A little bit about ships...

Sarin

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As I prefer historical accuracy in games whenever possible, the state of ships on Colonization in general, and even in RaR, has been kinda annoying.

Now that development has resumed, I think it could be vastly improved. What bothers me a lot is the scale. In reality, ships like large galleons, frigates or ships of the line would be commissioned almost exclusively by the navy of the respective country, and most of the traffic in colonies, including piracy and combat, would be done by smaller vessels. Even frigates were rare sight in Americas, and ships of the line visited only during open hostilities. So, I think it should look like this:

Combat vessels:

Sloop: Weakest combat ship, still enough to take down smallest pirate vessel, can retreat from combat. No cargo room. Available from Europe and buildable from drydock. Current model is based on late 18th-19th century cutter which would be used for coastal patrols and raiding and did not carry supplies for trans-atlantic voyage, so in the future it could be replaced by something based on brig, patache or other two-masted ship used in this role.

Race-built galleon: Main warship used in colonies. This represents smaller galleon types used as main vessel for exploration and combat during later parts of 16th and early 17th century, for example Drake's Golden Hind. About equal to pirate frigate, with attack bonus against pirates. One cargo slot, can capture cargo. Uses current corvette model (it's mostly fine, only some details are off). Available from Europe, shipyard, and maybe some events/FFs.

Light frigate: This represents various late 17th and 18th century frigates of ~20-32 guns, which would be mainstay of most European navies of that time. Fast enough to keep up with pirates and strong enough to take them down with ease, pretty much like current frigate. But since these were buit and crewed exclusively by state navies, they should not be for sale in Europe, and should be available only through events, FFs or built in Naval Port. The model best fitting would be reskinned current privateer, freeing the frigate model for heavy frigate.

Heavy frigate: this covers mostly two interesting variations on frigate, razees and United States class. Razees were older ships of the line whose upper works were cut down to create a frigate, but they retained the tougher structure of the ship of the line, and heavy armament on its gun deck, usually 18-24 pounder guns. United States class were first frigates built by USA (USS Constitution is most well known, and only one still afloat, but ship classes are traditionally named after first ship of the class) and since USA at time didn't have funds or manpower to keep a ship of the line, they were built tougher and with stronger armament than usual for frigates, to outgun or outrun anything they could encounter. Stronger than normal frigates, with one cargo slot and capability to capture cargo, they should be available only through rare event with Naval Port (king phasing out older ship of the line, offers it to you to cut down to razee) or some late FFs.

Ship of the line: okay as it is, but available only through the event when King orders you to attack another colonial power, instead of current Man'o War.

Man'o War: should be available to player only through foreign intervention after DoI.

Pirates:

Colonial Pirate: this represents most actual pirate (not privateer) ships. A merchant ship converted to makeshift warship packing 10-20 lighter guns (3-9 pounders). While capable of taking on lighter ships, it should be weaker than sloop (which were most commonly used in anti-piracy duties). Most common ship spawning as neutral pirate. Probably need a new model, or modification of smuggling ship model.

Privateer: middle class pirate ship, should be almost a fair match for race-built galleon and capable of taking on regular galleon loaded with goods, these should be main pirate ships available to European player. Might need a new model though, if the current is used for light frigate...possibly based on dutch flyboat (a light hybrid between carrack and fluyt).

Pirate frigate: should be slightly stronger than race-built galleons, but those should have significant attack bonus against all pirates, so it would be a matter of who attacks first (and is loaded). Should be rarer than now though...it should represent those few unique large pirate vessels like Queen Anne's Revenge or Fancy. The model bothers me though...it's xebec, which were never used in America except for few actually built and used on Great Lakes and few hybrids, and mainmast sail is in opposite tack to other sails, which would never be used in practice.

Merchants: mostly good now, though...galleons and west indiamen should not be simply buyable from Europe. It's a matter of early game, it works best to get a galleon ASAP and ignore lighter ships, as galleon will carry the treasures from early exploration home. They should be buildable only from shipyard and bigger, and available through events and FFs. And it would be great if they could get more cargo capacity (if the game and UI supports it), as some of those vessels could carry over 1000 tons of cargo, while regular merchantmen and similar were in range of tens to few hundred tons of cargo at most.

Well...quite a wall of text to describe relatively small changes. Read on your own peril.
 
Thank you for your thoughts.

We will consider them at a later stage since we have currently a lot of things to do and the re-balancing of ships is currently not on the to do list. Maybe sometimes in the future. :):thumbsup:
 
Alright, though I believe the availability of large ships should be addressed soon. As noted in another thread, the early game has become quite stale, with one best way to start, and that is getting cross production and scouting ASAP, buy a galleon from cash you get through scouting directly, and ferry treasure to Europe and trade goods back to trade with natives, quickly accumulating cash, while your starting ship will just ferry immigrants, tools and bought specialists. Not making galleons available ASAP will throw a wrench in it, and will force player to either take a loss by taking up King's transport to get treasure off quickly and using the money, or finding an alternate means of income quickly.

Generally...right now, most ship types are used almost exclusively by AI, or not at all, as is the case of corvette. For player, getting anything but galleons, west indiamen, frigates and ships of the line is useless.
 
You're welcome, but I've just scratched the surface :D If RaR would ever introduce eras or technological advancement, I'd gladly help with another lecture. Or about army....
 
I agree with Sarin.R&R is excellent mod and has almost everything needed.What is missing is naval component, which was crucial during colonization period,
There are 2 main naval issues:
1. AI uses only a few ships, even if it has thousands of other units.
2. Small choice of ships.SOFL for combat and galleon for transportation.MC mod has much better units selections with counters to almost every unit.
 
I can't claim to know naval history as well as Sarin does but I do appreciate the attention to detail. I use all the transport ships, not just the galleon, so my comment is only about the warships.

My endgame has always depended on the naval battle. With TAC I used to send a Ship of the Line against a Man of War, 30% chance. After my first ship sank, the next Ship of the Line could sink that Man of War. After several battles with promotions the SoL would finally match the MoW.

Now playing RnR 2.5 my unpromoted Ship of the Line has an 80% chance the first time against the King's ship, 97% with Veteran 1, thanks to rebel sentiment. Most of the Men of War sink before reaching shore and the troops go down with them. My sloops finish off damaged survivors. I like to win but it's getting to be too easy.

Sarin's proposal is complicated but that's true of the rest of the mod. I play because Religion and Revolution is so immersive. Sometimes it's good to have a total distraction. Thanks to all of you who've put so much effort into this.

Right now I've got another game under way at Governor difficulty. The King might be more effective there. I'll have to finish that before I move on to 2.6.
 
i think in rar 2.7, the current release, the king has become stronger again
 
Alright, though I believe the availability of large ships should be addressed soon. As noted in another thread, the early game has become quite stale, with one best way to start, and that is getting cross production and scouting ASAP, buy a galleon from cash you get through scouting directly, and ferry treasure to Europe and trade goods back to trade with natives, quickly accumulating cash, while your starting ship will just ferry immigrants, tools and bought specialists. Not making galleons available ASAP will throw a wrench in it, and will force player to either take a loss by taking up King's transport to get treasure off quickly and using the money, or finding an alternate means of income quickly.

This is a workable strategy on lower difficulties, but it quickly falls off once you go up to Conquistador or Governor, where most of the time, your Scout would die very quickly, and one of the AIs would get Jean Marquette before you do.
 
Worked for me on highest difficulty in 2.7. If your scout dies, you're doing something wrong.
 
They usually don't die on me when doing that. But then...I prefer to run the not-seasoned ones around villages, hoping to get the seasoned scouts before going into ruins. If a village offers seasoned scouts as training, even better.
 
If ships are rebalanced I'm ok with that, but I don't think it should be harder to get a transport for treasure.

There is too much treasure going nowhere fast if you have several scouts.

It is already too much micromanagement to get treasure to coasts waiting for galleons.

By the time you can collect it your economy is already making it not so worthwhile, since you have to sail all over the map to pick it up.

I suggest making treasure available to carry in a lesser ship.

Edit: More specifically, why not allow any ship with 3 cargo (can't remember what that might be) to carry a treasure.

It would help with making ships below a galleon worthwhile. Currently there is no reason to bother with them since a galleon is not significantly more expensive.
 
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If ships are rebalanced I'm ok with that, but I don't think it should be harder to get a transport for treasure.

There is too much treasure going nowhere fast if you have several scouts.

It is already too much micromanagement to get treasure to coasts waiting for galleons.

By the time you can collect it your economy is already making it not so worthwhile, since you have to sail all over the map to pick it up.

I suggest making treasure available to carry in a lesser ship.

Edit: More specifically, why not allow any ship with 3 cargo (can't remember what that might be) to carry a treasure.

It would help with making ships below a galleon worthwhile. Currently there is no reason to bother with them since a galleon is not significantly more expensive.

There are several reasons. Some are faster than galleons and can transport goods from one colony to another faster than a galleon. Some allow travel to Port Royale. To me however the most important part is the combination of historical accuracy and flavour - after all the spanish treasure fleet had galleons to transport their gold to Spain and smaller ships were simply unable to carry such large amounts of heavy metal.

What I would like to see is the ability to merge treasures, e.g. a "treasure" to be transported by a galleon could be 5000+ gold. If you found several smaller ones I would like to be able to merge them to one for transport.
 
That is an interesting post ConjurerDragon.

However I would ask from a gameplay point of view; what is the point of a ship having a cargo capacity that meets the requirement of treasure (3) that is artificially denied the ability to carry it.

It seems wrong that a ship with three, four or five cargo capacity can carry no treasure yet a galleon can suddenly carry two treasure.

Also, it makes the galleon far more valuable in comparison to other ships, yet this value is not reflected in the cost to buy one.
 
Both of your proposals would make the game easier as both give the player more cash earlier in the game.
Is that what you intend?
 
Not making galleons available ASAP will throw a wrench in it, and will force player to either take a loss by taking up King's transport to get treasure off quickly and using the money, or finding an alternate means of income quickly.
Just make them more expensive and you achieve the exact same (except for your personal immersion)

.
Generally...right now, most ship types are used almost exclusively by AI, or not at all, as is the case of corvette. For player, getting anything but galleons, west indiamen, frigates and ships of the line is useless.
I disagree. I use everything from Merchant upwards for transport depending on the current price per cargo slot before I am able to build ships myself. Even then I use that capability mostly to build a navy.
Just using two kinds is getting to expensive fast.
I agree, though, that the Corvette is pretty useless at the moment.
 
Corvettes being historically dedicated mostly for coastal patrolling (if I'm not wrong), an idea could be to give them a bonus advantage against pirates so that players would use them to protect their commercial ships.

I do believe we lack of a ship dedicated to pirates hunt.
 
Corvettes being historically dedicated mostly for coastal patrolling (if I'm not wrong), an idea could be to give them a bonus advantage against pirates so that players would use them to protect their commercial ships.

I do believe we lack of a ship dedicated to pirates hunt.

Not exactly. Corvettes were usually smallest ships assigned to cruiser duties, which often involved pirate hunting. Coastal patrol was domain of vessels classified as sloops or cutters. Although terminology was quite ad-hoc those days, and every nation had different ideas about it...
 
Not exactly. Corvettes were usually smallest ships assigned to cruiser duties, which often involved pirate hunting. Coastal patrol was domain of vessels classified as sloops or cutters. Although terminology was quite ad-hoc those days, and every nation had different ideas about it...
Reading about it on Wikipedia, it seems that at the sailing vessels era, corvette was just the French name for sloop. It's only during world war 2 the word got into the English vocabulary to design modern corvettes, as motorboat versions of sloops remaining sailing boats.

Digging into the History of this subforum, corvettes were initially thought as being French unique units, sloops for English, fluyt for the Dutch, and so on and so forth:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...-part-b-unlocking-ships.444551/#post-11311328

Later it's been eventually decided to allow all nations to build all ships in order to give more choice to the player. Then RayStuttgart actually decided to specialize corvette for pirate hunting:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ck-and-questions.468932/page-21#post-12716183

However, as you pointed out later, frigates nearly have the same cost as corvettes and are actually more efficient against pirate ships:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...-and-discussions.438486/page-16#post-14763987

Checking in the Colopedia, corvettes only have a strength of 6 and a 10% bonus against pirates, making them 6.6, whereas frigates are at 7 and more multi-purpose. Considering they cost the same, it's logical that we only build frigates as they are objectively more efficient ships.
 
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