Naval Changes

[Valkrionn]

Dying to try a full fledged naval war with this... Gonna try Archipelago for the first time in FFH.

 

[MaxAstro]

I would like to put in that I don't particularly like MC's suggestions. Sorry, Magister, but I much prefer pirates and privateers being a separate unit. It is cleaner and more functional from a game play perspective, in my opinion. Also, I feel that Always Hostile should never be used for any reason, EVER, because it is confusing in the extreme to anyone who is not prepared for it and has no real gameplay difference from Hidden Nationality.

I do, however, love the proposed changes. Although I agree that Arcane Barges could possibly use a boost of some kind...

EDIT: Let me note the exception that proves the rule - The Scions of Patria's use of Always Hostile for "recovering" Alcinus is the one valid use of it I can think of.

 

[Valkrionn]

Personally, I'd have to agree with MaxAstro, although it's not for quite the same reasons... In a purely MP game, Magister's promotions idea would be great. It would simulate how those ships were actually used, and allow you to upgrade your privateers with the rest of your fleets... However, making a promotion so vital to a unit tends to not work well with the AI, which has already been shown with the crew promotions. Since this is primarily a single player game, I don't think that implementation would work very well.

 

[xienwolf]

While I cannot say if they select promotions intelligently, I can say that in the next release you will rarely see an AI ship without a naval crew. When I ditched the spell format of Crews I had to teach the AI to make a choice between the 3 of them or the game would spinlock as the AI sat in the city and repeatedly swapped crews. I was afraid at first that my AI work would be a tad TOO elementary and the AI would always take the exact same crew promotion, but thus far they have been fairly versatile with the selection.

 

[Vehem]

Another naval issue I would like to discuss would be regarding OO.
Similar to the above, with ship and sea creature str going up by as much as 40% in 0.34, OO's naval prowess has taken a huge hit.
It does make sense that cultists shouldn't be a match to heavy warships (I agree with the cultists/ship str ratio).
But, having the Kraken stay the exact same str as before, makes the high priests kind of obselete.
Religious Law and Theology are very expensive techs, and simply to get one free "strong" man' o war feels slightly too little for the beaker/upgrading costs.
(=P maybe I should post it on the main forum too since it applies there as well, but I guess I'll see how naval warfare pans out in FF first)

I just had a look at the Kraken with the intention of boosting it's strength, but noticed that Kael had already increased it from 13 to 17. Man O' Wars also gained 4 points (from 9 to 13), which means that percentage/ratiowise the Kraken got less of a boost, but it's still a fairly substantial advantage over the Man O' War.

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Regarding the Arcane Barge - there have been a few ideas thrown around, but I think I'm favouring using it as a "support vessel" with a few more spells. Increasing the potency of its fireballs is one option, but I'm possibly thinking about making them a national unit, carrying a number of wizards to support the fleet and so having the ability to cast a number of spells per turn. As the "twincast" field for promotions now just sets the number of spells that can be used per turn (rather than being "double summons" as before), the barge would be able to cast something like Fair Winds as well as throwing a fireball, or could just choose to concentrate on throwing multiple fireballs.

 

[heisenberg]

went back to check the kraken str and just noticed the changes. I've been shuttling between 0.34 and FF so I think I got a lil' confused there, my bad. /slaps himself

As for the Arcane Barges, being able to at least cast fair winds sounds like a start.
I'm kind of iffy about simply being able to toss multiple fireballs, since that seems to be some kind of an overlap with the Man 'O War's ability for ranged attack, making it just being somewhat of a Man O War's little kid brother.
Making it a national unit seems an interesting idea too, considering that both prereq techs are pretty high up the lines anyway. And should it become a national unit there would certainly be a need to boost it's usefulness much further.

Just tossing a few ideas for spells around...
Fair Winds/Fireballs (pretty basic spells i guess)
Some kind of an adapted Blur spell that protects/reduces the dmg from ranged attacks (aka long ranged Man O' War cannonballs) -- imagines the wizards conjuring up some kind of mist to obscure long-ranged targetting
On the other hand some spell that enhances the range/damage cap? of Man O' Wars's long ranged bombardment might be cool.
Summoning some water elementals? If fireballs are too weak these could help, but I'm somewhat hesitant about this since elementals are tier 3.
Maelstrom--pretty basic tier 2 air spell, could definitely do much better collateral damage since its percentage instead of hard str of fireballs
Repair--I definitely can see adepts on barges repairing damaged crafts after a battle (maybe a somewhat more potent repair than the basic adept spell if its a national unit)
Revelation?--I know its a divine spell so I'm kinda iffy on this too but it could be nice to temporarily remove the HN on privateers till they return to a friendly port, unless of course they want to DoW and attack anyway. Could counter those pesky privateers in the sea
Floating eye--nice tier 1 spell to help scout if you don't want to bring a hawk on a hunter along

looked at the spell list and chose the more useful/promising ones in naval warfare.


*ninjaedit*: Oh right and also with respect to krakens, is there a possibility of turning them HN with the Hidden feature? After all animals and such start HN, and why should we attribute a particular kraken attack to a particular civ (unless we actually painted the spots on the krakens our national colour to differentiate )
And if not to the extent of HN, could we at least let the krakens explore rival territory when hidden? In my last game I couldn't enter rival territory with my "submarines" unless i declared war.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

krakens being invisible ( underwater ) and HN definitely makes sense. and on the subject of national units ( slightly OT here ) : someone mentioned in the main forums that the number of national units you're allowed to have should scale with map size, I definitely agree. on a small map 4 are quite a lot while on a large map they're lonely

 

[Tarquelne]

Regarding the Arcane Barge - there have been a few ideas thrown around, but I think I'm favouring using it as a "support vessel" with a few more spells.

I like that a great deal. The exact spells available could depend on techs and/or Leader Traits? And maybe promotions?

 

[Elm]

Perhaps the Arcane barge could hand out "fair winds" to any ship in its stack. Fair winds has a chance to wear off, and if a ship in the stack looses the promotion, the whole stack slows. If the player neglects to check the stack every turn to see if it has worn off...

Since the Arcane barge starts out with spells, and does not promote to them, I don't think too many spells is the best idea. Fireball and fair winds may be enough (?)

 

[MaxAstro]

I like the idea of it having Maelstorm and possibly Repair as well. Giving it both Fireball and Maelstorm gives it a variety of options for magical attack.

Instead of letting it cast Fair Winds, I like Elm's idea of just having it automatically grant Fair Winds to any ship in it's stack, to reduce microing on long voyages. I think Fireball, Maelstorm, and Repair on top of that wouldn't be a bad idea, although you'd have to change the prereqs on Repair to get it to work, unless you feel like making the Arcane Barge a dwarf.

 

[Brokenbone]

With navies apparently becoming a lot more flavorful, the "Repair" spell which is currently only a dwarven thing, might be really worth investigating for other units, civs, religions, buildings, or some combination of all of those.

Example 1: maybe being stationed in a Pirate Cove entitles a unit sitting there to cast "Repair" on itself. Or a unit sitting in a city with a Shipyard building, or some more expensive Drydock building.

Example 2: maybe OO worshipping civs, just as they have waterwalking undead and cultists, manage to "alter" enough skilled crafters to effect repairs while at anchor, that normally require going to a drydock. I.e., maybe a Temple of the Overlords lets you do a Repair, maybe it's Shipyards of OO civs that let you do this, I have a hard time envisioning shambling undead units getting the ability to use this ability, but maybe it could tie to some other unit. Zealot maybe, getting stuck with crappy work while "apprenticing" to be Cultists. *shrugs*

Example 3: feels a little micro to me, but building a "Shipwright" unit for some or all civs could be done. Again, though, a micro concern which may be no worse than any current "I keep my Enchantment Adept in City A, as well as my Courage Adept there as well, to buff everyone who has to pass through there" type strategies.

Anyhow, it's weird that it's really only dwarven sorts who are able to repair ships, plenty of fantasy literature includes dwarves being terrified of sea travel (weigh as much as a man but nowhere near as tall, plus a proclivity for sleeping in platemail jammies, means a not-very-buoyant dwarf!)

Obviously ancillary topics to these great sounding naval improvements, but being able to have some speedy methods to get damaged vessels back afloat may become a new strategic need.

 

[PapaMonkey]

What about just giving the acane barge Channelling and allowing it to gain and cast spells as a mage? This would really represent a mage who is on the ship. Or perhaps it is a LiveShip that can cast spells or some other fantasy creation. Then the player can decide what is important for their game. Perhaps allow an upgrade path for the 2nd and third tier spells...

 

[Elm]

The problem with repair, as I see it, is that it will make Pirate/Privateer's too powerful.

At the moment, if a privateer is damaged, it either has to make it to a city to heal faster, or it has to find a secluded spot to heal up, where no one will go after it.

And repair is a same turn thing. Meaning you could attack and repair in the same turn, giving your opponent a smaller chance retaliating successfully. That is one of the major benefits of the heal spell, which is on a fairly advanced unit.

As an aside, the Lanun are ocean-fairing, so you would think there ships would heal/repair faster. Has anyone considered that in the past? Something like a 5-10% heal rate added to Lanun ships?

 

[Jabie]

How about using the Arcane Barge as an Icebreaker unit? It can eliminate Ice in a sea tile by moving into it.

 

[MaxAstro]

The problem with repair, as I see it, is that it will make Pirate/Privateer's too powerful.

At the moment, if a privateer is damaged, it either has to make it to a city to heal faster, or it has to find a secluded spot to heal up, where no one will go after it.

And repair is a same turn thing. Meaning you could attack and repair in the same turn, giving your opponent a smaller chance retaliating successfully. That is one of the major benefits of the heal spell, which is on a fairly advanced unit.

As an aside, the Lanun are ocean-fairing, so you would think there ships would heal/repair faster. Has anyone considered that in the past? Something like a 5-10% heal rate added to Lanun ships?

If Repair is only given to Arcane Barges, however, then you'd have to team a barge up with your privateers. Which kind of defeats the purpose of HN.

And some kind of repair boost for the Lanun would be cool. What might be especially thematic would be having ships in Pirate Coves repair much faster.

 

[Jabie]

Re: Naval Ideas. Dwarves could have Ironclads. The unit graphics could be stolen from the main game.

 

[Vehem]

What about just giving the acane barge Channelling and allowing it to gain and cast spells as a mage? This would really represent a mage who is on the ship. Or perhaps it is a LiveShip that can cast spells or some other fantasy creation. Then the player can decide what is important for their game. Perhaps allow an upgrade path for the 2nd and third tier spells...

The problem with repair, as I see it, is that it will make Pirate/Privateer's too powerful.

At the moment, if a privateer is damaged, it either has to make it to a city to heal faster, or it has to find a secluded spot to heal up, where no one will go after it.

And repair is a same turn thing. Meaning you could attack and repair in the same turn, giving your opponent a smaller chance retaliating successfully. That is one of the major benefits of the heal spell, which is on a fairly advanced unit.

As an aside, the Lanun are ocean-fairing, so you would think there ships would heal/repair faster. Has anyone considered that in the past? Something like a 5-10% heal rate added to Lanun ships?

I toyed around with setting up arcane barges as UnitCombat_Adept and having them gain spell spheres based on number of mana sources available (as with the free sphere promotions that mages get), but there really are a limited number of promotions that seem useful at sea.

At the moment I'm testing out;

Fair Winds - Obviously useful at sea.
Fireball - Had it before, capable of killing enemy units.
Maelstrom - Stack weakener and somewhat appropriate.
Floating Eye - Situational, but may be very useful.
Repair - Requirements altered on repair to prevent it being used on Hidden Nationality units.

They also carry an "Arcane Crew" which blocks access to other types of crew, provides a +50% Magic Resistance and grants the ability to cast two spells per turn.

They've also become a national unit (limit 4) and increased to 5 Moves to allow them to keep pace with other ships of the Astronomy era (mostly a gameplay decision rather than thematic - though these ships are most likely magically propelled and so less reliant on the vagaries of the wind or the enthusiasm of the oarsmen)

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EDIT: Also changed the Man O' War to be Strength 16 and a National Unit (Limit 4).

 

[MaxAstro]

If Man O' Wars are upped to 16 strength does that bring back the issue of Krakens being much less useful by comparison?

I like the changes to Arcane Barges, should make them a very versatile and useful unit.

 

[Darksaber1]

well, Kraken would need to be about 20 str now, unless the plan is to have a canon armed ship be more deadly then a Collossul Squid of Legend

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Hmm...Arcane Crew is now making me think I may remove the Arcane Barge unit too, instead letting other ships gain arcane abilities. All the spell spheres would have to be removed when switching to another type of crew though.