GameInformer article

[nokmirt]

They could work like the Civ3C privateers and have a chance of producing another privateer when they kill an enemy ship. Do we know if they show their nationality or not?

Capture ships right? I thought I read they were doing that. It could have been speculation, but I think they should do it. Especially since privateers will be melee units.

I wonder if they will out range frigates. This should not be the case, because if privateers generally are smaller ships. A frigate would have a larger sail area and therefore should have more range. More sail equals more speed. Privateers should have high maneuverability though.

My point being that if frigates have a higher movement range, then they simply could stand off and sink privateers without much trouble, with ranged bombardment. So you would have to have many privateers to close in on the frigate and capture, board, or sink her.

What would be interesting is if a sailing ship loses range as it gets damaged. If it escapes it can refit somewhat at sea, but they could say a port would be needed for a complete refit.

One more thing I was thinking they should have is a merchant vessel which you can build and try to get to a friendly port and if you make it you get an 'x amount of gold. If catch privateers capture these on the high seas, then then have to bring the captured ship to a friendly port and get the gold. Or if a privateers captures a merchant ship it disappears and the gold is added to the treasury of the owning civ. This would give privateers their true purpose, to capture gold for the use of the mother country. To do it right the privateers of one country can only attack the mercant vessels of a civ they are at war with. After all they are not pirates right?

Of course in CiV privateers will be used to capture coastal cities, but I feel a dual purpose would make things more interesting. They can also pirate trade by standing off outside an enemy coastal city, just like any other ship.

 

[Louis XXIV]

They could work like the Civ3C privateers and have a chance of producing another privateer when they kill an enemy ship. Do we know if they show their nationality or not?

Since their sole purpose is to allow you to capture cities with them and you would probably be able to tell who owned the Privateer after they own the city, it would be odd to make them hidden nationality.

 

[Shadow717]

I wonder if they will out range frigates. This should not be the case, because if privateers generally are smaller ships. A frigate would have a larger sail area and therefore should have more range. More sail equals more speed. Privateers should have high maneuverability though.

My point being that if frigates have a higher movement range, then they simply could stand off and sink privateers without much trouble, with ranged bombardment. So you would have to have many privateers to close in on the frigate and capture, board, or sink her.

What would be interesting is if a sailing ship loses range as it gets damaged. If it escapes it can refit somewhat at sea, but they could say a port would be needed for a complete refit.

...

Of course in CiV privateers will be used to capture coastal cities, but I feel a dual purpose would make things more interesting. They can also pirate trade by standing off outside an enemy coastal city, just like any other ship.

For the movement speed, as i don't remember can ships currently move after firing? If not that solves the issue right there as a privateer could close in and attack the frigate the next turn if it stopped to fire. But if a ship can fire and then move having frigates move faster would allow them to kite privateers without risking damage, which would be rather unfair.

Since their sole purpose is to allow you to capture cities with them and you would probably be able to tell who owned the Privateer after they own the city, it would be odd to make them hidden nationality.

Well this is true, but maybe they could work it out so that capturing a city reveals the nationality, but sinking ships and razing cities do not? I think that would be pretty awesome if that were the case. Go raze an oppenents coastal cities with a band of privateers without formally being at war. during the razing process the city could maybe show as barbarian colors?

 

[Louis XXIV]

So once you capture the city are you at war or are you still at peace? This would probably be overpowered. While it might be fun to have pirate cities, I don't find it likely.

Also, Privateers weren't Pirates. They fought under the flag of the nation. So it would actually be inaccurate to make them hidden nationality.

 

[AriochIV]

Being able to capture things doesn't go with hidden nationality. If your Privateer captures a city, everyone is going to see who did it (by the city's new nationality). Same goes with units. It doesn't seem likely that Privateers have hidden nationality.

In addition to the other things mentioned, the Sea Beggar is almost certainly a Privateer replacement. Would be a bit weird if the Dutch unique unit had a hidden nationality... kind of hard to hide that it's Dutch.

My point being that if frigates have a higher movement range, then they simply could stand off and sink privateers without much trouble, with ranged bombardment.

Not really... no matter how fast it is, if the Frigate wants to fire, it has to end its movement within 2 hexes of the target.

 

[Ozzy88]

The HST when built will reveal to the world that a god doesn't actually exist up there and thus religion will no longer play any role in the game.

We can dream....

 

[MadDjinn]

Not really... no matter how fast it is, if the Frigate wants to fire, it has to end its movement within 2 hexes of the target.

very true. If you stop running, eventually that which is chasing you will catch up.

Even if you had Logistics and used 2 shots and then ran, you would still get caught eventually (though with enough Logistics/3 ranged SoTLs, England might be able to do it).

 

[Shadow717]

I think I may have been misunderstood a little. I suggested a city only be of "hidden" nationality if it was currently being razed by a privateer. Of course you couldn't puppet/annex it without revieling your nationality. And also, yeah that would be totally ridiculous and overpowered, but wouldn't it be fun =p.

Also good point on privateers and sea beggars, I guess privateers likely will show their nationality unlike Civ3C.

 

[CivilizedPlayer]

On the Hubble Space Telescope:

Everyone seems to doubt that it would just provide a science boost, since that's too weak. However, it's worth mentioning that the devs seem to be taking steps to reduce the impact of RAs. It's confirmed that you can only do them with allies now. And I don't know about GSs, but would anyone be surprised if they're nerfed too? If late game slingshots stop being doable, then it's very likely that the HST will be one means of compensating for that, by adding late-game beakers. Just my thoughts, but does anyone agree?

 

[MadDjinn]

On the Hubble Space Telescope:

Everyone seems to doubt that it would just provide a science boost, since that's too weak. However, it's worth mentioning that the devs seem to be taking steps to reduce the impact of RAs. It's confirmed that you can only do them with allies now. And I don't know about GSs, but would anyone be surprised if they're nerfed too? If late game slingshots stop being doable, then it's very likely that the HST will be one means of compensating for that, by adding late-game beakers. Just my thoughts, but does anyone agree?

It's plausible.

I wouldn't think of the HST in any way other than scientific... but it remains to be seen 'in what way'.

 

[chazzycat]

@civilized player:

I really hope that is the case! GS should absolutely be nerfed, and RAs already are. If they do nerf the GS, it would definitely make sense to have a late science-boosting wonder. Maybe we would even have to start building research labs...

 

[Pouakai]

Okay, so I just saw the GameInformer in a store, and had a look at the article. There is something new under the Railroad tech, too small to see what though. It also appeared as though Utrique is constructing something new as well.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I hope the Privateer Unit graphic is just a placeholder. It looks too much like the Frigate (which it seems to be based upon) for my tastes. Why can't the Privateer look more like a brigantine or a formation of sloops-o'-war?

 

[Louis XXIV]

I doubt it's a placeholder, although I thought it looked more like a Sloop than a Frigate.

Would a formation really be accurate for Privateers? It seemed that, by definition, they fought alone.

ETA: Keep in mind these weren't Pirate Ships. They were essentially Merchant ships authorized by nations to fight as warships. I'm trying to think of the best ship to use. I wonder if a Clipper ship might be more appropriate.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

A Sloop, by definition, has only one mast and is rigged with fore-and-aft sails.

A Brigantine has 2 masts. The foresails are square-rigged, and the aft-sail is fore-and-aft.

A regular frigate has 3 masts and is square-rigged on all of them.

A Schooner would be a good choice if you wanted to play up the merchantman turned endorsed pirate angle. They have 3 masts all fore-and-aft rigged.

A Barque is what the in-game Frigate looks the most like. It has 3-4 masts. The front 2-3 are square, the Aft-sail is fore-and-aft rigged.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Alright, I concede your naval knowledge. I was just under the impression that the difference between Frigate, Ship of the Line, and Sloop was the number of guns it could carry, not the number of sales.

 

[moysturfurmer]

Alright, I concede your naval knowledge. I was just under the impression that the difference between Frigate, Ship of the Line, and Sloop was the number of guns it could carry, not the number of sales.

I thought that was the difference between a Nordstrom and a Nordstrom Rack

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Alright, I concede your naval knowledge. I was just under the impression that the difference between Frigate, Ship of the Line, and Sloop was the number of guns it could carry, not the number of sales.

The most important difference regarding naval combat is the style of sail-rigging. Square-rigging is optimal for fleet engagements. It allows great speed with the wind. Fleets typically engaged in an exchange of broadsides while each was in a line formation parallel to each other before engaging in individual melee. L.A. Nelson famously brought his double line formation in perpendicular to the French line. Either way, square-rigging facilitates fleet formation fighting.

Fore-and-aft rigging benefits the vessel with better maneuverability. Such a vessel can turn at a closer angle towards the wind and tack back and forth more capably. This allows for better combat at close range and facilitates closing to point-blank (to dispatch boarding parties) with less time spent in the field of the enemy's broadsides.

A vessel acting individually outside of a fleet would want a combination of both square and fore-and-aft rigging to have the benefits of with-the-wind speed and maneuverability.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to the increased complexity of naval warfare.

 

[AriochIV]

Alright, I concede your naval knowledge. I was just under the impression that the difference between Frigate, Ship of the Line, and Sloop was the number of guns it could carry, not the number of sales.

Well, your impression is mainly correct; Eagle is right about the rigging definitions of sloop, brig, etc., but any warship that wasn't a three-masted square-rigged ship was almost always very small, and the term "sloop-of-war" was sometimes used for anything with less than 20 guns, regardless of how it was rigged.

Beyond that, the classic 18th Century sailing warships above a certain size were all three-masted and square-rigged, and differed mainly by size and the number of guns they could carry (which depended on the number of gun decks). A frigate had a single gun deck and usually carried 30-40 guns. A classic British ship-of-the-line had 74 guns on two decks. The "ship-of-the-line" depicted in the game is a three-decker with ~100 guns (based on the 104-gun HMS Victory).

A lot of privateers (and pirates) would have been sloops or brigs or corvettes, as speed was very important. I think the classic pirate/privateer vessel would be a two-masted brig.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Yes, the brig is what I envision as well. Pirate vessels are typically depicted with fore- and aftcastles as well, presumably to have a higher position to unload small arms fire onto the deck of the vessel they are capturing aside from the sharpshooters that would've been stationed in the rigging.