Age of Sail

[Gogf]

Please, for the love of God... give it a bigger, longer, age of sail...

And hinder collinisation before the age of sail. Vikings may have shown up in N.America but they didn't last long... collinisation needs a bigger influx of people than a longboat/tyreme can muster

Yes, yes, yes!

 

[thestonesfan]

It just occurred to me, the "Age of Steam" is pretty paltry also.

We get one ugly Ironclad that in reality would be used in a river? I want a Great White Fleet, dammit!

 

[covenant]

There are three major problem that destroy the naval part of the game (Age of Sail) which is an utter shame:
1. Diplomacy sucks in the game. You search out civs and get very little for the effort.
2. Corruption kills any development on those new lands to such a scale that they are really really backward. It takes hundreds of years to get that harbor.. please, what does it take to send a small boat to land to grab the gold and load it on the ship to make those colonies useful.
3. And this only matters if you can find undeveloped land. By the time you get to age of sail most of the land has got cities all over the place due to the really rapid expansion which is inherent in the game structure now. After all the Age of Sail was what it was for all the resources found. If there were none, or real civs equal in tech to europe where found it would not have been what it was .

Some fixes would me more realistic worlds, with civs more focused in a few specific spots with possible whole continents empty, making it worth while to seek them out to get their resources. After all there are only supposed to be one or two cradles of civilzation of earth, Sumeria (modern day Iraq) and China. Provinces would help with the ridiculous corruption for building on the new continent, there is a thread on that. Maybe a the colony can come with a harbor so you could form a network of colonies on the other continent that actually benefited your home country. And finally the expansion issue, but that is a major overhaul to gam mechanics....

 

[Verowin]

I think that the way to improve on the naval play would be to introduce:

1. Fishing ships
2. Merchant marine
3. 1000% improvement of A1 naval play
4. Navy armies and Admirals (leader). A leader woud control a fleet of ships.
5. until "radio" the only way to keep communicatin open with your overseas cities, is to have a ships.
6. with the introduction of Frigates, you get the new unit marines. They can muster on Frigates and be upgraded later on in the game. The amount and experience level of the marines loaded on the Frigate will have influence on the outcome the Frigate's battles.
7. Introduce Pirates, the barbarians of the sea. They have been around for ever and are still active all over the world.

 

[Philips beard]

I think that the way to improve on the naval play would be to introduce:

1. Fishing ships
2. Merchant marine
3. 1000% improvement of A1 naval play
4. Navy armies and Admirals (leader). A leader woud control a fleet of ships.
5. until "radio" the only way to keep communicatin open with your overseas cities, is to have a ships.
6. with the introduction of Frigates, you get the new unit marines. They can muster on Frigates and be upgraded later on in the game. The amount and experience level of the marines loaded on the Frigate will have influence on the outcome the Frigate's battles.
7. Introduce Pirates, the barbarians of the sea. They have been around for ever and are still active all over the world.

Agree in all of that, but not the Fleet army idea! Think ships should operate one and one, but coordinated, as in real life. Groups of units makes CIV a poorer tactical game.

 

[polypheus]

In order to make naval much more important (in Age of Sail and beyond), I suggest making blockade much easier to achieve. Simply allow shipping from port(s) to be shut down if an enemy ship activates "Naval Blockade" command. Similar to "Air Superiority" rules, there will be a zone (based on tech, ship, etc) around the blockading ship where merchant shipping is shut down. You must destroy the ship(s) to relieve the blockade.

This, I think will make blockade much more practical and realistic because the way it is done at present requires far too many ships to achieve so I have almost never seen it in any games being an element.

 

[Verowin]

Naval blockade will add some, but it will not be enough. You would need the tech of radar before you can impose an effective and closed blockade. Radar did not get invented untill the second half of the 20th century when the Age Of Sail was long gone.

 

[Commander Bello]

Btw, the concept of blockade was in PTW at least - and didn't work, as I proved several times.