One of the biggest weaknesses with Civ games is that the devs tend to have absolutely no clue about naval warfare. Case in point: ironclads. Ironclads were historically capital ships, forerunners to battleships. Frigates were more akin to cruisers, and I guess you could say that destroyers were successors to corvettes and sloops of the mid-late 19th Century. I think that we need to isolate a class called "capital ships." These would be expensive, very powerful, and available only to civs. City states would be incapable of building them. Ideally it should go ironclad >> battleship >> dreadnought >> superdreadnought.
We then can have a cruiser line: frigate >> protected cruiser >> heavy cruiser >> missile cruiser (I'm mostly trying to diversify industrial/early modern navies.
Melee line could be corvette/sloop >> destroyer (still thinking out this line)
Might also be worth adding an Industrial era commerce raider unit. I'm also thinking over some potential coastal naval units for the Industrial era onwards. Monitors, minelayers, torpedo boats, gunboats, littoral combat ships, etc. These would also be useful to city states, and useful for exerting pressure on city states. I'm also thinking about seaplanes and seaplane carriers, but that's less of an immediate concern for me.
This is just me doing a bit of stream-of-consciousness for Civ's lackluster naval trees. On land we have a variety of units with different specialties and abilities; we should have such on the waters, too.
We then can have a cruiser line: frigate >> protected cruiser >> heavy cruiser >> missile cruiser (I'm mostly trying to diversify industrial/early modern navies.
Melee line could be corvette/sloop >> destroyer (still thinking out this line)
Might also be worth adding an Industrial era commerce raider unit. I'm also thinking over some potential coastal naval units for the Industrial era onwards. Monitors, minelayers, torpedo boats, gunboats, littoral combat ships, etc. These would also be useful to city states, and useful for exerting pressure on city states. I'm also thinking about seaplanes and seaplane carriers, but that's less of an immediate concern for me.
This is just me doing a bit of stream-of-consciousness for Civ's lackluster naval trees. On land we have a variety of units with different specialties and abilities; we should have such on the waters, too.