GEM: Sea Armies

[Ahriman]

I brought destroyers forward only 1 tier. I'll add some information to clarify that in the chart.

Ok, my mistake. But Destroyers already had an upgrade path problem, now they have an even larger upgrade path problem. If they're balanced for the early modern era, they'll be horribly obsolete and useless by the atomic era.

Also, land units in general are designed to go together; crossbows, knights, longswords and trebuchets are all the same tier. I think it makes more sense to have melee and ranged ships arrive at the same tech than to be staggered (as your design has), or you're always in a situation where one is too strong relative to the other.
In your design, chances are that frigates are going to be better than galleons, privateers are going to be better than frigates, ironclads are going to be better than privateers, destroyers are going to be better than ironclads, etc.
I think it is better to have a tier of units that are designed to coexist together and be balanced around that coexistence.

frigates are 50% faster than ships of the line, have a much higher sight range, and can inherently heal each turn outside friendly territory.

Why not let the melee units do this? Then you don't need a separate unit.

Also, iron isn't really much of a binding constraint by the renaissance era (once you have no more longswords). There's no actual tradeoff anymore.
I can live with both frigate and ship of the line, but then I think they should both upgrade to the same unit.

I prefer to have a large force of common resourceless units

You can do this with melee units and with subs.

The research I've done about the word "cog" indicates they were primarily civilian trade ships.

This is true, but the problem is that there weren't really many medieval era warships or naval battles. But we still need some ships for gameplay in the medieval era.
Cogs *were* involved in naval battles. [Wikipedia mentions the battle of Sluys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cog_(ship) ]

I think it's realistic to have at least one ship with the name "galley" in the game.

That's fine. But we still need 2 medieval naval units; a melee and a ranged.

I split up units by tech column instead of era, since eras often blend into one another depending on where the techs are placed.

I don't understand what this means. I think keeping eras in there is helpful as a reminder; I can remember what Industrial era means much more clearly than I can remember what tech tier9 is, and because it more clearly helps to identify what the gaps are.
In your design, the problems are medieval and industrial. Privateer just does not make sense as an industrial era ship, and your design has no effective ranged ship in the medieval ear.

* * *
Also to be clear; the AI does not use marines like it uses naval units. It uses naval units to capture cities, and it sends them out in fleets. Hence the importance of keeping a late-game melee naval unit, which I think the destroyer works well for.

 

[Ahriman]

An updated proposal that tries to address some of Thal's preferences:

Galley. Ancient era. Fast, low strength, modest ranged attack. Upgrades to Galleass.
Trireme. Classical era. Melee. Upgrades to cog.
Galleass. Medieval era. Slow, good ranged attack. Upgrades to frigate.
Cog. Medieval era. Melee. Upgrades to galleon.
Caravel. Early renaissance. Fast, melee, good recon. Upgrades to galleon.
Frigate. Late renaissance. Fast, weak ranged. Upgrades to dreadnought. [Or to u-boat?]
Galleon. Late renaissance. Melee. Upgrades to ironclad.
Ship of the line. Late renaissance. Slow, heavy ranged, requires iron. Upgrades to dreadnought.
Ironclad. Industrial. Melee. Upgrades to destroyer.
Dreadnought. Industrial. Slow, heavy ranged, requires coal. Upgrades to battleship.
[U-boat, optional. early submarine. Industrial. Ranged-vs-ships only. Upgrades to submarine]
Destroyer. Modern. Melee. Upgrades to modern destroyer.
Battleship. Modern. Slow, 3-range, requires oil. Upgrades to Missile cruiser.
Submarine. Modern. Ranged vs ships only. Upgrades to missile sub.
Modern Destroyer. Atomic. Melee.
Missile cruiser. Atomic/info. Slow, 3-range, requires oil.
Missile submarine. Modern/info. Ranged vs ships only.

The early game could easily be tweaked, and the u-boat could easily be dropped.

 

[mitsho]

An updated proposal that tries to address some of Thal's preferences:

Ship Era Type Upgrade
Galley Ancient era Fast, low strength, modest ranged attack Upgrades to Galleass
Trireme Classical era Melee Upgrades to Cog
Galleass Medieval era Slow, good ranged attack. Upgrades to frigate
Cog Medieval era Melee Upgrades to galleon.
Caravel Early renaissance Fast, melee, good recon Upgrades to galleon
Frigate Late renaissance Fast, weak ranged Upgrades to dreadnought. [Or to u-boat?]
Galleon Late renaissance Melee Upgrades to ironclad.
Ship of the line Late renaissance Slow, heavy ranged, requires iron Upgrades to dreadnought.
Ironclad Industrial Melee Upgrades to destroyer
Dreadnought Industrial Slow, heavy ranged, requires coal Upgrades to battleship
[U-boat, optional. Industrial early submarine Ranged-vs-ships only. Upgrades to submarine]
Destroyer Modern Melee Upgrades to modern destroyer
Battleship Modern Slow, 3-range, requires oil Upgrades to Missile cruiser
Submarine Modern Ranged vs ships only. Upgrades to missile sub.
Modern Destroyer Atomic Melee
Missile cruiser Atomic/info Slow, 3-range, requires oil.
Missile submarine Modern/info Ranged vs ships only

The early game could easily be tweaked, and the u-boat could easily be dropped.

See, much better in a table! Before that, that was just an incredibly confusing wall-of-text. I still have trouble to distinguish the unit roles and upgrade paths.

Basically, the cog still strikes me as a bad name for a naval unit. (I don't have a better proposition though) The U-boat is superfluous. Still, that's 16 ships in total, around double the number of G&K (total guess btw., didn't count them at all).

Btw. what does heavy and weak ranged mean in that context?

Another way to distinguish between Light and Capital ships is the sort of damage they deal. Capital could be better against Cities and Ships while Light would be better against land units ("raids")? (and of course melee still bits capital against ships)

 

[Ahriman]

See, much better in a table! Before that, that was just an incredibly confusing wall-of-text.

True, thanks for cleaning up.

I still have trouble to distinguish the unit roles and upgrade paths.

Ranged:
Galley -> Galleass - > Frigate -> Dreadnought -> Battleship -> Missile cruiser
Also, Ship of the line -> Dreadnought -> Battleship -> Missile cruiser

Melee:
Trireme -> Cog -> Caravel -> Galleon -> Ironclad -> Destroyer -> Modern destroyer

Subs:

The U-boat is superfluous.

The purpose of the u-boat is to have an industrial era ranged attack vessel for attacking embarked units and ships that does not require a strategic resource. [The dreadnought requires coal; the melee ironclad does not.]
It could be dropped.

Still, that's 16 ships in total, around double the number of G&K (total guess btw., didn't count them at all).

12 of those ships are in G&K (plus a barbarian galley); the only "real" new ones are the dreadnought, the modern destroyer, the cog and the u-boat.
[Galleon is a renamed privateer.]
This is a compromise proposal; my preferred design would drop a few of those; I think it is ok to not have an ancient/classical melee unit, and I don't think that both the frigate and SotL are necessary.

Btw. what does heavy and weak ranged mean in that context?

Heavy means high strength for the era; weak ranged means low strength for the era.

Another way to distinguish between Light and Capital ships is the sort of damage they deal. Capital could be better against Cities and Ships while Light would be better against land units ("raids")? (and of course melee still bits capital against ships)

I think they can be separated easily enough by having light units have higher movement and lower ranged strength for their era, while capital ships have lower movement and higher ranged strength for their era.
A pure anti-city role is too narrow for strategic-resource intensive or slow capital ships.
And I don't think a full line of "light" units are needed.

 

[Thalassicus]

I talked this over with a friend, re-read the posts, and realized my original post was vague, confusing, and did not accurately describe the concepts I was trying to explain. The problem was entirely my fault from miscommunication on my part.

I spend the past few hours revising the original post to try and clear this up. I also made changes based on feedback.

• I moved Galleons up one tech level to reduce the gap between them and galleys.
• I renamed "Privateer" to "Torpedo Boat," since I think that's the term we were looking for. Torpedo boats were the industrial 1800's era surface ship precursor to submarines.
• I changed the destroyer path. Early destroyers were called "torpedo boat destroyers" and came right after torpedo boats. The modern destroyers we're familiar with appear later.

I agree with Ahriman's thoughts on all the major points:

• The points a-e and i-iv.
• We should have multiple ship lines.
• The roles of ships should change with the invention of shipboard cannon technology (Renaissance).

The only thing I feel differently about is the specific list of ships and upgrade, just the details of implementation. This is my attempt to try and categorize Ahriman's proposal to the best of my understanding:

• Common: trireme → galleass → frigate → (upgrades to dreadnaught)
• Strong: dreadnaught → battleship → missile cruiser
• Hunters: uboat → submarine → missile sub
• Hunters: cog → caravel → galleon → (upgrades to battlecruiser)
• Unknown: battlecruiser → destroyer → missile destroyer

The only main concerns I have with the alternate proposal is it's missing common ranged ships in the late game, and the role of the battlecruiser-destroyer line is somewhat unclear.

 

[Ahriman]

It's missing common ranged ships in the late game,

I don't see why there need to be non-strategic resource ships that can do land bombardment in the late-game. There is a common ranged attack ship: the sub. But it can't target land units. [People have been complaining that land bombardment gets too powerful. Ok, so restrict it to the strategic resource units. No need for overlapping unit lines]

That's the problem with assigning things into narrow roles too much; it forces the game to play the same throughout the whole of history.
I do not think that there have to be the same unit roles all through the tech tree.

For example; the main role of the Caravel is exploration. It should not be thought of as a "hunter". Its role is to be the first ship to cross oceans. There is a brief window in the game where exploration is really valuable, and a dedicated explorer is worthwhile. So that doesn't need to be replicated elsewhere.

Similarly, there should be ranged naval units in every era that can attack land, but I don't see why those always need to be resourceless.
By the late game, there will be lots of coastal cities and lots of ships and also aircraft carriers doing bombardment. So its more ok to have a basic melee unit be the bulk of the fleet; there are lots of things for it to target in the ocean and on the coast, and there are other things that can do shore bombardment.

and I don't know what role the battlecruiser-destroyer line is intended to have.

a) Rapid response/Recon/scouting (high movement, maybe extra sight)
b) Able to capture cities (they're melee ships)
c) Anti-submarine warfare. (from high movement, can-spot-subs, and maybe a strength bonus vs subs, though the glass cannon nature of subs means that this might not be needed).
d) Screening of capital ships (making it harder for subs to get them).
e) Resourceless; able to be fielded en masse.
f) They also can attack capital ships and embarked land units, but they're not very good at it when compared to subs.

The modern destroyer could also plausibly have an aircraft interception chance.

Battlecruiser could also be called Ironclad or Armored Cruiser.

 

[Ahriman]

On your new first post version:

I do not think it makes sense to pair Destroyer with Ironclad (see *below); it feels really weird to have a 2-tier tech difference between destroyers and battleships. We should be able to replicate world war 2, but this is weird in your design because the ships are staggered across tiers; your modern destroyer comes just after the battleship.

I think it is much better to have non-staggered tiers. Frigates and galleons should be fighting each other. Destroyers, submarines and battleships should be fighting each other.

More importantly, as far as I can tell you have removed melee units. [Your description of all three ship categories using the ranged attack symbol.]

You say you support

The points a-e and i-iv.

, but i) is "i) We should try and keep melee naval units in where possible; the AI can use them, and threatening coastal cities is interesting. Most eras should have a ranged and a melee ship. "

This is the problem with trying to be too narrow in your ship categories; galleons should clearly be melee ships, but subs work much better as ranged. Subs that can't take out embarked land units without taking damage are a design failure.
It just doesn't make sense to try to shoe-horn both galleons and subs into the same category with the same unit properties. They can have similar properties (both be anti-ship), but not the same; the galleon can attack cities, the sub uses a ranged attack.

* * *
*For reference: Destroyers came from the 1890s or 1910s or so until 1950s, depending on how you count. Ironclads were basically 1870s-80s.

Also note: another reason for sticking with galleass is that we have art for a galleass. Galleon can use privateer art.

 

[Ahriman]

Another problem: the first post design has caravels at tier 5, in the early medieval era. This is just wrong. The caravel needs to be the first ocean-going vessel. It's pretty iconic for that purpose. Christopher Columbus's ships were Caravels.

And galleons at tier6 doesn't make much sense either (galleons when you first get knights and crossbows?)

 

[Thalassicus]

For example; the main role of the Caravel is exploration. It should not be thought of as a "hunter". Its role is to be the first ship to cross oceans.

I agree, which is why I moved caravels from the hunter role (G&K) to the common ship role (GEM). Common ships have a Recon 1 sight bonus starting with the Caravel. This gives Caravels easy access to the Recon 2 promotion's +1 movement bonus, providing them a total of +1 moves, +1 sight, and the capability to heal outside friendly territory while exploring.

[Destroyer uses are:]
a) Rapid response/Recon/scouting (high movement, maybe extra sight)
b) Able to capture cities (they're melee ships)
c) Anti-submarine warfare. (from high movement, can-spot-subs, and maybe a strength bonus vs subs, though the glass cannon nature of subs means that this might not be needed).
d) Screening of capital ships (making it harder for subs to get them).
e) Resourceless; able to be fielded en masse.
f) They also can attack capital ships and embarked land units, but they're not very good at it when compared to subs.

My plan for destroyers is exactly the same as this on everything except B. I replace B with "able to attack land units." Modern destroyers are realistically capable of light land bombardment. Strong ships like battleships are better at softening up heavy shore defenses, and Marines are great at capturing weakened cities. This combination of battleships providing fire support for amphibious assaults is more realistic than destroyers invading cities. Destroyers don't usually have a large enough crew to capture a city.

Battleship fire support info: defenseindustrydaily.com/Next-Gen-Naval-Gunfire-Support-The-USAs-AGS-LRLAP-07171/

The only difference between a ranged and melee submarine is the ranged version doesn't take damage when attacking. I'm okay with either approach, which is why I did not list melee/ranged capabilities in the revised original post. Torpedo boat destroyers evolved in the industrial era alongside torpedo boats (early subs) and ironclads (early battleships).

Torpedo boat info: www.spanamwar.com/tbd.htm

The middle ages of Europe lasted from approximately the 5th to 15th centuries CE. Caravels came about in the 15th century. They were used for coastal exploration early on, then oceanic travel later. I represent this in the mod by unlocking Caravels in the late middle ages, then giving them ocean-going capability with the Astronomy tech, in the early renaissance.

The land units in the game have staggered tiers every 2-3 tech columns. I designed ships with the same pattern, because it gives us an interesting ship advancement on most tech columns. I feel the chosen tech levels of each ship are realistic. Ship design was a gradual process that spanned decades; it did not suddenly change every few hundred years. Here are examples from the industrial era to the present:

1857-1906|Ironclads
1877-1896|Torpedo Boats
1892-1960|Torpedo boat destroyer (originally anti-surface, then anti-subsurface in 1916 )
1896-1953|Submarines
1906-1942|Battleships
1942-present|Carriers
1940-present|Modern destroyer ( anti-air in 1940 , then added missile attack in 1960 )
1953-present|Missile subs
1967-present|Missile cruisers

Destroyers specifically:
1893 - surface threats
1916 - subsurface threats
1940 - air threats
1960 - guided missile attacks

I've spent the past 8 hours working on and revising this thread, so I'm going to take a break now to get some dinner. I hope to get the latest update for land units released tonight. It does not include major changes to ships yet, since I want to discuss ships another week before doing anything with them.

 

[Tarquelne]

Dbpst

 

[Tarquelne]

Bump Early Destroyers from tech column 10 to 11?

Not a big thing, but...
I like the idea that they'd come in around the same time as the first sub, not earlier.
I don't like the idea that they come in at the same time (same column) as Ironclads.
I think the earliest destroyers had enough in common with torpedo boats to let TB sub in the role for 1 tech column worth of time.

What ranges do the Common ships have?

 

[Ahriman]

My plan for destroyers is exactly the same as this on everything except B. I replace B with "able to attack land units.

This is a problem. These are not the same. The human player can use marines or other land units to take cities. The AI won't necessarily do this; it needs melee units to do so.

One of the design principles that you said you agreed with was to keep naval melee units at each stage, but you seem to be removing them from the late game.
As far as I can tell your design has no melee units past the galleon. So you have upgrade path problems. What does the galleon upgrade to? What happens to its city attack promotions?

Modern destroyers are realistically capable of light land bombardment

Realism is not the issue here, gameplay is - and WWII era destroyers did not have significant land bombardment capability. Capturing cities with naval melee units is an important unit role that you are leaving out. It is no more unrealistic to have destroyers as naval melee units than it is to have tanks as melee units. It's an abstraction.

and Marines are great at capturing weakened cities.

I don't believe the AI does this.
It sends out naval task forces long without any land units, or it sends an entire land force including regular infantry, tanks, artillery, etc.

The only difference between a ranged and melee submarine is the ranged version doesn't take damage when attacking.

This is not a small difference! Subs I think should stay as they are; glass cannon anti-naval ranged units.

which is why I did not list melee/ranged capabilities in the revised original post.

Using the ranged attack strength icon makes this a bit confusing.

Torpedo boat destroyers evolved in the industrial era alongside torpedo boats (early subs) and ironclads (early battleships).

Yes, but the torpedo boat destroyer is not really what is thought of as a destroyer - it doesn't have much in common with a WW2 era destroyer, which is what the destroyer unit should be representing. I don't think a torpedo boat destroyer needs to be in the game, I think an armored cruiser or commerce raider or ironclad is probably a more effective late 19th century melee naval unit.
Dreadnoughts are the real predecessors to battleships.

I'm fine with torpedo boats instead of u-boats, but I think u-boats being submerged are probably more interesting.

The land units in the game have staggered tiers every 2-3 tech columns.

The land units have upgrades every era through most of the game. Your design does not do this, and it contains some severe anachronisms (medieval era caravels??). Also, when they added WW1 era units (the early tank, the great war infantry and aircraft, etc.) many of these are spaced only 1 tier apart. There are more land tiers than you have naval tiers.

I feel the chosen tech levels of each ship are realistic.

You have caravels at tier 5, before knights, trebuchets and crossbows. You have caravels at tier6, contemporaneous with knights. These are not realistic. 15th century caravels and 16th century galleons are showing up around the same time as 11th century knights and 12th century trebuchets.
And the staggered later tech eras mean that destroyers don't match up with battleships and subs.
So, I disagree.

The land game has clear separate tiers for late 19th (and ww1) century great war stuff, world war 2, and post world war 2. I think naval units should do similarly; {ironclad, torpedo boat, dreadnought}, {destroyer, battleship, submarine}, {modern destroyer, missile cruiser, missile submarine}.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Tarquelne
I intend to keep the range of common ships the same as vem.

The human player can use marines or other land units to take cities. The AI won't necessarily do this; it needs melee [sea] units to do so.

One of the design principles that you said you agreed with was to keep naval melee units at each stage, but you seem to be removing them from the late game.

In the original design six months ago I proposed attaching marines to the navy instead of the army; I think it's more realistic and better for gameplay. That idea appeared to be unpopular at the time, so I then proposed melee submarines in this thread, but people don't like that either, and destroyers invading cities are unrealistic too. All the ideas have problems associated with them, so we'll have to accept some abstraction with any plan we adopt.

The main problem with the current game and all the proposals is late game hunter ships are too specialized. I don't think it's fun to have a unit with only one basic promotion line (anti-ship). The original plan of splitting the hunter line into anti-ship and anti-city lines had the same problem. Helicopters have that issue too. I don't really know how to fix it. The units come at the end of the game, so I haven't worried about it too much... but it still concerns me.

 

[Ahriman]

It appears all the ideas have problems associated with them. I think we'll just have to accept some level of abstraction with any plan we adopt

I agree, but I think melee destroyers works better for gameplay and with the AI than the other proposals.
[And I think melee destroyers capturing cities is less weird than submarines, and is used by G&K - when in doubt, I think we are better off sticking closer to G&K.]

I think AI use is really important, so that disqualifies just using marines for city capture.
And I think the Destroyer can have more roles while having the disadvantages of melee than could the sub. [What I mean by this; subs are clearly only anti-ship. Even with making them melee, they still won't be anti-city, and they don't make sense as high speed recon units. Destroyers as melee can be anti-sub, high speed recon, and city capturing.]

Just so that I understand and can maybe offer another alternative; what are your main unaddressed objections to a design like this one: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11785773&postcount=23

My main issues with your proposal are:
a) Ahistoricity (especially for caravels and galleons; those can't just be shuffled multiple tiers without issue)
b) No melee ships or melee subs
c) Staggered nature of units (so units of the same era don't arrive in the same tier, and so aren't balanced against each other)
d) Large gaps in upgrade lines when compared to land units leading to intermittent obsolesence.
e) Too rigid on tier/role structure (trying to make the same unit role structure work for all eras)

 

[mystikx21]

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.

This is probably a defunct point since subs appear to be going back to ranged but I don't think that's a good representation. The real advantage of subs in disrupting trade is in sea denial, not in the form of prize ships or coastal raids of the sort that the gold per attack generates but in sinking the other guy's money.

If we could do it, subs could get a large blockade range. Since that's not likely, their advantage is they can block a lot of sea tiles for coastal cities, pillage work boats, cutting off isolated islands, etc with relative impunity against a non-destroyer enemy in a way that surface ships would have to deal with planes, artillery/archers, and other ships and then that they can quickly sink any enemy ships as they approach to continue doing economic damage.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Ahriman
If we consider two unit comparisons:

• Bowman - classical column 3
• Crossbow - medieval column 6

• Longsword - medieval column 6
• Musketman - renaissance column 7

The main point where we differ is you believe we should only look at the eras to balance units. I think the time gap between units is more important. We could make all the eras twice as wide, and it wouldn't change unit balance.

 

[Ahriman]

This is probably a defunct point since subs appear to be going back to ranged but I don't think that's a good representation. The real advantage of subs in disrupting trade is in sea denial, not in the form of prize ships or coastal raids of the sort that the gold per attack generates but in sinking the other guy's money.

Yeah, I think the attack-coastal-cities-for-gold mechanic is poorly designed and should be dropped. They were trying to make privateers flavorful, but in a weird way. Its not worth attacking coastal cities unless you're trying to capture them. A small gold income just isn't worth risking losing your entire military unit to counterattack.

Subs work fine as anti-naval glass cannon ranged units. Subs are pretty fun in G&K, and they're very useful for naval dominance. They don't need a major trade disruption goal. As I mentioned in the other thread, I think we are doomed to failure at making naval trade disruption a significant part of the game. So lets focus on getting the military factor right. We have minor naval disruption from pillaging fishing boats and blocking tile working, that's enough.

 

[Ahriman]

a) The vem approach is realistic: caravels arrived in the late middle ages, were used for coastal exploration, then sea exploration later.

You have caravels arriving in tier5, before knights or crossbows.

We don't need a separate/new medieval era coastal exploration unit, that can already be done with galleys and triremes.

They belong at tier7, where they go in G&K.

And you have medieval era galleons, where historically they coexisted with frigates (like privateers).

d) There are no large gaps in the current proposal.

You have a medieval era galleon that has no upgrade until the industrial era.
You have an industrial era early destroyer that has no upgrade until the Atomic era - 3 tiers, at a point in the game where land units are getting upgraded in 1 or 2 tiers.

Era matters a lot for flavor. Skipping entire eras for upgrades is a problem. No unit should ever not have an upgrade in the next era, with some possible exceptions in the early game (pre-medieval) and late game (post-modern).

I strongly feel that naval units should try to replicate the same general periods that land units do, at least after the early game; medieval, renaissance, industrial, WW1, WW2, modern. Units should mostly be designed and balanced to come at the same time in these eras and be balanced appropriately. So destroyers, subs and battleships are all together and are balanced appropriately to coexist. Frigates and galleons are together and are balanced to coexist. The staggered design means there is always some unit that is out of place.

 

[Thalassicus]

The human player can use marines or other land units to take cities. The AI won't necessarily do this; it needs melee [ships] to do so.

I appreciate this feedback, because I have not reached the atomic era in my test games. I usually finish by the Modern era. If the AI handles ships better than land units for capturing cities, I will make naval infantry part of the navy, like in my March proposal. Firaxis's decision to make naval infantry into army units in G&K always felt very strange to me.

This revised proposal is a compromise between your desire for lategame melee ships, and my desire for common ranged ships.

 

[Ahriman]

If the AI handles ships better than land units for capturing cities, I will make naval infantry part of the navy,

I do not think this is a good design. Naval infantry don't make sense for attacking other ships, and a naval unit that can only attack coastal cities is too narrow.

A naval melee unit needs to be able to attack both ships and cities.

If you really really want a resourceless ranged naval unit in the late game (which I think is unnecessary), then create a Cruiser line, and have the destroyer as melee (able to attack ships and cities) and a cruiser as ranged.