Naval elements of Civ4 still underrepresented!

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hi guys.

Well, I have just checked out the new IGN preview-with its rather SHORT list of new units-and have to say that I am quite disappointed in one regard.

Yet again, it appears they have missed a golden opportunity to beef up naval and airborne operations in order to give it equal status to ground combat!
Although the addition of the trireme is a positive step, there was ample room for at least 3-4 additional air/sea units, such as the paratroopers, cruise missiles and longboats.
Whats worse is that there still seems to be no naval or air-specific promotions to encourage greater use of these units in battle, naval movement is totally non-competitive with most land-based units and we still don't seem to have any kind of airfield or port terrain improvement. It still remains to be seen whether or not other measures have been taken to make air and sea units more valuable-such as better blockading rules, coastal attacks to help establish beach heads, and a greater role for fighters in an escort and/or Close Air Support Role. Given past form though, I don't have much hope .
When are Firaxis finally going to bring someone into the production team who truly understands the importance of navies and airpower, and will finally give them the status they deserve in the game? I wait in hope!

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[CharmzOC]

Damn right. I've mentioned this as a side note in a few of my own threads but im glad that you've set up an independant thread on it. Anyway, the only use ive so far seen for navy is transport,exploration and protection of those transports. bombers and artillery can take out defenses just as if not more easily. They move so much slower even though they technicly have more movement points. With warlords I really expected there to be naval upgrades. What the need is something like a channel improvement that could be built to avoid traveling all the way around the world.

 

[yavoon]

navies wont be important until they are important economically. perhaps in civ V.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well here are some steps, in order of increasing complexity, which could go a long way to making naval operations more important:

1) All vessels travelling along the coast should treat it as roads for movement purposes (whilst possibly, at the same time, making a larger number of land-based terrains either impassable or high MP cost-especially in the early game).

2) Give Galleons, Caravels and Frigates a +1 movement bonus when travelling on the ocean.

3) Introduce 1-2 earlier versions of the Dry dock for building.

4) Give naval units attacking ships in port a +100% strength bonus (the Pearl Harbour effect).

5) Have harbours and lighthouses lose their special effects if an enemy vessel is within the city's radius (health and food bonuses, bonus income from trade).

6) An enemy ship in a port city's radius might sever ALL overseas trade routes-both resource and monetary-though an overseas resource route can be re-established next turn if a suitable port city exists.

7) Have a range of 'navy-only' promotions to help ships to specialise-in terms of overall speed, speed on coasts vs open sea, pillaging abilities, ship to shore attacks and ship vs ship battles for example.

8) Allow certain naval units a chance to bombard units on a coastal tile-a la civ3 artillery.

9) Have a special terrain improvement called a 'Port', where fortified units get certain one-off benefits (see the various fort mods to see what I mean, but sentry and first-strike abilities come to mind).

10) Connected with 7, allow certain vessels to make 'pillaging strikes' against cities which might (a) steal away gold, (b) destroy a city improvement (c) remove a population point or (d) increase the city's unhappiness or unhealthiness.

Now, except for #10, nothing I have discussed above is especially RADICAL, and much of it could almost certainly be done within the framework of the Python and XML modding tools (not to mention SDK). However, I don't just want it in a mod, I want to see it in the OFFICIAL game, and I just don't see how it can be so hard for them to finally DO IT!!!! Come on Firaxis, take up my challenge.

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[marioflag]

To make naval warfare more intersting firaxis had to do only two things:
-more naval units especially in industrial and modern age
-make trade routes destroyable like in galciv2 and you will have experienced a more indepth naval warfare.
Simply to do but Firaxis doesn't seem to care about it.

 

[icemanjsg]

I like the Idea of having a Merchant Navy which could increase your income by giving them a destination and they run too and throw it would add some much needed realism and give navy a purpose.

I think the main reason they have not "beefed" up Navy or Air as because of the variation of Map types.

But i agree

 

[I_batman]

However, I don't just want it in a mod, I want to see it in the OFFICIAL game, and I just don't see how it can be so hard for them to finally DO IT!!!! Come on Firaxis, take up my challenge.

Aussie_Lurker.

I agree with virtually all your points, but this last line is just wishful thinking.
Warlords just went gold.
Next thing they will build will be the inevitable patch for Warlords.
Then they might think about another expansion set.
But consider Civ III. How long was the wait between the first and 2nd expansion set in that series?

I would bet that there will be a decent naval mod out there long before Take2/Firaxis can incorporate your ideas.

I would like to add one more point to your 10, but one of extreme difficulty to program, and only works if the concept of resources and luxuries and trade are radically changed.

No country on the planet has every resource and luxury available exclusively land routes. OK, that might not be entirely accurate, since Asia and Europe are connected. But if land trade is only possible via roads/rails, then the concept holds true even today.

Now, imagine a situation where, say England has agreed with China in 1500 (pre land trade route established) to trade gold for silk. But instead of the two civ's merely agreeing to trade and abstracting the concept of trade ships going back and forth between the two civ's ports (as is done with pretty much all these games), what if you actually had to build ships and move quantitative amounts of the resources and luxuries back and forth to elicit trade?

So England would say, have a galleon full of gold it sends to China. It glides into a Chinese port, unloads the gold, which is added to the Chinese coffers, and an agreed upon amount of silk appears in the galleon.
England does not get the benefit of that silk until the ship safely disembarks in an English port.

So by doing this, not only do you need trade ships, you need warships to protect them.

A much simpler abstract of this concept was used in one of the Civ III scenarios put out by Firaxis.
As you know, The Lopez is building a mod that quantifies resources, but what I am suggesting goes far deeper into the game engine.

Is is a nightmare to code, no question.
Will it add to the AI complexity and slow the game down even further, extremely probable.
Will non-micromanager players hate the concept, absolutely.
But will it emulate reality more closely, oh yes.

 

[gunkulator]

Hi guys.

Yet again, it appears they have missed a golden opportunity to beef up naval and airborne operations in order to give it equal status to ground combat!

Disagree. Land warfare will always be more important than either air or sea combat unless you limit your play to industrial or modern eras. Most of my games are decided by then anyway.

Although the addition of the trireme is a positive step, there was ample room for at least 3-4 additional air/sea units, such as the paratroopers, cruise missiles and longboats.
Whats worse is that there still seems to be no naval or air-specific promotions to encourage greater use of these units in battle, naval movement is totally non-competitive with most land-based units and we still don't seem to have any kind of airfield or port terrain improvement. It still remains to be seen whether or not other measures have been taken to make air and sea units more valuable-such as better blockading rules, coastal attacks to help establish beach heads, and a greater role for fighters in an escort and/or Close Air Support Role. Given past form though, I don't have much hope .

Even when some of these things existed in previous Civ games, people didn't use them. Search through old Civ2 and Civ3 threads and you'll find that most people ignored naval and air based goodies. When push came to shove, people would rather have another tank than a shiny new aegis cruiser. The most important thing that people wanted from ships was transporting ground troops.

 

[Kissamies]

I think the best move would be giving naval units all sorts of ways to disturb cities and trade just by hanging around near enemy coasts. See poins 5, 6 and perhaps 10 on AL's second post. New naval units and promotions are less important.

 

[RogerBacon]

The real reason that land units are more important (and always will be in Civ) than air and naval units is that they are the only ones that can capture or destroy cities and that is how you win the game in the long run.

In my game I added a promotion that lets units bombard at range. Dale also made a ranged bombardment capability (and I use that one too so I actually have two systems for ranged bombardment). He also made a missile mod and I wrote a python script that creates missiles and loads them on your subs when the subs are in port; missiles are so small they shouldn't have to be built like regular units. I also made a world wonder that adds two to your air units' range. It's makes air units more attractive if you know your bombers are within rnage of their cities but their bombers are not within range of your cities... unless they use a carrier to move closer (which also makes naval units more important).
Aussie_Lurker, you are right. All of your points would be pretty easy to accomplish with the tools Firaxis has given us. I think if you want to see any of them in a civ game though, they will have to be implemented by the community.

Roger Bacon

 

[Armorydave]

I like all of Aussie's ideas but am not particularly eager to see them implemented. The game already has a terrible time managing navies, making it any more complex without improving the AI would just make matters worse. The most egregiously stupid behavior I see from the AI invaribly involves its naval units.

 

[Commander Bello]

Disagree. Land warfare will always be more important than either air or sea combat unless you limit your play to industrial or modern eras. Most of my games are decided by then anyway.

True, but only because of the current set up of the game. There is no natural law why naval warfare should suck to bitterly.

Even when some of these things existed in previous Civ games, people didn't use them. Search through old Civ2 and Civ3 threads and you'll find that most people ignored naval and air based goodies. When push came to shove, people would rather have another tank than a shiny new aegis cruiser. The most important thing that people wanted from ships was transporting ground troops.

Once again, mainly based on the set up of the different games.
In particular, lessons learned from Civ2 and / or Civ3 are very hard to translate into expectations for a Civ4 expansion, as the whole game mechanics are completely different.

In total:
I never had to agree more with Aussie_Lurker.

I would just like to add one thing to what he stated:
I would be glad if the bomber exploit was solved.

You wonder about what the bomber exploit is? Well, put your bombers into the city of a friendly or neutral nation which hasn't open borders with your enemy and bomb him into obliteration.
Move some fast troops of yours one tile into his territory, wait for his "counter-attack" stacks to approach and bomb them too. Finally clear the mess by your fast moving troops, return to the initial position and do the same at your liking.

Very closely attached to this is your chance to bomb enemy troops in the territory and especially inside the cities of a neutral nation.
Since the AI tries to heal their troops before marching on, in fact they are just waiting for your next attack.

This way, you can complety stop an enemy attack way outside your borders.
Get bombers and you won't ever have to fight wars within your own borders anymore.

 

[Zebra 9]

Go I_batman!
I have had that idea since Civ III. I mean to the T. Not one thing different.

 

[ChrTh]

Remember that Warlords is concentrating on earlier ages: the new units and scenarios are all pre-Renaissance. If popular theory holds true, the next expansion will be later scenarios, and I suspect units as well. We still need a Dreadnought to bridge Frigates and Destroyers (the difference is ridiculous).

 

[marioflag]

What we need are not only dreadnoughts but also other units.Naval Warfare in Industrial age is all about Frigate vs Frigate, modern era is a race for battleship.I suspect that nuclear submarine hasn't been introduced because AI never use atom bomb.
We need new naval promotions and a lot more as it is now naval warfare is simply crap under every point of view

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

@Aussie_Lurker: Your post in #4 was brilliant. Some very good ideas, especially the use of naval units to fight an economic war by, essentially, a naval blockade.

One thing though with your fourth point though:

4) Give naval units attacking ships in port a +100% strength bonus (the Pearl Harbour effect).

Wasn't this for air units attacking ships in port? I can't for the life of me remember what the rule for ships was (though I do remember it being easy to destroy ships in port with any unit attacking the city.)

 

[gunkulator]

There is no natural law why naval warfare should suck to bitterly.

Agreed. But given the choice, I'd rather see the game designers balance Praetorians vs. Jaguar Warriors, make Castles and Walls useful and add colonies for far off resources. IOW, I'd rather they fix the land game elements that really matter.

Once again, mainly based on the set up of the different games.
In particular, lessons learned from Civ2 and / or Civ3 are very hard to translate into expectations for a Civ4 expansion, as the whole game mechanics are completely different.

Not really. In all three games, the major focus is on cities: production, commerce, growth and territory. In Civ3 and Civ4, cities were further emphasized by addting culture, borders and resources. And in Civ4 cities also have religions. Therefore the capture of cities is one of the main goals of the game. For that you need land units.

 

[marioflag]

Agreed. But given the choice, I'd rather see the game designers balance Praetorians vs. Jaguar Warriors, make Castles and Walls useful and add colonies for far off resources. IOW, I'd rather they fix the land game elements that really matter.

Gunkulator i can agree with you about the fact that the focus of the game is on land warfare but as it is now naval warfare isn't only neglected it is simply a piece of crap and something must be done.
About land warfare you have promotions,great generals,terrain which gives specific bonuses or penalties, there are a good number of units which allow a system of weigths and counterweigths.
About naval warfare you have a few units with really different strength so every battle is already decided for example galleys vs frigates or frigates vs destroyer, on modern warfare a system rocky/paper/scissor is not implemented for submarine/battleship/destroyer.
You can't destroy trade routes there are only a few resources on sea, and navies can't bombard.
As it is now naval warfare is the weakest part of the game and unfortunately it isn't yet fixed in the 1° expansion

 

[MazX_TheDog]

4) Give naval units attacking ships in port a +100% strength bonus (the Pearl Harbour effect).

Actually, historically ships in port do pretty well against aggressors. Coastal guns can be a big benefit to fleets attacking ships in port. Perhaps a new building (Coastal Guns) would be cool.

Though I think the addition of new buildings would mean that the game needs to be slowed down some more.

 

[UncleJJ]

Something that could make naval warfare more interesting in the age of sail would be if you captured a % of defeated ships rather than sinking them. This would be like a modified form of settler capture but would apply to galley, caravel, galleon and frigates only although maybe transports could be added to the list. The captured ships would be damaged but now under the victors control.

I'm not sure what should happen to any units the ships were carrying, maybe they could be turned into captives (a new non combat unit) and ransomed once taken to a friendly port. Alternatively captured units would become slaves = workers.

Also ships, including captured ships, should be able to be sold for gold in a freindly port with a harbour (say 1 gold per 2 production points) with the amount reduced for damage condition. A drydock could double gold return to 1 gold per production point.

I would also like to see Naval units able to raid the buildings inside a town although I'm not entirely sure how that would work. Walls, Castle and a strong garrison of land units would greatly reduce the effectiveness of raiding. Raiding would, if successful, destroy an ordinary building in the city and give a % of its production cost in gold to the raider.

Taken together this could make naval warfare in the medieval and renaissance periods interesting and lucrative adding the economic dimension that warfare at sea had in those ages.