[GS] Concept: Naval Unit rebalance

[Sostratus]

Haven't found it in a quick search in "civilizations.xml", but "barbarians.xml" specifies barbarian force composition - the culprit might be in there as well.

If you guys find where barb units are defined (where i would update to insert a barb quad over the normal one) I would be appreciative.

The problem with moving naval raid is that norway and the ottomans have UUs built on it, and as nice a boost to naval melee as that would be, I don't want to start digging into that level of muck just yet.
I can see an opening to give naval raiders a class attribute attacking bonus vs naval ranged, though - if ranged proves too deadly to melee.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

I understand why they want sea barbs to be able to threaten land units, but it's just so annoying that early when shipbuilding is actually somewhat into the tech tree, and quads wreck galleys. I should be able to add barb quads, though. Man I hate barb quads.

So just change the BarbarianFree column to false for Shipbuilding. Then they won't be able to build Quads until at least half of the Civs have researched it.

Haven't found it in a quick search in "civilizations.xml", but "barbarians.xml" specifies barbarian force composition - the culprit might be in there as well.

Not sure what you mean. What culprit?

If you guys find where barb units are defined (where i would update to insert a barb quad over the normal one) I would be appreciative.

What are you trying to accomplish here? Do you want a separate Barb Quad unit? For that you'd have to define an entirely new unit reusing existing assets.

 

[Sostratus]

So just change the BarbarianFree column to false for Shipbuilding. Then they won't be able to build Quads until at least half of the Civs have researched it.

Ah, of course. The column in front of my own eyes. Thank you!

What are you trying to accomplish here? Do you want a separate Barb Quad unit? For that you'd have to define an entirely new unit reusing existing assets.

Yes, similar to how barbs have the barbarian horseman that turns into the regular horseman at horseback riding. I have done a new unit+recycled art assets successfully before, so that's no issue. But the three barb units - horseman, horse archer, and galley- only seem to be distinguished from normal units by TRAIT_BARBARIAN. But I'm not sure if they'll just auto upgrade like horses or if they need an extra little thing. Was more looking to see if anyone knew offhand. I'll have to test it.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

As said already, Barbarians/Pirates shouldn't be floating about in Quadiremes at all. Their early ship should be a Galley (originally single-banked like the Pentekonter, later in Classical times usually a bireme derivative similar to the Roman Liburnian .
As long as you are 'adding' Barbarian shipping, I suggest something like:
Barbarian Galley - available from the start
Barbarian Liburnian - Classical Era, Melee, +1 Speed over regular Galleys or Quadiremes, but lower Combat Factor - these can savage Trade Routes and pillage coastal resources, but can't stand up well to 'regular' navies.
Barbarian Privateer - Renaissance Era, a lowering of Combat Factors from 'regular Privateers might be in order, and ability to pillage land tiles next to the coast would be appropriate.

 

[Sostratus]

Barbarian Galley - available from the start

They do indeed have such a ship from the start, it's just heavily slanted towards producing quads.
I would like to make a true barb privateer and call it the "Pirate Ship"
But my motivation for this addition of a barb quad- the Simple Unit Balance mod- is to make sure I can adjust quads to a proper classical standard but not completely screw people over with the barb ships. If barbs can't spawn any kind of ranged ship right away, then you've only got to keep your feet dry and you're safe (I suspect this is why they gave them shipbuilding for free- to threaten you.) And I'm not trying to go too crazy with mega changes yet. I just do not know what to do with these early ships without resorting to the strength upgrade for galleys. Why, why did they exclude galleasses?!

 

[AsH2]

They do indeed have such a ship from the start, it's just heavily slanted towards producing quads.
I would like to make a true barb privateer and call it the "Pirate Ship"

Perhaps let the Sea dogs out of royal duty..

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

They do indeed have such a ship from the start, it's just heavily slanted towards producing quads.
I would like to make a true barb privateer and call it the "Pirate Ship"
But my motivation for this addition of a barb quad- the Simple Unit Balance mod- is to make sure I can adjust quads to a proper classical standard but not completely screw people over with the barb ships. If barbs can't spawn any kind of ranged ship right away, then you've only got to keep your feet dry and you're safe (I suspect this is why they gave them shipbuilding for free- to threaten you.) And I'm not trying to go too crazy with mega changes yet. I just do not know what to do with these early ships without resorting to the strength upgrade for galleys. Why, why did they exclude galleasses?!

Here you've hit on the basic problem with all Barbarians in Civ VI, especially in the early game: they are 'upgraded' in various ways to compensate for the fact that the AI-led Civilizations are no challenge. Rather than put the time and effort into upgrading the AI (which, admittedly, is by the evidence of numerous games is Not Easy) they allow early Barbarians to spawn repeated camps, repeated units, and 'future' units like Horsemen and Quadiremes before any regular Civilization is able to.

A legitimate 'Barbarian Naval Threat" would be Barbarian Galleys, but with the ability to Pillage land tiles on the coast, representing the real threat from piracy in the Classical and Medieval Eras (and as far as we know in the Ancient Era, but there are no direct accounts to confirm). To compensate the Cus that have that 'unique' privilege now, give them an enhanced ability or some other compensate if everyone thinks it's necessary. I don't happen to think so: Vikings, Sea Beggars, and general Privateers for that matter, were simply Authorized Pirates and should have facts and abilities comparable to 'regular' pirates.

 

[Tomice]

The problem with moving naval raid is that norway and the ottomans have UUs built on it, and as nice a boost to naval melee as that would be, I don't want to start digging into that level of muck just yet.
I can see an opening to give naval raiders a class attribute attacking bonus vs naval ranged, though - if ranged proves too deadly to melee.

Not that much muck, actually.

• Give the naval melee line the naval raid ability.
• Remove naval raid from submarines, but keep it on the privateer (where it fits thematically/historically).
• Rename naval raiders "naval skirmishers"
• Instead of the "more gold from raiding" promotion, give naval skirmishers a "combat bonus vs naval ranged" promotion.

• The Ottoman Barbary corsair stays unaffected, because its base unit can still raid.
• Norway might deserve a buff, now that we basically gave their UA to anyone. Luckily, their "heal anywhere" bonus was awkward in practical use, because it only worked on melee ships. Giving all Norwegian naval units "heal anywhere" would work more elegantly.

This would also help you to make barbarian galleys dangerous after you remove the free shipbuilding tech from Barbs. They could not only pillage improvements, but also raid districts.
No free shipbuilding for Barbs would, in turn, allow you to give Quadremes 2 range, which would make them way more formidable against cities.

 

[Sostratus]

Instead of the "more gold from raiding" promotion, give naval skirmishers a "combat bonus vs naval ranged" promotion.

This is something I have been strongly considering. Since subs are invisible, you could scoot around, poke at some shore targets, get the promo and then go after the big capital ships. Edit: forgot to mention the aspiring pirate lord can also just slot victor, since his free promotion ability applies to ships too.
One issue is that homing torpedoes is a tier 2 promotion, so I am thinking about doing something like
T1: Loot/Boarding combined into 1 promo,
New promotion ( @Boris Gudenuf can you think on an appropriate name here? Perhaps some kind of submarine tactic?) that is +7 vs naval units generally.

T2: Swift keel as is, Homing torpedoes becomes +10 attack vs naval ranged only

This new promotion would counter naval melee and naval ranged having a +7 v naval as a t1 promotion, and homing torpedoes would be a very specialized ability to kill those capital ships. Having both would effectively give the sub double attack power. However it avoids making them too durable against enemy melee ships, or being spotted.

In v1.1 I'm going to update the naval units strength /move/cost #, and then I think I'm going to do a second mod (medium unit balance) that touches promotions etc- for more than just naval units. LOOKING AT YOU ANTICAV. but that will get its own discussion thread.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

This is something I have been strongly considering. Since subs are invisible, you could scoot around, poke at some shore targets, get the promo and then go after the big capital ships. Edit: forgot to mention the aspiring pirate lord can also just slot victor, since his free promotion ability applies to ships too.
One issue is that homing torpedoes is a tier 2 promotion, so I am thinking about doing something like
T1: Loot/Boarding combined into 1 promo,
New promotion ( @Boris Gudenuf can you think on an appropriate name here? Perhaps some kind of submarine tactic?) that is +7 vs naval units generally.

"Deep Running Torpedos"
Staring in the late 1920s and early 1930s, so earlier than "Homing Torpedos", the British, German and American navies all began developing torpedos designed to run under ships and explode to break their keels, doing crippling damage to even heavily-armored vessels like Battleships. They all had a bunch of problems with the mechanisms for this, so there are still a lot of naval people and historians who will argue that they were a failure. That overlooks the fact that once the problems were worked out, after 1942, even a single torpedo hit could cause crippling damage, and some of those torpedos remained in service until the 1970s!

 

[AsH2]

..
A legitimate 'Barbarian Naval Threat" would be Barbarian Galleys, but with the ability to Pillage land tiles on the coast, representing the real threat from piracy in the Classical and Medieval Eras (and as far as we know in the Ancient Era, but there are no direct accounts to confirm).
..

Sea Peoples seems to have been a real threat in eastern Mediterranean as the Greek Dark Ages and the general (Late) Bronze Age Collapse begun.

 

[Mik1984]

One of the uses of Galley is that they have zone of control on Frigates. In MP it's best to keep some cheap Galley around to trap attacking ships so they can be killed by your own frigates or crossbows.

No one is that stupid, this trap wouldn't ever work against a competent player, because if you do naval attack, you move in force, there is no way you can "Trap" a single ship with a cheap galley and make it your gameplan. When naval attack begins, an entire formation of ships moves into range and shoots. The enemy can take out a target or two per turn, if they focus fire, but they cannot destroy the entire naval strike force, that especially can also act as cover for land units moving into the same tiles.

It is incredibly more easily logistically to move an entire naval strike force + embarked land units at a single turn to move into the attack position, than doing the same over land with various movement cost obstacles.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Sea Peoples seems to have been a real threat in eastern Mediterranean as the Greek Dark Ages and the general (Late) Bronze Age Collapse begun.

In the context of this Thread, Sea Peoples are definitely a factor, but the 'End of theBbronze Age Civilizations' (well, most of them) around 1600 - 1400 BCE had a number of factors to it, which are still being debated. There were two massive volcanic eruptions in 1610 and 1500 BCE in Thera (north of Crete) and Etna (Sicily), respectively, the first of which contributed to the decline of the Minoan Civilization and the second may have crippled the Myceneans in turn. And in addition to the Sea Peoples, the Cimmerians (the first of the pastoral horse-riding people) were raiding the Hittites and Mitanni and there was a general movement of people off the Eurasian Steppe, possibly driven by a climate change that dried out some of the best grasslands (the debate is on-going about that). A "Perfect Storm" of problems that hit all within the same general time period, if you will.

But the impact of Pirates/Sea Barbarians is visible several times in history: the Vikings are probably the best known example: along with the mounted Magyar raids from the east they did a lot to encourage the growth of castled knights all over western Europe. The pirates on the China coast got strong enough to become a separate political power at one point (there was, in fact, a Civ 5 Mod for them as a separate Civilization!), while 'piracy' (slave raiding) was a major part of the environment of southeast Asia: Sea Barbarians were endemic throughout Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, where they probably had more impact than the more-famous Caribbean Pirates of the late 17th century.

All of which brings up another Factor concerning Sea Barbarians: unless combined with support from a Major Power, as in the Privateer licenses to the Caribbean pirates, or part of a general Movement of peoples, as in the Sea Peoples, or taking advantage of a serious weakness at sea among the Major Powers (the Vikings, China and Southeast Asian 'Pirates'), Pirates were at best a nuisance, and if they got too obstreperous, they could and were wiped out or seriously curtailed by any half-strong Land Power who decided to go to sea. Examples: Pompey's campaign against the Mediterranean pirates that stamped them out in just a couple of years once Rome turned its attention on them or the British effectively wiping out the Indonesian/Philippine pirates - the latter carried out by a tiny fraction of the Royal Navy that didn't include any warship large enough to ever be included in a Civ game!

 

[The googles do nothing]

The enemy can take out a target or two per turn, if they focus fire,

That's my point. Good luck with your Sicilian expedition.

 

[Mik1984]

That's my point. Good luck with your Sicilian expedition.

It doesn't need luck, once you move in force with guns blazing, you deal massive damage each turn and you need to be facing ridiculous ground resistance for it to be any effective, and most likely it will not be. Even if that is the case, all you do is attack a different coastal city. you can easily target a different city, they cannot move their land units.

 

[Sostratus]

once you move in force with guns blazing,

I'm assuming that this presumes you've already destroyed their surface fleet.
And the city has to be sitting directly on the coast, otherwise your navy cannot take it and you'll need to land troops- a sad downside of the harbor being a district now.
I have a mind to balance the navy around the role of first having to destroy an enemy navy before moving to coastal bombardment.
I know the AI is like, somalian pirate tier competent at being an admiral, but still. It matters to me.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

It doesn't need luck, once you move in force with guns blazing, you deal massive damage each turn and you need to be facing ridiculous ground resistance for it to be any effective, and most likely it will not be. Even if that is the case, all you do is attack a different coastal city. you can easily target a different city, they cannot move their land units.

They can, however, move Aircraft.
Ever wonder why the superior Royal Navy didn't "move in force with guns blazing" at any time between 1914 - 1918 and 1939 - 1945 against Bremen, Bremerhaven or Luebeck on the German coast?
Torpedos, Mines, and Aircraft - including torpedos and mines dropped by Aircraft.

We don't have mines in the game, but we do have torpedos (Submarines) and Aircraft, and they can defend a coast quite effectively against a surface-only fleet

No question, a good strong fleet gives you lots of offensive options, but as @Sostratus points out, it is only marginally effective, and then only in support firing, against a city not actually on the coast, and the Civ game is set up such that nothing built on land is of any importance compared to the City.
Meanwhile, the 20th century counters to the Battlefleet, the submarine and aircraft, provide an 'asymmetrical' response to the fleet requiring much less Production and resources to build. This is one of the few things Civ VI got mostly right in Units.