MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
I like the stealing resouces idea, not the rerouting trade routes. The trade routes should just be blocked.
make ship building available to cities that have coastal access, not just coastal cities, i.e. those with shore within their borders, not just those built on the shore. Do this by adding a tile improvement, a drydock i guess, that can only be built on shores and only 1 within a cities radius, then, having a dry dock in a cities radius allows that city to build boats that will appear at that location This is especially useful since most true coastal cities lack the shields to turn out much of a fleet
increase the speed of naval vessels, probably by atleast 2, this will make them viable means of transport within the same continent. as it stands now, with roads, by the time you move to a ship, load, transport, unload and move to your destination, you could have walked, often faster. Increase the usefulness of them as a means of transport and you will have to build a fleet to protect what you transport.
reduce the cost of boats, coastal cities often lack the shields to build a real fleet, since the game lacks real world mechanics, you know where parts are built in the land locked areas and shipped to a dry dock for assembly only, you need to compensate by reducing the cost to make fleet building viable. Or maybe just give a boost to cities working forests while building boats.
If at all possible, what i'd really like to see is waste from distance to capital changed to be not physical distance, but travel distance,or rather travel time, in other words a city may be 2 tiles away, but with roads its 1 move( to my knowledge, this isn't how it currently works). so building roads between your cities reduces the waste. Now allow this calculation to take into account the increased speed of water travel only when the way is safe(no barbs or hostiles) and you add a real incentive to maintain a defensive fleet and protect your coasts. by doing so you reduce waste to all your cities and actually make colonies viable, that is if you patrol and protect the water ways to your colonies.
And has anyone seen the lanun actually harvest pearls?
First of all, re: the Arcane Barge, I think it is meant to essentially be a wizard permanently stationed on a ship and as such it should behave that way. I have honestly never built one, but I would hope it is treated as an adept in terms of promotions and experience gain (with a couple modifications to reflect the naval promotion tree).
I would propose this be extended to harbours and lighthouses as well, or at least allow them to be built on fresh water lakes over the size of say 3 tiles. Of course, these improvements would need to be connected by a road, and should give diminishing benefits based on distance to the parent city (reduced production of ships, reduced health bonus, etc.).
I don't like the idea of reducing the cost of boats. Ships are bloody expensive, and represent a huge investment for a military. Look at the military budget for the USA - the Navy has by far the highest costs for commissioning new hardware (aircraft carrier, anyone?). This has been the case throughout history.
However, maybe something has to be done about the lack of production from coastal cities and maybe reduced cost of ships is the solution (however, then the external port facilities idea would need to be scrapped). Honestly, production IRL is based on labor and capital, i.e. population and commerce/resources. I know this is a game and hammers are the mechanic it uses. The current system also makes for interesting game play, so I don't have a better idea.
Well, pearls only appear to the Lanun, so it would be pretty difficult to see them harvest them.
I think Pirate Coves are fine as they are. Their ability to function as a canal is very powerful. If I added anything, it would be that ships don't pay an away-from-home maintenance fee if they are docked there. It would allow you to establish bases for your fleet around the world where they could patrol waters without them costing you a fortune.
i'm confused, why, in that scenario, would the external port need to be scrapped? The production loss?
I'm sorry, thats not quite what i meant. You are right, i wouldn't see them harvested, but i meant more that I've never seen them trade pearls, much less gotten the lanun to trade them with me. A whole resource wasted as far as i can tell. I even forced both lunan peoples into the games for a while there trying to get pearls traded to me, but never happened, the lunan were never near the peals, or just didn't harvest them(or, you know, i killed them before they could, oops.)
just again, something associated with pirates that isn't really piratical in any sense. no maintenance sounds good, and maybe it could let the lunan harvest pearls in rival territory since it seems thats the only way they'll ever be able to harvest the pearls. Out of curiousity, how often can you get a canal thats of any real value, granted when you can its a boone, but i don't often see too many isthmuses where i can save a great deal of time with a canal over going around.
Well, I think it would be unbalancing to reduce the cost for coastal cities that generally have lower production, and then allow high production interior cities to build ships at that lower cost. Personally, I try to build coastal cities at the end of a natural harbour so they have good production, but that is just my style.
I've never checked, but can you trade for Iron, etc. before you have researched the appropriate tech? If not, that might explain why the Lanun don't trade Pearls. Otherwise, it is probably the scarcity of water resources in general. Jacking up the frequency unbalances the game when the player controls the Lanun though. I think allowing pirates coves to harvest Pearls, or water resources in general, is a better idea.
On the lack of naval play by the AI, I honestly don't see it. In most of my games, the AI builds up a significant navy (and often annoys the hell out of me with it). When I decide to fight a foreign war, I have to spend quite a lot of turns building a navy myself before I can attack. I think the difference is a lot of people play on pangaea, no ocean or 2 continent maps, whereas I play on multi-continent maps. Navies are more important on my maps, and it looks like the AI reacts accordingly.