A little bit about ships...

[Marla_Singer]

Sloop already has speed and price as advantages. It makes of it a great exploration unit. Maybe corvettes could be made twice cheaper (which would still be nearly twice more expensive than sloops) with a 20% bonus advantage against pirates. This could make of it an interesting patrolling unit, with frigate remaining a superior war ship. Regarding gameplay that would make sense. What do you guys think?

 

[Sarin]

Not exactly. Comparing French and British terminology, corvettes of the era would be classified as either ship-sloops or 6th rate frigate, depending on specific ship, and would be used to similar missions. British sloop category was rather broader and covered even smaller vessels which wouldn't be built with full ship rigging, while corvettes were always ship rigged.

Edit: damn. I seem to be overusing the phrase "Not exactly". Gotta work on that.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Not exactly. Comparing French and British terminology, corvettes of the era would be classified as either ship-sloops or 6th rate frigate, depending on specific ship, and would be used to similar missions. British sloop category was rather broader and covered even smaller vessels which wouldn't be built with full ship rigging, while corvettes were always ship rigged.

Edit: damn. I seem to be overusing the phrase "Not exactly". Gotta work on that.

Comparing terminologies and switching between French and English wikipedias, here is what I got. There is actually 2 categories of "sloops" in English having 2 different names in French.

• Brig sloop (2-masted sloop), called "Brick" in French:
  "Brigs were seen as fast and maneuverable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. [English Wiki]"
  "Favourite ships of pirates and privateers, Brigs were also used for trade (on short or long routes), exploration, sailing warfare (escort, coastal patrolling, guerilla). [French Wiki]
• Bermuda sloop (3-masted sloop), called "Corvette" in French:
  "The Royal Navy also made extensive use of the Bermuda sloop, both as a cruiser against French privateers, slavers, and smugglers, and also as its standard advice vessels, carrying communications, vital persons and materials, and performing reconnaissance duties for the fleets." [English Wiki]
  "Corvette designated old sailing war ships from 17th to 19th century (mainly three-masted full-rigged ships) of an intermediary category between the frigate and the brig" [French Wiki]

We can clearly see here two different uses of ships that actually have their value in RAR. A fast and light unit as the brig sloop, and a more intermediary patrolling unit as the Bermuda sloop (or Corvette) to fight piracy.

RayStuttgart is German and apparently the name "Korvette" applies to the same meaning as French "Corvette" or English "Bermuda sloop". (Google translating German wiki article for "Korvette"). I do believe that was his intention to make of "corvette" a boat dedicated to pirate hunt, otherwise he wouldn't have added a 10% bonus against privateers and pirate frigates. The intention was good, it's just that with a similar cost as a frigate and a weaker strength, the current corvette doesn't serve its designated gameplay purpose. Hence why I believe it would be so only in making it an intermediary price between sloops and frigates, and with a more convincing bonus against pirates.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Here are current units stats:

                  Brig (Sloop)        Corvette (Bermuda)         Frigate
Sailcloth            10                  70                        80
Ropes                30                  30                        40
Hammers              30                  50                        50
Blades               20                  20                        40
Cannons              30                 100                       100
     
Initial
Europe price       1800                4000                      5000
Yield costs        1170                3080                      3500
     
Strength              4                   6                         7
Movement              7                   6                         6
Cargo                 1                   0                         0
     
Special ability    flee to drydock    10% bonus vs pirates    bombard fortifications

And here would be my change proposal:

                  Brig (Sloop)        Corvette (Bermuda)         Frigate
Sailcloth            10                  50                        80
Ropes                30                  30                        40
Hammers              30                  40                        50
Blades               20                  30                        40
Cannons              30                  60                       100
     
Initial
Europe price       1800                3400                      5000
Yield costs        1170                2250                      3500
     
Strength              4                   6                         7
Movement              7                   6                         6
Cargo                 1                   0                         0
     
Special ability    flee to drydock    20% bonus vs pirates    bombard fortifications

Another alternative if you fear this would make the corvette too beneficial compared to the frigate can be to decrease its strength to 5, but with a 50% bonus against pirates.

 

[Sarin]

That's rather incomplete.

British classified warships during 17-19th century solely based on number of guns. 28+ were frigates and 50+ were ships of the line, while those with less were called sloop-of-war, which could be then classified based on design. so there were Bermuda sloops, brig-sloops, snow-sloops, ship-sloops...

French based it on design and purpose as well as armament. Corvettes were always three masted ships, but smaller than what French considered a proper frigate. Most of the time they were full ship-rigged, but larger Bermuda sloops were considered corvettes too. Smaller vessels were classified based on design, so they were simply designated as brigs, snows, cutters...

The issue though is that we're talking about development of late 17th and 18th centuries when galleon design was gradually replaced by frigate and full-rigged ship design. A major part of game takes place before that. Which is why I felt it's better to have race-built galleon as primary anti-pirate vessel, as the design was used from 16th until mid-18th century for cruiser operations.

 

[Randomsheep]

Historically speaking, you would also have to consider that French and Spanish ships were hopelessly outclassed against the Royal Navy ships of the British Empire, despite the apparant similarity in firepower.

The rate of cannon fire was hugely superior in British Ships.

 

[Sarin]

Historically speaking, you would also have to consider that French and Spanish ships were hopelessly outclassed against the Royal Navy ships of the British Empire, despite the apparant similarity in firepower.

The rate of cannon fire was hugely superior in British Ships.

...no. Not in RnR's timeframe. At the beginning of game, Spanish and Portugese posessed best navies. RN, French navy and later Dutch played catch-up with them until late 17th century. Dutch pursued merchant navy, Portugal became de facto part of Spain, RN, Spanish and French navies became very close in quality, but only with decline of Spain and French revolution and subsequent Napoleonic wars did Britain gain naval supremacy for most of 19th century.

 

[Marla_Singer]

That's rather incomplete.

British classified warships during 17-19th century solely based on number of guns. 28+ were frigates and 50+ were ships of the line, while those with less were called sloop-of-war, which could be then classified based on design. so there were Bermuda sloops, brig-sloops, snow-sloops, ship-sloops...

French based it on design and purpose as well as armament. Corvettes were always three masted ships, but smaller than what French considered a proper frigate. Most of the time they were full ship-rigged, but larger Bermuda sloops were considered corvettes too. Smaller vessels were classified based on design, so they were simply designated as brigs, snows, cutters...

The issue though is that we're talking about development of late 17th and 18th centuries when galleon design was gradually replaced by frigate and full-rigged ship design. A major part of game takes place before that. Which is why I felt it's better to have race-built galleon as primary anti-pirate vessel, as the design was used from 16th until mid-18th century for cruiser operations.

Alright, so we actually agree on the gameplay use, the debate is really about semantics. "Race-built" designates conversions which are about removing the upper decks of a ship in order to increase its speed and manoeuvrability. Ships of the line were often "race-built", as it's the case on the graphics shown in RaR, and I think that's accurate.

We agree that the anti-pirate patrolling ship should be a light ship. The only difficulty I have with calling it "race-built galleon" is that the galleon is the heaviest merchant ship in the game, hence it would be weird for a casual player to have the same name "galleon" designating a heavy merchant ship and a light war ship. Now your point is also correct about "corvettes" not being a good term in English because in this language it refers more to world war 2 motorships, which are obviously not in RAR's timeframe. As a French speaker I've been misguided.

So here is my new proposal: the current sloop can be renamed "brig", as the word is really clearer to designate the lightest war ship. Then, the anti-pirate ship would be named "sloop" (instead of corvette), as its main mission should be to patrol around colonies and intercept pirates or privateers threatening merchant ships.

This way, the word galleon would be kept only for merchant ships. I know galleons could be war ships historically but that would make things easier to understand for the player. What do you think?


Now, out of semantics, you made really good points about gameplay, and there are probably things to improve in RAR at this point. An idea could be to prepare an Excel sheet with all war ship units, this will probably make it easier to understand how each units could be used by the player in the game.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Historically speaking, you would also have to consider that French and Spanish ships were hopelessly outclassed against the Royal Navy ships of the British Empire, despite the apparant similarity in firepower.

The rate of cannon fire was hugely superior in British Ships.

That's a distorted misconception. Sticking in RAR's timeframe and looking at History, the major naval battle of the American war of independence was Chesapeake, which was actually won by the French against the English. Now this has poor value in Civ4Col as it would be rather frustrating for the player to depend so much on its European ally in order to win the war of independence, so I think RAR is great the way it is for the satisfaction of the player, and that's what matters the most.

I understand your misconception though as there were about 70,000 inhabitants in New France in 1750 and 2 million people in the thirteen colonies back then. That's really what explains the French losses in the New World, and I believe this is accurately pictured in RAR as the demographics weight of colonies is truely decisive to their success.

 

[Sarin]

The problem is, I do not like how the game uses mostly 18th century designs when majority of game is set before that. It's weird being able to recruit 18th century style line infantry at time when armies were just transitioning to pike and shot model, or get late 18th century man-o-war when galleons were just latest fashion.

Brig is a design that was used as smaller merchant ship as well as light warship during 18th century. Come to think of it, ketch could be better. It was used as small warship earlier than brig.

But I really think that a combat galleon design should be the main warship for most of the game, until you manage to build naval port. It fits the time better.

 

[Schmiddie]

My comment on this discussion: The inaccuracy of the ships and military units is well known. I'm a very great fan of naval history and in paricular the age of sail for about 25 years. My attention started when I red the Hornblower novels for the first time roughly 25 years ago. After also reading the Aubrey-Maturin series, Bolitho and all the other series I began to look deeper into the real history. My personal library contains some great literature in this regard. What I want to say is that I absolutely understand the matter and I'm very familiar with the correct historic facts. Therefore of course my heart is bleeding every time I start the game and - for example - see a so-called "ship of the line" (i.e. in the meaning of a third rate or a second rate in the 18th century) around 1600 or a caravel around 1750.

I ever wished to overhaul the ship system in this regard. However, it was always the intention and priority of ray in the past to implement things that a) bring an additonal benefit to the game play in combination with b) maintainable efforts regarding the work for implementation of a new feature. And historic accuracy is of course a great fun but it does not mandatory result in a direct benefit for the gameplay (gameplay = objective of the game = independence from the king etc.). I don't know if you have played previous versions of the game but in the past ray implemented trains in an earlier version. This shows the importance of historic accuracy in the past. Modding is always also a personal matter and every modder tries to implement features he likes most. The mod never raised a claim for historic accuracy. And to be honest. The mod exists since years. Only very few people were bothered about this issue and I assume that the majority of the player can not explain the difference between a third-rate and a sixth rate or a galleon and a ship of the line so that this never was on top of the priority list.

You also need to consider that we ever had a very small team of active modders, in particular for graphics, care of the colopedia and such things. It's always easy to ask for new features but when you ask back for support no one is interested to join the modding team. We are currently only three active modder and all of us have little time for modding. Hence we need to prioritise seriously.

Furthermore I have postponsed this issue until we have implemented "eras" in the game which maybe would allow us to differentiate substantially (DoanE has this feature) so that this would allow a complete overhaul of the military respectively naval units (e.g. swordsman and pikeman at the beginning and development to infantry and line infantry at a later stage). In this respect I would also consider more historic correct unit types since I also prefer a historically correct game. However, we are far away from implementing a system that will allow some units in the early eras and a change to other units at a later stage. This will require a lot of work.

That means that I will not discuss or change something in regard of the military and naval units in the near future since we have a lot of other things on the priority list first.

 

[Marla_Singer]

That was a good post Schmiddie and I agree. Even if I deplore historical inaccuracies in Civ4Col (which aren't only about ships), the game remains predominantly an Empire-building strategy game, and RAR succeeded to make it balanced and fun.

This being said, it doesn't answer the question about "corvettes" (or whatever you'd like to name it) failing to behave as the anti-pirate patrolling ship Ray wanted it to be. They cost nearly the same as frigates and are less efficient to fight piracy. This destroys their purpose.

I do believe though it would add depth in gameplay to have a ship fulfilling that purpose, as that was intended by Ray. And it would only require rebalancing the unit in XML. If you disagree with the proposal, it's all fine, but I would be pleased to know why.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

That was a good post Schmiddie and I agree. Even if I deplore historical inaccuracies in Civ4Col (which aren't only about ships), the game remains predominantly an Empire-building strategy game, and RAR succeeded to make it balanced and fun.

This being said, it doesn't answer the question about "corvettes" (or whatever you'd like to name it) failing to behave as the anti-pirate patrolling ship Ray wanted it to be. They cost nearly the same as frigates and are less efficient to fight piracy. This destroys their purpose.

I do believe though it would add depth in gameplay to have a ship fulfilling that purpose, as that was intended by Ray. And it would only require rebalancing the unit in XML...

Not only. The AI would need to understand the use of ships with specialized abilities too. If the AI simply would buy or build the wrong ship for the task all the time the system would be too complex and ships better be more abstracted (e.g. "big combat ship", "faster but weaker combat ship", "transport ship") than having more and more specialized units that are valid historical choices only for a century before being replaced by other ship designs or being historically valid only for the last 100 years of the game.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Not only. The AI would need to understand the use of ships with specialized abilities too. If the AI simply would buy or build the wrong ship for the task all the time the system would be too complex and ships better be more abstracted (e.g. "big combat ship", "faster but weaker combat ship", "transport ship") than having more and more specialized units that are valid historical choices only for a century before being replaced by other ship designs or being historically valid only for the last 100 years of the game.

Wait, I fail to see to what you're answering. I don't see any AI issue here and I've never talked about specific timeframe specialization. I'm just pointing out that corvettes don't fulfill their currently intended purpose because they are too expensive and not enough powerful. That's very simple.

I've just downloaded version 2.7 and I've seen there's been changes on stats, but they actually seem to make things even worse.

                   Corvette                  Frigate
Sailcloth            70                        80
Ropes                70                        80
Hammers              80                        70
Blades               30                        50
Cannons             100                       100
 
Strength             35                        45
Movement              6                         6
Cargo                 0                         0
 
Special ability    10% bonus vs pirates      bombard fortifications

Corvettes are now just as expensive to build as frigates (even costing 10 hammers more), and it is 23% weaker than frigates (35 vs 45). Even with its 10% bonus against pirates, the corvette only has 68% chance of success against a pirate frigate compared to 76.5% for frigates.

I'm sorry to say, but what's the point of this unit?

 

[rah]

Yes, I agree that there is a need for a slightly cheaper defense against pirates earlier in the game.
Now if pirates are supposed to be a hidden tax, then fine, but......

But considering how much enjoyment i've gotten out of the mod, I'm not going to overly complain about it.

AS ALWAYS< THANKS for all your work.

 

[smallfry]

I don't see the need for anti-pirate patrolling.
With all the goodies floating around I have no problem upgrading my early ships so they can move from harbour to high sea (=invisibility) in one turn.
By the time the goodies run out I am strong enough to fight the pirates and cover my ships.
In my present game I lost a single Caravel to pirates and just because I was careless.

The AI on the other hand usually needs protection from my pirates later on. But as it is too stupid to use ships properly anyway, merchant or military alike, a better Corvette wouldn't do much good.

I agree, though, that the present Corvette is superfluous.
My take would be to just scrap it. There are enough naval units in the game.

 

[Marla_Singer]

I don't see the need for anti-pirate patrolling.
With all the goodies floating around I have no problem upgrading my early ships so they can move from harbour to high sea (=invisibility) in one turn.

Well of course it's a matter of taste but I find that rather exploitative and that's why I play with Europe at 6/8 tiles from shores. I think it makes better sense when your boat has to stop the turn in coastal seas before arriving in the colony otherwise it kills the whole purpose of piracy being in the game.