I spoke too soon...

[Veneke]

For those who love sea beggars, it sucks having them used against you! I finished a game where the netherlands were an opponent and wow... Archipelago vs Naval Power's type of game, and those things started stealing other peoples unique ships and i couldn't mount a counternavy for the life of me.

I will have to learn my lesson and not wait until later to build a navy...

I think that's the key problem with Privateers and Sea Beggars, once you get on a roll with them it becomes very difficult to counter. So far the best solution I've found to take on a large number of Sea Beggars/Privateers fleet is to beeline for Submarines instead of Ironclads. It's a few techs off the centre of the tree, but the difference between Subs and Ironclads in handling Privateers/Sea Beggars is huge.

 

[Halcyan2]

To be honest, the easiest solution would be to prevent Privateers/Sea Beggars from capturing post-Industrialization ships. Just give everything beyond the Ironclad an immunity. Problem solved. It's in the modern era anywhere where things start to get a little weird, so just cut them off there. You'll still have an armada of ships from a couple of Privateers but at least you won't have ridiculous things like captured battleships, aircraft carriers and submarines of all things.

I like being able to capture more advanced ships.

In Into the Renaissance, my corsair Triremes captured many a Galleas, Privateer, and Frigate (I was playing Deity and the AI's easily out teched me).

I realize that modern ships are a bit different but....

 

[thadian]

oh i was demolished with a total butt-kicking, i even reloaded an autosave 20 turns earlier to try to save it but there was no saving it. Nothing i could have done at all but keep pace with navies.

This can snowball out of hand quickly when Ships of the Line deal the first hit and the Sea Beggar the second hit...

 

[Veneke]

I quite agree that capturing modern era naval units is pretty entertaining but I do think there are serious balance issues with that.

Aye, Privateers/Sea Beggars with any kind of support or in any kind of numbers can rapidly snowball into a huge unconquerable navy, even one managed by the AI.

 

[smallfish]

I've been playing around with the Ottomans (later era start), and one thing that really struck me compared to Vanilla was that they weren't so generic a civ anymore. The Prize Ships UA really made them feel, well, unique.

So here is what I propose: the Ottomans would be the only civ whose melee ships would be able to convert consistently through the eras. The other civs start and stop at the end of Renaissance.

 

[nokmirt]

I just captured a destroyer with a destroyer. I did kind of need an extra one, to tell you the truth.

 

[CYZ]

To me it seems fun to capture modern ships with a large amount of older vessels. Though it should be something that's too hard to achieve to be a strategy you can depend on. I don't have the game so I wouldn't know how hard or easy it actually is.

 

[thadian]

oh just line up 5-6 shooters. pew. pew. pew. pew. pew. beggar swoops in...

 

[CYZ]

I see, then it's certainly too easy.

 

[thadian]

its like Civ4 airstrikes... It shouldn't take much effort in all honesty to 4-6 shot an advanced boat and run away with it, even later in the game i can use 3 battleships to hit your missile cruiser THEN send in a sea beggar... so even if it doesn't update it can still be "abused" albeit a bigger risk.

Edit - most civ5 G+K battles in my games come down to about 3 ranged units taking the defender to red before a swordsman or something takes the tile so it can be close to full HP for the retaliation - battles are (for me at least) more about "dancing tiles" and less about "driving in". And the sea battles, the only difference is you don't really have a lot of obstacles like ice or mountains in your way. And the AI is at least smart enough to not chase a scout across the map with 3 riflemen it NEEDS in it's territory.

 

[headcase]

I had an early-rush scare with Russia last night. My Mayans had 2 archer UUs nearby, they had a handful of warriors and 2 archers. They attacked my city with some pretty solid strategy (at least in my eyes), and you could even sense their impatience when they were running out of units and just started charging my city with wounded units. They got my city down to a sliver of health. Overall the day would have been theirs if the city wasn't on a bottleneck surrounded by trees.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

To me it seems fun to capture modern ships with a large amount of older vessels. Though it should be something that's too hard to achieve to be a strategy you can depend on. I don't have the game so I wouldn't know how hard or easy it actually is.

It's easy enough that I did on accident. :/

Maybe the "prize ship" trait just shouldn't stay with upgrade. I don't know.

 

[CYZ]

Perhaps not, or perhaps it should be chance based. Chance of succes could depend on both unit's base strength rating, regardless of promotions and current health. Then trying to capture a weaker unit could have a 90% chance, a unit of the same strength could be 50% or perhaps 75%, capturing the most modern units would be more like a 20% chance of succes.

That's low enough to not make it a valid strategy, but it would still occur.


Then again, aircraft carriers have 0 strength so maybe it wouldn't work. Unless they'd be totally immune (not unfair imo )

 

[Revoran]

Great Admirals also boost combat strength while nearby, just like Great Generals. That's two powers.