Caravel survives 2 battleships and a destroyer, sinks escorted armour.

[ZXTT]

Why should I have to take it as designed, if the design is flawed? And it is flawed.

Yet they've stuck with this concept from Civ 1 on (Spearman vs Battleship). Clearly the designers intend for this to be the case, probably because they realize the game is an abstraction and that it would be silly from a game point of view for units above a certain level to *always* win against other units.

For a game like this, the units are designed to be recognizable because that adds flavor and makes the game easier to relate to. Civ has never been intended as an accurate combat simulator, as far as I can tell.

 

[Drakarska]

Yet they've stuck with this concept from Civ 1 on (Spearman vs Battleship). Clearly the designers intend for this to be the case, probably because they realize the game is an abstraction and that it would be silly from a game point of view for units above a certain level to *always* win against other units.

For a game like this, the units are designed to be recognizable because that adds flavor and makes the game easier to relate to. Civ has never been intended as an accurate combat simulator, as far as I can tell.

Ok, fair enough. But according to your point of view, correct? So let me ask you this Sir; Have you played any of the mods that I have mentioned? If so, have you compared the naval aspects of those mods to vanilla? Do you honestly believe that something approaching at least the attempt of accuracy in a strat game is to be considered silly?
I'm not asking for a combat simulator in CiV. But some attempt at accuracy and an appropriate sembalance of commen sense would be a pleasent surprise.

 

[ZXTT]

I'm not asking for a combat simulator in CiV. But some attempt at accuracy and an appropriate sembalance of commen sense would be a pleasent surprise.

The way I look at it, this is a design trade-off. You want your units to have certain attributes, and then you slap on a historical unit type to add flavor, so you don't have Warship Level 2 and Warship Level 3. You also don't really want risk-free war, so weaker units can still bite stronger units. Adding more units just to make things seem more realistic because of the flavor doesn't strike me as good design for this type of game, where I'm not sure most of the players are into those details anyway (not necessarily most around here, of course).

That's not say that there aren't balance issues with naval combat and protecting troops and that adding more units wouldn't help - I don't know at this point. I personally don't need them just to make up for a the thought of a caravel winning on the odd occasion.

 

[lynxxyarly]

Something I've noticed that is strange is that If you send an embarked unit out, the enemy caravels destroy it in one hit. However, there has been many a time I've caught enemy embarked units across multiple games and have shot at them with anything from destroyers and less and it takes like 2 turns MINIMUM to destroy their embarked units. What is up with that?

Barbarian caravels or triremes are killing my embarked units in 1 hit while I have to sit there and constantly blast enemy embarked units for a couple turns and then they still might get away. zzzzzzz

 

[mrt144]

When I see someone prepared to write a mod to improve the game, I look on it as a success story and can't help but smile.

This isn't improving, this is fixing.

 

[Zaelen]

The fact that naval bombardment isnt open to return fire is what breaks naval engagements. My battleship should be able to fire back at your battleship, even if they're several units from each other.

 

[drachasor]

The fact that naval bombardment isnt open to return fire is what breaks naval engagements. My battleship should be able to fire back at your battleship, even if they're several units from each other.

All ranged units should be able to defend from ranged attack, and some non-ranged units too (like riflemen), though perhaps ranged attacks need to be divided into different categories with regards to return fire.

 

[Thrax73]

I was not a fan of one hit kills by naval units in Civ4. I am glad ships have to slug it out or overwhelm with superior numbers. As to the OP I reckon you could say the caravel only suffered glancing blows(totally cheesy I know)and managed to score a brilliant hit upon the ammunition stores aboard the transport. That sounds almost likely given its the British Navy were talking about.

Knowing that Elizabeth almost always tries for Great Lighthouse its always wise to assume the worst when engaging the British on the high seas.

 

[MadRat]

I think naval units should be allowed to "melee". Then the Destroyer could just destroy the antiquated Caravel in one hit, instead of bombarding it for only 4-5 damage

This is the best solution I think. Naval units should have a melee ability to "go to the decks" and keep ranged as is for bombardment and standoffs. In essence you can have those battleships and destroyers range hit the caravel from miles off, and the little nimble ship dodges a few salvos, but then the commander of the Yamato or Bismarck - says that's enough and closes in to kill range - BUT in the process does come under fire so loses a few HP (as in land battles).

The other option is having tech level differences between the 2 vessels act as damage mod - say 2x-4x. So 2 Ships of the line wont have any advantage but when a SoL vs a trireme or caravel the odds are the older ships would get sunk.

Overall naval battles are just not very conclusive and allow for canards like building a fleet of caravels to protect your shores JUST to sink transports or distract defenders - you never have to worry about building a modern fleet.

Rat

 

[logintime]

Realistically, they should be adjusting the combat system so certain units (e.g., tanks or destroyers) take absolutely no damage from certain units (e.g., horsemen or caravels). Even with the current system, we're seeing anacronous results.

 

[mrt144]

SMAC had a great way of dealing with this problem by including reactor types. SMAC, so ahead of its time with design concept.

 

[MadRat]

I was not a fan of one hit kills by naval units in Civ4. I am glad ships have to slug it out or overwhelm with superior numbers. As to the OP I reckon you could say the caravel only suffered glancing blows(totally cheesy I know)and managed to score a brilliant hit upon the ammunition stores aboard the transport. That sounds almost likely given its the British Navy were talking about.

Knowing that Elizabeth almost always tries for Great Lighthouse its always wise to assume the worst when engaging the British on the high seas.

I think that takes it a bit too far. In some situations one shots should be able to happen. Perhaps if they made combat a bit more random whereby the possibility of evasion occurs or a glancing blow occurring but as the tech level increases the likelihood gets lower

Example:
Battleship vs Caravel
Battleship has a 80% to crit 10% to land a glancing blow 10% miss
Caravel as a 80% chance to miss 10% chance to land glancing blow 10% chance for a Hail mary

Ship of the Line Vs Ship of the line
Both have 25% critical to hit , 50% chance for a glancing blow 25% chance to miss

Trireme vs Destroyer
Destroyer has a 90% chance to crit 5% glancing blow and 5% miss
Triemere has 95% miss chnace 4% glancing blow and 1% hail mary

In essence the tech difference woudl affect the amount of damage that the two ships will do to each other where critical = 2x max damage, glancing blow 10-99% max damage.

Rat

 

[Zechnophobe]

Ugh, no Critical Hits please. It just isn't a fun mechanic.

Honestly, all this discussion, but I think the answer is to just adjust the strength of a few units, and call it done, right? The reason ships take long to kill each other is that their ranged strength is lower than their actual strength. But the 'insta-kill' range of strength doesn't kick in at the correct gaps because of it. (Tech gaps, that is). Make destroyers a little stronger with ranged attacks, and caravels a little weaker with their strength, and I think we are golden.


Hmm, another interesting option is to have it so that ranged damage is reduced by the targets ranged attack, instead of it's melee attack (if it has one). This way archer's wouldn't kill each other quite so fast.

 

[SirMaru]

Now you know how our modern US army feels when feudal folks on camels BEAT US.

BLOL.

 

[Becephalus]

It is an abstraction. A battleship era caravel is not a caravel. It is like somali pirates.

Naval combat is fine. Now if only the AI knew how to participate in it

 

[Warspite2]

I was playing as the Siam in a war against the English on Warlord difficulty. In the battle (land and sea) I had destroyers, battleships, modern armour, and mechanized infantry. England had Caravels, crossbowman and longbowman. This was an archipelago map. My strategy was to smash the cities with naval bombardment and then take them quickly with tanks. All of my embarked units were escorted by multiple warships. So in the entire sea battle I encountered 1 Caravel as opposition. I range attacked it with 1 battleship and 1 destroyer. I was astounded that this only took the caravel down to half hit points! So I took my last battleship in the area and attacked it directly. This brought the Caravel down to about 10% hit points!! The next round the caravel proceeded to sink an embarked modern armour... All I can say is this is Civ1 warrior killing battleships all over again

How in the hell does it make any sense that a caravel could survive 3 attacks from modern warships? Secondly does it even make any sense that a caravel could sink a modern 50,000 ton towering steel transport? The modern transport would just run it over like so much flotsam. A caravel should not even survive 2 frigates let alone a modern navy.

Also the embarked units need to be reworked. It makes sense that an unguarded transport is completely vulnerable to warship from its own era but its a bit much to imagine a modern transport having any vulnerability to a caravel.

I think embarked units need to have a low defense points that go up with each passing era or each key naval technology. There would be just enough hit points to reasonably defend against hopelessly obsolete war ships, but still few enough that a contemporary warship would kill it like a hot knife through butter.

Hey can I have the name of that Caravel so I can add it to the history books? I doubt that will happen too much. I had a single Destroyer put down several (I even lost count) AI wooden ships. Caravels, Frigates, you name it and the pass was turned into a watery grave. When my Battleship got out there, it was nearly unbeatable. I agree that what you experienced should NEVER happen but since it did, I want to know who the Caravel Capt was and the name of his beloved vessel.

 

[cembandit]

Modern units vs old units in naval combat is messed up right now, there is really no defense for it.

 

[Valdyr]

It is an abstraction. A battleship era caravel is not a caravel. It is like somali pirates.

Naval combat is fine. Now if only the AI knew how to participate in it

So you see nothing wrong with some unemployed Somalian dudes on inflatable boats with dusty old Soviet bloc gear surviving being shelled by a modern warship, or actually sinking it?

 

[Aneurism]

Hey can I have the name of that Caravel so I can add it to the history books? I doubt that will happen too much. I had a single Destroyer put down several (I even lost count) AI wooden ships. Caravels, Frigates, you name it and the pass was turned into a watery grave. When my Battleship got out there, it was nearly unbeatable. I agree that what you experienced should NEVER happen but since it did, I want to know who the Caravel Capt was and the name of his beloved vessel.

Yes, it was Captain "longshot" McCheese!

 

[Aneurism]

It is an abstraction. A battleship era caravel is not a caravel. It is like somali pirates.

Naval combat is fine. Now if only the AI knew how to participate in it

This explanation helps me sleep better at night!