naval issues

[williamiv]

apologies if these suggestions have already been presented.

There should be a number of improvements to the naval aspect:

1. Ships should move further per turn to represent better their speed relative to land forces. (I also think maps should be significantly larger and have more islands).

2. Naval great leaders (with Admirals/fleets, too) should be available as well.

3. The AI needs to have better understanding of and use of seaborne invasions, with more massing of ships and troops.

 

[t3h_m013]

yes, playing becomes pointless on continents ocne you have secured your own continent

 

[Philips beard]

Can't see how fleets (Naval armies) will contribute to a better naval system in Civ!? It will just make it more mor unrealistic and boring, but I agree in 1 & 3!

 

[Colonel]

fleets would if anything make it more realstic espicelly in age of sail because very rarely did u see a battle ship wondering around off by itself u would see it and then perhaps a carrier destroyers escorts friagtes dreadnoughts cruisers and so on although i dont see how the leader thing would work unless u made the leader appear in the closest city or something to that effect i dont see how a leader would just pop up in the ocean unless it was like a small little ship

 

[ybbor]

ughhhh, here we go woth the constantly proposed "increas movement of _____" look, the reason movement points are so slow is because suply lines are already integrated, and while it is very posible for a destroyer to circle the globe in a year [turn], it is not when they have to prepare fo one or more battles every ten miles, and stay suplied by bieng completely idependent of cities

 

[Coburn]

The notion of a fleet - similar to an army in C3 has merit I think. In general I think C3 is a bit of disappointment when it comes to naval engagements, relative to land based conflicts, where C3 environment offers wrinkles (notably use of terran, limitations on mobility when in opponents territory etc) that makes land based conflicts more interesting. I addition i propose the following minor adjustments, which I'm sure have been made elsewhere (apologies in advance):
(a) Ensure that modern units (notably battleships) cannot be sunk by a caravel/galleon/privateer, no matter how low is the modern unit's health bar.
(b) Perhaps the river terrain feature can be expanded to allow shallow draft vessels (units to be defined) to travel down. In history "Great Rivers" have been very important also in opening up commerce and increasing mobility (eg Missipp; Nile etc).
(c) I would like to see C4 increase the strategic value of particular territory in the game. At this stage strategic value is defined mostly in terms of resource availability. However strategic value can be based on proximity, or the capacity to implement improvements of high value. Make it possible for engineers to build canals across peninsula's, ismus etc.

 

[Philips beard]

fleets would if anything make it more realstic espicelly in age of sail because very rarely did u see a battle ship wondering around off by itself u would see it and then perhaps a carrier destroyers escorts friagtes dreadnoughts cruisers and so on although i dont see how the leader thing would work unless u made the leader appear in the closest city or something to that effect i dont see how a leader would just pop up in the ocean unless it was like a small little ship

Yeah, thats ok, but you dont let your ships wander around themselves in Civ3 either, I have groups of ships sailing together, making the perfect balance of a fleet. What we dont need is superunits, as an army of 3 battleships will be. That a fleet would be almost unsinkable, and that if it meets another fleet, one side will have 100 % losses (loose the fleet), and the other side would keep its fleet (0 % casualities), thats what I call unrealistic!!!!!! Not even the british had such luck at Trafalgar! And thats why single units is the best, just organize them yourself as a fleet or an army!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Quote [ughhhh, here we go woth the constantly proposed "increas movement of _____" look, the reason movement points are so slow is because suply lines are already integrated, and while it is very posible for a destroyer to circle the globe in a year [turn], it is not when they have to prepare fo one or more battles every ten miles, and stay suplied by bieng completely idependent of cities]

The problem is that this is a totally ridiculous way to implement supply IMHO. After all, what happens if you're travelling along a coast line-supply isn't NEARLY as big an issue then.
My suggestion would be to a) increase movement points for naval units and b) give all naval vessels an operational range. This range can be extended by cities with harbours/ports/docks in them, or by a naval base terrain improvement.
If your vessel goes outside its OR, then its performance becomes degraded each turn, and hp losses can also occur!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Philips beard]

As I've said before: I like Aussies ideas about supplylines!

 

[Chauliodus]

I'd like a different combat system for naval units, the current one works well on land but it just doesn't cut it for ocean warfare.

(b) Perhaps the river terrain feature can be expanded to allow shallow draft vessels (units to be defined) to travel down. In history "Great Rivers" have been very important also in opening up commerce and increasing mobility (eg Missipp; Nile etc).

It would be cool if early units could travel of rivers, or give a special abilty for units to do so (ie: Norse longboats).

 

[t3h_m013]

im defo up for river transport, howeverit is kindof implied by river shaped coast squares. But i definately think that triremes carrughs, and some UU should be able to travel down rivers.

And canals, oh god canals. the suez canal is such a good example. It completely changed transport and also warfare. It also gave the owners huge amoutns of power e.g. mussolinis (sp) invasion of abbyssina (sp) could have been prevented merely by britain and france blocking the canal

 

[Chauliodus]

im defo up for river transport, howeverit is kindof implied by river shaped coast squares. But i definately think that triremes carrughs, and some UU should be able to travel down rivers.

And canals, oh god canals. the suez canal is such a good example. It completely changed transport and also warfare. It also gave the owners huge amoutns of power e.g. mussolinis (sp) invasion of abbyssina (sp) could have been prevented merely by britain and france blocking the canal

The only way I could see would be for rivers to return to being in squares instead of on their boarders, this would ruin the river defense bonus concept though. Maybe theres a way to balence the two.

Hehe technically there are canals in Civ atm, just build a city on an isthmus of one square (or with the abundence of lakes in Civ2 I would build tons of propose made cities to create a canal straight through continants) and there ya go. But many disable this ability and add a worker command for canals that could possably be built a few squares inland (2 or 3 at most) to connect rivers for low draft ships to pass through, course they'd need to take a long time to build, even with a butt load of workers and be easally pillaged.

 

[Pook]

The problem is that this is a totally ridiculous way to implement supply IMHO. After all, what happens if you're travelling along a coast line-supply isn't NEARLY as big an issue then.
My suggestion would be to a) increase movement points for naval units and b) give all naval vessels an operational range. This range can be extended by cities with harbours/ports/docks in them, or by a naval base terrain improvement.
If your vessel goes outside its OR, then its performance becomes degraded each turn, and hp losses can also occur!Yours,Aussie_Lurker.

Great idea. I really like the concept of operational range. Friendly ports and coaling stations were a major feature of naval strategy prior to the modern era, and still quite useful today.
Two other points- 1) I think that part of the reason naval units move so slowly is that if they moved faster, you wouldn't be able to intercept them- they could invade your coastline at will. This could unbalance gameplay.
2) In the Civ 4 ideas forum a couple weeks back under the title "Exploration", I suggested being able to fund non-combat expeditions to explore coastlines and across oceans, with a significant chance of loss depending on how far they went, what they encountered, etc. This was to duplicate the Phoenicians sailing around Africa in 700 BC and the Romans doing it a few hundred years later. I got no takers to the idea.

 

[williamiv]

I think aussie lurker's idea is the best response as well. I don't see why the current state should be accepted. As to difficulty in intercepting an invading naval force, wouldn't that also be realistic to the extent it would work that way?

Questions about fleets I think simply highlight questions about armies as well -- the army in the game is problematic to be sure. I suppose the point of the suggestion is that there should be parity, but that issues such as multiple attack, separability, and upgradability should also be addressed both to make the concept more realistic and meaningful -- right now, I don't think armies have much of any real use apart from rare defensive situations.

The "admiral" or naval great leader could stick with the ship that created it until returning to port or get its "own" vessel to make it analogous to a land great leader moving on its own.

One spontaneous thought -- perhaps only naval great leaders could rush things like magellan's voyage or other maritime-oriented wonders, and vice-versa for land-created leaders? Just a thought that I haven't formed an opinion on.

Canals could be buildable, with the equivelant of roads passable by minor craft and an equivelant of rails being passable by major craft, with extra work requirements compared to roads and rails, of course. Hills and mountains could add work needs or be off limits, and there could be distance limitations. In theory, the more advanced the civilization the more these limitations should be surmountable -- perhaps maintenance costs could also incorporated.

That jumps me to another thought -- what about incorporating separate rights of passage for canals to allow special charging? Could be quite profitable, with interesting analogies to panama and suez.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, Pook, I have a solution to the interception problem too. First of all, the operational range factor does prevent any truly ridiculous sneak attacks, as any vessel that is too far from its nearest home base will be easily destroyed by a defender (due to degraded capabilities). Secondly, though, I think it would work MUCH better if turns were broken up into a Movement Phase and Attack Phase. This way, everyone could move (and, more importantly, react to other peoples movements). Then, when all movement was resolved, any resulting combats would be resolved, in order of 'Theatre'.
So as an example relating to naval units. Lets say that the French are about to land a huge naval fleet on the coast of England. The English see the fleet and, on their movement turn, they move half a dozen vessels in to intercept the invaders-moving them up close to the French then clicking on the french fleet to indicate an attack. After all movement is resolved, the conflict between the French and English vessels is resolved, and then any surviving French ships can 'digorge' their landing parties to move in on English cities.
This idea would also prevent, once and forever, the 'submarine crashing into your allies naval vessel and staring a war' bug !
The only thing is that turns would have to be, at the very least, semi-random. The reason is that, if you move first in the turn, then you can't counter any invasions against you if they happen in the turn of a player who comes after you (unless you allow a specific 'retaliatory/rebuttal' phase for players). You might have some kind of RNG-based 'initiative' system to determine who goes first, second etc-during the turn-over time!
Anyway, just some ideas!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Colonel]

heres what could solve this have it so if one ship got destroyed it would be destroyed but another ship would take over the battle if first one were destroyed and so on down the line

 

[williamiv]

Perhaps I misunderstood the operational range concept. I wasn't thinking in the current air power sense in the game -- which has multiple problems. I was thinking in the sense that movement would be much greater within the operational range zone and degraded outside it, but that everything else (like movement/attack rules) would be effectively the same. Under such circumstances interception would still be possible.

 

[Pook]

My 200th post- where did all my spare time go? I'm not in a particularly good mood as deer ate much of my Golden Rain Tree last night (perhaps they wanted Chinese for dinner ), but here goes:
The best example I can think of for operational range is the game Birth Of The Federation. In that Star-Trek based game, ships had either a long, medium or short range, and this determined how far they could go from a friendly/allied planet or outpost. Scout starships had long range, most "cruiser/destroyer" starships had medium, the troop transports and "battleship and heavy planetary bombardment" starships had short. In BOTF, a ship absolutely could not go outside that range. For Civ 4, I prefer Aussie Lurker's idea of degraded capability and loss of HP for going/staying outside of a ship's operational range. My expedition/ explorer ship could have a long range (but no attack value), most other ancient ships would have short. The Age of Sail could have medium range with privateers being long-range, while modern ships could be long range. I realize this short post doesn't cover every possibility, but it does give a framework.

 

[Verowin]

There should be a number of improvements to the naval aspect:

2. Naval great leaders (with Admirals/fleets, too) should be available as well.

3. The AI needs to have better understanding of and use of seaborne invasions, with more massing of ships and troops.

Good points, who doesn't know Lord Nelson!!
Naval issues wil not be resolved if the programmers keep neglecting the naval abilities of the A1.

 

[Verowin]

I think that the way to improve on the naval play would be to introduce:

1. Fishing ships
2. Merchant marine
3. 1000% improvement of A1 naval play
4. Navy armies and Admirals (leader). A leader woud control a fleet of ships.
5. until "radio" the only way to keep communicatin open with your overseas cities, is to have a ships.
6. with the introduction of Frigates, you get the new unit marines. They can muster on Frigates and be upgraded later on in the game. The amount and experience level of the marines loaded on the Frigate will have influence on the outcome the Frigate's battles.
7. Introduce Pirates, the barbarians of the sea. They have been around for ever and are still active all over the world.

This is what I suggested in the thread Age of Sail, I think it applies here too