How to fix navy?

Luckystrike has a really good point . . . even with the current setup if the AI actually used the navy to drop units into my land I'd be more likely to buid up my own fleet.

Especially if they were using Caravels to drop missionaries and spies into my coastal cities without respect to the lack of open border agreements. Plus it would help if they upgraded their ships rather than just building new, an early powerful AI navy could then (often) result in me facing a fleet of transports trying to land on my shore during the end game.

Poor me . . . lacking a large naval force of my own I could be slaughtered by the tanks coming out of those transports. When a navy of my own could have butchered several tanks at a time by sinking those ships. That experience would get me building navies pretty fast!

So I have to agree that AI use of the navy is the KEY factor in making the navy better.
 
Maybe if they could tie it to an economics/trade benefit that is so huge and or essential (isle nation) that a naval arms race comes about naturally-
with even big land countries (al la Russia or Rome or Persia ect that whipped out fleets when needed)-
 
there is always a possibility to install a new great wonder producing a naval unit every several turns, just like the statue of zeus in conquests... but i don't like this idea very much...
 
TroyTheFace:
Maybe if they could tie it to an economics/trade benefit that is so huge and or essential (isle nation) that a naval arms race comes about naturally-
with even big land countries (al la Russia or Rome or Persia ect that whipped out fleets when needed)-

That's what making trade routes pillageable would do.

Coastal cities gain massive benefits from trade. Civs with a large quantities of foreign trade routes also benefit hugely from trade. The current trade route system automatically allocates all trade routes to cities so that a civ gains as much commerce as possible from them. Civs would become compelled to build naval units to protect part of their income (in the same way that units are currently built to protect resources and cities).
 
Another idea would be to bring back the option of subs choosing which ship in a stack to attack, thought that this was reasonably accurate i.e. a sub sneaking up on a carrier group and firing a few torpedos before trying to evade returning fire.

This would also make subs more useful IMO as at the moment they are only there as a novlety (granted giving them consecutive flankng promotions makes them unlikely to lose in a offensive battle).
 
Another idea would be to bring back the option of subs choosing which ship in a stack to attack, thought that this was reasonably accurate i.e. a sub sneaking up on a carrier group and firing a few torpedos before trying to evade returning fire.

This would also make subs more useful IMO as at the moment they are only there as a novlety (granted giving them consecutive flankng promotions makes them unlikely to lose in a offensive battle).


I missed that feature , too. I liked it when the sub had different attack and defense factors, too. That combination made it seem realistic that the sub was an offensive threat to cripple a carrier or battleship, but made itself vulnerable, even to fighterplanes, once it was discovered.
 
BTW the reason why I never build ships is that they are too expensive...
cheapen them? They do only represent 1 ship per unit anyways, and a land unit represents 1000 or so, so normally, I think some ships should be created faster... IMO
 
yes, i agree, for a civ that wants to spend as little as possible on a navy using subs seems a natural (ie German U-boats) and the need to select the target is neccessary to make such a navy viable.
 
I definitely agree with ideas such as ZOC or increased transports capacity among other very good suggestions.

BTW, am I the only one who thinks that modern ships are set too fast? A major drawback due to this fact is like this scenario.. quite often two continents are just about 4~7 tiles away. Then just a few UNPROTECTED transports are able to land a huge stack of armies in a single turn without any interception ever allowed. Navy are simply useless as coastal defense in this regards.

Even when the continents are farther, I often find that a couple transports guarded by just a destroyer or two easily sneak into my coasts. Even when I detect them rather early in the ocean it's sometimes hard to eliminate them all before touching my coastline unless I got good number of warships nearby, because transports don't take many turns to reach distant continents. This frustration discourages maintaining strong navy either as passive defense or blue-water forces.

You know this weirdness is partly due to turn-based nature of the game.. the farther a unit can move per turn, the more advantage goes to who moves first. If I were to amend this I'd rather give ZOC to warships as other good posts already mentioned, or reduce the speed of (specifically modern) transports, or with all other modern ships along. (Another solution would be to make ships cheaper so as to more ships can clear fog of war, but I don't like this idea.. spamming waters with mediocre ships.. fleet placement becomes no-brainer..)

AFAIK no warships IRL have greater max speed than tanks, etc, whereas Modern Armour has mp=3 while Battleships>=5(or 6?). Compare this to older ones: Horse/Chariot=2 vs. Galley/Trimme=2. Modern ships are way too fast.
 
It sounds to me like the navy is going to be a lot more important in BtS. There was never going top be a magic fix all solution, but the trade routes, nuclear carrying subs etc are going to make all the difference. Fair play, Firaxis
 
. . . Modern ships are way too fast.

Yes thats why I proposed in an earlier post that ship speed be directly proportional to map size: small map = less moves etc.

Another random thought, as well as the ability for subs to choose who they attack, I'd like to see the other Civ 3 navy implementation of subs having a hidden nationality.
 
So, we have new attack subs launching guided conventional missiles,

dirrigibles to detect subs and watch the coasts,


and aircraft carriers to strike at subs and zeppelins.


privateers, frigates, and slower, but more powerful ships-of-the- line.




I think I'm getting my wish.
 
Yeah this should be good, however it means more production into your navy, at the moment I turn every coastal town into ship production mid to late game. I hope we can get drydocks quicker! :o
 
Until then, you'll just have to gain experience by stopping those barbary pirates from pillaging your trade routs.
 
3) can blockade enemy coastal cities easily (ZoC is a great idea)

During the BTS chat, one of the DEVs said that ships interdict all trade in the square that they occupy, PLUS 1 tile in every direction. So if you space out your Naval units every 3 tiles oyu can effectively cut off an Enemy's Sea-Trade routes, ie blockae the city.
 
It will be nice to modify the landing phase of the naval invasion to have a special ops carrier, like those amphibious assault ships of the US Marine. They will have huge capacity and carries helicopters and hovercraft which will then, in turn, ferry troops and equipment ashore. Should also be able to launch paratroopers.

Actually they ships and landing craft, and hovercraft all belong to the US Navy. All that is except for the AAV/AAAV (amphibious "tanks"), those belong to the USMC. and they are all launched/delpoyed by the US Navy.

--- Former Amphib "Gator" Sailor.
'Gators are better then CruDes Sailors any day.
 
How does it not make sense?

Battleships have guns (and missile cruisers, missiles) that can shoot far enough to be used to bombard inland targets (something in the order of 40 KM for the later Iowa-class ships). Read up on the late second world war, and how the USN battleships were used to destroy industrial targets (such as ironworks, etc) in Japan.

It would be perfectly historical for capital ships to be able to destroy land improvements adjacent to water (as they could in Civ 3).

From a game balance perspective, land units can capture cities and water units can't.


I've never heard of US Capital Ships or really any ships for that matter bombarding Mainland Japan. All the Big boys were either sunk at Pearl Harbor or were with the Amphibious Navy and MArines preparing the islands for invasion, NOT destroying the Japanese Industrial Base. That was the US Army Air Corp (first from the USS Hornet during Doolittle's Raid, and then from strategic forward airbases recently captured from Japan during the Island Hopping Campaigns.
 
Here she prepared to lead the 3d Fleet in strikes at the heart of Japan from within its home waters. The task force set a northerly course 8 July to approach the Japanese mainland. Raids took Tokyo by surprise 10 July, followed by more devastation at the Juncture of Honshu and Hokkaido 13 and 14 July. For the first time, a naval gunfire force wrought destruction on a major installation within the home islands when Missouri closed the shore to join in a bombardment 15 July that damaged the Nihon Steel Co. and the Wanishi Ironworks at Muroran, Hokkaido.

From the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, regarding USS Missouri. Emphasis mine.

http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/m12/missouri-iv.htm
 
Everyone agree that navy is near useless in the game, but how do you think we can fix it? It seems to require a complete rework of the game model to actually make navy useful.

Nope, I disagree, you come play me online and don't bother with a navy, see how wise that decision was.

How did you determine all agreed with your view? Did you consider just single-players, did you forget this is also multiplayer?

The ability to strike and deprive huge amounts of food and gnp with naval control is massive as well as ensuring your own security. Particularly important in later era multiplayer games, still important in single-player.
 
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