than early and mid and don't have a good sense of how AI is performing in this regard. I'm reluctant to endorse on this basis, but if y'all are confident that AI has been sufficiently upgraded to grapple with these units, thats all that matters

In my late game experience, the AI struggles a lot more with air warfare than land/naval and both sides tend to have a lot more vision. Generally balance late game is much looser than early/mid so I think making by far the latest game UU unique and strong should be fine.

 

[FPXI]

I'm in favor of this for the Yamato change alone. More crazy outliers like this, please. Especially for late game stuff.

 

[GeneralAmadeus]

Maybe also give the Yamato a base vision range of 4 in addition to the proposed changes. I would expect the most modern UU to be stupid powerful.

 

[FPXI]

Maybe also give the Yamato a base vision range of 4 in addition to the proposed changes. I would expect the most modern UU to be stupid powerful.

Kinda wild that this is true actually. The most modern UU should be like a B-2 or F22 or something and it should be busted as hell.

 

[azum4roll]

and our new civpedia.org seems to leave out vision values

All units have 2 sight unless otherwise specified.

 

[Alpakinator]

It's way more realistic to make Dreadnoughts range 3 as well but ik they can come before arsenals which is problematic. Lowering dreadnought movement to 3 could be in interesting trade-off, since 'Battleships' are called 'Fast battleships' irl, due to their highers speed than Dreadnought type battleships.