An assessment on Naval units...

[DrJambo]

Frigates, Galleons, Caravels, Privateers and Ironclads... this seems to me to be a difficult mix to balance with each other and i don't currently think the game has it correct just now...

In comparison with civ2 Frigates have lost 2 att and their ability to carry 2 units, and instead now have a rubbish bombarding stat. Considering that Ironclads follow very swiftly after Frigates and don't replace them they effectively become a redundant unit very quickly indeed. They have major trouble destroying both Galleons and Caravels which both have a defence value of 2 (same as the Frigate's attack).

So the Frigate is a pathetic unit... shame, considering the improved English Man O War unit is based on the Frigate and still doesn't match up to the Ironclad.

So my proposal would be to beef their att to 3 and set their troop carrying capacity back to 2. The Man O War would be correspondingly increased.

The other idea i was toying with was to reverse the Caravels stats... i.e. Att 2, def 1, thus making them more susceptible to the privateer, equal with the galleon if attacking or being attacked and weaker than the Frigate when attacked by the Frigate..

Also why does being attacked in water give the defender a 10% bonus? Surely naval battles should be comparatively equal for both defender and attacker?!


Moving on to more modern Naval units...

The submarine seems to be relatively understrength, being barely able to destroy an Aircraft Carrier or Destroyer when attacking (especially with the 10% bonus for defending). Are they designed purely for attacking transports? They hidden bonus is great but their lack of att makes them relatively useless anyway..

I would propose notching their attack value up to 9 or 10 for this matter enabling them to have just the upper hand when attacking Destroyers, Carriers and Transports but being susceptible to Cruisers (which can spot them and attack them) and Battleships.

I would also propose to increase the movement of all Naval units by 1 apart from the Galley.

What do ya reckon?

DOC

 

[Patient English]

Regarding terrain defensive bonus...

Being attacked in the age of broadside-mounted cannon, there should indeed be a bonus for the defender. The attacker had to approach head-on, or at an angle, lessening their own fire effect. The defender had the option of presenting his full broadside and gaining a distinct firepower advantage.

Of course, in the age of Galleys - especially with Rams - this was reversed. I think the best solution would be to handle this in the stats, and leave the terrain bonus at 0%.

So, a galley with a ram: 2/1/6, coastal, carry 1
A caravel (assuming it mounts cannon): 1/2/4, can traverse oceans, carry 3 (a galley would be hard pressed to sink an armed caravel in the open sea.)
A Frigate: 4/5/7, carry 1
A Man 'o War: 6/7/6, carry 2 (all can build, not just English)
An Ironclad (as per HMS Warrior, not CSS Merrimac) 8/10/8, carry 1
A Transport (sail-powered) 1/3/6, carry 4 (much cheaper, as little armament)

No ship prior to Cruiser/Battleships using explosive shells should be given ANY bombarding ability, IMO.

Or something like that....All ship movement should be faster than the default values in Civ II or III. Having Infantry - or even Cavalry - on a road move faster than a ship at sea (prior to the internal combustion engine), is silly.

Trouble is, the Civ III combat model suffers from having no HP/FP concept, but these stats might be broadly realistic.

 

[Patient English]

Bloody double post. Sorry.

 

[vulture]

I am with you on Frigates but not on subs.

Subs in the first half of the 20th century have been comerce raiders. Only with the advent of nuclear subs has the advantage shifted from Surface ships to submarines.

I would support a reduction of 2 to the attack value and one to movement of submarines and alow them at a slightly earlier time .. then make the Nuclear Sub with a boost of 2 to attack after the advent of fusion Technology.

 

[History_Buff]

Submarines are too weak, however, this is for a reason. This, and the 10% defence is made to represent the bonus that MODERN SURFACE SHIPS have. All surface ships are so heavy that they need a huge amount of propulsion to move at all. Because of this it is easy for a submarines to track them on passive sonar. Sooooo, surface ships just trundle along, ping, ping, pinging, giving them the ability to detect anything. mind you, this only really applies to American Designed and some Soviet warships.

 

[Moulton]

Doc, thanks for opening this thread.

I played around earlier with changing movement rates and attack/defense rates. I liked my balance better, and didnt have to change much... just a few points. However, to post to the HOF... I am back to standards.

In Pirates, I learned how to fight broadsides. Proper navigation, keeping an eye on the wind, and using manourvarable ships. Broadside to broadside is just attrition. whoever sinks first looses.
Tactics mean keeping out of the enemy's broadside, while sailing to catch him in a rake, bow to stern or stern on. My frigates took many a galleon (In pirates it was a real galleon, with 32 guns) but couldnt manourver worth a thing.

Ironclads represent the early steamships, more than different armament and armor. There are better pictures than the Monitor--but that is just pictures. they weren't all that much superior to sailing warships of that day, if at all. It still depended more on the captain than the ship.

And BTW, frigates were required to bombard shore facilities, especialy forts, hopefully to destroy the cannon on the forts, or their manning forces, and allow the troop ships in to capture the town. granted, by todays naval gun standards, it was not a lot of power, and missed more that it hit.... but it was all they had.

So much for history.

I have come to love the subs. they lay off the enemy's harbors, and when they send out a frigate/ironclad and Galleon combo... they stumble onto the sub, attack it perforce, and sink. Sub rarely takes significant damage in this encounter. A few turns later, two more come out and sink. So, often, I will attack a lone ship, sink it, and lay in wait. The next two come out and attack, and the sub has sunk three ships in one turn..

Now, against destroyers and battleships...

 

[Moulton]

Another thing: check resources. Russia in my game sent a few frigates and galleons to my shores, and lost them. When I monted my invasion, and took the first town--it turned out to be their only source of Saltpeter.... No more frigates. Did I sell them some????
Then now have a small fleet of ironclads--10 -- and have just now started to build destroyers -2-. Meanwhile I am about ready to finish off Egypt, and move my 50 bombers to my beachhead there, and go after their 92 infantry. No more Cossack, and no tanks yet. And if I can isolate their oil... there won't ever be any.

Bombarding from sea is difficult at best. Wnen we were attacking Lebanon, we sent in our one battleship to bombard their shore batteries... and it missed more often than it hit. Think about it... you have to lob a 2000 pound shell 25 miles and hit a target 10 feet high... and if the swell that rolls your ship 5 or 10 degrees is just a little larger than the average, or the period is a little off... you missed by 500 feet.

 

[vulture]

Ironclads represent the early steamships, more than different armament and armor. There are better pictures than the Monitor--but that is just pictures. they weren't all that much superior to sailing warships of that day, if at all. It still depended more on the captain than the ship.

Ironclads were head and shoulders beyond anything else in there day. When the first Ironclads hit the water they routinly won against 3 warships of simular size. The only advantage non-ironclads had was speed and manuverability. If they ran aground you win otherwise run or die.

The first fight between the Monitor and the Meriamac ended in a draw because the cannons of the day were just not able to inflict enough damage. The two ships pounded on each other for 5 hours and puled back when night came.

 

[Moulton]

Originally posted by vulture



THe only advantage non-ironclads had was speed and manuverability. le to inflict enough damage.

The two ships pounded on each other for 5 hours and puled back when night came.

 

[Moulton]

Well, that didnt work well... need to learn how to do that.

Broadside to broad side, the ironclad would always win. If a captain knew how to manouver his ship to take advantage of his speed and manouvarability, then he could land more shots than his oponent, and claim a win.

It didnt take long, after the design was established, and steamships gained both speed and manouverablilty, for them to leave the age of sail behind.

 

[vulture]

I am in no way disagreeing with you about the huge advantage of speed and manuverability but the birth of Iron clads is a special case in naval history.

That was the first time that defencive power far outstripped offencive power. It was a few years later that the breachloading cannons gained enough firepower to pierce these turtles.

 

[Troyens]

There has been a lot of complaints about the lack of usefullness of naval units in Civ III. This is especially so regarding privateers and submarines not effecting trade and commerce - which is what their actual purpose was (NOT to attack enemy warships).

Note that warship design between frigates and detroyers spanned nearly fifty years and included not only "monitor" style ironclads, but true iron pre-battleships such as the HMS Warrior
and ranged through the ships of the Spanish-American War. Hence, 4.4. is far too low a rating. I changed in the Editor ironclads to 6.6.; frigates to 3.3; MOW to 4.3; and privateers to 3.2.4. Subs went up to 8.4.

I don't think those values are too low.

You MAY want to also allow destroyers to "see" submarines. I'm not sure of that, though. I'm also not sure about caravels being ocean-going. Ideas?

Was this game ever playtested before marketing??

 

[Patient English]

Was this game ever playtested before marketing??

I guess they had a run through of the early ages, but in other threads Firaxis have just about admitted Modern Age play was barely tested after the last minute pre-release "features" were included.

I think Naval War generally suffered from the same neglect. Obviously Infogrames pushed for a pre-Christmas release and Firaxis had to agree. To be fair to Firaxis, I get the impression they knew there were bugs and hoped to fix them as soon as possible after the forced launch.

Nevertheless, three years is a long time to have a game in development and for it still to be so rough around the edges. Does anyone know how long Firaxis was actually working on the game, from concept to launch?

 

[vulture]

The Navy has become less loved in the days of supersonic aircraft that can circle the globe hit a target and get back for dinner in Omaha.

But anyone in the military knows it is much better to have a weapon platform that can sit and blast a target for days or interdict on an area for weeks.

In order to bring the fear factor bact into the navy a 50% to all ship movement is in order and a 50% increase in firepower/defence for all ships after the galley. Even in the days of chariots and good road networks it was still faster to move an army by sea than run them to the battle. When the english navy brought a few dozen warships to a town the town usually surrendered under the unsurpased firepower of the greatest navy in the world.

 

[BigBirdZ28]

I agree, naval units should be a bit quicker & subs need a slightly more aggressive attack.

forget the frigate side bombard idea, because for all it's factual merits, I dont feel that we need the extra complication.

 

[Moulton]

I modified rules similarly in earlier play. Being of Naval mind, I wanted to play the English and actually use the Man-of-War. (Got my wish).
But wanting to post my score at least a time or two, I am back to default rules.
It seems to me that the small increase in speed/distance, and the small change in firepower greatly enhances the navel game.
I find subs useful as an early warning net around my shores, and powerful enough to stop many assaults, or at least warn me enough in advance that I can be prepared. And when a civ attacks with frigates, men-of-war, even ironclads, they do not survive the sub ring.
As for transporting... the navy can deliver an army accross the Atlantic but it takes seven days to cross. Air transport is a few hours. But it takes many transport planes and numerous trips to get the whole army there. The navy takes a week, but it can move several divisions in one move. This game sort of reflects that. It may take several turns to get your transport across, but it caries 8 units. Airlift is one per airport. You can send a fleet of transports, or one unit per airport per turn.
I finally found a use for helicopters.... load an infantry unit, rehome to a remote base, like a captured island, unload him, and come back for more. You could build an airport -- but that is EXPensive in a 1-shield town.

 

[Moulton]

Vulture, you are quite right. Ironclads changed naval warfare forever, and very fast. We can complain about the shortness of game time, but the history change was also very fast, compared to the earlier 6000 years or so of real history.
I could only wish that we had frigates and men-of-war earlier in the game. But after all, the heavy fighting ships, ships of the line, were not around that long either before they developed armored sides, and then breachloading canon. During the few years that a sailer could defeat a steamship, the skill of the captain was the key. But really, it didnt take long for the new ships, armor and weapons to far outclass the sailing ship, and its broadsides.

 

[bonscott]

Originally posted by =DOCTOR=

So the Frigate is a pathetic unit... shame, considering the improved English Man O War unit is based on the Frigate and still doesn't match up to the Ironclad.


DOC

Well, if you don't have Iron as a resource, ironclads are not even available and Frigats are about all you get.

 

[Storm-br]

Very nice, important topic. The naval aspect of civ3 is still flat and uninspiring since the 1st game in the series.

It seems to me that Fireaxis went great lenghts to make air and land warfare unique, realistic as possible taking game balance in consideration. It's easy to realize that land and air have very specific and ultimately complementary definitions in the game.
Unfortunately, not much tought was put on the naval aspect, and thats an understatement, wich is a real shame.

Ship's speed:
Between the many singularities of naval warfare I can think of, probably the most pertinent is the speed factor. A galley can outrun a frigate by a huge difference. I don't see how a frigate could just go in and sucessfully attack a standing galley. The galley would run when it spotted the frigate miles away.
Altho this idea can be applied to some extent to land and air combat, it's much more vital in sea combat (in the sea, you don't have to deal with terrain and troop fatigue in regard to movement).
Id love to see a speed factor in naval units. The general idea could work like that:
- say a galley has a speed factor of 3, and a frigate 2 (speed factor as in a new stat). The frigate attacks the galley, the galley gains a bonus of 1 for being 1 "speed factor" faster then the galley. You would add this bonus to the galley's movement points left. For instance, the galley moved 2 blocks before ending his turn. Thus, with the speed bonus, he have a 2 (1 movement point left + 1 speed factor bonus) on a "fleeing bonus". This means the frigate would have to spent 3 movement points to be able to catch up and open fire at the galley. If the galley would attack the frigate, no flee bonus would exist as the frigate cant phisically outrun the galley.
In this scheme, a galley standing with full movement points simply could not be sunk be a frigate - it would just sail away. This seems correct to me.

Squads:
Again, specifically on naval combat, the number of ships counts more then quality. 2 experienced captains could easily attack and sink a frigate (I think so at least, you guys who knows more about naval stuff then me let me know . One of the galleys would present itself as to force the frigate to turn his broadside while the other galley flanks it. While one of the galleys would be in a risky position, maybe even getting sunk, the other ultimately would sink the frigate, and depending on the experience of the captain, unscratched.
Of course, to implement this on the game would be simply - as there are armies for land, make squads for sea.
It wouldnt be entirely realistic but that would do the job.

Movement and damage:
I couldnt agree with you guys more on movement, but I go further on the damage issue. I cannot understand a battleship having no less then twice the firepower then a modern tank. Heck, four times the damage. Im no expert, but damn, a battleship have a whole lotta freaking big guns.

Shore bombardment:
I dont see how, by any means, a ship could manage to hit a ground troop. As if they would just stand seeing the big mean ship getting near them and open fire. They would run for cover - and it wouldnt be a difficult thing to find cover from a "sea attack".
I go hardcore on this...I think ground troops should have like 5% chance of being hit by a naval bombardment, if not being immune at all. Even troops on a shoreline city. The land combat frontline wouldnt be anywhere near the shore, by geographical logic.

However, I can easily picture a big ship devastating shoreline buildings with its numerours guns. I think a huge improvement on shoreline bombardment should be made.
Some might think this would imbalance the game, and whoever control the sea would gain a great edge.
But thats the idea isnt it? Having control on one of the 3 grounds (air, land, or sea) should essentially gives you a great advantage. If you were not ready and the enemy is putting you to dust by sea, well, youve been beaten by sea then.

Submarines:
Submarines are surgical strikers, "critical hitters" if you may. Its all in the first shot. Hit the ships engine and you are gold. Fail to calculate timing or distance and you just hit hull, or miss the shot.
I think the sub's first shot should be especially powerfull, being able to do twice as damage maybe. Also,An elite captain would be a mean ship sinker, as they were in Hitler's navy in WWII.
Some discoveries or maybe the Aegis could have an enhanced defence against it tho.

Movement deduction on damaged units:
I think the land game is much more enjoyable without this (for those who dont know, on civ2, if your troop was damaged it would lose 1/3 of his move points, if badly damaged, 2/3), but I dont like the absence of it on naval units. Realistically speaking, ground units can find a way to repair, or bandage, so they can move on, but ships cant do that while sailing.



Id like to hear comments on these ideas...thanks for reading thro

 

[Cantankerous]

Regarding ship’s speed, I have to agree with many that naval units just move excruciatingly slow, and while adding 50% or so to their movement would definitely change the balance of the game, maybe that might be for the better.

Controlling the seas has been vital to a nation’s power since the days of the great sailing navies. (And to some extent, even before then.) So naval power SHOULD play a key role in the game. After all, it was (and still is) an extremely significant element of history, and isn’t “history” what Civ 3 is all about?

< Rant mode on >

And since when in history is a carrier slower than a battleship??

< Rant mode off >


Storm-br:

I’ll assume for the sake of arguments that your example of two galleys defeating a frigate is just that: an example. Consider that a galley in this game most closely represents an ancient trireme, a vessel that relied heavily on oarsmen for movement. (The sails were small and did not provide the primary means of propulsion during combat.) Ever heard the term “ramming speed”? That means row faster!

A 17th century sailing frigate, normally armed with at least 40 cannons, would actually sail circles around a galley, devastating the galley with cannons that, while extremely short ranged by modern standards, would far surpass the combat ability of a trireme. Just an aside…


Regarding shore bombardment:

The amount of damage that ships can do to ground troops is probably too much, but it seems to be more a balancing issue than an attempt at realism. Ships bombarding from the sea (if the bombardment is sufficiently massive enough) have often been able to inflict serious casualties on ground troops, although there are probably very few instances of reducing those ground troops to the equivalent of one hit point. (Keep in mind that a battleship—or destroyer or frigate for that matter—in Civ 3 doesn’t represent ONE ship, it’s a task group of several vessels. And the infantry units also represent supply and support elements, as well as trucks, ammo depots, etc. And the loss of some or most of those support elements can be as devastating to a military unit as the loss of the actual troops themselves.)


Regarding movement deductions:

Again, keeping in mind that Civ 3 units are multiple vessels, companies, air wings, etc., I don’t think that “injured” units should have to slow down. After all, if a sailing frigate unit represents four ships (just an example here as I don’t know exactly the size of each unit in game terms) and three of those ships are lost, the fourth ship is not required to lower its sails.

I do understand what you’re saying though, that a damaged ship typically can’t move as fast as a non-damaged ship. But you might be surprised by just what an ocean-going tug and a destroyer tender (repair ship) is capable of in today’s navy.

Just my thoughts…

...and sorry for the long post.