An assessment on Naval units...

[DrJambo]

Bombardment should effect land units, otherwise ships would be completely useless.. furthermore, a marine unit doesn't just represent 1 marine, but instead represents a whole squad.

The movement of ships should be increased...possibly by 1 or 2 points across the field. THis would force all civs to take naval production very seriously.

My argument with frigates is that they just don't cut the mustard. IF you need transport use a galleon, if you need firepower use an ironclad. Like civ2 the frigate should be able to transport 1 or 2 units in addition to its below average offensive attributes..

Carriers are much better than before.... wow, they are very useful for bombing the opposition across the seas.

Having built loads of them, but never actually used them.... can anyone enlighten me on what fighters are useful for. Crap offensive stats and poor bombing ability would suggest not very much...

 

[BigBirdZ28]

Doc,

If you try to bomb a city which houses a fighter in Air Superiority mod, the fighter will engage your bomber & most likely destory it.

I say this because If I send an F15 to bomb a city im not sure if it's defense points work towards defending it against the fighter or if it's a sure kill. I assume it would be but I dont want to lead you stray just incase im wrong.

Personally I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the new way Air units work as opposed to civs 1&2.

My only sticking point is that the AI seems to know which cities I have Air Superiority fighters stationed in so I never get kills .

 

[vulture]

A Galley could outrun a frigate but only upwind. If the galley had the wind in his favor he could evade a frigate otherwise he would be dead.

I think a badly damaged naval unit should have its movement cut. If the unit only has one dot of life left it is unlikely that any of the vessals escaped damage and unless you are prepaired to abandon the cripples you have to move at the speed of the slowest ship.

Look up the battle of Copenhagan. One of Nelson's finest battles. In civ terms a group of Man-O-War and one rifleman take out out a heavily fortified city.

 

[Storm-br]

Originally posted by Cantankerous


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!

Lol. Yes it was just an example. Galley as in "fast lightly armored" and frigate as "heavy hitting and slow". I dont know much about naval warfare, im more into Ancient/Middle-age eastern land battles.

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.)

About crippling the troop's support, nice point, but there may be other angles to it. Losing a supply of ammo/food/utilities mainly means you have to find another source for it.
In civ3 terms, this may already be represented. If you destroy a mine/road/railroad by bombardment, you are directly deducting from the city income, therefore your troops are virtually more expensive to support.
However, the moment a troop's support gets crippled it does indeed stays vulnerable untill they can find other sources for whatever they need. So this could be represented as well as the loss of one hit point. But as you would agree, getting a unit down to one hit point by sea bombardment doesnt seem realistic.

I still feel that it should be easier to destroy enhancements/buildings with sea bombardment. Given the right percentage I think it would balance the game just ok, at the same time rendering the game more realistic.

...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.

It would be excellent, then, that a discovery (or one of the existing) would made it possible for damaged ship units to travel without movement reduction, dont you think? Or maybe just so that modern ships wouldnt receive movement reduction, only earlier sailing vessels and the ironclad would.

A Galley could outrun a frigate but only upwind. If the galley had the wind in his favor he could evade a frigate otherwise he would be dead.

I need some tech info then...a big ship can row faster then a small one? I mean, do the number of tripulants rowing actually wins over the size and weight of a ship?

 

[Goat_Guy]

Man o man... u guys gotta get the Long Winded Changes mod http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9078

Plutark has "updated" the game with so many changes it make the game completly different! He has added about 10 ships to balance out the gaps...he has added these ships to make this the final list of shoips( any that are dirrectly underneath each other can be upgraded):

Coracle:0/1/2 Coast only Carry 1
Galley: 1/1/3 Coast and Sea Carry 2
Caravel: 0/2/4 Coast and Sea Carry 2
Galleon: 0/3/5 Carry 4
Transport: 0/4/6 Carry 7
Modern Transport: 0/5/7 Carry 8

A/D/M Bombard Stuff
Warship: 3/2/3 6/1/1
Frigate: 5/3/5 8/1/2
Ironclad: 7/7/4 12/1/2
Steel Warship: 10/8/6 12/1/3
Destroyer: 14/10/7 16/1/3
Modern Destroyer: 16/18/8 16/2/3

AEGIS Cruiser: 12/15/8 14/5/3

Super Battleship: 26/40/7 30/4/4

Battleship: 16/24/6 20/2/4

Submarine: 12/4/5
Diesiel Submarine: 16/12/8

Nuclear Attack Sub: 16/12/8

Privater: 3/2/5
Corprate Privater: 5/3/5

Carrier: 0/11/6 Carry 4 Air

Nuclear Carrier: 0/10/7 Carry 6 Air

Shew...hope that convinces u to update to LWC mod....

 

[Moulton]

On ships, the last US battleships (From WW II) had 9 16" guns as main armament. That is a little larger than 90mm. They also bristled with 5" guns and 40MM cannon
Each 16" gun can lob a 2000 pound shell 25 miles or more. nine of these landing on a truck or tank convoy would do major damage. Time to run? The ship is over the horizon, shots called by spotters, the time to escape is when they hear the whistle of a descending shell.

Battleships and carriers have about th same speed--about 35 knots (40MPH) Shore bombard ment is a major role for the battleship, as air bombardment is a major role for the carrier

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by vulture

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.

Again and again: the problem is NOT that subs are weak attackers. As vulture says they normally were used to kill transports. But I cna`t go for the Transport in Civ - I have to attack the strongest defender. That`s the problem.....

 

[vulture]

Originally posted by Killer


Again and again: the problem is NOT that subs are weak attackers. As vulture says they normally were used to kill transports. But I cna`t go for the Transport in Civ - I have to attack the strongest defender. That`s the problem.....

The Convoy system saved england in WWII. It is reasonable that if the transports are well covered that they get to blast you if you try anything. If a sub could take out any unit in a stack what would be the point of escorts?

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

it should be this way: you can choose between attacking the best or the weakest defender. If you choose the weakest you have a 10% (15% against militaristic civ) risk of failing.

Whatever you do the sub will be subject to a counterattack. It has a 70% of reatreating safely, otherwise it will have to fight it out (blub blub blub....) The quotas shoulb be adjusted for different defender types....

 

[Cruiser]

Originally posted by vulture


The Convoy system saved england in WWII. It is reasonable that if the transports are well covered that they get to blast you if you try anything. If a sub could take out any unit in a stack what would be the point of escorts?

What you see is an ATTEMPT to make submarines a useful unit in the game (same goes for privateers) by increasing their attack strength because their REAL purpose, historically, is NOT found in Civ III.

In otherwords, subs and privateers mostly attacked non-military ships: freighters, tankers, merchantmen, etc. American privateers ran wild sinking British ships in the American Revolution. They were never intended to attack warships. Only the Japanese emphasized subs attacking warships - and that was a total failure.

In Civ III, I could have dozens of privateers or subs patrolling waters between two trading partners' harbors but it would have no effect on trade and commerce. I would have to actually BLOCKADE the entire port. Were the Germans supposed to blockade all of Britain's ports in WW II when Britain had a vastly superior surface fleet and air superiority over britain?? Hardly. The Germans, however, almost won the war due to subs effecting trade and commerce by attacking merchantmen.

None of this is reflected in the game. Sid's failure to understand the naval aspect makes me want to play Panagea maps every time.

 

[Tarquelne]

I don't like the "Here today, gone today" Frigates/Galleons in Civ3 either, so here's what I did:

Moved Ironclad to Industrialization (1 tech more advanced.)
Moved Frigate/Privateer/Galleon/Man-O-War to Astronomy from Magnatism. (Allowing them 2-5 techs sooner, IIRC.)
Moved Caravel to Engineering.
Made Engineering the sole Prereq. for Navigation.
Lowered the tech cost for Navigation a little.
Astronomy enables Ocean Traval, as does Navigation (as Navigation always has.)
Engineering enables sea traval.

(I also fiddled with the stats of all the naval units, btw.)

The revised tech tree isn't quite as senseable as the origional one, but for me there's a vast improvement in game play. Previously you didn't get Ocean travel/connections untill near the end of the Middle Ages - now you get it near the middle, or early, if you go for Navigation quickly. Even Sea travel didn't come untill near the end of the MA, and I've found Sea travel rarely makes a significant difference. I like the increased connectivity.

 

[Cruiser]

Moving ironclads up a tech, and frigates/MOW down one, seems entirely acceptable. Just be sure galleons PRECEDE frigates and come after caravels.


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Was this game playtested???