Feedback: Units

[Xyth]

I'm away camping at the moment with only sporadic internet via my phone. I dont have the details with me so I'll post a list/rationale of how all the relevant units are looking when I get back in a couple days.

 

[Xyth]

Bah, just realized I forgot to return to this thread when I got back from camping. Sorry. Bumping so I remember for later.

 

[Howard Mahler]

In version 1.9.6:
Galleas has 25% coastal defense rather than a coastal attack bonus.
Ironclad and Torpedo Boat revised strength.
Also Pirate is added. strength 3, move 3, requires navigation.

Updating my suggestions for changes:

Galleas: Get rid of the plus for coastal defense. Strength 7.

Ironclad: Strength 17. +50% versus Ship of the Line, Frigate, Privateer.
(if it can be handled, +50% against all wooden ships.)

Torpedo Boat: Get rid of the plus for coastal attack. Strength 20.

Privateer: Strength 8.
Frigate: Strength 10.
Ship of the Line: Strength 14.

Destroyer: Make +50% versus Torpedo Boat, Sub, Attack Sub, rather than just +50% on attack.

Pirate: Starts with Flanking One promotion, to give it a little edge when attacking.
(Pirate is faster than a Trimene and weaker than a Dromon. Given that Pirate is in the same Tech column as the Dromon, I think it could use a small bonus.)

Here are my proposed set of changes to the 0.9.5 Naval Units.
Unless stated otherwise, things stay the same:

Galleas: Get rid of the plus for coastal attack. Strength 7 rather then 8.

Privateer: Strength 8 rather than 10.
Frigate: Strength 10 rather than 12.
Ship of the Line: Strength 14 instead of 15.

Ironclad: Strength 17 instead of 18. +50% versus Ship of the Line, Frigate, Privateer.
(if it can be handled, +50% against all wooden ships.)

Torpedo Boat: Get rid of the plus for coastal attack. Strength 20 rather then 16.

Destroyer: Make +50% versus Torpedo Boat, Sub, Attack Sub, rather than just +50% on attack.

 

[Howard Mahler]

I tried them out and had some fun with Pirates.
As stated previously, I think Pirates could use a small improvement.
I suggested starting with Flanking I.

A possible alternative is a new national wonder, "Pirate's Cove."
Pirates or Privateers built in this city would get some bonus, such as a free Combat 1 or Flanking 1 promotion. Perhaps Pirates or Privateers would heal faster in this city.

Might want some requirement such as a Harbor and Lighthouse in the coastal city.

Assuming it has some merit, this idea could use some work and suggestions.

P.S. Yes I am aware it would be unrealistic to not allow other Civs to attack the city where the Pirate's Cove was located. We could assume it was hidden in the same space, 50 to 100 miles away from the city. I do not think it would be a good game mechanism or worthwhile to allow them to be built as are forts.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Actually, it wasn't unusual for privateers to enjoy basing rights in friendly ports- look at Elizabeth; two thirds of the fleet she sent to fight the Spanish Armada were private contractors with letters of marque, sailing out of English ports.

 

[Xyth]

Galleas: Get rid of the plus for coastal defense. Strength 7.
Privateer: Strength 8.
Frigate: Strength 10.
Ship of the Line: Strength 14.
Ironclad: Strength 17. +50% versus Ship of the Line, Frigate, Privateer.
(if it can be handled, +50% against all wooden ships.)

I'm not sure what you're hoping to achieve with this. It will only increase the strength gap between the Ironclad and Cruiser from 8 to 11. I thought you wanted this gap to narrow?

Torpedo Boat: Get rid of the plus for coastal attack. Strength 20.

Torpedo Boats need to be capable of sinking Ironclads and Cruisers because, historically, that's exactly what they were built for and what they did. A strength of 20 isn't anywhere near enough to achieve this. They also need to be easy to sink if attacked as they had minimal defensive capability - they relied on hitting these much larger ships before they could manoeuvre to defend. So they have to have some sort of attack bonus, so that they hit hard but aren't too difficult to sink if attacked first. 20 strength won't achieve this either, Ironclads should be able to defeat Torpedo Boats if they can catch them.

Furthermore, Torpedo Boats had limited operational range due to their small size and low fuel capacity. I could restrict them to just coastal waters but that's not realistic or fun for the era. They should not be effective combatants out on the open ocean though, and that's why the coastal attack bonus works perfectly here.

Destroyer: Make +50% versus Torpedo Boat, Sub, Attack Sub, rather than just +50% on attack.

Yep, good call.

Pirate: Starts with Flanking One promotion, to give it a little edge when attacking.
(Pirate is faster than a Trimene and weaker than a Dromon. Given that Pirate is in the same Tech column as the Dromon, I think it could use a small bonus.)

Yeah a little something extra would be good, though I'd prefer to just give them a direct 10% withdrawal rate rather than a free promotion (as that lets them access better promotions quicker). My only worry is that they become too good against Triremes; perhaps I could instead give Pirates a higher 25% withdrawal rate but also lower their movement to 2?

 

[Simon_Jester]

When do Pirates become available again? If they're roughly contemporary with Dromons, then they should be scaled to the strength of Dromons, not Triremes.

Sigh. I really need to download the new version and review the status quo before I weigh in on the naval stuff again...

 

[Xyth]

When do Pirates become available again? If they're roughly contemporary with Dromons, then they should be scaled to the strength of Dromons, not Triremes.

They become available between Triremes and Dromon, which they are closer to depends which tech path you're going for.

 

[artyom]

horse archers' and horsemen stats are mixed up. wouldnt it make more sense if horse archers are the ones good vs melee and horsemen have more strengh?

 

[Simon_Jester]

Not sure. I'd like to hear Xyth explain how he envisions the differences between the two unit types.

 

[Xyth]

horse archers' and horsemen stats are mixed up. wouldnt it make more sense if horse archers are the ones good vs melee and horsemen have more strengh?

Not sure. I'd like to hear Xyth explain how he envisions the differences between the two unit types.

The Horseman (and the Skirmisher) were one of the very first additions to HR, way back in version 0.1! I don't think I put a great deal of thought into their stats back then so they could both probably benefit from some redesigning. Added to my todo list.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Main purposes:

Larger gap between ironclads and wooden ships.
This is historically where there was a big discontinuity.

Remove the bonuses for coastal, particularly coastal attack bonus.
It is easy to crock this versus the AI.
Avoid ending turn in coastal spaces so AI can not attack with its torpedo boats.
AI does not understand this very well. Keep your torpedo boats with cruisers or in cities so AI can not attack them, and pounce on AI when it goes into coastal square.

Make the torpedo boat an intermediate between Ironclad and Cruiser.
(Historically, there was a constant improvement from the first ironclad, regardless of what you call it.) The apparent current idea for torpedo boat is not really implementable on a strategic level game/map. The best thing along these lines is to give them a good withdrawal chance.

Sorry to be repeating myself from previous posts.

I'm not sure what you're hoping to achieve with this. It will only increase the strength gap between the Ironclad and Cruiser from 8 to 11. I thought you wanted this gap to narrow?



Torpedo Boats need to be capable of sinking Ironclads and Cruisers because, historically, that's exactly what they were built for and what they did. A strength of 20 isn't anywhere near enough to achieve this. They also need to be easy to sink if attacked as they had minimal defensive capability - they relied on hitting these much larger ships before they could manoeuvre to defend. So they have to have some sort of attack bonus, so that they hit hard but aren't too difficult to sink if attacked first. 20 strength won't achieve this either, Ironclads should be able to defeat Torpedo Boats if they can catch them.

Furthermore, Torpedo Boats had limited operational range due to their small size and low fuel capacity. I could restrict them to just coastal waters but that's not realistic or fun for the era. They should not be effective combatants out on the open ocean though, and that's why the coastal attack bonus works perfectly here.



Yep, good call.



Yeah a little something extra would be good, though I'd prefer to just give them a direct 10% withdrawal rate rather than a free promotion (as that lets them access better promotions quicker). My only worry is that they become too good against Triremes; perhaps I could instead give Pirates a higher 25% withdrawal rate but also lower their movement to 2?

 

[Simon_Jester]

Main purposes:

Larger gap between ironclads and wooden ships.
This is historically where there was a big discontinuity.

Actually, it wasn't quite as extreme as you might think. Look at the Battle of Lissa. Steam-powered screw liners (wooden ships of the line with steam engines and screw propulsion) were able to contribute effectively in a battle between ironclad ships.

Remove the bonuses for coastal, particularly coastal attack bonus.
It is easy to crock this versus the AI.
Avoid ending turn in coastal spaces so AI can not attack with its torpedo boats.
AI does not understand this very well. Keep your torpedo boats with cruisers or in cities so AI can not attack them, and pounce on AI when it goes into coastal square.

I'd like to preserve some kind of bonus, so that the torpedo boat can carry out its intended mission (a counter to 19th century steam warships, the Ironclad and Cruiser, but one that is vulnerable to 20th century warships, especially the Destroyer that replaces it).

And I'd like to have that in some way that provides a bit more variety and flexibility

Make the torpedo boat an intermediate between Ironclad and Cruiser.
(Historically, there was a constant improvement from the first ironclad, regardless of what you call it.) The apparent current idea for torpedo boat is not really implementable on a strategic level game/map. The best thing along these lines is to give them a good withdrawal chance.

A good withdrawal chance might actually be a good substitute- but I'm strongly opposed to putting the Torpedo Boat between the Ironclad and the Cruiser.

For one, that introduces too many steps in the Industrial Age warship chain:

Ship of the Line -> Ironclad -> TB -> Cruiser

All in one era.

For another, it's totally ahistorical: the ironclad wasn't replaced by the torpedo boat, and the torpedo boat wasn't superior under all conditions. The torpedo boat represents an entirely new class of warship that didn't evolve out of any previous design (except insofar as "small boat" was an old idea), made possible by a fundamentally new type of weapon that created a new mission- screening and harassment of the battleline.

In the Age of Sail, screening was possible but harassment wasn't, because a frigate or lighter ship had no weapons capable of seriously threatening a ship of the line. The torpedo changed this, and in doing so, it introduced the era of combined arms naval warfare, in place of the Age of Sail scheme, where all ships mounted essentially similar weapons, just in different numbers and sizes.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Side note: I asked the lady I go to when I'm out of my depth in matters nautical, and she had this to say, in addition to confirming my impression of Lissa:

"Well, look at the battle of the Merrimac at Hampton Roads. Sure, the Merrimac defeated the two Union sailing ships. It also took three hours to sink the Cumberland, the captain of the Virginia was wounded in action, her ram broke off inside the wooden hull making it impossible for her to ram again, and then she fought the Congress for another hour.

"The best part is that the two frigates were terribly armed. Cumberland only had 9-inch Dahlgren shell guns, not designed to fire solid shot... a single 10-inch, and one 70-pounder rifle. If she'd had an 11-inch Dahlgren pivot firing solid shot, she might well have been able to penetrate Virginia's plate, and other Union ships did have such an armament."

So.

In short, while ironclads had a really major advantage over wooden ships, wooden ships were not as easily smashed up by gunfire as the simplified version of history might lead us to believe. At least, not until exploding shells became reliable and widely available in the 1880s and 1890s, by which point we're reaching the era where the Cruiser unit represents a more typical major naval combatant, at least in our mod.

So I don't think the reality supports making the Ironclad that much more powerful than the Ship of the Line- at least, not by a larger margin than the 19th century Rifleman enjoys over the 17th century Musketeer, or than the World War-era Infantry unit enjoys over the Rifleman.

 

[Nerd359]

Hello, I'm not a Civ4 player, but I know several. One suggestion that I have is that the standard jet fighter be swapped out for the Mirage fighter (as rendered here), as either a replacement in general (The delta winged Mirage fighters cover almost the entire spectrum of fighter generations), or as a unique unit texture for a variety of nations that flew Mirages (I personally think this would be valid for the following civilizations: France, Netherlands [representing Belgium], Greece, Spain, Egypt, Zulu [representing South Africa], India, Israel, Arabia, Indonesia, Polynesia [Marginal, but Australia flew the Mirage III], and the Inca[representing Peru]).

 

[Eucalyptus]

I am Napoleon, who is Tactical and thus earns money from military victories. This has the side effect that it can allow him to learn who has been sending Pirates.

Extract from an event log:

While defending, your Caravel (X) has defeated a Pirate!
You have earned 3G defeating an Amorite Pirate.
​

Presumably this is unintended.

 

[Howard Mahler]

By the way, the player can often tell which AI sent a pirate or privateer based on whose turn the enemy ship moves. Also where the ships comes from is a big hint. These are BTS features and probably can not be fixed.
Even if keeping the owner hidden is a problem, they still allow one to attack without declaring war.

I am Napoleon, who is Tactical and thus earns money from military victories. This has the side effect that it can allow him to learn who has been sending Pirates.

Extract from an event log:

While defending, your Caravel (X) has defeated a Pirate!
You have earned 3G defeating an Amorite Pirate.
​

Presumably this is unintended.

 

[Xyth]

Larger gap between ironclads and wooden ships.
This is historically where there was a big discontinuity.

Actually, it wasn't quite as extreme as you might think. Look at the Battle of Lissa. Steam-powered screw liners (wooden ships of the line with steam engines and screw propulsion) were able to contribute effectively in a battle between ironclad ships.

In short, while ironclads had a really major advantage over wooden ships, wooden ships were not as easily smashed up by gunfire as the simplified version of history might lead us to believe. At least, not until exploding shells became reliable and widely available in the 1880s and 1890s, by which point we're reaching the era where the Cruiser unit represents a more typical major naval combatant, at least in our mod.

So I don't think the reality supports making the Ironclad that much more powerful than the Ship of the Line- at least, not by a larger margin than the 19th century Rifleman enjoys over the 17th century Musketeer, or than the World War-era Infantry unit enjoys over the Rifleman.

I think the current gap between them is adequate (15 vs 20), both for historical and gameplay purposes.

Remove the bonuses for coastal, particularly coastal attack bonus.
It is easy to crock this versus the AI.
Avoid ending turn in coastal spaces so AI can not attack with its torpedo boats.
AI does not understand this very well. Keep your torpedo boats with cruisers or in cities so AI can not attack them, and pounce on AI when it goes into coastal square.

I'd like to preserve some kind of bonus, so that the torpedo boat can carry out its intended mission (a counter to 19th century steam warships, the Ironclad and Cruiser, but one that is vulnerable to 20th century warships, especially the Destroyer that replaces it).

And I'd like to have that in some way that provides a bit more variety and flexibility

While I agree that the AI isn't too bright at attacking your cities when you have Torpedo Boats, I've noticed that the AI will also use some of the same tactics against me when I try to attack one of its coastal cities.

The alternative is to restrict them to coastal waters.

Make the torpedo boat an intermediate between Ironclad and Cruiser.
(Historically, there was a constant improvement from the first ironclad, regardless of what you call it.) The apparent current idea for torpedo boat is not really implementable on a strategic level game/map. The best thing along these lines is to give them a good withdrawal chance.

[A good withdrawal chance might actually be a good substitute- but I'm strongly opposed to putting the Torpedo Boat between the Ironclad and the Cruiser.

For one, that introduces too many steps in the Industrial Age warship chain:

Ship of the Line -> Ironclad -> TB -> Cruiser

All in one era.

For another, it's totally ahistorical: the ironclad wasn't replaced by the torpedo boat, and the torpedo boat wasn't superior under all conditions. The torpedo boat represents an entirely new class of warship that didn't evolve out of any previous design (except insofar as "small boat" was an old idea), made possible by a fundamentally new type of weapon that created a new mission- screening and harassment of the battleline.

In the Age of Sail, screening was possible but harassment wasn't, because a frigate or lighter ship had no weapons capable of seriously threatening a ship of the line. The torpedo changed this, and in doing so, it introduced the era of combined arms naval warfare, in place of the Age of Sail scheme, where all ships mounted essentially similar weapons, just in different numbers and sizes.

I completely agree with Simon here, the Torpedo Boat has a completely different role from the Ironclad and the Cruiser, and there isn't any room between them anyway.

Hello, I'm not a Civ4 player, but I know several. One suggestion that I have is that the standard jet fighter be swapped out for the Mirage fighter (as rendered here), as either a replacement in general (The delta winged Mirage fighters cover almost the entire spectrum of fighter generations), or as a unique unit texture for a variety of nations that flew Mirages (I personally think this would be valid for the following civilizations: France, Netherlands [representing Belgium], Greece, Spain, Egypt, Zulu [representing South Africa], India, Israel, Arabia, Indonesia, Polynesia [Marginal, but Australia flew the Mirage III], and the Inca[representing Peru]).

I'd like to eventually add a little variation to air units and some other vehicles. It's not a high priority at this time but I've noted your recommendation for when I do get to it. Thanks!

I am Napoleon, who is Tactical and thus earns money from military victories. This has the side effect that it can allow him to learn who has been sending Pirates.

Extract from an event log:

While defending, your Caravel (X) has defeated a Pirate!
You have earned 3G defeating an Amorite Pirate.
​

Presumably this is unintended.

Ah yeah, inadvertant quirk for sure. Reasonably easy to adjust, thanks.

By the way, the player can often tell which AI sent a pirate or privateer based on whose turn the enemy ship moves. Also where the ships comes from is a big hint. These are BTS features and probably can not be fixed.
Even if keeping the owner hidden is a problem, they still allow one to attack without declaring war.

Yeah, nothing can be done about these. It's not exactly unhistorical though; it wasn't hard to work out who a privateer was working for, just tricky to prove and to do something about it politically.

 

[Simon_Jester]

While I agree that the AI isn't too bright at attacking your cities when you have Torpedo Boats, I've noticed that the AI will also use some of the same tactics against me when I try to attack one of its coastal cities.

The alternative is to restrict them to coastal waters.

I would not be opposed to this- historically, torpedo boats were almost entirely useless on the open ocean. Many of them didn't carry enough fuel to travel more than a few hundred miles in one trip, and for longer voyages had to be moved around on the decks of larger ships as cargo.

 

[Xyth]

I'm thinking of adding a Colonist unit, which is an upgrade to the Settler much like the Labourer is the upgrade to the Worker. The Colonist would be unlocked at Urban Planning (early Renaissance), be more expensive to build but would found cities that have some basic infrastructure already. At the moment I'm thinking a Colonist founded city would get a free Granary, Smokehouse, Kiln, Well, and Harbour (if coastal).

Alternatively/additionally the Colonist could found cities that start at a larger size but I think this is less interesting than having free buildings and the ones listed above would ensure quick growth anyway. Any thoughts on this proposal?