Importance of naval supremacy

[Tantor]

In previous versions of CIV I find the importance of seagoing trade, transportation and naval supremacy to be historically incorrect. Seagoing trade and transportation has been the only way to transport large quantities of goods and people until the railroad came along, and even today nothing can compete with seagoing trade. This means that it has always been important to control or deny control of the seas.
In CIV, landbased transport by road or rail have always been the most efficient way to transport units. A cavalry unit moves further on roaded tiles compared to ships of the same era. I believe ships and naval warfare must be emhasized in CIV V and I have the following suggestions:

1. Naval units should be faster than landbased units, even when landbased units travel by road.

2. Roads should be more expensive and have an upkeep --> cheaper to use naval transport than to build roads over long distances.

3. Naval units should have limited range/time at sea --> Base control will be important in naval warfare. GB had numerous ports and coaling station all over the world, alliances and rights of passage wil be more important in diplomacy.

4. Trade should be moved by a "built mean of transportation". Players should be forced to invest in trade capacity. Naval trade capacity should be cheaper in the earlier eras.


You may or may not agree with my suggestions, but most of all I want a debate and to hear your views

 

[Camikaze]

I like the first two suggestions, although the third one could lead to naval aspects of the game shrinking further, and the fourth would be rather tedious and could be better represented through simple trade routes that needed protecting by your naval forces.

 

[rollo1066]

I have to agree that naval power is under represented in Civ. I usually build some ships but rarely have much use for them. Certainly you are right that prior to 20th century ships should be faster than land transport. I'm sure that Magellan's ships sailed around the world quicker than Marco Polo got from Venice to Beijing and back.

 

[Tantor]

I like the first two suggestions, although the third one could lead to naval aspects of the game shrinking further, and the fourth would be rather tedious and could be better represented through simple trade routes that needed protecting by your naval forces.

I agree that my first two suggestions probably are the best.
#3 could abstracted in an easy way by an increase of movement within your own borders. In this way it would make sense to have as much ocean within your borders as possible as it would speed up your navy.

 

[Camikaze]

Well, #3 is a good idea, and definitely something that should be aimed for, but with the way naval things are at the moment, it would be impossible to implement it without things shrinking further. So yes, you want to have a situation in which you have naval bases and that they are of importance, but you won't get that simply by applying the rule that you need naval bases. You would need to apply that rule alongside things to strengthen the role of the navy in the game. Alongside a modified version of #4, it may be possible, but not on its own.

 

[ShadowWarrior]

I think navy is underepresented in Civ because ocean itself has little economic value in Civ game. As long as that is the case, ships will be useless.

We can make navy play a more important role by assigning greater economic value to ocean tiles. Alternatively, we can make it easier for ships to sabotage whatever ecnomic value that ocean tiles do have in Civ.

For example, we can implement a new feature where by ships can conduct blockades over all the adjacent ocean tiles, then navy will be able to play some important roles.

Specifically, if I send one ship into the coastal tiles of enemy city and conduct blockade. Then all the ocean tiles adjacent to where the ship is that are within the enemy city radius will be unable to produce commerce and food. This is in contrast to current civ iv where I must have a ship on every single tile that I want blockaded. In addition, strategic resource being traded with another civ on a different continent can NOT be exported out of that city under blockade (but it can still be exported from other coastal cities not under blockade). Then its just a matter of placing just one ship in every coastal city of the enemy civ and full blockade will be accomplished.

By making ships more powerful this way (being able to blockade over a whole area instead of just one tile), it can impose greater threat on the economic value of ocean tiles. This will make ships more important.

We can also implement a new military feature where any land unit (except seige weapons) that are loaded onto a ship can conduct raid on the adjacent landtile. The raid will never be able to destroy any military unit on that landtile. But it can potentially destroy the improvement on that landtile. But whether or not the improvement will indeed be destroyed depends on several factors. What those factors are can be left to the designers to decide. The point is that we want this feature that will pose some threat to the economy so that navy will play some important role, but not so powerful that it makes the game to0 unbalanced.

If dike in Civ 5 are powerful enough that they can give all ocean and river tiles one hammer for all civ, then the economic value of ocean tiles will have substantially increased. This will make ships important even if their ability to damage is confined to that one tile that they are at.

 

[Tantor]

I think the last two posters are onto something very important. There`s no need to build naval units as long as you don`t need them. There must be som incentives to research and build naval units, and the simplest way is to make profitable to control the seas and equally bad to loose it.

 

[Camikaze]

Yeah, precisely. I'm not sure that assigning the ocean itself some value is the way to do this though. I think trade routes over the ocean is the way to go. If you have important inter-continental trade routes that can be blockaded or interrupted, then you will protect them. A pirate system would help this too, as it would give incentive for a peace time navy so your economy doesn't get completely screwed over. And privateers would be at a whole new level.

 

[ShadowWarrior]

Yeah, precisely. I'm not sure that assigning the ocean itself some value is the way to do this though. I think trade routes over the ocean is the way to go. If you have important inter-continental trade routes that can be blockaded or interrupted, then you will protect them. A pirate system would help this too, as it would give incentive for a peace time navy so your economy doesn't get completely screwed over. And privateers would be at a whole new level.

We can perhaps make it so that all coastal tiles adjacent to a coastal city must be blockaded by ships in order for intercontinental trade routes to be disabled. The same condition must be met in order to disable a coastal city's ability to import strategic resources that are traded with another civ located in a different continent. Of course, this makes no difference as long as other coastal cities are not under blockade. But once all coastal cities are under blockade, then the civ will no longer be able to import that strategic resource.

 

[TheDS]

I'd like to point out that you're mistaken. Use the BLOCKADE command and the ship in question will blockade a radius of 3 squares. That's a 7x7 zone, and it passes through isthmuses just fine too. One ship can blockade an entire city, and often can blockade a second one. Those blockaded tiles cannot be worked.

This is in contrast to the pirating option, which allows you to steal trade route income without preventing the use of the sea, unless your boat is sitting on a particular tile.

I don't like your raiding idea either. Just land a unit or stack and pillage next turn. I'm surprised Cam didn't ream you for that one.

And now for OP's original suggestions...

#1. I can drive my truck much faster than a transport can sail, and if I had a teammate, we could do it all day long, just like that transport. Transports are slow to save fuel, btw. The only ships that can go fast for extended periods of time are nuclear-powered. Diesel-powered ships go slow most of the time, and go fast only when in combat. We're talking 10 knots as a typical speed here. (About 11 mph.) So, no, ships don't necessarily go faster.

I'll agree they're the cheapest way to transport large quantities of goods, and there were eras when it was faster to sail around South America to go from NYC to SF, but those days are LOOOOONG gone. Just the railroad abolished those days, nevermind superhighways.

#2. Roads probably should cost something to build and upkeep, but that's a debate that's raged a long time and we really need to see it in action for it to get settled.

#3. I think we'd be better served by building in some sort of sailing range limitation than forcing a return to port. Assume colliers (and later, oilers) range the oceans near ports, and as long as you've got friendly relations (open borders?) your sailing range is based around those cities. Think of it like airplanes being based out of cities, except not. :/ Not sure if that came across right.

#4. This is effectively the same as charging for roads, if you didn't notice, except now you're charging for sea-lanes. Not saying I disagree, just pointing that out. If you really want to get down to it, charge for vehicles and travel lanes. So you'd charge for caravans and roads, trains and rails, trucks and highways, and ships and sealanes. Sealanes do have to be explored, right? Gotta find those shoals. One could also charge for airplanes and airlanes. Which of those do we consider to be already included in our budget?

So, as Cam said, we'd probably want to make some sort of sea lanes that have to be guarded. I'm not sure, though, that this is any different than what's already going on. You blockade a coastal city, all its trade routes are blocked, even the airport ones, IIRC. Station a few guard ships like you do guard troops. It's just that people don't FEEL the hit until the city gets taken.

 

[Camikaze]

We can perhaps make it so that all coastal tiles adjacent to a coastal city must be blockaded by ships in order for intercontinental trade routes to be disabled. The same condition must be met in order to disable a coastal city's ability to import strategic resources that are traded with another civ located in a different continent. Of course, this makes no difference as long as other coastal cities are not under blockade. But once all coastal cities are under blockade, then the civ will no longer be able to import that strategic resource.

Well that's kinda what you can do currently, and it doesn't really promote naval units too much. If you extend this ability out to being able to disrupt a trade route anywhere along the route, then you have a far easier way of using your navy to ruin your opponent's economy, and a far greater incentive to produce more naval units. Also, it will make use of the whole of the ocean, instead of concentrating naval combat on the coast. Which would be a beneficial change.

I don't like your raiding idea either. Just land a unit or stack and pillage next turn. I'm surprised Cam didn't ream you for that one.

Well it's not that bad an idea (not that I particularly like it), so long as your unit has to return to the transport (or to the sea; see next sentence) the same turn, which would mitigate any possible surprise attack exploits. But it's kinda irrelevant now that it has been confirmed that transports are no more, and that land units will provide their own intercontinental transport. In fact, this new way of doing things would seem to make the 'raid' option perhaps a better idea.

 

[TheDS]

My personal druthers would be if we could bombard again. If the navy has something to do, it gets used. Bombarding a tile, a la Civ3, would be equivalent to his raiding idea. Being able to drop troops just about anywhere is a big power, sure, and I use it a lot, and I am sure to play on maps with plenty of coastline. But it would be nice to be able to bombard and have a (small) chance that my battleship can blow up the enemy's oil well or keep his troops away from my landing site, instead of being limited to bombarding city defense bonuses.

 

[Camikaze]

Well really they should be able to bombard a coastal land tile just as much as a plane can bomb any tile.

 

[Tantor]

And now for OP's original suggestions...

#1. I can drive my truck much faster than a transport can sail, and if I had a teammate, we could do it all day long, just like that transport. Transports are slow to save fuel, btw. The only ships that can go fast for extended periods of time are nuclear-powered. Diesel-powered ships go slow most of the time, and go fast only when in combat. We're talking 10 knots as a typical speed here. (About 11 mph.) So, no, ships don't necessarily go faster.

I'll agree they're the cheapest way to transport large quantities of goods, and there were eras when it was faster to sail around South America to go from NYC to SF, but those days are LOOOOONG gone. Just the railroad abolished those days, nevermind superhighways.

If you read the text above suggestion #1, you`d seen that I said naval transport was faster and more efficient until the railroad replaced it. Trucks and highways came later....

 

[Walkabout]

I'm not so sure about this. Naval bombardment couldn't reach very far inland until quite recently. Planes are not as restricted. And, apart from cruise missiles, naval bombardment tends to be far less accurate. Which may be why there is so little historical precedent for navies acting as effective strategic, or even tactical, bombers. Yeah, there's the whole realism vs. gameplay thing. But I think the best way to make navies relevant is to better model their historical role, not to turn them into something they never really were.

 

[Tantor]

I'm not so sure about this. Naval bombardment couldn't reach very far inland until quite recently. Planes are not as restricted. And, apart from cruise missiles, naval bombardment tends to be far less accurate. Which may be why there is so little historical precedent for navies acting as effective strategic, or even tactical, bombers. Yeah, there's the whole realism vs. gameplay thing. But I think the best way to make navies relevant is to better model their historical role, not to turn them into something they never really were.

I agree with you and in addition; naval bombardement in Civ3 led to an enormous amount of funkilling micromanagement....

 

[Camikaze]

How so? What micromanagement did it create?

 

[Tantor]

How so? What micromanagement did it create?

If I was the attacker I spent every turn issuing a ****load of bombardement orders, and if I was the defender I had to micro my workers to fix the damage. Just as fun as removing pollution.

 

[Camikaze]

Well, given that there will be a limit of one unit per tile, I would think that the general trend would be towards micromanagement of units; you can't move them as a group. But with fewer units, there should be less micromanagement overall. So really, naval bombardment should not entail all that much micro.

 

[Tantor]

Well, given that there will be a limit of one unit per tile, I would think that the general trend would be towards micromanagement of units; you can't move them as a group. But with fewer units, there should be less micromanagement overall. So really, naval bombardment should not entail all that much micro.

You`re right,
but do we know for sure that the 1 unit/hex rules also applies at sea? If so, it would make the D-day impossible....