How to fix navy?

[Mango]

you are exactly right and you only need about 3 times the production of the next guy and be about half an age ahead in turns of technology.

You make up for it by your wars lasting 5 turns instead of 20 and hardly losing any attackers. Plus you can upgrade your transports if you really want to since having Nav 1 and Refridgeration doesn't really make that big of a deal (you can still sneak up on most cities with 5 moves and the Frigs are the only ones who need the extra move to bombard).

And the only thing you NEED is to get your ships over to the other continent before the other civ has flight and builds fighters. That's not that difficult if you've already wiped out all of your opponents on your continent (which is usually the idea). After that production shouldn't even be an issue.

 

[futurehermit]

1) Ships need to be able to carry more (like ~2x the amount) units

2) Ships need to be cheaper

The combination of 1 and 2 prevent me from considering a naval assault pre-galleons because I can't afford to put 1-3 of my moderate amount cities toward producing lots of galleys + triremes early in the game at high levels. This combination also makes intercontinental warfare very expensive post-galleons.

3) Ships could move a bit faster, that would help, especially post-caravels

4) Definitely need to *bring back* barbarian ships

5) Need to improve the AI's ineptness at naval warfare

6) Need more for ships to do. Pillaging trade routes is an option. Damaging units/cities is also a good idea depending on the level of defenses (e.g., walls, castles, etc.) of a city. A strong navy was feared back in the day (pre-flight). A strong navy doesn't do much for you right now.

It would be neat if ships transported goods, like in real life, but I'm not sure how that would work exactly. Something like in order for you to have a resource trade between nations you need your ships to actually take the resource to that nation...

 

[warp_kez]

Not sure if this can be implemented, but naval attachments.

- Galleys have two transport places, these could be taken up by two offensive/defensive units increasing the attack/defend points. Same too with early Bronze age naval units.

- Galleons hold three units, if they are rifles, Red Coats or even early cannons, same story as above but in the case of cannons reduce the distance traversed by one to replicate the weight of the extra cannons.

- Frigates should be allowed to carry a single cannon, rifle or grenadier unit.

- Destroyers and Battleships carry one marine, infantry, or modern artillery unit.

- Rename transports to LST's, and create an actual transport ship (ala Queen Mary etc) capable of carrying 5 to 10 divisions.

- Aircraft carriers should be allowed to carry attack and transport helicopters, as well as bombers.

To further enhance naval units, Radar to increase visual range by one square in each direction. Perhaps even OtH radar with a much larger view radius.

A new naval unit: support craft. When ships are within friendly territory they do not induce any penalties such as strength or movement, but outside support craft could be used to refuel and maintain the fleet.

Just a few ideas.

 

[scu98rkr]

Mango has a good point.

I've never used this tactic against the AI, but I developed a similar strategy against my house mate in a LAN game.

Basically I had a smaller more technologically advanced country, while he had a bigger empire.

I had tried landing on his continent several times but I just could not ship enough troops across. Especially a he had a huge stack of artillery, which were very good at counter attacking. Eventually I realised it was easier to attack his cities from the boats before he get his troops across his vast nation to counter attack. I'd then just burn down the cities stopping him building new more giving me even more control of the seas.

Basically all of his coastal cities had been raised before he realised Id just developed nuclear weapons and didnt want to continue for some reason ?

 

[GoodGame]

Those are good ideas. Basically boarding parties and the option to overload a ship with cannon, which did happen. After the age of sail though, it isn't likely to happen as weapons force stand-off ranges that prevent it, and ship designs don't allow strapping siege weapons on to ships.

I could see there being a test in combat, similar to the flanking 'retreat', that determines if boarding happens or not. There could also be a 'boarding' promotion to increase the chance of a ships ramming/boarding and a melee occurring between the troops. So boarding might not happen every time.

Not sure if this can be implemented, but naval attachments.

 

[Mango]

The whole idea behind attacking from ships is to prevent your units from getting decimated in that one turn you wait on their land. Once your opponent has railroads then it is lights out trying to land on their soil. You will get hit with so many artillary that your stack will be mince meat.

If there's one thing you can ALWAYS count on it's you can easily acheive naval supremacy if you want to. The AI just doesn't prioritize it and the ships they do have will only pillage your work boats (or even worse, bombard your defenses in cities they have no intention of attacking).

 

[Warspite2]

I think making the navy capable of:
1) randomly destroying city improvements when they bombard
2) being able to at least bomb land unit down to half health like bombers
3) can blockade enemy coastal cities easily (ZoC is a great idea)
4) can pillage trade route (trade route must be important enough to be worth pillaging, otherwise it is just a minor annoyance)
5) can destroy land tile improvement

I agree with all of this. The major thing about it is the AI will have to know how to use it all and will have to use it. If not it will give the player too much of an advantage. So if they can do it, these would be great features for sure! Either way, I still like navy how it is and I use navy all the time on my maps, its just those added features would make it much more important.

 

[that_student]

The navy would be a lot more useful if they brought back cruise missiles with a limited range of say 4 or 5 tiles and that could be loaded into battleships and carriers. This way you would have incentive to attack with a navy.

I also like the trade route idea. As for improving early units, I think the galley and trireme should have +1 range and transport capacity. The frigate should be able to carry one unit, and have a better bombard.

 

[Padraig]

The suggestions here seem almost exclusively related to attacking/taking land, which makes sense considering that's how the game is won, but what about ship to ship combat? Does anyone else see the transport-class/attack-class dichotomy as being shallow? I'd like to see a more paper-rock-scissors approach like we have on land.

It exists marginally with the Battleship vs. Destroyer vs. Submarine (and air units) vs. Battleship, etc. We see nothing of the sort in the previous time periods and perhaps historically speaking, it is largely accurate. However, that doesn't change the fact that I (and many others apparently) find naval warfare previous to the modern age relatively boring.

I have hopes that the privateer will help somewhat...but I doubt the Frigate will have a counter unit besides another more experienced frigate or God forbid an Ironclad along the coast (which to this day I do not think I have ever built or seen the AI build-anyone got a screenshot? )


I agree that
1. Ships are mildly expensive, though since can reach larger portions of the world they are not overly expensive. I would support a slight decrease in production costs, but probably not beyond 25%.
2. Increasing transport capacity by 1 is a good idea.

The whole bombardment issue I am not so sure about. The focus of artillery in Civ3 was distance bombarding. In Civ4 it shifted to collateral damage. If you give ships the ability to bombard at a distance you have to give it to land based artillery and then land based artillery becomes even a more vital component of one's army. Sure, you could counter that by making land-based artillery capturable like Civ3, but if you really want to do that I know a great game for you to play....CIV3

 

[Enkidu_Warrior]

1) Ships need to be able to carry more (like ~2x the amount) units

2) Ships need to be cheaper

The combination of 1 and 2 prevent me from considering a naval assault pre-galleons because I can't afford to put 1-3 of my moderate amount cities toward producing lots of galleys + triremes early in the game at high levels. This combination also makes intercontinental warfare very expensive post-galleons.

3) Ships could move a bit faster, that would help, especially post-caravels

4) Definitely need to *bring back* barbarian ships

5) Need to improve the AI's ineptness at naval warfare

6) Need more for ships to do. Pillaging trade routes is an option. Damaging units/cities is also a good idea depending on the level of defenses (e.g., walls, castles, etc.) of a city. A strong navy was feared back in the day (pre-flight). A strong navy doesn't do much for you right now.

Yes, yes and 7 times more yes. It's a shame that we're too close to release to see these implemented if they aren't planned already.

The suggestions here seem almost exclusively related to attacking/taking land, which makes sense considering that's how the game is won, but what about ship to ship combat? Does anyone else see the transport-class/attack-class dichotomy as being shallow? I'd like to see a more paper-rock-scissors approach like we have on land.

And this is the only thing missing from hermit's list. Late game warfare generally suffers from the lack of r-p-s. By the time I hit infantry, I miss the strategy and tactics and just get bored with the logistics.

EW

 

[winddbourne]

Actually they seem to be on the right track in this version.

1. We have had sea resources and a unit to improve/harvest them, and they can be pillaged so must be protected.

2. We are getting pillagable sea trade routes

3. they are bringing back the privateer.

So far so good.

What I'd like to see are these:

4. The ability to bombard cities from the ocean returned from civ III

5. Each unit able to carry more, and/or the ships costing less to build.

6. The ability to improve coastal terrain that DOESN"T have a resource on it. Yes I should get more if there is a "fish" resource there, but even if there isn't my fishing boats improvement should net me SOMETHING. Given this I'd be using work boats a lot more than I do now.

7. Faster ships so I can get my armies across the sea fast enough to effect a "war" already going on at the other side. I hate having an army sitting at the other side of a 8-10 turn "supply line" where I can't even think of reinforcing them quickly if things start getting a bit hairy.

And of course the AI and BARBARIANS need to use all this effectively.

 

[kniteowl]

3: Allow all ships that carry units to carry one extra unit. So, a galley can carry three, galleon four, transport five, etc.

I was thinking Why not just add in a Transportation promotion line that does the same thing for transport units... but I guess that would work too.

 

[Rusty Edge]

6. The ability to improve coastal terrain that DOESN"T have a resource on it. Yes I should get more if there is a "fish" resource there, but even if there isn't my fishing boats improvement should net me SOMETHING. Given this I'd be using work boats a lot more than I do now.

Like a beach/recreation area that adds happiness and commerce to the city?

 

[Pomp]

6. The ability to improve coastal terrain that DOESN"T have a resource on it. Yes I should get more if there is a "fish" resource there, but even if there isn't my fishing boats improvement should net me SOMETHING. Given this I'd be using work boats a lot more than I do now.

I've always thought it would be cool to be able to build offshore improvements like in SMAC, and it would certainly make navies more vital (currently, most of the boats I build serve no purpose except parking on top of clams, fish, etc. to prevent pillaging). It might be difficult to rebalance the game, though, since coastal tiles would suddenly become more valuable.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Visible merchants shipping being anything more than flavour is my great fear for BtS trade routes.

Thinking about this has me playing Pirates again. It works nicely there. I hope they can merge those elements into Civ one of these years.

 

[The D Man]

we definatly need faster ships, espicially in the earlier eras.

 

[Thedrin]

Rusty Edge:
Thinking about this has me playing Pirates again. It works nicely there. I hope they can merge those elements into Civ one of these years.

What I mean is that CivIV already has a fairly good trade route system which can easily be built upon. I don't really mind adding visible merchant shipping as flavour* - somewhat similar to the visible huts and work boats when a city works a tile - but I can't see functional visible merchants gelling well with the existing trade route system.

I've never played Pirates and I don't know how its trade routes (never mind its visible merchant shipping) work.

*Actually I don't want visible merchant shipping at all but adding it as flavour only won't detract from the game.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I've never played Pirates and I don't know how its trade routes (never mind its visible merchant shipping) work.

Pirates is a game set in the Gulf of Mexico and Carribbean Sea that you can play as a pirate, a privateer, or something in between.

Ships are occaisionally moving from port to port, crisscrossing the seas, usually leaving a port as you are about to enter, or as another port is almost out of sight.

There are various types of ship and purpose. When you run your curser over it you'll see something like "SS San Diego , Spanish grain ship, three weeks out of Cartegena, bound for San Juan."

There are merchants with mixed cargos of spices, goods and luxuries.
There are smugglers.
There are military payrolls, Invasion forces, settlers. There are mail runners on diplomatic missions, treasure ships, annual treasure fleets, and governors on the way to their new stations.

There are also new warships that just go from place to place, Pirates, pirate hunters, and privateers. As shipping gets disrupted , there are escorts.

 

[qwert]

My suggestions:
(order doesn´t reflect importance)

1) Make water improvements more valuable

2) Make trade routes something that can be attacked and that needs to be defended and of course make them more valuable

3) Make ships faster, before railroad and airports they should be a better and faster option than moving units throught land.

4) Maybe: allow the to carry more units

5) Bring back Civ 3 stile artillery and ship artillery, this would make modern ships able to cause damage to ground units cities and terrain improvements (same for land artillery to water). Cruise missiles wouldn´t hurt neither.

6) Bring back C3C airforce, this would make aricraft more usefull and as a consequence carriers wouldn´t be so useless. Give promotions to airplanes.

7) Provide some more ships before the modern ages, maybe one transport before galleons, and definitvely a fast ocean-going steamer, the ironclad only makes sea attaks impossible without a counter and is definitely usseles to attack anibody other than your neighbour. An rock paper scissor sea system before the industrial-modern age would be helpfull.

8) More naval promotions.

9) You should be able to block any city so that it doesn´t recieve resources, coastal cities would require sea units.

10) Make the submarine capable of destroying batleships without or with little damage. The same for the cruiser against subs and battleships against cruisers.

 

[Shadowhal]

wow, a lot of good things posted here. imo rethinking the navy should also entail rethinking air force as they are somewhat linked in the modern period. for both cases o believe a more fleshed out rock - paper - scissors set as well as according promotions would work nicely.

the much argued coastal bombardment feature might for example be available via promotions and even then only to certain units e.g. battleships, lineships in the earlier times.
another promotion (thinking more of air units, sry for the off topic) might lower the limit to which units can be bombarded from afar. currently this is 50%, it could go down to maybe 25% with a few promotions.

in any case, if implemented correctly, this would make it possible, though a bit more challenging to use ships and air units as effective land unit / city attackers.

otherwise, the trade line concept could work as well, we'll have to see how exaclty they implement it.