Late Game Naval Units

[Stalker0]

I think you all are going way over board with this. Subs are not meant to be perma invisible invincible ships.

They already have a very strong alpha strike, and take different strategic resources than the rest of your navy, they have a different niche.

If you force promotions, than if the AI doesn’t choose that promotion they loose their fleet. Or they put it on one ship...which the human targets, and then sinks the fleet. That is not acceptable, it’s too strong a penalty against the AI.

If you wanted to make subs stronger without toppling naval combat, the best suggestions I have heard:

1) let them ignore borders. Makes them more mobile, can sneak into certain waters.

2) give them promotions and or bonuses when pillaging or killing trade ships...as that was their primary role in history.

 

[Rekk]

Everyone has a "detect submarines" with a range of 1. Submarines detect submarines at full sight range (or should if they don't). Submarines move slower than the melee ships and the same speed as ranged ships. They can't natively catch ships that are retreating.

Destroyers are natively strong against submarines. You aren't going to destroy many in an alpha strike, even with a numbers advantage, and the retaliation is brutal, because the destroyers that are left will always catch up. I'm okay with submarines dying if they get caught, but getting caught is essentially guaranteed if there are any destroyers around. It's not great when a niche unit gets countered by a unit that has been built since the beginning of the game.

What does the AI do if it's been attacked by submarines without a destroyer around? Continue blissfully on without worrying, only attacking if a ship accidentally bumps into one?

1) let them ignore borders. Makes them more mobile, can sneak into certain waters.

This is absolutely a good idea.

2) give them promotions and or bonuses when pillaging or killing trade ships...as that was their primary role in history.

Of course, the element of surprise doesn't matter when your merchant and fishing fleets can't change course.

over board

 

[pineappledan]

@stalker0’s suggestion is making me think that there’s a special niche to be carved out for submarines...

- Set submarine movement to be 1 more than base destroyer sight range without any upgrades. The minimum to preserve 1st strike advantage.(submarines are slower than boats IRL)
- submarines ignore borders
- Targeting remains the first strike line, prioritizing an anti-ship role. Bonuses towards attacks etc.
- Wolfpack becomes a ‘disruptor’ line. Bonuses towards pillaging, killing trade ships, killing embarked ships, and blockading

• +10XP and double heal on pillage
• +33% from killing Trade ships
• +25% vs embarked units (can be done via bonus vs all land unitClasses). Units hit are moved back 1 space and take additional damage if they cannot (same as Cossack promotion)
• +25% vs cities to units within 2 tiles when adjacent to a City. -40% damage from city strikes.

 

[azum4roll]

What about, submarines ignore borders, but if detected there's a diplomatic penalty/prompt?

 

[vyyt]

No it’s just a promotion attribute.

Sorry, I tried to learn something about modding promo attributes/elements on the modding wiki, googled on CivFanatics and tried Ctrl+F-ing both "reconrange" and "recon_range" in both Civ5 and VP folders, but found nothing. I tried this:

UPDATE UnitPromotions SET ReconRange = '2' WHERE Type = 'PROMOTION_ANTI_SUBMARINE_I' AND EXISTS (SELECT * FROM COMMUNITY WHERE Type='COMMUNITY_CORE_BALANCE_UNITS' AND Value= 1 );

And then with IGE, I created an enemy sub and gave myself a destroyer with sight range 4. The sub appeared once I was 4 tiles away from it with my destroyer. So it is either not working or, more likely, I am doing it wrong.

I said it before, but how do you guys make such great mods when there is no official guide by Firaxis and, as far as I know, no complete reference list of all the attributes and elements?

Personally, I would be fine with slightly decreasing the sight of the melee ships and call it a day. Visual range of 2, extended to 3 by a promotion would work for me.