Ironclads now INSANELY powerful

Well keep in mind destroyers versus coastal guns or Battleships have to get in close. They are badly outranged. Even in D-day a few destroyers got in really close for bombardment. If you think of it that way destroyers as melee is a lot less annoying.

Japanese destoyers tore the Us navy apart in Guadacanal with torpedo assaults which required you to be pretty close just think of it like that. Oh and they need to depth charge subs which requires being really close. Ca't hep you against early eras but thats part of civ. Was always annoying in 4 when my cav got riiped to pieces by longbows.

I was talking with my friend about this the other day and we agree. I think when people see the destroyer unit in game they think of modern missle destroyers (which to my knowledge are almost completely phased out by now) and they think it should be long range. But I picture they as WWII era DDs, they have to get in pretty damn close all things considred. The missle cruiser (which, again to my admitedly limited knowledge, is what replaced missle destroyers) is what people envision with the in game destroyer, even though we have the missle cruiser for that role. Although it does come rather late.
 
Well keep in mind destroyers versus coastal guns or Battleships have to get in close. They are badly outranged. Even in D-day a few destroyers got in really close for bombardment. If you think of it that way destroyers as melee is a lot less annoying.

Japanese destoyers tore the Us navy apart in Guadacanal with torpedo assaults which required you to be pretty close just think of it like that. Oh and they need to depth charge subs which requires being really close. Ca't hep you against early eras but thats part of civ. Was always annoying in 4 when my cav got riiped to pieces by longbows.

What you say makes sense. But I also agree with people who think destroyers should have bombardment capability.

I see no reason why destroyers could be both melee and ranged units. And it would kind of reflect destoyers in real life too. Destroyers are menat to be very flexible and useful in many different situations.

Maybe destroyers should have a bombardment range of , but be able to mele also. This way destroyers would have some limited bombardment capability (similar to machine guns), but it would still reflect how destroyers need to get in close to make a kill.
 
From wikipedia:
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers.

Destroyers should be a ranged attack unit, with a ranged attack of 1. It's strengths would be: an ability to move after ranged attack, bonus defense against subs, and the ability to 'see' adjacent subs. This would allow the destroyer unit to better simulate it's real life naval role. Later in the game, it could carry 1 or 2 missiles.

Melee attacking cities/land units from the ocean should be left to a buffed Marine units, specifically designed for that role in the game. After the ancient/classical era, melee ships should be completely obsolete.

Ironclads should fit the role of the slow moving, heavy hitting, early equivalent to the battleship.
 
A thing, real quick, am I the only one that has trouble finding coal?

I only ask because factories are massively useful, and as (at least I) often have only 1-2 more coal then I need to build factories it limits my ironclad fleet. So their "awesomeness" at combat is balanced against the opportunity cost of building another factory. So yeah, maybe they take on 5-6 frigates, but on the other hand it's easier to get the resources for 5-6 frigates then it is for a few ironclads.
 
it's not healthy to think about the game too much... i mean upgraded archers can shoot 3 tiles away. :D
 
I was dominating Spain's eastern seaboard with a fleet of Frigates and Privateers when they put an Ironclad in the water... it took out a damaged Privateer the turn it appeared. Very scary.

Then I regrouped, hit it with 3 Frigates and another Privateer, boarded and captured it and turned it against the city that built it...

Privateers are at least as OP.
 
The destroyer as the equivalent of a gatling gun makes some sense and would make marines more useful. I get what people are saying I was just hoping to give them something to make it less annoying.

The problem is that then there is no modern melee and destroyers would lose all their promotions. For the sake of gameplay this is probably the easiest. Remember Marines can also fight inland and on coastal regions. I can see them being useful to take tiles around a city for flanking bonuses or to allow other land units to get a foothold. Definitely niche but G and K has removed so many niche units it can stand another.
 
The destroyer as the equivalent of a gatling gun makes some sense and would make marines more useful. I get what people are saying I was just hoping to give them something to make it less annoying.

The problem is that then there is no modern melee and destroyers would lose all their promotions. For the sake of gameplay this is probably the easiest. Remember Marines can also fight inland and on coastal regions. I can see them being useful to take tiles around a city for flanking bonuses or to allow other land units to get a foothold. Definitely niche but G and K has removed so many niche units it can stand another.

If Destroyers lost the ability to take cities, then marines would be far more useful.

There's also plenty of situations where you just can't get that many naval units near a city, so marines to land first, then allow other units to follow in.
 
Yeah Maddjinn thats what I was thinking. Another useful benefit is that marines can stack with destroyers allowing you to make more use of frontage. They can do that right since they would count as embarked.
 
If Destroyers lost the ability to take cities, then marines would be far more useful.

There's also plenty of situations where you just can't get that many naval units near a city, so marines to land first, then allow other units to follow in.

Marines are kind of useless, especially for Songhai, since the Marine's only upside is being Amphibious with Embarked Defense, and Songhai automatically gets that on all their units anyway.

A thing, real quick, am I the only one that has trouble finding coal?

I only ask because factories are massively useful, and as (at least I) often have only 1-2 more coal then I need to build factories it limits my ironclad fleet. So their "awesomeness" at combat is balanced against the opportunity cost of building another factory. So yeah, maybe they take on 5-6 frigates, but on the other hand it's easier to get the resources for 5-6 frigates then it is for a few ironclads.

Sometimes, a certain strategic resource is unbelievably rare, and the only sources of it on the whole map might be owned by one person or city state(s). I just lucked the hell out and happen to BE that one person in this game (actually, it was the Huns, but I conquered them before Coal popped :D Silly AI, you should know better than to declare war on me), so my Ironclad Armada is a terror sweeping the globe right now.

It pays to only build factories in your production/science cities, too.
 
I just had AI Korea come at me with waves of Ironclads... at least 5 at a time.

My mass frigates survived, with some help from the meat shield :D (Privateers and a few Ironclads of my own).

The AI is pretty good at surrounds with the melee naval units, so expect to lose more units than you plan.

Of course, now I'm lacking the meat shield, but I've got 3 range Frigates...
 
I think for as far as modern naval combat goes that destroyers may be considered melee. Sure, if you compare them to triremes it doesn't make sense. But that's the same discussion as with archers/gunpowder units. Destroyers are relatively close combat, it can't be denied. Giving them range 1 is the same as giving gunpowder units range 1.

Also for gameplay reasons it'd be bad if destroyers were 1-range. Being 1-range seems best suited for subs only (are they?).
 
From wikipedia:


Destroyers should be a ranged attack unit, with a ranged attack of 1. It's strengths would be: an ability to move after ranged attack, bonus defense against subs, and the ability to 'see' adjacent subs. This would allow the destroyer unit to better simulate it's real life naval role. Later in the game, it could carry 1 or 2 missiles.

Melee attacking cities/land units from the ocean should be left to a buffed Marine units, specifically designed for that role in the game. After the ancient/classical era, melee ships should be completely obsolete.

Ironclads should fit the role of the slow moving, heavy hitting, early equivalent to the battleship.

I like this idea.

I was dominating Spain's eastern seaboard with a fleet of Frigates and Privateers when they put an Ironclad in the water... it took out a damaged Privateer the turn it appeared. Very scary.

Then I regrouped, hit it with 3 Frigates and another Privateer, boarded and captured it and turned it against the city that built it...

Privateers are at least as OP.

My destroyers were doing this. Maybe it was cause they were upgraded from privateers and they keep their old benefits. I liked to shell enemy battleships and attack them last with a melee ship to try and steal them.
 
They should be much more powerful, but they should be slow.

But they weren't "slow". Their steam engines gave them 12-15 knots regardless of wind.

Countries were putting steam engines on wooden hulls for a couple decades before they "armored the ships". You gotta remember a big ship loaded with men and cargo for war didn't exactly win races, and being faster than cargo-laden prey was a matter of 1-2 knots and skilled seamanship.

Later, with this "dependable propulsion" (particularly with the screw) designers laden the ships with armor, making them invulnerable to smaller cannon. Ironclads basically "were" destroyers, cruisers and battleships; the names just changed.
 
The problem in game is that naval technology changed dramatically quickly in the 19th century between wooden sail ships and steel hulled steam ships. The latter rendered the former obsolete in a few decades, compared to the ~200 or so years it took for muskets to replace swords and pikes. As such, which real world unit the ironclad replaces is almost not a valid question, as each new generation of ship france/uk built in the mid 19th century was massively different to the former.

In previous civs (including Civ5 vanilla), the ironclad was a US civil war kind of ironclad. Fair enough, but slightly odd and specific. Now, it seems to represent (not in graphics but in action) as wooden ship with steel plating and a steam engine to supplement sails - an upgraded ship-of-line such as La Gloire or HMS Warrior. This seems to make more sense gameplay wise as it falls almost right in the middle of the development between frigates whose armament relied mostly/wholy on cannons, and the battleships of WW1/WW2. The american ironclad, on the other hand, is sort of a dead end of naval development. I'm curious, what does the ironclad upgrade to now?

The destroyer I've always pictured in Civ as a generic light ship of WW1/WW2/Cold war. Anything between a gun boat, a destroyer and a light cruiser depending on whether you promote it for land bombardment, speed or sea combat respectively. As such, it makes sense that it doesn't have significantly more fire power than an ironclad - at least from a gameplay perspective. It would be like asking for the short ranged 'melee' combat of cannons to be higher than riflemen's as a cannon firing grapeshot at short range is deadly (and responsible for >50% of the casualty of the napoleonic wars)
 
I'm glad that Ironclad are more robust now, but I don't think they're overpowered. I just had my first major naval battle (yay!) in which my mixed force of Caravels, Frigates and Privateers soundly defeated a similar-sized enemy fleet of Ironclads and Frigates. The difference was definitely the Privateers' ability to capture enemy ships.
 
As someone pointed out, coal is relatively rare in game. Especially in large games, you can't get enough coal for factories at times....
 
Ironclads upgrade into destroyers to answer Olleus' question.

Frigates upgrade into battleships.

Privateers upgrade into destroyers.
 
The Civ game can get more dynamic if they wish to keep 1upt. Certain units vs other units using a weapon choice. DD having mainly a small +1 range attack using torps or depth charges vs ships, melee vs land, air cav, having +1 range anti-tank/vehicle choice, melee vs everything else. But I wouldnt like them to become what aircraft became in Civ (pure strategic style of play unit). (tactics mean actually moving them around on the map manually)
 
For those who question the strength of the Ironclad and their ability to take cities, I thought I would bring up Commodore Perry and the Black Ships of Edo:

In 1852, Perry sailed 4 ironclad ships into the port of Edo (modern day Tokyo) and demanded that the Shogunate open up trade to the west. When he returned a couple of years later, the Shogunate immediately caved in to his demands, seeing no way to stand up to the superior technology of the west :)

I kind of like to think that it's the same deal when Ironclads take cities in CiV.. the ships sail into the port, fire their massive numbers of cannons and demand that the defenders put down their weapons - which the governor orders, awed by the superior firepower present and with their own fleet sunk or absent :)
 
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