A solution to the whole navy thing....

[-proletarian-]

People keep complaining about how air units cannot attack naval units. I agree, this is ridicilous. However, the way to solve this problem is to allow air units to attack naval ones, but in order to make sure that it is still in your best interest to build up a navy, in Civ 4 they should drastically increase the strategic value of the high seas. Maybe by including some vital strategic resources, such as oil (I mean, come on, half the world's oil comes out of the ocean!) or perhaps natural gas? (That would be a good choice for an expansion of the types of strategic resources in Civ 4, if you ask me). This would require the player to seize and defend vital areas of ocean, maybe even need to construct offshore platforms on his coast cities, then need a certain number of turns to move it over the oil patch in the ocean, maybe even requiring a tugboat unit, as in real life? One of my major beefs concerning Civ is that it is too land-centirc. The ocean is of little use, apart from being a playground for your ships. Fix this in Civ 4, and I'll be one happy guy. So, what do you guys think? Like my idea? Any other suggestions?

 

[SGX]

Sounds pretty good
Although the port city could simply make a 'oil platform ship' or something, and that 'deploys' on the oil resource.. kind of like a settler, except it cannot grow.

 

[Zachriel]

Good idea. Yes, there should be offshore drilling.

Suggestions:

Make tradeships and caravans actual units that automatically move between capitals. Now, pirate ships have a purpose. And other ships now have a purpose other than bombarding the shoreline -- to control shipping lanes.

Trade must be made much more important to give the seas meaning. Columbus was attempting to reach China just so he could cut out the middleman on the trade in spices and silks.

 

[Zouave]

I'm supposed to wait for a Civ 4?? Why not try to patch as much as possible this game? I did pay over $40 for it, not including the stategy book.

I have many problems with the naval aspects of Civ III, among other complaints about it.

There is no way to reflect upon trade and commerce with privateers and subs, neither of which was intended to attack enemy warships in most cases. But in Civ III that is all they can do.

In Civ II, naval units were vital for moving diplomats, spies, caravans, freight, explorers and settlers. In Civ III, only explorers and settlers still exist, and since there is precious little left to explore after 500 AD naval units are much less useful.

I find it especially useless to make privateers - too weak even with a '2' attack value. I've even had them sunk by galleys (!), which according to the animation were firing CANNONS a thousand years before ships mounted guns. (I have another post on that). Privateers have nothing to really attack anyway as in reality they only went after undefended civilian vessels none of which are in the game.

BIG MISTAKE WITH ALL THIS, Sid. Fix it.

And I miss the cruiser unit. It was a good link between destroyers and battleships.

I also miss the crusader unit, BTW.

 

[Eastman]

Sounds great.

SGX: It's more like Worker's Colony than Settler's City.

 

[SGX]

I don't think that individual units to represent trade would be good...it would only add to the late game tedium, having to manage and guard the units..

Destroying roads to break the trade route is fine imo...

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by SGX


I don't think that individual units to represent trade would be good...it would only add to the late game tedium, having to manage and guard the units..

Destroying roads to break the trade route is fine imo...

Of course, with stacking the units would move with their support. I miss the caravans and spies. I also miss the peacetime attack unit from another game, the corporate raider.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Re the importance of the high seas: Close to zero percent of the worlds oil, gas etc comes from the actual oceans. Every single offshore platform on the planet is placed on continental shelf*. Most fish caught comes from the shelfs. Economically, the high seas have very little importance. Apart from some high-traffic sealanes, they are virtually never visited by humans.

While I'd be happy to see offshore oil drilling etc on and only on the shelfs, it'd be big loss in realism to give the open ocean much economic importance. I therefore strongly think that Civ should remain highly land-centric, and the high seas, like in reality, only being mcuh use for transport.
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* Sure, there are quite a few in the Caspian, which may not technically be continental shelf, but it's on continental ground nonetheless.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by The Last Conformist
Re the importance of the high seas: Close to zero percent of the worlds oil, gas etc comes from the actual oceans. Every single offshore platform on the planet is placed on continental shelf*. Most fish caught comes from the shelfs. Economically, the high seas have very little importance. Apart from some high-traffic sealanes, they are virtually never visited by humans.

While I'd be happy to see offshore oil drilling etc on and only on the shelfs, it'd be big loss in realism to give the open ocean much economic importance. I therefore strongly think that Civ should remain highly land-centric, and the high seas, like in reality, only being mcuh use for transport.
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* Sure, there are quite a few in the Caspian, which may not technically be continental shelf, but it's on continental ground nonetheless.

Without representing trade over the seas, there is not way to give them the importance they deserve. The entire growth of Western Civilization was dependent on sea exploration and trade.

 

[CrushSlider]

What if you had to create a trade route over the seas, just like a road over the land to another civ. You could give any transport ship the ability to build/cut out that trade route. You create paths through the sea where your trade is going to occur.

This would create a better blockade system, but you would have to know the enemies trade routes (a spying function?). Pirates would be able to lay in wait along those paths and have a percentage possibility of stealing the tradeed goods/gold between two civs. Submarines during wartime could destroy the cargo as well, perhaps for a number of turns the player would be without a resource for each successful attack on the trade routes. Or the sub could destroy trade routes all together, which must be recreated by transport ships (hopefully escorted because obviously there is a Big Bad Wolf Pack out there lurking).

Multiple paths could be created to each nation thus making blockade and or submarine attacks on the trade routes more difficult. Give the trade route squares a gold bonus for being created, if they are within a city's radius, thus making water more important. Also oil could be handled with this as well. An oil resource in the ocean could be connected to the port city with a trade route. If the oil resource is too far out and not within the city radius, have a special colony called an oil rig that can be built after the discovery of Refining tech. The oil rig would have to be protected especially during wartime and it must have a trade route back to the port city. Could you imagine the race for an oil resource in nuetral ocean territory would cause. OH MY a war could break out... We can only hope...