Hopes for Increased Naval Importance

[NP300]

Hmm... well, that's one start -- they should make it such that ONE ship is sufficient to blockade. But that would also require trade to increase in importance enough that people would actually WANT to blockade.

That would help. It is presently impossible to blockade when you need to block ALL the squares. It just takes an insane number of ships.

But even if one ship were enough it still wouldn't have the desired effect because you'd have to block ALL the enemy's ports.

The problem is that the present trade system is all or nothing. You need to block ALL points to stop the trade. Also, airports make modern-era blockades impossible. In real life, blocking one port would impose a cost on the enemy by blocking part of the trade.

This could be implemented if when you block one port there is the possibility that all trade will be stopped. This may depend on the number of ports. If the enemy has 10 ports and you block one port there may be a 1/10 chance all trade will be blocked that turn. Alternatively, blocking a port may cut into a fraction of the trade.

Ideally they should make international trade produce commerce in and of itself, which could then tranfer into gold or science. Then if an enemy blocks one of your ports, you lose some of that commerce per turn. If trade were an important enough part of the economy, this may provide a strong incentive to rule the seas. You could economically/scientifically destroy an enemy through a blockade!

If trade simply provides a commerce boost, then perhaps the harbor improvement could boost commerce from trade.

Anyway, hopefully this could be modded even if they don't put it into the default game. It would really make the naval aspect more fun.

 

[bjblue]

Rather than having trade set as an abstract that just happens becoause you and the AI agree why not place to onus on the route rather than the goods.

When you set up a trade you should have to chose not only how much to pay but where the goods travel from and by which route.

Trades would be calculated on a goods "delivered" per turn basis and the route chosen, the delivery port and the point of origin all affect not only the cost of transporting the goods but how much actually reaches you.

For example i want to trade oil for gold.

I ask for 5 units of oil per turn in exchange for just 5 gold per turn. The AI would chose which Port it wished to set up as its export centre and i would chose which city i wished to take delivery (from a drop down menu with available options). Once the two cities are selected the quickest route is shown on the map and if i am happy with the route i select OK and not only do I get oil...but both I and the AI get a trade route which it benifits us to protect. The route lasts as long as the trade.

This would add to the importance of the sea squares but then also to your trade cities. If you have a large navy you'll be happy to have lots of trade routes going through diffrent cities...but if you cant afford to defend lots of routes you would set them up through just one or two ports. Much easier to defend...but its much more impact on your economy if you fail.

Naval units would have a new blockade order and as long as the unit is sat over a trade route it "blocks" one unit of trade from reaching its destination. If there are five units of goods moving each turn it would take five ships to totally block it. If there are more than one route through a single square your ship would knock one unit of goods off of each route.

Blockades would then be able to concentrate on the major routes...and as the computer selects the shortest route bottlenecks and certain island cities would then become even more important as the big powers would all want to ensure they were in control of them and while it would still be possibly to totally block every bit of trade into a country..you could only do that if you controlled the major trade route squares.

Also..just as a side line...there should be a FOOD resource which can be traded. This would deffinately make trade (and therefore navies) miles more important in the later game. If you import lots of food resources and your pop grows significantly( cities should only be able to reach a certain size with the resources in their radius..to grow beyond it you should HAVE to bring food from elswhere and after a certain tech...modern agricuture or something all but the first 3 workers in a city should be unable to produce food at all so your bigest cities become dependant on imported food...) and the supply is suddenly cut off you would be in real trouble if you dont break the blockades...just like in WWI...it was the blockades of Germany which won the war by starving them into submission...and if the germans had won the battle of the atlantic they would probably have won the war by starving britain to the negotiating table.

 

[Meleager]

bjblue, there are some simple problems with your idea
1) for naval combat to be important the enemy must know which port to block
2) whats to stop the traders simply reopening the deal at a different port
3) your idea sounds very similar to CTP2 ( i dont know if thats a problem or not, just an observation)
4) it becomes very difficult for players to protect their routes, exspecially on large journeys where their will almost always be a gap of some sort

np300, you have some good ideas
1) firstly i would like to add that a port just needs to be within bombard range of a ship to be blocked
2) airports should be taken out of the trade loop completly (i know its not realistic but they are almost impossible to block and unless you do the navy will never be important)
3) maybee for every 5 harbours you only need to block 1?
4) a blocked city produces no gold? - hence naval blockades become pretty powerfull

Some of these ideas are not realistic, but will hopfully inprove gameplay.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, perhaps if ports and harbours produced gold for your nation-based upon the city's population and any overseas contacts the nation has (i.e. its own O/S colonies, or O/S civs with whom the nation have contact with). This way, blockading that one port will cost the nation in question a lot of gold-as Meleager suggested. This would be the case even AFTER you have air trade. The only issue then becomes 'how easy should it be to blockade said port?') I think that a possible answer is: 'if a naval unit directly or indirectly-via ZoC-blocks all reasonable exit points out of a port, then it is considered Blockaded'. This way, keeping your ports free of enemy naval traffic becomes VERY important.
Anyway, just a thought.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[bjblue]

@Ausie lurker
To answer your questions.
1) It would be simple to have the trade route show up when you click for terain info. It could show a quick note like..Trade route/oil/from Berlin (german) to London (England). or it could be a map option "show trade" or something. And each trade port with a route going through it could get a number in its Harbour symbol depending on how many routes go through it.
2) trades can only be cancelled "peacefully"so to break it you would have to declare war on your trading partner. If the deal expires you are free to pick another port...but and that leads me into question 4)
4)if its a longer trade route it will be harder to defend...and thats the idea to defend a trans-oceanic trade route should be much harder than a quick hop down the coast.

and just to back up 3) yeah your right it does have a hint of CPT2 but i wouldn't like to see the routes all the time.

Just a few ideas strung together really...have no idea if it would deffinately work...but i think were all agreeing that Navies deffinately need to be improved and that trade must be made important to do that.

 

[searcheagle]

I like the direction of this thread, but not some of the details.

Here is the way I would model trade. There would be three ways to ships goods, aka Civ III- Land, Sea, and Air. All of these would have capacity limits. Sea would have the highest capacity (to encourage people to go there), land would have medium capacity, with rails increasing capacity, and air with a very minimal and short term capacity, reflecting the inefficiency of transport.

When a resource is connected, the player choses which route he wants it go on by outlining it on the map. It would show the land portion, sea, portion, and air portion, all marked by different symbols on the map.

The trail will be hidden from other players, until they see an automated unit on the trail and they follow the trail from origin to destination. The whole trail will then appear on the map and supply units will be visible.

All three of these routes would be interceptable that they can spot.
*Land-A foreign unit steps on the trail or within their movement range.
*Sea-By ships within Bombard range of the trail or the harbor.
*Air-Interception range of any fighter places it over the trail or the airport.

Diplomatic Issues-
There would be four relevant diplomatic stances:
*State of war-Looting of cargo permitted.
*Right of Passage/Free Trade- Permitted to route your cargo through foreign nations at no penalty.
*Royalities/Fees-You can still bring your trade though this point, however, you must pay a fee to do it.
*No permitted entrance.

Length issues-The longer your route is, the more time it will take to get your resources. Air moves the fastest, then rail, then Sea, then road.

If the route gets intercepted, a message will popup saying, our trade route has be intercepted. Would you like to reroute? If you hit yes, all ships that have yet to depart will use the new route.

 

[Martock]

The trail will be hidden from other players, until they see an automated unit on the trail and they follow the trail from origin to destination. The whole trail will then appear on the map and supply units will be visible.

Kinda like how it was done in CTP2 with the line across the ocean. I always liked that method of trading graphics. It allowed a person to see who was trading what with whom and it made naval units more important as you had to protect those trade routes.

All three of these routes would be interceptable that they can spot.
*Land-A foreign unit steps on the trail or within their movement range.
*Sea-By ships within Bombard range of the trail or the harbor.
*Air-Interception range of any fighter places it over the trail or the airport.

I don't know how effective we could make air-interceptions for trade. It'd be interesting to see how it could be managed.

Diplomatic Issues-
There would be four relevant diplomatic stances:
*State of war-Looting of cargo permitted.
*Right of Passage/Free Trade- Permitted to route your cargo through foreign nations at no penalty.
*Royalities/Fees-You can still bring your trade though this point, however, you must pay a fee to do it.
*No permitted entrance.

Good stuff here. I hope Firaxis is reading this.

Length issues-The longer your route is, the more time it will take to get your resources. Air moves the fastest, then rail, then Sea, then road.

If the route gets intercepted, a message will popup saying, our trade route has be intercepted. Would you like to reroute? If you hit yes, all ships that have yet to depart will use the new route.

That would be VERY handy though I think there should be some allowance for getting away with the pirating of a trade route without it being known who actually did the pirating. Submarines should be able to effectively stop a trade route (but gain no goods) while surface ships would be able to steal what is being traded.

Adding in this model of trade routes and the ability to pirate them would make naval units so much more useful and important.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hiya Searcheagle. Its funny you should mention Capacity-because this is EXACTLY what I have previously suggested in the past. Basically, Capacity would be broken up into Rail, Road, Sea and Air-each colour coded.
Every city joined up by a road or rail network would boost the number of rail or road capacity points you have-based on the population of the city connected, and tech level of your nation (city improvements can also boost road/rail capacity). Building Airports and airbases boosts your air capacity points (based on city population in the case of airports), and harbours and ports generate Sea Capacity Points.
When you form a resource trade deal with another nation-or even hook a resource into your internal trade network-the computer automatically deducts one of your capacity points-which costs a % of your per turn income.
Of course, though you lose a % of your income in this way, you gain income in the cities through which a trade route runs (based on the value of the goods).
Vectoring food and hammers between cities also costs Capacity points-but can earn money for the city with surplus hammers/food. You also regain these CP's in the following turn.
Moving units by air, sea or air also reduce the appropriate capacity points-with a correspondant loss of income-though again you get back these capacity points in the following turn.
The point about such a system is that-for it to work, it MUST be mostly automated. This is why in my system, the computer automatically deducts a CP for trade and vectoring-based on what infrastructure is available and which form of capacity is currently most available.
Hope that all makes sense.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[searcheagle]

Kinda like how it was done in CTP2 with the line across the ocean. I always liked that method of trading graphics. It allowed a person to see who was trading what with whom and it made naval units more important as you had to protect those trade routes.

I've never played that game. My idea was a compliation of ideas that I liked in the forum along with my own idea of how the system should work. More then making naval units important, it also made trade important. Before trade wasnt worth protecting becuase it would get home reguardless. It was nearly impossible to end trade pre airport and impossible afterwards. This would also necessitate the protection of routes on the ground and make cities like Venice and other cities with trade but nothing else important once again. As you mentioned, if enemy trade can be seen, it can be destroyed. If it is destroyed, it cant reach the enemy.

I don't know how effective we could make air-interceptions for trade. It'd be interesting to see how it could be managed.

In Civ 2, airports were invented to transport units from city to city, much as they do now. In those days, aircraft did not transport resources, obviously, because those didnt come till Civ 3. When a unit was transported, one of two messages come up:

1. Our units have arrived safely in City X. or
2. With the sound of fighter jets roaring the background "Our transport plane has been intercepted and shot down.

The risk of intercept came on whether the computer decided that the route took it with in the range of fighters, during any part of its flight. And might I add, fighters didnt have to be on air superiority missions to do it either.

A similar system could be set up for air transport. Also, any fighter could intercept you, and any fighter assigned a mission, recon/bombing/etc would get a 50% (or so) chance of interception. You would also be able to send fighters along to protect your cargo.

Good stuff here. I hope Firaxis is reading this.

I hope these types of ideas are read and more importantly, adopted by Sid & Soren as well.

That would be VERY handy though I think there should be some allowance for getting away with the pirating of a trade route without it being known who actually did the pirating. Submarines should be able to effectively stop a trade route (but gain no goods) while surface ships would be able to steal what is being traded.

The pirate in Civ 3 was completely worthless. It did practically nothing- Its attack would rarely do any damage to another ship, even a trimeme. Perhaps if another system was adopted where privateers posed a threat, my mind might change. Also, a submarine should hold of units no more then anyother unit could.

Adding in this model of trade routes and the ability to pirate them would make naval units so much more useful and important.

Agreed.

I also thought of new diplomatics options:
1. Trade route protection-Hire another civ to patrol your trade routes for you. If they fail, they might be fined or something like that.
2. Freedom of the Seas UN Option Pact- If this was enacted by the UN or all parties through a multiparty agreement, piracy would be condemned. Any civ caught engaging in it would be fined/declared war on/sanctions/etc. The civ would captures the pirates would get to keep the loot. To pay for the FOTS options, all civs would pay the amount to support the cost of keeping the warship engaging in the action, relative to the their use of the seas. So a civ (Civ A)which uses 60 squares of the sea a turn, would pay more the a civ who (Civ B)uses 30 squares a turn. Say the total trade usage of square came to 300squares/turn. Civ A would pay 20% of the cost and Civ B would pay 10%. This is the best model I could come up with to model this. Anyone have a better model.

 

[searcheagle]

Hiya Searcheagle. Its funny you should mention Capacity-because this is EXACTLY what I have previously suggested in the past. Basically, Capacity would be broken up into Rail, Road, Sea and Air-each colour coded.

Its very possible that the idea originated with you too. I recall all of what read however, not always the sources.

Every city joined up by a road or rail network would boost the number of rail or road capacity points you have-based on the population of the city connected, and tech level of your nation (city improvements can also boost road/rail capacity). Building Airports and airbases boosts your air capacity points (based on city population in the case of airports), and harbours and ports generate Sea Capacity Points.
When you form a resource trade deal with another nation-or even hook a resource into your internal trade network-the computer automatically deducts one of your capacity points-which costs a % of your per turn income.
Of course, though you lose a % of your income in this way, you gain income in the cities through which a trade route runs (based on the value of the goods).
Vectoring food and hammers between cities also costs Capacity points-but can earn money for the city with surplus hammers/food. You also regain these CP's in the following turn.
Moving units by air, sea or air also reduce the appropriate capacity points-with a correspondant loss of income-though again you get back these capacity points in the following turn.
The point about such a system is that-for it to work, it MUST be mostly automated. This is why in my system, the computer automatically deducts a CP for trade and vectoring-based on what infrastructure is available and which form of capacity is currently most available.
Hope that all makes sense.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

For all of the micromanagement that CP causes, I see a worse danger in the Unlimited Railroads and airports, where all it makes it impossible to have a blockade of resources that are traveling from city to city and empire to empire.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

My point, though, is that CP's need generate no additional MM at all-if done right. Generating CP's requires very little different from what players already do-i.e. build ports, harbours, roads, railroads and airports and, like toilet paper, you won't even really notice the importance of CP's until you don't have any ! You would be able to check up on your air, rail, road and sea CP's-at any time-in your economic/trade window, but the management of them would be an automatic thing, as your normal 'surplus' (i.e. per turn income) would be dependant on your economy running at maximum capacity-lose that capacity, and you lose some of your 'surplus'. In the case of moving commodities or international trade, you gain money on the side anyway. Its only if you do LOTS of commodity moving and/or lots of 'military maneuvers' that you will see your economy start to suffer.
My point is that this side of things is automatic-a player CAN modify their behaviour to minimise the impacts of lost capacity, but the 'loss of capacity' itself is an automatic effect of normal trade (domestic and international) and warfare.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Superkrest]

as player who loves his navy , yet hates its dormency against opponents, i would love to see increased usage of the navy by AI players. but im also affraid this will increase the near useless civ trait of seafearing.


also...why cant sub's(or ships for that matter)carry cruise missles

 

[Vilati Timmadar]

I disagree with this whole idea.

The Navy is a supporting military part, like the Air Force. It was always the Army which decided a war. Increasing the Navy's importance would destroy the game balance. I really like the new bombardement idea in CivIII. In CivI and II you could destroy the Army of a Civ just by bombing the hell out of it with Air Force and Army.

But look at history:
- The Soviet Union was never a very good naval power; only in the late 70s and 80s they built missile subs and aircraft carriers. Their main power was their Army. Still, they were a superpower.

- The 3rd Reich was never a very good naval power; no aircraft carriers, just subs. Its main power was the Army and the Air Force. Still, it was able to fight against all major powers of the world for four years.

- And: Look at D-Day. 11.000 allied aircrafts against 200 german ones. 5000 ships against almost no german one. And still - where the coast defense line was properly built and finished (like Omaha), the allied troops had really problems. All their supporting military parts (Navy/Air Force) could not help them. It was the task of the Army/Marines to get this done.

 

[Azash]

If this could be used for trade embargos, I'll skip for joy. Making an embargo deal is just plain boring - I always start imagining a big fleet o' warships blocking enemy harbors and roads, but TE doesn't even cost a nickel (Not counting the bribes for the other guy involved) Besides, in civ3, even if you block everything around the enemy's harbor, he can still use the trade routes (I think)..

 

[searcheagle]

I disagree with this whole idea.

The Navy is a supporting military part, like the Air Force. It was always the Army which decided a war. Increasing the Navy's importance would destroy the game balance. I really like the new bombardement idea in CivIII. In CivI and II you could destroy the Army of a Civ just by bombing the hell out of it with Air Force and Army.

Incorrect- The navy has been the vital factor where ever it has been used. Because the navy can cut off the flow of resources, they can control what resources can come in or leave. Resources are the key to survivial in any nation that is not self suffient in any long term war.

But look at history:
- The Soviet Union was never a very good naval power; only in the late 70s and 80s they built missile subs and aircraft carriers. Their main power was their Army. Still, they were a superpower.

They were really a only a local superpower until they developed naval power which allowed them to project force.

- The 3rd Reich was never a very good naval power; no aircraft carriers, just subs. Its main power was the Army and the Air Force. Still, it was able to fight against all major powers of the world for four years.

This is just a bad understanding of the naval portion of WWII. The allies were able to win again both the Germans and Japanese because they controlled the water. Both of the Axis Powers had control of the water in the beginning. Naval power was so important in WWII that the Germans believed that "The German High Command had calculated that an average loss of 800,000 tons of Allied shipping per month would be enough to ensure an Axis victory, and optimistic reports on estimated tonnage sunk by individual U-boat commanders had led them to believe this was being achieved. The true overall rate of loss throughout 1942 was just under 650,000 tons, a crippling rate and far beyond the Allies replacement capacity, and throughout the grim months of 1942, defeat in the Atlantic, and thus the war, was a thought that haunted the Allies leaders. As serious as the loss of essential imports was the reduction in the rate of the building up of forces in Britain for the assault on Europe, and final victory over Germany." http://www.hq.wwiionline.com/profiles/supply_ship.shtml

The most prominent part of the German Navy was Submarines, however, that does not diminish their role. Thier navy WAS highly successful until American Mobilized Production and British and American wit devised ways to defeat it.

Once the Germans heard how fast Americans were producing Liberty Ships, America's first masss produced cargo ships of the War, one admiral is said to have said, "We ve lost. There is no way we can sink ships that fast." This was years before D-day.

- And: Look at D-Day. 11.000 allied aircrafts against 200 german ones. 5000 ships against almost no german one. And still - where the coast defense line was properly built and finished (like Omaha), the allied troops had really problems. All their supporting military parts (Navy/Air Force) could not help them. It was the task of the Army/Marines to get this done.

Why were there no ships there? Because their Navy already lost. If they had strong navy at the time, the Marines and Army may not even made the beach, let alone survive. Assuming they did survive, German warships would have quickly come around and cut the troops off from recieving needed materials. Navy, many have argued, is the most important tool of force projection becuase they can bring resources right next door or stop them.

 

[Dudedudeyo]

Why not bring Trade ships back and make it so that if a civ's city only got resoures through harbors that a trade ship had to loaded at a place geting the resources and then go to the city that you wanted that resource to have. You would probably need to do this every 5-20 turns (depends on date) before that city loses the resource. To avoid extra micomangment the would make actions where a trade ship kept on going back and forth between cities until it sees a enemy ship that is at war at.

 

[polyphemus]

I have always been a civ fan, but have been disappointed by the relative unimportance of dominating the oceans. Throughout history, navigating the seas has been extremely important for both military and economic reasons. These are some ideas I hope will appear in some form in Civ 4.

1) Implement sea trade routes: For much of history, the oceans have provides the most effiecent way to trade. For example, in theory, early industrial era Europe COULD have traded with areas like present day India by transporting goods over land. Of couse, the oceans provided quicker and cheaper travel. If these oceanic trade routes are important (or even ocean based recouces like oil or whaling), it would be strategically important to protect/disrupt them. Hence, a naval-focused military would be a viable option in some circumstances.

On this note i think the trade routes should be displayed on the map itself. As in CIV Call to Power the goods traded should made visible to all civs and be traveling on the trade route, on the map itself, to the destination. The destination being the city sending the goods to. The reciever being the city that has that good in its radius. This arises the option of pirating trade routes. The option to pirate trade routes should be available in CIV4. This all being very similar to CIV Call to Power.

 

[polyphemus]

With this also arises another option in the Dimplomacy screen. The option to say "refrain from Piracy". FIraxis needs to look at CIV Call to POwer a little more. If any one has that game they know what io am taliking about. Many of teh concepts in that game should be implemented in CIV 4

 

[Dudedudeyo]

I doubt that they would have a road like improvement or the water squares so they could have currents and they do same as roads.

 

[Superkrest]

on d-day...was there also not an important snap decision by allied fleet commad on some beaches to make an incredibly dangerous shallow run to bombard left behind installations on the beaches because troops were not penatrating...there was..and it may have saved the men on the american beaches. to say navy has little importance...just means you think civ history is real history..in civ yes,,,navys may not be hugely important..but in the real world there the difference between regional power and world power..how come nations with huge navys always end up on top? all were saying is it would be nice to make a navy a little more history correct in become a power.

was america afraid of a massive attack on the eastern seabord or western?hmmm...the japanese navy answerd that.