Let's start a G&K thread for UP/VE

[gunnergoz]

Since Thal's made the announcement that he is now actively working on converting his mod to the G&K code, maybe we can start a thread where we can discuss this and make suggestions for the mod's future.

I'll throw this in as a starting suggestion: can the mod include some unique combat units to go with religions that are deemed in the game to be strongly militaristic?

Mind you, I don't care if the game represents real religions and I'm not arguing for historical units to reflect actual known levies of religious fanatics, e.g. crusaders for the Christians. They could call the religions silly names like "the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" and its UU the "flying daredevils" for all I care. What would be interesting, though, is if certain religions had a bonus of allowing the establishing player to build unique units that would have some special trait - for flavor and effect.

I am not proposing that these units would have to be permanent and upgraded throughout the game, though that could be a possibility. It could be as simple as designing units optimized for one era, that only come into being for that era, or perhaps 2 eras, sort of like the Japanese Zero. Great while it lasts, not useful for a very long time though. "Generic" unique units would be OK by me - it is the principle that counts here, not necessarily historical accuracy.

 

[Txurce]

Thal has said in the past that he prefers not to add new units unless necessary. In VEM's hitory, he only added the Vanguard line. I'm sure there will be small outside mods that will accomplish something like what you suggested.

 

[rfxmills]

I think religious warriors are covered by vanilla G&K anyway.

 

[mitsho]

I do think as well that this would go too far for VEM (GEM?) objectives. Also, they do seem to treat religious specialities differently with Cathedrals, Mosques and Pagodas apparently being Beliefs?

I withhold judgement on that for the moment

I'd rather have Military city states assigned a Unique Unit that they can give you.

I'm also curious how the special luxuries for Mercantile city states will work, we've only heard of Porcelain and Jewelry, but that can't be it all, right? But again, withhold judgement for now.

I would like the Huns to receive the German UA (it fits better) and the German to get a new one. Part of the Hunnish UA (more hammers from Pastures) also fits much better with the Zulu/Bantu...

It's really difficult to come up with balances when you haven't played the game at all.

 

[albie_123]

Thal has said in the past that he prefers not to add new units unless necessary. In VEM's hitory, he only added the Vanguard line. I'm sure there will be small outside mods that will accomplish something like what you suggested.

It's highly possible that a few units will be added to expand navies post-GAK.

 

[Thalassicus]

I think there's 5 new luxuries in G&K: four on land, one at sea. It's been a while since I checked, however. I plan on setting up this naval progression in the expansion, whether that requires adding or removing ships:

 

[Txurce]

I really like the three classes, and how you assign them up to Navigation. At that point I thought "Weren't frigates warships?" And later, "Destroyers are just spotters?" And "What are 'Marines, anyway?"

Finally, imagining battle groups as you suggested, doesn't it seem unbalanced to have SOTL's and battleships be the workhorses, and frigates and destroyers a specialty unit?

My suggestion would be to be flexible regarding the "light" class, and consider whether it is obsolete with the arrival of the frigate. (Caravels could still upgrade to frigates, though.)

 

[Txurce]

I had been thinking not about new units, but how the Leaders will be affected by VEM in the new game. For example, Sweden's CS-based tilt is based on the vanilla Patronage tree, not VEM's; Siam is seemingly nerfed if they only benefit from 40% of the CS, rather than 67%; etc. Thal knows this far better than us, but I would imagine that the Policy tree will require the most adjustment.

 

[albie_123]

My suggestion would be to be flexible regarding the "light" class, and consider whether it is obsolete with the arrival of the frigate. (Caravels could still upgrade to frigates, though.)

I disagree with light ships being obsolete later in the game. If you're not concerned with ocean warfare, and are just planning on knowing if a Rival is sending a fleet your way - or you just want some cheap, extra protection against submarines - then light ships are the way to go.

In case anyone wasn't here for it, this table was discussed heavily in an earlier thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=11335377#post11335377

I link it because at first I was actually quite skeptical of the idea, but the more it was discussed, the more I liked it. It's now probably one of the things I'm most anticipating about GEM. (Are we still calling it that? )

I had been thinking not about new units, but how the Leaders will be affected by VEM in the new game. For example, Sweden's CS-based tilt is based on the vanilla Patronage tree, not VEM's; Siam is seemingly nerfed if they only benefit from 40% of the CS, rather than 67%; etc. Thal knows this far better than us, but I would imagine that the Policy tree will require the most adjustment.

Frankly I think there are bigger problems with the new leaders. For example, the Huns having faster city razing? It's not exactly what I'd call a decisive bonus. But, we'll see what happens.

 

[Txurce]

I disagree with light ships being obsolete later in the game. If you're not concerned with ocean warfare, and are just planning on knowing if a Rival is sending a fleet your way - or you just want some cheap, extra protection against submarines - then light ships are the way to go.

I probably wasn't clear enough: my point is that light ships are indistinguishable from "melee" ships post-Navigation. Thal called them "destroyers," not "PT boats," etc. What I'm proposing is that the light class disappear, and that destroyers become melee ships that (being faster with more sight) serve a different function than battleships.

 

[albie_123]

I have to be honest, I'm not following at all.

Are you saying that the distinction between the roles of light and melee ships post-frigate aren't clear enough? I would think that one being ranged, cheaper and having longer visibility is differentiation enough.

If you're not saying that, then I apologise. It's probably just too early in the morning for me to be posting.

 

[Txurce]

I have to be honest, I'm not following at all.

Are you saying that the distinction between the roles of light and melee ships post-frigate aren't clear enough? I would think that one being ranged, cheaper and having longer visibility is differentiation enough.

If you're not saying that, then I apologise. It's probably just too early in the morning for me to be posting.

I'm saying that with the arrival of the frigate, there is no need to differentiate between light and melee ships. A destroyer, for example, would function as both "melee" and "light" - just like they do in RL. My issue is that frigates and destroyers had more than enough firepower not to be relegated to"scout" duties, and replaced by Marines (huh?) and subs.

To put it another way, frigates and destroyers ought to have more ship vs ship punch.

Otherwise you wind up with the anomalous fleet make-up Thal sketched out, where a good-sized navy has only one destroyer vs five battleships (quite different from RL).

 

[Seek]

From what little is known, there are also melee Privateers (which may be able to conquer ships like the Ottomans) at Navigation and possibly Galleasses at Compass appearing in G&K.

 

[Txurce]

Good point.

 

[Zaldron]

Otherwise you wind up with the anomalous fleet make-up Thal sketched out, where a good-sized navy has only one destroyer vs five battleships (quite different from RL).

This. Also, I'm not sure about G&K but aren't destroyers the only ships with intercept for some measure of air protection?

 

[gunnergoz]

When and where do aircraft carriers fit in? What would their characteristics be?

 

[Tarquelne]

Short version: My favorite, and alas last, idea from the rambling below is:

Move "Marines" to "Electricity" and call them "U-boat" rather than "Marines." Scrub the anti-city ability.


Long version:

It's certainly desirable to have a ship between Galleon's and Subs, but I don't think "Marines" fits the ship-to-ship role well. Not if they're going against Frigates and Ironclads. OTOH, if you're attacking a city a bunch of marines may very well be better than the relatively few cannon found on Frigates and Ironclads.

So I think "Marines" should be switched to the "Capital" column because they fit the anti-city role better. Likewise, switch "Ironclad" to the Melee column. (Not that it really matters: We're trying to trace naval combat over several thousand years of changing technology - everything may not fit into neat columns.)

IMO a name-change for "Marines" would be desirable too, switch or no-switch.

Are they supposed to be wind-powered? Windjammer, perhaps? Nearly-literally the last word in sail ships. Big, fast, and tough compared to their predecessors. I don't know if they were ever used as warships. But the name is cool enough for a fighting ship.

Brig? Highly maneuverable - to get in close and "melee". Extra large crews - the marines. Historically popular with pirates.

Ideas if "Marines" are steamships:

Keep "Ironclads" at Steam - whether that's the name of the anti-ship unit or the anti-city unit - and push the other unit one tech-column further to "Replaceable Parts".

Call the capital ship "Dreadnought" (for the earliest BBs) or "Cruiser". "Cruiser" sounds more advanced than Ironclad. Or drop "Ironclad" altogether - it was a pretty broad term but presumably both ship types would be built using roughly the same tech. Use "Cruiser" for anti-ship and "Dreadnought" for the capital ship.

Replace Marines with an early submarine. ("U-boat"? At Electricity?)

 

[Thalassicus]

I don't think it's feasible to represent real-world naval battlegroups in Civ 5. One unit per tile inherently favors capital ships. A small quantity of strong capital ships can usually bombard a port city more effectively than a large quantity of weaker light ships, especially when there's limited space to attack from.

My goal is simply to ensure we build a combined-arms navy instead of spamming 1 unit type. That's all I'm aiming for right now.

Light ships have high visibility and can attack any target at range, while melee ships can only attack cities and ships. If we build only melee ships they become useless once the enemy navy is destroyed. If we build only light or capital ships we're vulnerable to melee ships. This encourages us to build some of each. Capital ships are generally better than light ships, but we're going to have some light ships left over from earlier eras. We also need at least 1 light ship in each late game battlegroup to spot submarines. Overall, these things should nudge us towards building a mix of all 3 ship classes, which should make naval combat more complex than vanilla where we can spam 1 ship per era.

 

[Dunkah]

Aren't Melee ships going to be able to take cities and units on the coast etc? That class should be called Ship to shore then there should be a fourth class which is ship to ship? Marines were used in the early days to fight bording actions when capturing of a ship was actually possible. Once you get into WWI you can't get close enough to do a bording action so it goes strictly to the guns. Melee ships become platforms to launch beach landings.

Also subs are just wrong. Subs very rarely duked it out with surface ships prefering to terrorise the shipping trade. They certainly couldn't out gun the surface ships and if they got close enough to torpedo one they were usually manouverable enough to evade the torpedoes. And if the subs were brave enough to fire a torpedo while a warship was around the entire fleet would hunt them down until they were dead usually without a chance to fire another shot. Subs should have a huge radius to block trade routes but should not be undetectable and have the ability to duke it out with surface ships.

Battleships should become obsolete late game with the invention of the carrier. After all Carriers are the modern capitol ship and perform the roles that Battleships did and more. All Capitol ships should be hugely expensive to build and maintain, (to the point where it should be a strategy to not use them!)

Light
Trireme - Small Speedy
Caravel - Small Speedy
Frigate - Small Speedy
Sub - Stealthy

Melee (Specialized)
Galleon - Cannon/Marines (could be in either Anti Ship or Melee)
LST/LSD - Troops
Hover Craft - Troops

Anti Ship (Make up bulk of Navy)
Galley - Ram
Destroyer - Guns
Missle Cruiser - Missles

Capitol (All need protection from smaller anti ship vessels)
(Should be 3 or 4 times the investment in hammers or gold)
(Should have huge maintenence costs)
SOTL - Lots of Cannon
Dreadnought - Lots of Guns
Battleship - Lots of Big Guns
Carrier - Lots of Planes/Helicopters

 

[Txurce]

My goal is simply to ensure we build a combined-arms navy instead of spamming 1 unit type. That's all I'm aiming for right now.

To be clear, I like most of what you diagrammed, although I do think there are some superfluous units. My point is simply that frigates and destroyers should be buffed into melee ships, while keeping most of their light advantages. That still results in a good mix of ships (and doesn't negate their historical roles). There's no need to adhere rigidly to a three-tier system in the later eras any more than there is in the early ones.