Great Admirals- Maybe A Use?

[Cicerosaurus]

Great Admirals seem pretty close to useless- at least for me. Other members have expressed similar views.

I was wondering if they could have an expanded use similar to a Great General. Rather than create a citadel, why not create a minefield?

Any enemy unit coming alongside the hex would sustain damage. Possibly they could be made invisible except to the "owner", and as with a GG could only be used in your own waters. (Of course your own units know a safe path through them).

This could lead to a new unit such as a minesweeper, or a minesweeping promotion to an existing vessel.

Any thoughts?

 

[Harv72b]

They're not completely useless, but without a special improvement they're certainly pretty bleh. One suggestion I've seen that I really, really liked was to allow Great Admirals to disembark onto land & create canals.

I was also thinking of having mines in the game, both sea- and land-based. It shouldn't be too difficult to put in there, treating them as tile improvements and having them cause damage & halt movement of enemy units passing through the mined hex. The only difficulty I could see in modding them in would be the visibility thing...yes, they should be invisible to enemy units (or at least, to most enemy units), similar to submarines. If someone smarter than I wants to take a crack at it, please do!

 

[Lakissov]

- they are useful for early exploration, as you are able to get one well before getting caravels (through commerce)
- they have the ability to heal a very big fleet, which can sometimes be very useful

 

[GreedysMaximus]

On a domination archipelago map an extra great admiral can repair a large portion of your ships which is a very useful ability to speed things up. But i like your minefield idea as long as it is "balanced" and will not make the entire ocean a giant ticking bomb, mb maintenance upkeep for the mines?

 

[Harv72b]

On a domination archipelago map an extra great admiral can repair a large portion of your ships which is a very useful ability to speed things up. But i like your minefield idea as long as it is "balanced" and will not make the entire ocean a giant ticking bomb, mb maintenance upkeep for the mines?

Not trying to speak for the OP, but I think that so long as you limit it to coastal tiles within your own borders it shouldn't be an issue. Particularly if you also limit it to where only great admirals can lay the minefield, and/or give it a production penalty (say, -1 ) if placed within a city's workable tiles.

 

[headcase]

Repair is awesome. If adding anything to it (whatever it is would repair the ships at the same time, like how a GG's citadels claim land at the same time), I vote for a rig that gives a large range of sight. Spaces in that range cost +1 movement each for enemies unless they are in the enemy's territory.

 

[PhilBowles]

Great Admirals are definitely better than not having Great Admirals, so they aren't useless, but you're right that being the only GP without a tile improvement option makes them relatively undesirable given the alternatives. And the Repair ability just isn't very valuable since ships can almost always get out of harm's way, and any ship can get the Supply promotion that lets it heal in the field.

I'd be tempted to combine the tile improvement with the current repair ability, and give a different sacrifice ability. So you'd have something like:

Naval Outpost: Places a tile improvement on the closest land tile to the Admiral (he must be next to a land tile). This can only be built outside your borders, and has a cultural radius like the Citadel - i.e. it gives you a border one tile from the improvement in every direction. Ships that heal within a tile of the Outpost heal an additional 5 hp a turn.

In other words, rather than directly healing ships, he creates a small area which counts as your territory that ships can heal in as normal.

 

[nefloyd]

Add a +30 xp boost to the ship on the same tile when an Admiral uses repair. If none in that tile, pick a random one in an adjacent tile

 

[MaximusK]

I second the suggestion for adding exp boost. All units within the range of the admiral should get a exp boost of say +33%. So +3 exp will go up to +4.

If you confine the exp boost to only the tile the ship is in your just going to add the hassle of moving the admiral to each of your ships when they fire.

Usually when I plan on using a large navy I'll go military tradition. It would be nice to save those 3 SPs for another tree.

EDIT: or take away the combat bonus and simply have it be an exp bonus.

 

[Lakissov]

From a gameplay perspective, the exp boost is something that could make them very useful (and I think, it still wouldn't make them game-breaking). I would see three ways:
- when expended for repair, the admiral also grants 30 experience each of the affected units
- units in the admiral's influence zone (two tiles) gain +50% experience (in addition to combat bonus)
- admiral can found a naval academy in one of your coastal cities, giving all naval units produced there +15 experience (or some some promotion, e.g. +1 movement)

 

[Peng Qi]

I had one game where all my GAd's spawned in an inland sea. Whatever else is done, they should definitely be able to disembark.

 

[Callonia]

I just wish the great admiral ships could fight too. And they should be on special battleships xD

 

[fat_tonle]

Coastal Fortress/Colony.

Basically expand your borders on other continents along coastal locations. That might be too overpowered but it is harder to generate GA's than GG's. Plus it would be good for civs like Spain to secure Wonders although some natural wonders are two hexes away from land so it would be useless for Great Barrier Reef for example.

This colony wouldn't grow, although it could if you played your cards right. Maybe it can develop into another CS that you are puppeting. Plus all puppets should have the ability to win back independence or rejoin their original nation anyhow (so long as that nation is still more influential than you). Just adds more depth and realism that way.

 

[Stalker0]

Early Great Admirals are amazing, I can explore the whole map long before caravel.

 

[nefloyd]

Yeah it would be nice if they could disembark onto land, even if they only get 1 m/turn there or something.

 

[Human Crouton]

The great admiral is fine. It doesn't have to do anything great because you basically get it for free if you've been fighting at sea a lot. It doesn't cost you any kind of investment if you earn it this way, so it's a welcome addition to your navy.

Like others have said, they are great for exploring early. My absolute favorite use for them is to finish the liberty policy branch as Sweden, then send the GA out to explore new continents. Continents full of civilizations who have absolutely no interest in fighting with me because they are so far away, and usually want to be friends.

So basically, the GA reads as "gain 30% production toward great people."

 

[Le Roi Soleil]

The great admiral is ridiculously useful for early exploration if you're on the right kind of map and are able to pop him early, either through commerce, Liberty or the Mayan Long Calendar. In a situation where you aren't planning early aggressive wars and have Lux excess, that early great admiral can be worth a huge amount of gold, as well as certain diplomatic advantages. Unless I'm playing on Pangea or am completely landlocked on continents, the admiral is my preference as the first free Mayan GP.

 

[SMA333M]

Admirals are great... but ofc, I need like 2.. maximum 3. So the question is what do I do with them if I have more than 2-3 ? The repair thing doesn't seem that important for a great person.

But it's the same with Generals... what do I do if I have too many and there is no good spot to build a citadel ? I did disband some Generals and Admirals in one of my recent games...

 

[ense7en]

I had one game where all my GAd's spawned in an inland sea. Whatever else is done, they should definitely be able to disembark.

Yup, this kinda crap is just sad.

 

[Pook]

Not trying to speak for the OP, but I think that so long as you limit it to coastal tiles within your own borders it shouldn't be an issue. Particularly if you also limit it to where only great admirals can lay the minefield, and/or give it a production penalty (say, -1 ) if placed within a city's workable tiles.

I like this idea, but could we take it a step further? I agree that mining your own waters should be an option as a tile improvement, but carry a production penalty.

How about mining enemy waters during wartime? This could have the effect of cutting off or reducing trade from an enemy port without the need to keep a blockade in place.

Understand that if your mines cut off a trade route (say, the equivalent of mining the Straits of Malacca or the Straits of Gibraltar), you will have some rather angry civilizations and city states. Perhaps a diplomatic penalty?