GEM: Sea Armies

[Thalassicus]

Goals

Like with land units, my goals with sea units are:

• Combat roles
  Each unit has primary and secondary roles. The primary role is something the unit is better at than any other unit. Primary roles should be very obvious and powerful, since units without a strong primary role are seldom built.
• Reward combined arms
  Mixing units with different roles is more challenging and fun than winning with 1 type of unit.
• Common and Strong units
  Armies are most fun with a mix of common weak units guarding a few expensive strong units. This is the basic principle of limited strategic resources in Civ 5.

Ship Types

• Common Ships
  A fleet of ranged ships has more common targets (land, ships, cities) than a fleet of melee ships (ships, cities), so I call basic ranged units "common ships."
  .
• Strong Ships
  These are rarer and stronger than common ships, and use strategic resources.
  .
• Hunter Ships
  These melee ships are great against enemy ships, but cannot attack land units.

A fleet built entirely of 1 type is possible, but mixing the three types forms a more powerful, fun, and versatile fleet.

We want navies to be important in the game like they are in real life. Real ships are mainly used for trade. It is not possible to represent the importance of naval trade (or disrupting that trade) to a realistic level with our current modding tools in Civ 5. This would require international trade routes. The closest thing we have is starving cities with ships, which is a relatively minor part of the game, especially since it is not a good strategy for conquerors. For this reason I substitute the "trade" role with "land bombardment" to make ships useful. It represents the power of ships in dominating coastlines.

All realworld pre-cannon vessels relied heavily on melee boarding tactics, while all later ships used ranged cannon fire. This melee to ranged transition does not work in Civ 5 because it means early ships could not have the land bombardment role, which makes them less useful. This shows the common ranged ship line is necessary to make navies useful. Melee ships have only one advantage: the AI is more effective at capturing cities with melee ships than embarked land units. If the AI was better at doing that with land units, we would not need melee ships. We cannot change that with our current modding tools, so the hunter ship line is also necessary.

Combining this with the third main goal gives us the 3 ship lines: common, strong, and hunter. Each has a clearly defined and useful role.


Roles

Naval warfare changes in five ways over time as we play a game of Gem:

1. Hunter ships appear.
2. Strong ships appear.
3. Carriers appear.
4. Hunters turn invisible (Submarines).
5. Common ships take over the detection role from hunters (Destroyers).

Details

Here is the current setup of ships in GEM. This achieves the 3 main project goals listed at the top of the post. I highlighted new ships in bold. I add as few new units as possible when pursuing the project goals, because each new unit dilutes the unique importance of other units.






Background

1. Liburna (new)
   
   This light and fast raider was a dominant ship design of the Classical era. It originally had one bench with 25 oars on each side, while in later years it was equipped with two banks of oars (a bireme), faster, lighter, and more agile than triremes.
   .
2. Carrack (renamed)
   
   These were the main wind-powered warship from the 1400s-1500s. They were developed for use in the Atlantic Ocean, large enough to be stable in heavy seas, and roomy enough to carry provisions for long voyages. The high "castles" on fore and aft gave a height advantage to archers firing down on enemy ships. These replace caravels because carracks were used in warfare and exploration, while caravels were used only for exploration.
   .
3. Galleon (renamed)
   
   This was a large, multi-decked sailing ship used from the 1500s-1700s. The carrack's high forecastle gradually lost importance as cannon replaced archers for naval attacks. Galleons relied on forward-facing cannon to blast the enemy as the ship rammed a foe, followed by boarding with marines. These replace privateers because galleons were a prominent ship type, while privateers are a role for the ship.
   .
4. Ship of the Line (new)
   
   The next stage in naval warfare occurred in the 1600s as broadsides became the primary naval tactic. Ships formed long single-file lines and battered the enemy fleet from afar. This was called a "line of battle." The height advantage given by the castles fore and aft was nearly eliminated, now that hand-to-hand combat was less essential. The castles shrank, making the ship of the line lighter and more maneuverable, and the hull grew larger and stronger. The phrase "line of battle ship" eventually shortened to "battleship."
   
   (I will replace England's specialized version of this ship with the Steam Mill unique building, representing the incredible impact industrialization had on England and world history. England's naval power is already represented with the sea movement trait.)
   .
5. Missile Destroyer (new)
   
   In addition to the guns that destroyers have, a guided missile destroyer is usually equipped with two large missile magazines which store the missiles for the ship. Some guided missile destroyers contain powerful weapon system radars, like the United States’ Aegis combat system, and may be adopted for use in an anti-missile role or a ballistic missile defense role.

 

[mitsho]

You're missing the Aircraft Carrier and with it the effect of Air Combat on Naval Combat in the last eras. I don't think it changes much anyways, but the aircraft spam bug in the vanilla game is/was very annoying (Is it still there?). (I'd also mention the Missile Sub if you list everything up.)

I do agree very much with Barbarians being a bigger threat if they can shoot at land as well. Does that make them weak vs. ships though? Is it theoretically possible to create a mixed unit that can attack by ranged as well as by melee? Would the Barbs/AI know how to use them?

Is there a special unit role to be filled for "embarked units-killer"? (do we need a unit specialising in keeping enemy units from landing ashore?) Can we change something about the zone of control (i.e. making it go out 2 tiles)? Because that might be a useful...?

But I do think, the primary roles seem well thought out as described above

Going into more detail, I guess, we rightfully lose the Prize Ships Promtion and Ironclad gain Ocean Access? Should we switch the Galley and Trireme's names as the Trireme literally rams enemy ships (even if the animation doesn't). Even if you adress the English Ship problem, there's still the question of where to put the Carthaginian, Byzantine and maybe even Korean ships, but I guess, THAT is definately leader discussion thread terriroty

 

[mystikx21]

I think swapping names on the early ships makes sense. Triremes were rams. The barb ship can I thought have its own line of stats as part of the barbarians mod?
I don't think making subs melee instead of ranged makes sense as this weakens their role at disrupting shipping (eg invasions). It also creates the city taking problem that is less worrisome with destroyers in that role. Some mixing isn't unreasonable.

 

[Thalassicus]

I did not include carriers in the role list because they're a specialized unit that does not directly attack anything. It doesn't really fit in the normal ship categories. I'll add lategame units to the list.

There will be one barbarian equivalent of each early ship, so both the common and hunter versions will be present. I group embarked units in with sea units. I intend to make Hunter Ships like submarines strong against all types of sea units, including embarked units.

Technically, all units are both melee and ranged. It's different combat layers. The "cannot attack in melee" unit attribute is the only thing that stops ranged ships from doing so. I think a ranged unit without the "cannot melee attack" attribute would probably be too confusing for players.

Ships relied on ramming and boarding (galleys, biremes, triremes, galleass, etc) until the invention of practical shipboard cannon, but I don't think it's fun to only have these type of ramming/boarding ships in the first half of the game. Bombarding land units abstractly represents ship crews that briefly engage in land warfare. Triremes were limited to ancient times, while the term "galley" was used up into the medieval era, so I think it's realistic for triremes to come before galleys.

 

[mitsho]

I group embarked units in with sea units, so melee ships are designed to kill them.

Which they are not suited to especially well. Melee Ships need to catch up without ending their turn in the range of an enemy city/city state. Ranged Units can get close enough with fewer movements and then use their superior range to take out the units. Ranged units also do not lose health by attacking. You could simple overpower a single melee ships with a few embarked units passing them by, they will lose enough health to not be able to take out the last unit (roughly), especially if the embarked strength is still based on the base power of the land units (invincible cannon problem).

What this means is that basically, melee ship killers need a way to deal with the health loss, which of course is entirely codeable... Just sayin...

@mystik21 So basically you are proposing swapping the Destroyer and the Sub in the graphic above?

 

[Dunkah]

Subs as melee ships?

If we allowed them only to attack other ships I could see that but to have a sub capture a city with a melee attack would just be silly.

 

[mystikx21]

@mystik21 So basically you are proposing swapping the Destroyer and the Sub in the graphic above?

Sort of. I still think Destroyers serve a purpose as a light ship for fast movement and recon, an ASW role, and in a pinch, can be used to bunch attacks on capital ships. I think melee is fine for them or a small range (1?). I think subs proper role is sea denial (eg, ship killing), but that they're not fast, and not spotters, and that they gain great (and a realistic) advantage from having at least 1 range attacks for attacking shipping and ships. This is also less of a problem if DDs are melee instead of subs as subs would have to have a cannot attack cities promotion.

This however was interesting.

"All units are both melee and ranged units."

- Does this mean that all naval units could melee attack, and that all units would have a ranged attack too? Was this limited to barbarians?

 

[Stalker0]

I want to propose there is another role not mentioned here....pillaging.

Land Units already have this capability by default, they can pillage tiles. Mounted Units would probably have this as a secondary capability, as they can move in, pillage, and move back.

In a historical sense, pillaging was actually a big function of navies. They could raid coastal cities as well as merchant vessels.

Long before ships had a strong military power, they were primarily used to ship goods, and so the taking of those goods was the primary anti-ship role.

I don't think this needs to be made a true category per say, but I think it should be factored in how ships perform their roles.

for example, I think a pillaging function makes a lot of sense for Anti-Ship naval units as they kill other vessels. We already have the gain gold capability from the honor tree, we could provide a similar capability for anti-ships.

 

[Stalker0]

Thal, here is a crazy idea....is it possible to provide a ship a negative maintenance number?

In other words, the existence of the unit would provide gold. This could be used to create the equivalent of the "merchant ship" unit that represents getting gold through ship trade.

Now to make the unit make sense, as opposed to a unit people just hoard in their coastal cities....is it possible to create a unit that has auto explore required? Basically its a unit that starts roaming automatically...to represent trading, and provides a target for other ships to destroy.

 

[Ahriman]

Some thoughts here:
The initial post is unhelpful in not actually discussing what it means for these different classes. Is the proposal that all light ships have a ranged attack?
What are the intended upgrade paths? If it is just in each line, then the problems of huge obsolesence gaps remain.

I no longer think that it is worth having a separate "light" unit line. I don't think it is sufficiently different, and I think it ends up being useless most of the time because only 1 recon ship is ever needed at a time. I no longer think it is worth trying to have both frigate and ship of the line; only 1 ranged vessel is needed per era I think.

Galleasses long pre-date galleons. A galleass makes sense as a late medieval unit; a galleon doesn't, it doesn't arrive until 16th-18th centuries, and is clearly an ocean-going vessel, while the galleass is clearly a brown water vessel.
Galleon and privateer as separate units at different tiers don't make sense; historically these were contemporaneous.
Privateers showing up 1 tier before ironclads doesn't make sense to me; privateers historically were 16th through 18th century.

Subs as melee units is game-breaking problematic to me; subs shouldn't be able to take cities, and subs should be very good at taking down embarked units without taking damage. Melee can't do either of these.
I agree with Mitsho; melee as anti-embared unit fails inherently.

The proposal also ignores the late game. I find that unfortunate; the game doesn't end when we hit the modern era.

Basically: I prefer my proposal to your one.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11775557&postcount=121

 

[Thalassicus]

I'm okay with subs having ranged or melee attacks. The only real difference between a melee and ranged sub is the ranged version doesn't take damage when it attacks. Subs fill the anti-ship role of Hunter Ships either way, and neither version can capture cities. I do think it's important subs can attack cities (but not capture) to earn gold, since it represents their realworld role in disrupting merchant trade.

@Mitsho
If a melee ship had 1000, it would take very little damage from attacking embarked units. It's just a matter of setting the right combat values.

@mystikx21
All units can perform both melee and ranged attacks. The only thing which blocks it is the "cannot melee attack" unit attribute.

@Ahriman
The research I've done indicates galleons existed from ancient times to the evolution of Frigates in the 18th century, while galleass were simply a more powerful form of galley in the 16th and 17th centuries.

If you are concerned about the gap between Galleys and Galleons, we could split Compass into 2 techs with different columns and lower cost. It's the only unusually large gap between sea units. I don't think it would be a problem, since we can easily make Galleys good against Caravels even with a 4-column gap.

I'm willing to consider upgrading early common ships to late strong ships, though it might be a little odd. I don't think removing the common ship line entirely would work. Ships like destroyers are the basic backbone of a navy.

 

[mitsho]

Ahriman's referring to a desynchronization that may exist between the naval unit line (few upgrades) and the land units (many smaller strength increases) and cities (defense value scale better with eras), which may result in naval units either being too strong for the era and then of the right power when the next tier of (land) units roll around or naval units having the correct strength for its era but then being underpowered when the next tier of (land) units roll around.

And regarding melee as ship killers, of course it's a result of setting strength values, but not only. The ship will lose health at every attack regardless of the enemy. Say it runs too near to the coast and get's bombarded (especially later on with aircrafts), it will lose more again. It's a devils cycle and I think, healing outside of the territory should be allowed for melee ships (or very easily reachable). Btw. you didn't adress the movement penalty of melee ships (ranged can shoot from afar) which cannot be solved by simply giving it more movement points (as otherwise it would take over the scouting role from light ships). Additionally, I'd add that focus fire is harder for melee units (units in the way) and they suffer much more from the early era's 1-tile coasts (should be two tiles in most cases imho, if that can be done on map creation).

 

[Ahriman]

I'm okay with subs having ranged or melee attacks; it doesn't matter to me. They cannot capture cities whether they're melee or ranged.

But it matters for *design*.

If you agree that the sub should be ranged attack and shouldn't be able to take cities, and if you agree that the AI works better when it has a mix of ranged and melee ships and can potentially take coastal cities, then this leaves one with the conclusion that the Destroyer should stay melee, and that a "recon/melee/capital" ship classification system doesn't really work.

All units can perform both melee and ranged attacks. The only thing which blocks it is the "cannot melee attack" unit attribute.

What about the AI? My understanding was that the AI cannot handle this intelligently, and will only do one or the other. That is a game breaker. I don't think we should allow both attack types, I think we should stick with just one or the other.

Could you explain what you mean about an "obsolescence gap"?

If a unit cannot be upgraded for several tech tiers, then it becomes obsolete. For example, in G&K the caravel rapidly becomes obsolete, because there is a huge gap between when it can be built and when it can be upgraded (to ironclad); the caravel coexists with frigates and privateers, but it has no useful role during this period. Similarly, the privateer coexists with ironclads and even submarines, it can't be upgraded until the Destroyer.

When the strength of what you're fighting (both other ships, land units, and city strengths) rise without you being able to upgrade, then there is an obsolesence gap.

Your design is not as bad as G&K in that respect, but there are still some significant gaps there, and most particularly there is a destroyer that comes early and then will rapidly become obsolete.

I don't understand what you said about the light ship line. If we remove light ships we a) have no ranged ships in the early era, or b) have early capital ships. I don't think these situations are desirable.

I don't see what is wrong with early capital ships - all "capital ship" means is a ship with a ranged attack. We can have an early game ranged attack ship that then upgrades into galleass/frigate/...battleship/missile cruiser. I don't see a problem with that.

There's nothing wrong with having a ranged attack ship in the ancient and medieval eras.

Please look at my design proposal.

I am okay with either galleass or galleon to represent ships from 1500-1700. The research I've done indicates galleass were around in the 16th and 17th centuries, and galleons existed from the 16th to 18th centuries, so they were roughly contemporary.

This is true, but the point of the galleass is we need *something* that can logically function as a medieval era vessel with a ranged attack, and galleass is closer than anything else that is plausible.
My main objection is that both galleon and privateer, 2 unit tiers apart, makes no sense.

* * *
And as usual, I agree with basically everything mitsho is saying.

 

[Stalker0]

Btw. you didn't adress the movement penalty of melee ships (ranged can shoot from afar) which cannot be solved by simply giving it more movement points (as otherwise it would take over the scouting role from light ships).

This highlights an important concern I have about the roles. We don't want to make the roles such a straight jacket that it removes good design angles.

Maybe the answer is to give melee ships more movement. And if that movement gives the melee ships the primary scouting role... then maybe we reevaluate the light ship role and whether its needed or not.

So I'm not saying that more movement is the answer, but lets not dismiss it so quickly just because it steps on another roles toes.

 

[Thalassicus]

If you look at the chart in the first post, I believe the only unusual gap is the 4-column time between Galleys and Galleons. The other upgrades exist 2-3 columns apart, which is the same as land units.

@Ahriman
I looked at your design proposal, and agree with all your points a-e and i-iv. I didn't comment because I didn't have anything to add to what you said.

I call the usual fast & weak ranged vessels "light ships" or "common ships." Strong ships require a strategic resource, are stronger than light ships, and have a bonus against cities. I'll add this clarification to the original post. I also extended the chart to the information era as you requested.

In post #4 I was explaining to mystikx21 how ranged/melee combat mechanics work, not proposing we do units that can attack with either ranged/melee. I pointed out it would probably confuse people.

 

[Ahriman]

I'm fine with in general melee ships having more movement than ranged ships, to make sure that the melee ships can chase then down.

This also helps make recon a clear role for melee ships.

 

[Ahriman]

I looked at your design proposal, and agree with all your points a-e and i-iv. I didn't comment because I didn't have anything to add to what you said.

But your design removes melee ships in the late-game (if subs are ranged), it has weird age of sail issues (tech tier 9 is industrialization and military science, it is clearly 19th century - how does a privateer possibly fit there?).
And it lacks an interesting role for destroyers.

Similarly, why do we need both frigates and ships of the line?

Let the melee ship handle recon roles, with the ranged ship for fire support.

The other upgrades exist 2-3 columns apart, which is the same as land units.

In your version, you bring the Destroyer forward 2 tiers, which now means that the Destroyer is left un-unpgraded for 6 tiers.

I call the usual fast & weak ranged vessels "light ships."

Ok, but there is no reason why a fast & weak ranged ship can't upgrade into a slow and strong ranged ship. And I'm not sure that a fast and weak ranged ship is needed in any era where there is also a slow and strong ship.

I'm fairly agnostic about the early game (though I agree it should have a ranged unit), but I think that:
Medieval era needs a ranged ship and a melee ship. [I propose Galleass and Cog.]
Renaissance era can have the Caravel as an explorer, but then needs a ranged ship and a melee ship. [I propose {Privateer or Galleon} and {frigate or ship of the line}
Industrial era needs a ranged ship and a melee ship. I propose {Ironclad or Cruiser or Armored Cruiser or Commerce Raider} and Dreadnought.
Modern era needs a ranged ship and a melee ship. I propose Battleship and Destroyer.
Atomic/information era needs a ranged ship and a melee ship. I propose Missile Cruiser and Modern Destroyer.
And I think we need a sub in modern and Atomic/information. We could have a u-boat in industrial, I'm agnostic, but I think if we're trying to match WWI/WW2/cold war on land it makes sense to also do that on sea.

 

[mitsho]

* * *
And as usual, I agree with basically everything mitsho is saying.

I probably should put that in my sig

But really, "as usual"? I think we have big disagreements sometimes Basically everything probably excludes the wider coastal areas, but nobody seems to want to comment on them

Yes, I didn't think of the fact that melee ships should be faster than ranged ones (to be able to hunt them down), but what does the advantage of Light Ships for Recon then consist of? (and that basically pushes the Sub into the light category for realisms sake (slow), but not (land bombardment))

 

[Ahriman]

But really, "as usual"? I think we have big disagreements sometimes

Only when you're wrong

Basically everything probably excludes the wider coastal areas, but nobody seems to want to comment on them

I have mixed feelings (it affects a lot of things; tile yields, exploration, etc.), but I'd be ok with trying it.

but what does the advantage of Light Ships for Recon then consist of?

Right, this was the logical chain I went through which led me to conclude that there is no need for a separate light recon ranged vessel.

We want a ranged attack ship which can help vs land units, embarked units and coastal cities, and we want a melee ship which can be good vs ranged ships, good for recon, and can capture coastal cities. Late-game, the ranged unit requires a strategic resource (coal or oil), and so we also add a submarine which is a resourceless ranged vessel that is purely anti-ship/embarked.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Ahriman
I brought destroyers forward only 1 tech column. I'll add some information to clarify that in the chart. I split up units by tech column instead of era, since eras often blend into one another depending on where the techs are placed.

Frigates are "common" ships and ships of the line are "strong" units, for goal C. I think both serve valuable roles since frigates are 50% faster than ships of the line, have a much higher sight range, cost less to build and maintain, and can inherently heal each turn outside friendly territory. Ships of the line are slower, consume resources, and get a vs-city bonus instead. If you're worried ships of the line are too common we can increase their resource requirement to limit their availability. I personally do not think I would build only ships of the line, even if they were unlimited, because of how slow they are.

Ok, but there is no reason why a fast & weak ranged ship can't upgrade into a slow and strong ranged ship.

I posted earlier:

I'm willing to consider upgrading early common ships to late strong ships, though it might be a little odd.

I don't understand your question about the common (light) ship line. You agree we need common ranged ships in the early game, and your proposal has the same distinction between common, strong, and hunter ship lines as my proposal:

Common/light: destroyer -> modern destroyer
Strong/capital: battleship -> missile cruiser
Hunter: submarine -> missile sub​

Are you saying we should remove destroyers... they are in your proposal? I'm very confused.

The research I've done about the word "cog" indicates they were primarily civilian trade ships. The word "galley" was a common term for both civilian and warships from ancient times to the creation of shipboard cannon. I think it's realistic to have at least one ship with the name "galley" in the game.