How to fix navy?

[RedRalph]

I think we should have ocean-going naval units a lot lot earlier in the game... I dont know about ye but I pretty much never get to have a halfway decently developed city anywhere far form my continent, because my the time you gewt to set up a city far form home its too late for it to develop properly.... think it'd be much more interesting if you could have valuble, far flung cities. It would definitely make the navy more important anyway

 

[The D Man]

I agree with redralph. If Navies could go into oceans earlier in the game, not only could we have far flung cities thus making the navy more useful, but also as a faster transport.

 

[Rusty Edge]

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



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.

I completely agree with 3!

I'm not sure how you could exactly do R-P--S with ships in the age of sail, but I'd suggest a Fore & aft rigged privateer -weaker, but faster than a frigate, and a ship of the line, more powerful , but slower than a frigate & all would be vulnerable to the ironclad which could sink but not capture other ships.

Privateers could harass and pillage, frigates could escort and patrol, and Ships of the line would battle other navies and bombard, ironclads would still be coastal defense.

 

[Pomp]

Allowing ships to navigate the ocean earlier would be a pretty big change that would totally change the feel of the mid-game, and probably require some rebalancing. On non-Pangea maps, finally getting off your starting landmass is a big part of the transition from early to mid-game. Also, historically speaking, while there were isolated cross ocean voyages prior to the age of exploration, navigation and shipbuilding were not reliable enough to support far-flung colonies on the other side of the world.

 

[Chengora]

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.

I actually think these are the most important elements. The problem I've always had with Civ is that it is a land-based game, whereas many of the major powers (Dutch, England, U.S.) have been sea-based ones. The value of the oceans just isn't there. I would tack on a couple additions to sharpen these points:

1. Historically, ships covered more ground than most other means of transportation, and it was a lot cheaper to ship things than transport them across land (and oftentimes faster). Therefore, water-based trade routes should probably be more valuable than land-based ones. You have a much higher volume of trade because of the cheapness of transportation (displacement effect of water, less energy/power to transport the same amount of goods, etc.). More money = more protection needed, especially with privateers.

2. Allow more distant resources to be picked up by civs. Essentially, these are water-based colonies. In real life, ships get resources from the sea far outside of territorial waters, but not Civ. Again, the need for critical resources in distant ocean areas makes navies more important.

And I definitely agree with blockading cities and Civ 3 style bombardment (tweaked of course). For the R-P-S, subs strong against aircraft carriers?

 

[Shadowhal]

one other idea: what would be the problem with allowing some mechanism to improve sea tiles other than lighttower and wonders. as such, sea tiles are so generic and you cant really do a lot with them. maybe just one or two sea improvements that dont require resources would be nice.

 

[futurehermit]

-Frigates *definitely* have to get better at bombarding city defenses. It takes forever and a day for a group of frigates to tear down city defenses. They should be at least as good as catapults and in my experience they don't seem to be.

-I have no problem with adding more of a r-p-s element to naval warfare. The question for me at this point is what early unit takes down triremes and what mid-game unit takes down Galleons? They'd have to probably introduce new ships, which would be fine by me.

 

[qwert]

I was thinking a bit and come to this conclusion:
In real life the importance of navies comes mostly because they allow to control land. An army without the support of a navy is practically useless. If there could be in Civ some form to represent that it would definitively be the solution to this problem, i only don´t know how it could be made.
In Civ II, all naval units could attack and destroy land units with wery litle damage, in that game i tended to build a lot of naval units, but they seemed to me overpovered. In Civ III they changed the system, now ships could not attack land units, but modern ships (frigate and later) could bombard land tiles. I liked this system more, although it rendered the first naval units unable to travel trough ocean and almost useless.


EDIT: I just had another Idea: If a logistic system could be implemented, this would made navys more usefull.

 

[RedRalph]

Explain, qwert

 

[AljayBoy]

The 2 main changes I'd make are:

1. A whole new Naval Promotion scheme drawn up.

2. Definately not faster ships, but ship speed directly proportional to map size, i.e. on a small map, ships would have less movement points than a ship on a huge map.

As it is now, a Transport can start a turn outside the visible area from your coast, and end up loading enemy units on to your land and declaring war by the end of the turn.

 

[qwert]

Well, for this idea i really don´t know how it could be done.
With the name of logistic i refer to the idea that military units need a constant suply in order to be able to work perfectly. This would mean for the player, that he has to maintain somehow a route between his units and his cities in order that those units could receive supply. The other player would try to cut these routes in order to gain an advantage in war. In this sense navies would be usefull for this task.
You could see it like miltary trade routes.

At the moment i don´t know how this could be done for Civ, it probaly is something for civ V. Heart of Irons had such a system, although it was quite complicated.

 

[Rusty Edge]

The 2 main changes I'd make are:



2. Definately not faster ships, but ship speed directly proportional to map size, i.e. on a small map, ships would have less movement points than a ship on a huge map.

You may be on to something.

 

[Dida]

I was thinking a bit and come to this conclusion:
In real life the importance of navies comes mostly because they allow to control land. An army without the support of a navy is practically useless.

Really? They never taught me that in elementary school! The Monguls never had a navy until pretty late in their conquest, no one suggested that their army was practically useless, now did they?

Modern day China has a crappy navy, now no one would suggest the Chinese Army is useless.

EDIT: I just had another Idea: If a logistic system could be implemented, this would made navys more usefull.

Strongly oppose any addition of supply line. It is enough work managing 50 tanks, without having to worry about supply lines.

I would however, advocate implementation of some new resource model so that more of the same resource would be advantageous to a civ. Maybe, for example each coal plant would consume certain amount of coal, so having more coal would be helpful. This arguably should only be done with strategic resources, because no one wants to manage the supply/demand of 40 different resources. Management should also be automated: the computer should tell you, at current rate, how long this particular resource is going to last. Deep sea oil drilling and mining outside of cultural border should be implemented, at least with the discovery of some advanced technology, so a navy might be needed to protect resource interests abroad.
For luxury products that adds happiness or health, the game should also encourage players to own more of the same resources. For example, the more of a resource you own, the more effective it is and less effective for other players. Rationale for this is that, the more you own, the cheaper it is, and hence more accessable to the general public. Luxury from far fringes of the empire should be made more effective, because, well, it is more exotic, especially if it is from another continent.
Any resource that trades over ocean should be presented by a visible trade route, which can be pillaged, making navy more important.
The way I see it, adding naval promotion would not necessarily fix navy, because people don't have a reason to build navy in the first place.

 

[Grimz101]

Really? They never taught me that in elementary school! The Monguls never had a navy until pretty late in their conquest, no one suggested that their army was practically useless, now did they?

Modern day China has a crappy navy, now no one would suggest the Chinese Army is useless.



Strongly oppose any addition of supply line. It is enough work managing 50 tanks, without having to worry about supply lines.

Monguls did not have the need to have a navy untill late into their conquest because They were in Asia, and they could easily expand west so they did not need a real navy.
When the Monguls wanted to take over Japan however, A Mongul navy was built which was one of the most advance and effective, with experienced Chinise Sailors used. The fact Japan wasnt conquered, is because the 1st expedition was destroyed by Tsunami weather, which you cant really do anything about.. The second expedition goto the islands surronding Japan, but the men were plauged with Diease outbreaks ect and had to retreat to Mainland China or die painfully .
If i recall didnt the Monguls invade China partly by using naval boats in the rivers, or was that in one of China's civil wars

One of the terms of being a Superpower, is power projection.. Now China has ICBMs and further Missiles, but that is not real power projection, For China to become a Superpower it needs power projection and that power projection is a navy, and Aircraft Carriers.. Look at the British Empire.. its Army was not really good, the Red Coats got whooped by Afganistan backed with Russian aid in the time of the great game. But yet Britain has had a empire which the sun never sets, and which has controlled 1/4 of the world! This is all thanks to The Royal Navy really, and power projection.
Ultimately sure you dont HAVE to have a Navy in the real world.. but thats if your content with being a middle/great power and not a superpower, because unless you have a navy your power projection is limited.
China's Military maintask right now is converting from a brown water navy, which is limited to coast defence, and partial power projection to islands like Taiwan and Japan, To a blue water navy which is like The United Kingdoms Navy, United States of America, Russia, Japan and India

 

[nmcul]

I've always been put off by the way that Civ III and Civ IV have portrayed navies. That is, as useless novelties that do little more than take up upkeep that would be better spent on more tanks and airplanes. What I feel should really be done in order to improve the situation is a multi-part plan:

1) A lot of the ideas already mentioned are good, especially trade routes and the return of Civ III bombardment, which should be given to ground units as well (there's no reason that that artillery on the coastline shouldn't be able to shoot a transport). Possibly implement counter-battery bombardment as in Alpha Centauri.

2) Battleships should be very powerful. Crazy powerful. With lots of bombard strength and a somewhat decent anti-air capacity (they did have AA guns in real life, after all). Able to crush waves of advancing infantry, plow through small squadrons of destroyers and submarines like they were nothing.

3) In order to balance this, play with the unit support costs a bit. Civ has always had a pretty simple system, which usually works with ground units, but for naval units it has created a situation in which a two-hundred man destroyer with two five-inch guns costs as much to maintain as a five- thousand man supercarrier with a fully functional flight deck. I'm thinking that battleships and carriers (which should also hold more planes) should cost five gold when sitting in your own territory, and that it should get worse from there. That way, even players with large amounts of income will be enticed to accompany his battleships with destroyers for force multiplication, and may set the stage for the return of (less expensive) cruisers as mini-battleships.

 

[Dida]

Monguls did not have the need to have a navy untill late into their conquest because They were in Asia, and they could easily expand west so they did not need a real navy.
When the Monguls wanted to take over Japan however, A Mongul navy was built which was one of the most advance and effective, with experienced Chinise Sailors used. The fact Japan wasnt conquered, is because the 1st expedition was destroyed by Tsunami weather, which you cant really do anything about.. The second expedition goto the islands surronding Japan, but the men were plauged with Diease outbreaks ect and had to retreat to Mainland China or die painfully .
If i recall didnt the Monguls invade China partly by using naval boats in the rivers, or was that in one of China's civil wars

One of the terms of being a Superpower, is power projection.. Now China has ICBMs and further Missiles, but that is not real power projection, For China to become a Superpower it needs power projection and that power projection is a navy, and Aircraft Carriers.. Look at the British Empire.. its Army was not really good, the Red Coats got whooped by Afganistan backed with Russian aid in the time of the great game. But yet Britain has had a empire which the sun never sets, and which has controlled 1/4 of the world! This is all thanks to The Royal Navy really, and power projection.
Ultimately sure you dont HAVE to have a Navy in the real world.. but thats if your content with being a middle/great power and not a superpower, because unless you have a navy your power projection is limited.
China's Military maintask right now is converting from a brown water navy, which is limited to coast defence, and partial power projection to islands like Taiwan and Japan, To a blue water navy which is like The United Kingdoms Navy, United States of America, Russia, Japan and India

That doesn't really answer my sarcastic question of whether the Mongul's lack of navy made their army useless. I guess you don't really know how to make logical arguments. Oh well.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I think that the "unable to enter ocean" trait of early ships should really be changed to a civ III like mechanism, where they can enter but are likely to sink.

 

[Luckystrike77]

Well, I think they have done a great job to improve navies in the new expansion.

1. Better trade route blocking at sea

2. Privateers, now you have to protect your coastline and over seas trade better (Players will find the privateers a find way to cripple another CIV without declaring war)

3. Better AI at sea invasion

4. Nuclear submarines that can sneak upon you, and deliver a deadly load. Be sure to detect 'em early with destroyers. We can even get Cuba crises tendencies if a country is spotted at fire range with lots of nuclear subs. Demand 'em to piss off, or it will be consequences.....

5. More modern ship types, as stealth destroyers.


Without a navy in BtS, you may be in serious troubble!

 

[Luckystrike77]

I think that the "unable to enter ocean" trait of early ships should really be changed to a civ III like mechanism, where they can enter but are likely to sink.

The problem in CIV 3 was that the AI never took those chances. I like that as it is. If you want a over seas empire, go early astronomy. We didnt have great over seas empires before the 16th century anyways. We had some in the mediterranean ones in the ancient times, but that is a small ocean, and its easy to sail it arround the coasts....

 

[Grimz101]

Really? They never taught me that in elementary school! The Monguls never had a navy until pretty late in their conquest, no one suggested that their army was practically useless, now did they?

Modern day China has a crappy navy, now no one would suggest the Chinese Army is useless.

Answered your statement about, china and that you can call them a crappy army because they cant project it

I will answer your question with a question!
If navy is so useless why did the Monguls build one?