Armies

[Txurce]

I think there is an argument for more power in an ironclad's weapons.
According to Wikipedia:
"The size of the gun peaked in the 1880s, with some of the heaviest calibres of gun ever used at sea. "

There's a weird problem with the entire concept of putting ironclads in the game, though. That was a very short era in naval history, especially the time period where an "ironclad" was confined to calm, coastal waters. Naval tech changed rapidly from the 1860's up to WWI. I think it could be considered relatively more stable pre-American Civil War and post WWII.

Good points in general. I was focusing on the game's ironclad, which mirrors the Civil War sort that couldn't take the high seas. These didn't have have bigger guns than ships of the line. By the time ironclads outclassed frigates based on firepower, they were effectively pre-cruisers. For this reason I would leave the ironclad more or less alone (and would have skipped it if I were the designers). But my main point is that I wouldn't put it within spitting distance of an already OP unit like artillery.

 

[clearbeard]

Two things I've been considering... would love to have opinions on these subjects.

• New Medic II promotion available to Recon units, increases range to 2
• Frigates and Ironclads start with Demolish promotion (same as siege units)

The first point is to give scouts a purpose after the map is explored. The second point is because from a gameplay perspective, ships are really quite pointless right now for all but a water-heavy map. Their attacks against a city only did 1-2 damage even in vanilla, and enemy units are rarely in range (other than barbarians). It also makes sense from a perspective of realism, since naval cannon are basically just smaller versions of land-based cannon. Each pair of land/sea cannon are also at equal tech levels.

With the other changes from this mod, the comparisons are:

Frigate 17, cannon 21
Ironclad 22, artillery 24

Medic II sounds like a fine idea. If the AI uses it occasionally and keeps their units alive a little longer, all the better.

I don't like the idea of buffing frigates and ironclads against cities though. While you are correct that naval guns are basically smaller versions of land artillery, historically that "smaller" translated into a big difference against fortifications. Cannon duels between forts and ships were feasible because forts can't dodge, so the smaller naval guns had a higher hit percentage, not because the cannon were equivalent. Ironclads were even worse against fortifications in the Civil War, as they were slower targets, and more susceptible to plunging fire from fixed fortifications than the shallower arcs from other ships. Doesn't help make ironclads more useful in game, but I'd be hesitant to give them a bonus against cities. And my frigates (or better yet, ships of the line in my 2 England games), operating in squads of 2-3, have never had troubles reducing city defenses all on their own (at least in vanilla: I've only played 1 game with an earlier version of this mod, so I'm not sure how much harder those tactics are now). And once the fleet is all level 5, it's all over but the screaming and the burning.

 

[gruven]

Medic II sounds like a fine idea. If the AI uses it occasionally and keeps their units alive a little longer, all the better.

I don't like the idea of buffing frigates and ironclads against cities though.

I love the medic idea as well.
I also agree that buffing frigates and ironclads against cities may not work out well. In my games, ships can generally bombard cities with impunity since the AI doesn't use ships well. I know Thal is trying to give them some use, but this just seems like it will overpower naval squadrons on the offensive. Unfortunately I don't have any better ideas since this is more of an AI issue than anything else. If it could conduct amphibious invasions and defend itself against them, then ships would be useful and we'd be discussing the finer points of dreadnoughts vs battlecruisers right now instead.

 

[Joneill]

Two things I've been considering... would love to have opinions on these subjects.

• New Medic II promotion available to Recon units, increases range to 2

I think Medic is already pretty powerful, making it even easier to stack seems like a change that would only help the human player. You can already train units by having them repeatedly bombarded and negate the damage with a couple of medics nearby - although that may be more a problem of the current experience system. But giving the human player even more tactical advantages to exploit seems unnecessary.

 

[Txurce]

Without using c ++, can the AI's values be changed to promote more aggressive naval behavior? This is a rare case where it wouldn't need tactics so much as 'tude.

 

[Thalassicus]

There's a weird problem with the entire concept of putting ironclads in the game, though. That was a very short era in naval history, especially the time period where an "ironclad" was confined to calm, coastal waters. Naval tech changed rapidly from the 1860's up to WWI. I think it could be considered relatively more stable pre-American Civil War and post WWII.

I don't remember the exact numbers (posted earlier in this thread) but ironclads were relevant for approximately the same number of decades as dreadnaughts/battleships. Lots of ironclads were still in use all the way to WWI. They often get overlooked because our history classes are somewhat US-centered, where our image of ironclads are the semi-submarine Monitor & Virginia. This is the type Civ used to show, but in Civ V, if you look at the artwork it's a more global version. In history at large, this stage of ship signified the transition to putting iron plating on an otherwise wooden ship, and powering it with both sails and coal.


@Txurce
Yeah, Medic II would basically give Scouts (and Paratroopers) the capability to heal units in the same range as the great general ability. I'm not actually sure it's possible yet however due to stacking concerns of Medic I + Medic II (the inner ring would receive both)... but it's a full-SDK idea.

I've seen the AI bombard cities in three games. Each time, it's typically when they have at least 4-8 ships... they all gather around one city and blast it. They deal so little damage though I can ignore it... this change would make it more likely they can blast several cities in a row.

Perhaps there's some alternative way of making ships valuable we can think of...

I could let ships research the Siege promotion. I leaned more towards the automatic Demolish because the AI never have experienced ships.

When comparing ironclads to frigates, here's from the rationale section in the first post:

Ironclads have the following advantages and disadvantages compared to Frigates:

• 130% of Frigates (was 120%)
• 100% speed (was 80%)
• Requires Iron (was Coal)
• Part of the upgrade chain (could not be upgraded to or from)
• 140%
• Cannot enter oceans
• Much later tech

Compared to Destroyers:

• 60% of Destroyers
• Requires Iron (was Coal)
• 100% and (was 80%)
• Part of the upgrade chain (could not be upgraded to or from)
• Cannot enter oceans
• 60% speed (was 50%)
• 40% visibility range
• Cannot see subs

Basically, they're a stepping stone between Frigates and Destroyers. Frigate -> Ironclad increases strength, and Ironclad -> Destroyer increases mobility. This somewhat fits history, first adding iron/steel plating, then oil powered engines.

 

[a barbarian]

Not sure what the current status in your mod is, but I would like to see warships 1-shotting any kind of water transporter. I was always very annoyed that I could 1 shot a brand new unit on land with a frigate but needed 2 or even 3 shots when they were at sea

 

[Perkus]

Yes, let's discuss why (all? most?) ships can't do that. And while we're at it, let's discuss this special ranged damage immunity that non-combat units (workers, generals) have. Because the embarked units are basically just another kind of these "defenseless" units. They generally take 4 hp damage from most ranged damage. Where this gets weird, is when I have a rocket artillery than can 1-shot (10+ damage) a STR-15-ish fortified pikemen unit, while I can only do 4 pts to the unfortified workers next to them... It doesn't pass any sort of reality check. I guess they wanted these units, particularly special people, to have a certain survivability because they're so valuable. I could buy it with the SPs, but workers or settlers? Very early on, when they're crucial, maybe they should be able to take 1 hit from < 10 STR attacks. But later in the game, they're easily replaced, so high tech should blow them out of the, err, land! I believe this is controlled by the NONCOMBAT_UNIT_RANGED_DAMAGE global define, which is 4. Meaning it's currently not possible to vary it by era, or unit type, or attack strength. I'd say at a minimum raise this to 5, so they can be 2-shotted.

Oddly enough I've been testing bombers lately and sometimes they blow workers up in 1 shot, other times they do the usual 4. I'm not sure why that is.

Another issue is with ship-to-ship combat. In most eras, the ranged attack is much weaker than the strength, and naval units defend using the strength value, it means that you typically do about 2 damage to an equivalent unit per shot. This drops even lower once they become damaged! It turns sea battles into rather long pea-shooting contests where you need 5-6 ships or multiple rounds to kill anything. That in itself isn't such a bad thing, but it's in marked contrast with the land combat, where most things do around 5 damage to their equivalent unit. It also makes it difficult to protect embarked units even with adequate escorts, because it takes the escorts forever to kill the enemy, while the enemy can autokill any embarked unit it's allowed to reach. Maybe this is a good reason why they shouldn't be allowed to one-shot embarked units - even with escorts, you could then ranged 1-shot the embarked units from 2-3 tiles away!

I've also thought about giving ships a 2-tile zone of control, but that's not moddable either.

 

[Perkus]

Also, a bug fix for ya. You raised the Volley promotion to +40% at some point, but didn't change the tooltip, it's still 25%. Code:

	<!-- Raised Volley to 40% -->
	<Language_en_US>
		<Update>
			<Where Tag="TXT_KEY_PROMOTION_VOLLEY_HELP" />
			<Set Text="+40% [ICON_STRENGTH] Combat Strength VS [COLOR_POSITIVE_TEXT]Fortified Units[ENDCOLOR]" />
		</Update>
	</Language_en_US>

EDIT: Also wanted to mention that the Volley promotion change isn't listed in the Readme. I don't think it's covered by your Siege table, is it?

 

[gruven]

I don't remember the exact numbers (posted earlier in this thread) but ironclads were relevant for approximately the same number of decades as dreadnaughts/battleships. Lots of ironclads were still in use all the way to WWI. They often get overlooked because our history classes are somewhat US-centered, where our image of ironclads are the semi-submarine Monitor & Virginia. This is the type Civ used to show, but in Civ V, if you look at the artwork it's a more global version. In history at large, this stage of ship signified the transition to putting iron plating on an otherwise wooden ship, and powering it with both sails and coal.

Basically, they're a stepping stone between Frigates and Destroyers. Frigate -> Ironclad increases strength, and Ironclad -> Destroyer increases mobility. This somewhat fits history, first adding iron/steel plating, then oil powered engines.

I agree. The restriction to coastal waters only is where it breaks down for Civ. Frigate->Ironclad increases strength, but drastically decreases mobility at a time when the game is generally opening up onto multiple continents.

That's all minor though. I appreciate the work you're doing on the mods. Something does need to be done, and if the demolish change doesn't work out, it can always be revised.

 

[gruven]

Yes, let's discuss why (all? most?) ships can't do that. And while we're at it, let's discuss this special ranged damage immunity that non-combat units (workers, generals) have. Because the embarked units are basically just another kind of these "defenseless" units. They generally take 4 hp damage from most ranged damage. Where this gets weird, is when I have a rocket artillery than can 1-shot (10+ damage) a STR-15-ish fortified pikemen unit, while I can only do 4 pts to the unfortified workers next to them... It doesn't pass any sort of reality check. I guess they wanted these units, particularly special people, to have a certain survivability because they're so valuable. I could buy it with the SPs, but workers or settlers? Very early on, when they're crucial, maybe they should be able to take 1 hit from < 10 STR attacks. But later in the game, they're easily replaced, so high tech should blow them out of the, err, land! I believe this is controlled by the NONCOMBAT_UNIT_RANGED_DAMAGE global define, which is 4. Meaning it's currently not possible to vary it by era, or unit type, or attack strength. I'd say at a minimum raise this to 5, so they can be 2-shotted.

Oddly enough I've been testing bombers lately and sometimes they blow workers up in 1 shot, other times they do the usual 4. I'm not sure why that is.

Another issue is with ship-to-ship combat. In most eras, the ranged attack is much weaker than the strength, and naval units defend using the strength value, it means that you typically do about 2 damage to an equivalent unit per shot. This drops even lower once they become damaged! It turns sea battles into rather long pea-shooting contests where you need 5-6 ships or multiple rounds to kill anything. That in itself isn't such a bad thing, but it's in marked contrast with the land combat, where most things do around 5 damage to their equivalent unit. It also makes it difficult to protect embarked units even with adequate escorts, because it takes the escorts forever to kill the enemy, while the enemy can autokill any embarked unit it's allowed to reach. Maybe this is a good reason why they shouldn't be allowed to one-shot embarked units - even with escorts, you could then ranged 1-shot the embarked units from 2-3 tiles away!

I've also thought about giving ships a 2-tile zone of control, but that's not moddable either.

Sorry about the double post. I got distracted and forgot to add a reply to Perkus.

Anyway, can embarked units be allowed to stack with a "real" combat unit in the way that workers and generals can stack with a land unit? That would provide much more protection than trying to surround it with escorts.

 

[Txurce]

I agree. The restriction to coastal waters only is where it breaks down for Civ. Frigate->Ironclad increases strength, but drastically decreases mobility at a time when the game is generally opening up onto multiple continents.

That's all minor though. I appreciate the work you're doing on the mods. Something does need to be done, and if the demolish change doesn't work out, it can always be revised.

The costal waters limit is my problem as well. That applies only to Civil War ships. The big-picture ironclad, which we all agree was more than a blip in naval history, could sail into the deep waters. If we could adjust our ironclad to do this, I'd feel better about it having a bigger gun... although still not quite at the artillery level!

 

[Txurce]

Yes, let's discuss why (all? most?) ships can't do that. And while we're at it, let's discuss this special ranged damage immunity that non-combat units (workers, generals) have.

Agreed. I hate that embarked units can be rammed by a caravel but not instantly sunk by a destroyer. I have no problem going with the DEMOLISH function to expedite all these points.

I've also seen AI frigates shelling a coastal city down to zero, when in sufficient numbers. Sometimes the AI even thinks of sending a melee unit in to finish the job.

 

[Thalassicus]

@a barbarian
Part of the reason transports can (ironically) be harder to kill is water has no bonuses or penalties, whereas open terrain has a -25% penalty. I could add this to water tiles and give all combat ships extra defensive strength..

It'd be really cool if ships and units in forts have a 2-tile ZOC... and subs could ignore ZOC. I'll put it on my long-term todo list for when we have the full sdk.


@Perkus
Same deal with the volley and demolish promotions... included in the vs foritifed and vs cities parts of the table. One reason I left the details out is I was concerned if I say "siege units now deal 200% damage vs cities, up from 110%" people would go "omgz overpowerdz!" even though it's only a net +30%. I guess I could add the sentence back in though.


@gruven, Txurce
One thing to consider is there was a drastic variety of ships in the 1830-1890 period, more than other eras of naval warfare. There were traditional wooden ships, steam/sail hybrids of wood, floating batteries and semi-submersible full-steel ships, armor-plated wooden ships, even ships designed for ramming. Some were designed as oceangoing battleships, others were coastal anti-ship weapons, and some were coastal bombardment. The "ironclad" in the game is sort of an amalgam of everything, but not really good at anything. I think the shore battery role would fit.

One reason I feel the demolish promotion would make sense especially for Ironclads is many early armor-plated ships were built specifically for shore bombardment, such as the French and English floating batteries in the Crimean War. Not all ironclads were built like this, but it was a big enough subset the bonus seems appropriate.

Also, remember when comparing ironclad vs artillery the advantages the latter have:

• +10%
• 3 range
• Indirect fire
• Can get siege promotion
• Are useful away from coast
• Up to +45 starting xp from a military academy

 

[gruven]

One reason I feel the demolish promotion would make sense especially for Ironclads is many early armor-plated ships were built specifically for shore bombardment, such as the French and English floating batteries in the Crimean War. Not all ironclads were built like this, but it was a big enough subset the bonus seems appropriate.

That's actually a pretty cool take on it. I'd always been thinking along the lines of fitting ironclads in between frigates and destroyers for ship to ship combat.

 

[Perkus]

Part of the reason transports can (ironically) be harder to kill is water has no bonuses or penalties, whereas open terrain has a -25% penalty. I could add this to water tiles and give all combat ships extra defensive strength..

That seems like overkill for a small problem. I'd rather raise NONCOMBAT_UNIT_RANGED_DAMAGE if it actually affects embarked, as I suspect it does. That would also reduce the same problem on land, as I tried to point out.

 

[clearbeard]

That seems like overkill for a small problem. I'd rather raise NONCOMBAT_UNIT_RANGED_DAMAGE if it actually affects embarked, as I suspect it does. That would also reduce the same problem on land, as I tried to point out.

But then I would lose all those juicy worker xp farms for my 2-shot ships, after all the nearby coastal cities are reduced!

Personally, as long as we can't stack an embarked unit (effectively a non-combat unit) with a combat ship, I'd leave the ranged damage limit alone. I rationalize the current state as the difference between a ship's long guns firing at a small, moving target some distance away versus closing to point blank and opening up with all batteries (or ramming, in the case of triremes). A little goofy, but with naval escort difficult at best (and completely impossible for the AI), it still strikes me as the best of poor options.

While on the topic of bombardment, another thing I'd like to see is for naval guns (or artillery, or at least aircraft, for that matter) to be able to pillage roads and improvements. Probably needs SDK support, if it's even plausible then, but not being able to use my stealth bombers to take out a strategic uranium mine or chokepoint road rankles a bit.

 

[Armandeus]

"Iron
Bronze Working reveals Iron."

I disagree with this change.

First, I think the other resources are revealed with the same tech that allows you to place improvements and/or make units requiring the resource, but in this case you can find iron, mine it, but have no use for it for many turns until you finish the required research.

Second, on top of the fact that the Civilopedia entry and tech tooltip are not updated for this change, I don't see how learning to work bronze allows you to find and utilize iron ore. It doesn't seem to make sense.

I know I can edit the change out myself, but I think there should be a discussion about this change.

If making iron appear earlier in the game is the purpose of the change, why not alter the tech tree or make bronze working and iron working cheaper to research instead?

 

[Txurce]

Armandeus,

My understanding is that the change was made to make swordsmen as viable as horsemen, because the investment in whether you have iron isn't significantly different than the one in which you find out you have horses.

I agree that it seems odd to find it in bronzeworking, but it makes more sense there than anywhere else. Keep in mind that most techs are about more than one thing. And from a realistic perspective, I see it as there's iron, I can mine it, but I have yet to learn how to make battle-worthy weaponry out of it. Like a sword or, later, a catapult.

 

[MouseyPounds]

First, I think the other resources are revealed with the same tech that allows you to place improvements and/or make units requiring the resource, but in this case you can find iron, mine it, but have no use for it for many turns until you finish the required research.

In the unmodified game:

• Horses are revealed by Animal Husbandry. The first unit which uses them is available with the Wheel.
• Iron is revealed by Iron Working and that is also when the first iron-based units are available.
• Coal is revealed by Scientific Theory. The first (and only) unit which uses it is available at Steam Power.
• Oil is revealed by Biology. The first units which use it are available at Combustion, Telegraph, and Flight.
• Aluminum is revealed by Electricity. The first units which use it are available at Computers, Rocketry, and Lasers.
• Uranium is revealed by Atomic Theory. The first unit which uses it is available at Nuclear Fission.

Thus Iron is the only strategic resource that is immediately usable upon reveal; everything else is indeed able to be improved before it can actually be used. Changing the reveal tech to Bronze Working brings Iron in line with the others and gives some time to scout out and acquire it before you need it. While Bronze Working may not make the most sense from a realism standpoint, it fits best in terms of the tech tree for an early reveal since it is the Iron Working prereq.