Making navies matter in Civ 7

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Also one annoying thing is that.

Barbarians can build or buy battleships!!!!!
Practically they couldn't. also it is not possible to loot BB the same way pirates can capture ships of the line in the age of sail.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I agree wholeheartedly about making navies matter more, and making maritime trade more lucrative than land routes. I've been banging that drum for years myself. In real life, maritime trade is almost incalculably more valuable than land trade, and throughout history the strong maritime powers have mostly dominated those nations that weren't. If anything, the designers would have to make sure the game didn't model the real world too closely, in order to give non-seagoing nations a better chance to succeed than they've had irl. But I think Civ VI (and maybe also Civ V, iirc) went too far in giving land trade too much parity with maritime trade. I mean, irl, maritime trade might be worth, I dunno, 10x what land trade is worth, in terms of return on investment, distance and volume. In a game like this, maybe it should be "only" be worth 3-5x.

A quick Google search turns up the following numbers for the United States in 2018:
Value of trucking in the US, which carries most of our land freight = $796.7 billion
Value of US seaports = $5.4 trillion

So sea trade accounted for about 7x the value of trucking. Shipping, imports and exports, was about ¼ of the nation's GDP in 2018. The value for trucking doesn't include railroads or air freight, but trucking represents the largest portion of land trade here. You could perhaps look at these numbers as "domestic trade routes" (the trucks) and "international trade routes" (the shipping), and even with all our investment and innovation in land trade, maritime trade still accounts for far more value. I wouldn't be shocked if Imperial Rome or Great Britain in the mid-18th Century were similar. In fact, they might have had even more of their GDP from their maritime routes, because they didn't have railroads and multi-lane interstates.

Rivers and canals have made a huge difference to inland trade over the centuries, and I don't know whether river trade is given due respect or short shrift in Civ VI (although I kind of feel like it's the latter). I think most of the world's great rivers have been major trade routes. The city of Montreal pretty much exists because that was a portage on the Saint Lawrence, and I bet there are cities in Europe that exist primarily because of the economic value of sitting on one of the big rivers. One of the things that dramatically grew the economy of England was the proliferation of the flat-bottomed river boats that allowed trade goods to be delivered inexpensively to every little village and hamlet. Marco Polo wrote that the canals in the capital of Imperial China were so crowded with barges and boats that you didn't need a bridge to walk across.

Anyway, with all of that wealth traveling by sea, interdicting those maritime routes is the key way to cripple an adversary's economy. Hence, navies.

 

[Myomoto]

I don't have much to add, besides that I think Civ 5 got it basically perfect. You were strongly incentivized to settle coastal cities because of the power of sea trade routes. This in turn made coastal cities vulnerable to large navies, and frigates came with enough of a huge power spike that whoever could rush out a big navy of them could very quickly become the dominant player.

I think it would be fairly easy to tip the balance back in VI. First, increase gains from sea trade routes by about 50-100% of land routes. Second, increase the harbour district adjacency from the city centre by 3-5 gpt (alternatively, give the harbour a percentage of its adjacency in production if next to the city centre). There should be a MASSIVE incentive towards settling on the coast, compared to settling near it and just putting down a harbour district.

Something I also don't quite get is, why do coastal cities need a district with all of its buildings to get decent yields from water tiles? Perhaps buffing sea trade route yields would help make up for it on its own, otherwise maybe the fishing boat tile improvement could use a small buff?

 

[EgonSpengler]

I don't have much to add, besides that I think Civ 5 got it basically perfect. You were strongly incentivized to settle coastal cities because of the power of sea trade routes. This in turn made coastal cities vulnerable to large navies, and frigates came with enough of a huge power spike that whoever could rush out a big navy of them could very quickly become the dominant player.

I think it would be fairly easy to tip the balance back in VI. First, increase gains from sea trade routes by about 50-100% of land routes. Second, increase the harbour district adjacency from the city centre by 3-5 gpt (alternatively, give the harbour a percentage of its adjacency in production if next to the city centre). There should be a MASSIVE incentive towards settling on the coast, compared to settling near it and just putting down a harbour district.

Something I also don't quite get is, why do coastal cities need a district with all of its buildings to get decent yields from water tiles? Perhaps buffing sea trade route yields would help make up for it on its own, otherwise maybe the fishing boat tile improvement could use a small buff?

Fishing doesn't support huge populations. The world's great coastal cities are a product of wealth generated by maritime trade (and, to a lesser extent, by the ship-building industry and by the movement of people en masse by sea). Also, in the ages before the great sailing ships, the world's big oceans were literally death incarnate. The reason the Mediterranean was such a center of human civilization is, in part, because it's a gentle pond in comparison with the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian. Even so, the Med civilizations stuck within sight of the coast and developed legends about gods and monsters of the sea that would literally eat you alive if you didn't show the proper respect. The Vikings and the Polynesians were geniuses and madmen who struck out across the big oceans centuries before sensible people conceived of such a thing, but they still never had the huge cities.

Also, fish is labor intensive; you can't store it easily or make something durable like bread, tortillas or beer; and it's not a carb. Fish doesn't produce big populations; wheat, rice, potatoes* and maize/corn do.

* Potatoes are the least of the four, if you could choose one for your budding civilization, because they don't store well, and therefore they don't travel well. I'm not sure you can make flour out of potatoes, either. It's hard to move people distances on potatoes, and they're not useful as a trade commodity.

 

[Phrozen]

Potatoes are actually very good. They store easy without any need for processing ie root cellars. You can cook them and consume them without any processing. You can dry them out and turn them into flour if you really need to. You can make alcohol and beer from them. They travel well because the skin getting wet will not begin to spoil the potatoes like it would to wheat or corn flour. Which both take a lot of processing to make.

 

[CoconutTank]

Hmm, how often have folks here used Liang's fisheries? I've using them before, but it's a pain in the butt to juggle Liang around to different cities where I want the fisheries to go. The fisheries are also pretty weak overall, +1 food base, +1 food per adjacent sea resource, and only get production when Liang is in the city.

Contrast this with Indonesia's kampungs, which imo allow Indonesia to basically thrive off of having more sea tiles to work with than land tiles.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Potatoes are actually very good. They store easy without any need for processing ie root cellars. You can cook them and consume them without any processing. You can dry them out and turn them into flour if you really need to. You can make alcohol and beer from them. They travel well because the skin getting wet will not begin to spoil the potatoes like it would to wheat or corn flour. Which both take a lot of processing to make.

Yeah, after I wrote that, it dawned on me that I've had potato bread before. You can get it in stores around here, it's not that exotic. I've also had potato spirits, but I'm not much of a liquor drinker. I'd never heard of potato beer before, but I just Googled it and it's a thing.

Hmm, how often have folks here used Liang's fisheries? I've using them before, but it's a pain in the butt to juggle Liang around to different cities where I want the fisheries to go. The fisheries are also pretty weak overall, +1 food base, +1 food per adjacent sea resource, and only get production when Liang is in the city.

Contrast this with Indonesia's kampungs, which imo allow Indonesia to basically thrive off of having more sea tiles to work with than land tiles.

I do use Liang a lot. I don't mind having to move the Governors around for their various abilities, but as you say, she's situational (as, I suppose, most things in the game ought to be).

 

[criZp]

I think re-separating out the trader into a land only version and a sea only version is crucial; as ultimately it is the superiority of sea trade that makes navy's so important in our history and today.

• I would have something like land caravans cost half of what trade ships do; but deliver only a third of what the ships do.
• I would bring back the blockade function in some form; and have it be possible to effect trade items from Civ's overseas as well as the trade routes themselves.
• To help make defending trade ships more practical, I'd have a "merchant navy" function where a military ship could be linked with a trade ship as it moves it's one tile per turn (the military ship would pause outside of waters within the boundaries of a foreign Civ and wait for the trader to return outside of those borders, before moving with it again).
• I would make embarked land units even weaker in water so that any sea invasion without a supporting navy is easily repealed by a moderate navy.
• I would have an early barbarian ship that was weaker than the Galley; but that made sure that players had to build naval ships to defend their sea trade routes.
• I would make healing ships easier to do, as they can be a risky investment early in the game as they can only heal inside your borders. I would extend that to be able to happen in any civ's borders that you have open

Letting military units (naval as well as land) auto-follow trade units is kind of obvious something that ought to be added, even if it never will be in civ 6. And the implementation of "trade route efficiency" was a good way to improve naval trade while keeping the universal trade unit, but they blew that one by limiting the effect only to gold (should definitively have been up to 1.5 modifier on food/prod, possibly also sci/culture).

Trade deals could be implemented into the trade route system, it's kind of silly that you have two different trade systems. Making embarked land units weaker is not a good idea for civ 6 because the absolute last thing the game needs is more unit logistics.

 

[nzcamel]

Having thought about it, if they continue to separate naval units into melee and ranged as they have done, the melee class should come with a land unit on board. It is permanently attached to the ship and cannot move separate of it, other than to move onto a land tile the ship is immediately adjacent to. It could pick up goodie huts, and support other units in combat. But it's part of the working crew of its ship, so the ship cannot leave without it, and it cannot venture inland.
It also wouldn't have any marine ability -attacking a land unit from it's ship- until that came up as a later promotion. Though that does seem to severely limit what it could do...but a marine power would be too much too early. Maybe it could move around seperate to it's ship, inland etc. But the ship would be stuck where it was and not able to move or attack at sea until this component of its crew returned.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

One thing about Aircraft Carrier. It should earn 'promotions' (add ons) by spending gold, Unless there's codings that granted XP earned by planes assigned to the said carrier to its host.
Carriers ain't gonna fight in melee nor use 'main guns' in ship-ship combat. But i'm not sure of converted battlecruisers like Lexington did?

 

[mitsho]

This is for Civ 7, right? I'd go big:

• Naval units now move like air units do: They have a base and you give them missions for the turns. Exploration ships get multiple turns, can replenish at certain sites (otherwise they turn around) and can establish a base at the other side of the ocean.
• Land units can now teleport from one base to the other, making trans-continental invasions easier. If a foreign continent is fully settled, well you first need to capture a port with a naval invasion force. Or have an ally there. Or suzerain a minor nation/city state. Some civs can set up those bases easier/earlier, some can raid farther (Vikings), etc.
• Trade also needs to get more important, in that every resource can be sold on a "market UI" and bought by anyone (no longer direct sales between civs). Trade routes spring up automatically, but you can manipulate them with your (merchant) navy. Details tbd. But yes, you'd need to actually trade something to have a trade route.
• The ocean terrain needs to get reworked with currents and wind-patterns. Make it interesting.
• Sea tiles lose their yields though, instead you get a yield from all of them together based on a percentage depending on your tech and fishing population. That way, coastal cities can get more yields out earlier, but have a smaller opportunity to scale up.

If you want to be less radical, I agree with what has been said before: Better yields for coastal cities, trade routes over oceans must have a higher yield, and most importantly: the first ship needs to be ranged in order to be able to mess with the land units when you have so few of them. That's what makes you tech up to get the melee ship - so you can blow that navy which messes with your land army out of the water.

Oh, and as pointed out above, all ships need an action to mess with tiles up to 3 tiles land inwards: Pop Goody Huts, Bust a Barb Camp, pillage a ressource.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Let lighthouses give you a trade unit even with a commercial hub. Now coastal cities get twice as many traders and the lighthouse one is free

Sea transport is usually both faster AND cheaper than overland, dramatically so before railroads. An oxen train would eat it’s own load worth in food fairly quickly, and this was one of the major factors that inhibited Rome from expanding much beyond the Med area for example. Even truck convoys have very hard limits, as the Allies found out after D-Day.

Sea Trade Routes should have a longer range, complete far quicker and have a bonus to earning over land ones once you have several naval techs/civics unlocked

As well as a movement penalty Corps and Armies should only be able to embark/disembark at harbours and shouldn’t be able invade at all. Now a naval invasion will require a LOT of naval and air support, like it did historically, making navies and air support critical

It also makes capturing a port critical. Or if you are the Allies in WW2 with the Unlimited America Resource Cheat Mode on you land a settler and simply buy one.

One of the naval techs should unlock the ability to make Marine units which would be weaker Infantry that can invade at full strength AND invade as corps/armies

The way invasions work now in Civ VI you could never make an even remotely historically accurate WW2 scenario because if and when Germany overruns France they can simply embark multiple tank/infantry/artillery armies, invade, and utterly curb stomp England with ease

 

[CoconutTank]

Hmm, how about making sea trade routes in progress act as roads on water? Which is to say, any sea tiles where one has friendly active trade routes has reduced move cost for one's naval units and embarked units. Naval movement is generally pretty high, but water masses can honestly get pretty big, so it'd still take awhile for units to get around on the water.

This would be different from land roads, in that the benefit would only be to the player running the trade route, and it does not persist beyond the trade route's duration.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Like sea lanes? Yes, that could work. Alternatively, you could program sea and ocean tiles to have currents. Sailing according to the current boosts movement, while going against the current slows your ship down. Late game vessels are barely affected because they have high base movement.

 

[Phrozen]

Having a natural harbor tile type should give a large boost to gold and food. There are many cities that only exist because they were founded on a natural harbor with no other natural resources around.

 

[nzcamel]

Something I also don't quite get is, why do coastal cities need a district with all of its buildings to get decent yields from water tiles? Perhaps buffing sea trade route yields would help make up for it on its own, otherwise maybe the fishing boat tile improvement could use a small buff?

Reading back over this, I think you're onto something significant there @Myomoto . Founding a city on the coast should automatically give you the harbour district. Thus while the city is more exposed to danger from other Civs navies later on, it has had a large advantage (one which makes complete sense) to justify that. And maybe some other settling locations could lend different starting advantages to different cities...

This is for Civ 7, right? I'd go big...
If you want to be less radical, I agree with what has been said before...

Oh, and as pointed out above, all ships need an action to mess with tiles up to 3 tiles land inwards: Pop Goody Huts, Bust a Barb Camp, pillage a ressource.

I'll take your less radical ideas
Yeah, ships should have a way to interact with coastal land areas. Be it a land unit that is permanently associated with the ship, or something more abstract. if it's an abstract thing that is distance related I'd have it be 1 tile till the age of sail, 2 tiles after that, and 3 tiles from the atomic age on.

Having a natural harbor tile type should give a large boost to gold and food. There are many cities that only exist because they were founded on a natural harbor with no other natural resources around.

Very true, yet tricky in a game like Civ where water tiles are generally either coastal or ocean, with no depth of water noted beyond that. I like the idea, but I don't think the maps are large enough to have fewer places where a harbour city can be.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Having a natural harbor tile type should give a large boost to gold and food. There are many cities that only exist because they were founded on a natural harbor with no other natural resources around.

But if this boost is to take effect. Conditions must be met
1. Having ALL prerequisite techs and civics that enabled foreign trades
2. having trade routes either destined to, or passing through this tile/city

 

[mitsho]

I'll take your less radical ideas

Trust me, it'd be better. It'd be fresh and make naval warfare distinctive which is needed as it has always taken a backstep to land warfare.

Yeah, ships should have a way to interact with coastal land areas. Be it a land unit that is permanently associated with the ship, or something more abstract. if it's an abstract thing that is distance related I'd have it be 1 tile till the age of sail, 2 tiles after that, and 3 tiles from the atomic age on.

I know I wrote 3 tiles myself, but I also wrote up to. So a clarification: the radius must absolutely be dependent on movement costs, not on a simple number of tiles in every direction. It definitely makes a difference whether there are flat plains or dense hilly forests ahead. That's by the way true also for any other radius the game creates, it needs to go back to the geography.

 

[PiR]

Very true, yet tricky in a game like Civ where water tiles are generally either coastal or ocean, with no depth of water noted beyond that. I like the idea, but I don't think the maps are large enough to have fewer places where a harbour city can be.

The combination of adjacent to coast and specific conditions for the land could be enough. Something like no hill, no cliffs of course, maybe even a lowland 1 meter condition?

 

[nzcamel]

The combination of adjacent to coast and specific conditions for the land could be enough. Something like no hill, no cliffs of course, maybe even a lowland 1 meter condition?

Natural harbours are first and foremost a place where the water is deeper than normal next to land...? Somewhere where a capital ship can pull up to a dock 10m off the shore and it has no danger of any contact with the bottom, and no one has dredged the bottom to make it that way. No doubt there are a couple of things that make a difference regarding the land itself; but without different depths in coastal waters, it seems a little pointless.