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

[snoochems]

I've had the same stupid issue. Stealth Bomber vs Frigate. Didn't even take it to half health, and even more surprisingly, the Frigate hit my Steath bomber with it's catapult.

 

[Doctor Phibes]

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

A good justification here is that closing the range allows your secondary armament to come into play. Given that this was a feature of heavy naval units designed specifically to engage lighter units - destroyers and torpedo boats mainly, but I'd put caravels in that category too - historically sound enough.

(Mind you. It's a little odd that secondary 5.5" guns can't reach the caravel, but their arrows can reach you...)

 

[Aneurism]

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.

Brilliant thought. If this actually becomes a popular human player tactic, then there will be no doubt that a naval balance adjustment is in order.

 

[Aneurism]

I've had the same stupid issue. Stealth Bomber vs Frigate. Didn't even take it to half health, and even more surprisingly, the Frigate hit my Steath bomber with it's catapult.

The same thing happened to me, after my crazy naval exchange with Captain McCheesey Pants of the English, I went to war with the Arabs and French with nothing but stealth bombers, and paratroopers just to try out the tactic. I didnt really have an issue with the catapulting of my stealth bombers, I dont think it even touched them, but the graphic was certainly hilarious.

I have to say paratroopers are pretty huge now that they can be launched from any friendly territory and not just in a city. I just bombed a city a couple times with a stealth bomber, surrounded with paratroopers, and that was my new base of operations for the next jump after capturing the city. Rinse & repeat.

 

[Aneurism]

Hmnn. I've only played V a couple of times when a friend wanted to show it to me. I don't think it's a matter of quantity of ships, but more along the lines of quality and accuracy. I mean, it's not like there isn't plenty of info for the devs to gain access to. The OP's case is a prime example of what i'm talking about. From his post, i'm guessing he was doing a his version of a screen/escort BG ( sorry, means Battle Group. lol, reflex happens). Now, with his forces arrayed like they were, he would have an overlapping radar zone. With modern naval warfare tactics such as they are, precision NGF would commence as soon as he pinged hostile. With the nav forces arrayed, the caravel would have been toast before even breaking the ten mile marker. Even if it had somehow manged to break that plane, a DD can top 30 knots and continue to fire accurately while doing it. ROF for a Spruance class DDG on a 5"/54 is between 30-45 rounds a min. Our best ROF on our ship was 51, and we managed to sustain that for 4 min before we had to slow down because the fwd gun was beginning to over heat.
Sorry, lol, long winded there.
Back OT; IMO, I just think they need to realise that there is a huge potential out there for for your avg Joe Strat gamer. I understand wanting to streamline a game and make it available to all gamers ( not to mention rake in a huge profit as well), but for those of us who actually get into the full aspects of "Empire Building", we kinda like to want things as close to perfect as possible.

EXACTLY!!!

 

[scratchthepitch]

I've had the same stupid issue. Stealth Bomber vs Frigate. Didn't even take it to half health, and even more surprisingly, the Frigate hit my Steath bomber with it's catapult.

That IS funny.

That absurdity was a problem with Civ1 and with every later Civ version. One would think the developers would have corrected it by now. Civ modders have.

 

[Becephalus]

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?

Its not one ship, it is a group of ships, and not all of them are sunk. We regularly patrol the coast of Somalia today and they still takes ships. ***t happens.

 

[MadRat]

Its not one ship, it is a group of ships, and not all of them are sunk. We regularly patrol the coast of Somalia today and they still takes ships. ***t happens.

They take unarmed merchant vessels not warships.

Even a military convoy or merchantman would be armed during wartime. Historically troops were transported on warships; it is only in the past century or so has the civilian merchant marine used more extensively.

Rat

 

[Becephalus]

Rat this is a game that at times has a turn be hundreds of years. It is very abstract and you don't need to be so literal. They are just numbers moving around.

For example...even in the late game your Navy can only move a couple hundred miles in a year. This is plainly ridiculous if you think the units represent actual ships.

OMG WTH the game is broken!

The game is not broken it is just a game.

 

[Thormodr]

Rat this is a game that at times has a turn be hundreds of years. It is very abstract and you don't need to be so literal. They are just numbers moving around.

For example...even in the late game your Navy can only move a couple hundred miles in a year. This is plainly ridiculous if you think the units represent actual ships.

OMG WTH the game is broken!

The game is not broken it is just a game.

It's just a game that makes you suspend belief to some extent. We understand that. Units aren't to scale and it does take years to cross the Pacific ocean. That's fine.

However, having a caravel damage your stealth bomber is extremely stupid and in all likelihood impossible.

At least make the attempt to be plausible in an aspect they can easily control.

 

[Sock Bramson]

Someone earlier in the post said something about embarked units taking less damage from ranged attacks. In my experience, the exact opposite is the case, especially with city-attacks. For example, China was trying to sneak a rifleman across the Black Sea in a game I have going as Arabia. Normally, my cities do 2 dmg AT MOST to riflemen on land, but were doing 4 dmg to this guy while he was embarked. I also had a camel archer nearby with only one or two upgrades. He normally did 2 dmg, 3 if he was lucky, but I believe he did 5 dmg in this case. (maybe even six; can't remember if I killed that rifleman in one turn or two)

Of course, it's always easier to keep a naval unit around to insta-sink the AI's ever ungaurded units.

P.S. Camel Archers are way too much fun to use, especially if you get the blitz promotion on one. I carved a path through China's holdings in Cental Asia/ Eastern Russia with an army of three CAs, a Cannon, a Rifleman, and a Cavalry. My three CAs could usually take down even Infantry if they could all attack that turn; blitz made it happen every time.

 

[Sock Bramson]

Gah, double post ftl.

 

[Alki]

Could a caravel's commander have used guile or cunning to slip past a destroyer in the dead of the night or during a storm? Could they have clambered aboard the transport ship and slit the guard's throats? It sounds far fetched, but possible. Just as a caravel surviving the initial bombardment is far-fetched but surely possible. It's not as if ever combat encounter throws up these results. I've not seen anything like that so can assume it isn't common.

Does the OP even have radar yet?

 

[ChrisRoed]

What do caravels upgrade to?

destroyers, which btw makes no sense either

i never liked naval combat in any of the previous civ games, it always felt like to be too simplified to matter. now, you can actually bombard (and kill) from a range, which is a huge upgrade if you ask me. but, as with most changes, there are some problems with the fact that naval units are ranged ONLY, namely that you cant do some sort of melee combat with them.
close combat with ships happens, even today, and should be possible. make it a risk vs reward matter, prefer to bombard with no risk or all out attack for more damage but with risk of retaliation - sounds logical to me.
long range bombarding a small vessel might not sink it it, but actually sailing up alongside it and delivering a broadside should be fatal IMO.
and small vessels should include embarked units, since they are NOT civilian cruise ships, but rather troop transports with some ability to defend themselves...

 

[MadRat]

Rat this is a game that at times has a turn be hundreds of years. It is very abstract and you don't need to be so literal. They are just numbers moving around.

For example...even in the late game your Navy can only move a couple hundred miles in a year. This is plainly ridiculous if you think the units represent actual ships.

OMG WTH the game is broken!

The game is not broken it is just a game.

Lack of context and high horsemanship ftl. I was merely refuting the command about somali pirates used in my quoted poster's analogy.

As I stated earlier (and also in another thread) it isnt about historicity it is about game mechanics. When you have low tech units that are almost as tough as high tech units - why bother with the latter. Secondly the damage was too low leading to 10 turn naval battle, Both make for poor gameplay mechanics.

Rat

 

[gunter]

That's a bug that needs a severe fix.

Once one of my promoted Destroyers took 40 turns to kill a Frigate. Ridiculous indeed.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

IF we could just make it so that ranged combat between ranged units was simultaneous like melee then tweaked the strength for all the ships, we could make naval combat take one to two turns without making it a "He who fires first wins." situation.

Its not one ship, it is a group of ships, and not all of them are sunk. We regularly patrol the coast of Somalia today and they still takes ships. ***t happens.

In large part we don't fight the Somali pirate effectively. Imagine it's an area full of barb encampments. Answer bomb the living heck out of it. It's basically how I respond to losing a worker to barbs or having a city razed by barbs: "Oh no you didn't!" any time the pirates take a ship I don't want to see so much as an INTER-TUBE on that coast. /rant

 

[dalowrider]

I have the answer!!!!!!!!!!!!


Just auto-give all steel crafts promotions against "wooden crafts"

+50% or something would do i think

 

[dalowrider]

Also I think its worth mentioning the Melee idea would be awesome for ships aswell

Though one time i had a bug when I tried moving a destroyer to an enemy caravel with 1 or 2 hp, no animation played but it took the spot and the caravel was never seen again, bug perhaps?

 

[Alki]

Melee is exactly how Horatio defeated the French and Spanish fleets. In about them lads.