Naval elements of Civ4 still underrepresented!

[Jaca]

There's been suggested some good ideas here for increasing the importance of a navy much further. As said by other posters, I also don't think these changes need to be dramatic to be effective indeed. Having a RSP system for naval units could be a possible improvement, though this may not be as easy with the ancient units, but I do like Aussie_Lurker's idea of having a slightly extended promotion tree for naval units. The idea of a possible capturing of an enemy ship and turning it into your own, sounds good (perhaps as a promotion for pre-modern vessels), and maybe one could be allowing the blitz-promotion after some stage, say, Flanking II. Problem a bit is that drydocks come in late indeed to get a bit of experience to start with, but perhaps one can have the harbor allowing you two experience points until the industrial age. That would aready be one promotion 'for free', if you built the harbor. Another suggestion: move a few of the goody huts into coastal water -- simulating a tribe of fishermen. That may encourage people to build some ships, especially if you could get experience from these huts on your vessel, just like the land units can. Allowing the birth of a Great Admiral, which would be exactly the same as a Great General on land, also sounds good.

There's lots of good ideas mentioned above, and I think Firaxis has done a very nice job in setting up the whole new concept, and indeed improved CIV a lot, with modability for instance, but I agree with Aussie_Lurker, that I would prefer to have such a navy out of the box rather then to have to mod it myself -- which I'm frankly not too good at.

Jaca

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I do admit that by simply having coastal improvements, and having blockades prevent the working of certain coastal tiles has made navies about 5 times more important than they were in Civ3:Conquests. Which goes to show how just a little effort can yield big rewards. For instance, check out my list of possible promotions in this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4278805#post4278805

I would be interested to hear what you think of them.

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Jaca]

Well, I do admit that by simply having coastal improvements, and having blockades prevent the working of certain coastal tiles has made navies about 5 times more important than they were in Civ3:Conquests. Which goes to show how just a little effort can yield big rewards. For instance, check out my list of possible promotions in this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4278805#post4278805

I would be interested to hear what you think of them.

Aussie_Lurker.

Lot of thinking went into that, and it sure looks well elaborated! However, I believe the current promotion tree for the navy, while perhaps needing some few more branches, is not bad at all: the 'Drill', 'Flanking', 'Navigation', 'Combat', 'Visibility' and even the 'Medic' promotions seem very well chosen by Firaxis. So extending it too much would not be a good idea, imho. The problem I see is twofold: first, there's less for the vessels to do than for land units, and second, your vessels have no good way to gain experience the way land units do -- which also has an effect on the first problem.

Let me start with the second problem: you're right that one may add new buildings or Wonders in order to gain XP for navy. However, too much 'new' may be a bit dangerous in CIV -- in view of balancing game play. With the 'trireme' unit however, I believe there may be a good and simple opportunity here. One could allow the barbs to spawn (much) more galleys (call them 'privateers' if you like) that threaten to interrupt your trade routes and pillage your water resources - galleys could become caravels and galleons over time too, if there are still barbs around. Then you would need to build more of those triremes which could battle of the barb galleys, not only protecting your coasts from the raiders but in the process also gaining experience -- thanks to the 50% attacking power towards galleys. Kind of a similar way to gain experience as the land units, and a very simple way to do it, really. This way you can start building something of an early navy. With that experience gained you can have a more usefull navy, if indeed there may be some extra promotions that would make it even more worthwile.

From the suggested extra promotions, a single combination of 'Ram' and 'Privateer' looks interesting to me, but I wouldn't spread it out so far. In other threats people wanted to have the privateer unit back, but I guess it's just too much micromanagement. With all those promotions it may be too much too, I guess. Now, I do like the idea of a promotion that could combine a +x% gold from pillaging water resources (even 100%, so doubling) and a y% chance of capturing another vessel, perhaps even with a little extra attack power, kind of a 'Board' promotion to summarize it all. I think that would be good indeed for pre-industrial naval units. I do like a 'Coast Guard' promotion too, though it may also be a 'fortify'-like implementation instead of a promotion, like for land units, but then for ships in the coast -- an then skip the 10% default defensive bonus which now simulates the 'home advantage'.

I would basically stick to those one or two extra promotions, 'Board' (which can be a combination of the suggested 'Ram' and 'Privateer' promotions, and perhaps 'Coast Guard' , and perhaps allowing the 'Blitz' promotion too at some point in the tree, in order not to disturb the gameplay too much. More effort may be put in allowing easier gain of XP (through a preferably already existing coastal building) and spawning more barb galleys.

That's my 2 cents.

Best regards,
Jaca

 

[Mr. Do]

ships dont blockade other ships w/ their hulls. u actually have to shoot ppl in a blockade.

Well done on completely missing the point. I'm not going to bother re-explaining it.

 

[yavoon]

Well done on completely missing the point. I'm not going to bother re-explaining it.

most ppl who are wrong feel like that.

 

[Zebra 9]

Those 3 points were great elpollodiablos. Great first post. I wish I could have done that good. I accidentaly posted my first post twice.

Great Promotion Ideas Aussie_Lurker. I have reposted them in list form to make it easier to read.

Spoiler :

________________________________________________________________
Coastal Raider I: +25% Offense in Coastal Tiles.
Coastal Raider II: +20% Offense in Coastal Tiles, +50% movement on Coastal Tiles.
Coastal Raider III: +10% Offense, Double movement on Coastal Tiles, +10% bonus to city bombardment (galleys/triremes w/this promotion can bombard cities).
Coastal Raider IV: +10% Coastal Offense, +10% bonus to city bombardment.
Coastal Raider V: +10% bonus to city bombardment, unit can bombard units/terrain improvements outside of cities??.

________________________________________________________________
Interdiction I: +1 Movement, Extra First Strike Chance.
Interdiction II: +1 Movement, +1 First Strike.
Interdiction III: +1 Movement, 1-3 First Strikes.
Interdiction IV: Double Movement, Can see Invisible units.

Fleet Operations I: +25% Strength in Ocean Tiles.
Fleet Operations II: +20% strength in Ocean Tiles, +50% movement on Ocean Tiles.
Fleet Operations III: +10% in Ocean Tiles, Double Movement on Ocean Tiles, First Strike Chance.
Fleet Operations IV: +10% Strength on Ocean Tiles, +1 First Strike.
Fleet Operations V: 1-3 First Strikes on Ocean Tiles.

________________________________________________________________
Convoy I: +25% Defense, +25% Movement.
Convoy II: +25% Defense to all units in same square.
Convoy III: +25% Defense to all units within 1 square, +25% Movement to all units in same square.
Convoy IV: +25% Movement to all units within 1 square, can see invisible.
Convoy V: +50% Movement to all units within 1 square, First Strike Chance.

________________________________________________________________
Privateer I: +25% Gold from Pillaging.
Privateer II: +25% Offense vs non-combat vessels, Invisible.
Privateer III: +25% Gold from Pillaging, +25% Defense vs Combat vessels.
Privateer IV: +50% Movement, 25% chance of 'capturing' attacked vessels.
Privateer V: +25% Strength, +25% Gold from Pillaging (Optional: Can 'pillage' cities for gold).

List Created By Aussie_Lurker! I just put it in list form! Aussie_Lurker's List is located at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...05#post4278805

There are a lot of good ideas in here keep up the good work guys.

 

[Jaca]

I agree that the navy is under-represented but many of the fixes listed would harm the elegance of the game with minute complexity. I think that designers either don't care or can't figure out how to do it right. Civilization 2 and even 3 had more a naval depth.

Here's my fix to the naval problem:

1) Fix the trading system so we have a reason to go to the sea:
...

2) Fix the military so that naval combat is more interesting.
Use the same old triangle of military supremacy that is used in every RTS. (...)
Navy only upgrades are a must and to be interesting should include gaining gold (plundering) through killing transports, % chance of capturing the vessel, % chance of being able to move through naval units (blockade running). Ships should be able to fight in port but give the defender the defensive culture bonus that land units get. (...)

3) Give civilizations naval bonuses and unique units.

Unique unit ideas are not in short supply. Give England back its Man O' War from Civilization 3. German U boats, American aircraft carriers, Viking longboats, the naval equivalent of fast worker (for Spainish, English, Portugese, or Dutch), and even Korean turtle ships (out of Age of Emipires 2).

As well create two naval traits: Explorer and Admiral (I know they're not adjectives but none suitable came to mind). Explorer would have ships, scout, and explorer more faster and increase gold through naval trading. Admiral would give experience to all naval units created.

Upon reviewing elpollodiablos' arguments (which I've selectively quoted): good points indeed. I also think the suggested list of extra promotions is just way too large -- try at least to compress those into a much shorter list, I would say. Guys, all the above is good thinking, but perhaps elpollodiablos' arguments are a good starting point here, with some few extra promotions included to extend a navy's capability. Would you agree?

By the way, I saw The_Lopez' Pirvateer promotion icon on another thread, and it sure was good work.

Regards,
Jaca