Naval units in the new tech tree

[Pep]

Looking at the new tech tree, it seems frigates are enabled with Chemistry. There's also a naval unit enabled with Steel (the advance following Chemistry). I hope this naval unit not to be an Ironclad... One of my big rants in Civ series is Frigates getting obsolete too soon...

...or maybe instead of Ironclad the unit is a privateer

 

[HourlyDaily]

True - the age of sail part should extend much further. Do you have any suggestions on where to move the units to techs around?

 

[Nyvin]

Are you sure it's the frigate under chemitry? To me it looks like the Frigate and Galleon are both available with optics. Unless they added two new ships to the middle ages that's what it would appear to be. And yes, it would appear that steel lets you build Ironclads.

Not sure what exactly it is under Chemistry though...maybe a different ship? Or a small wonder or something.

 

[Pep]

Are you sure it's the frigate under chemitry? To me it looks like the Frigate and Galleon are both available with optics. Unless they added two new ships to the middle ages that's what it would appear to be. And yes, it would appear that steel lets you build Ironclads.

Not sure what exactly it is under Chemistry though...maybe a different ship? Or a small wonder or something.

It seems Caravels will be avaliable with Optics, and perhaps Galleons with Astronomy?

 

[Pep]

True - the age of sail part should extend much further. Do you have any suggestions on where to move the units to techs around?

Frigates as they are now (with Chemistry), but Ironclads with Combustion and maybe Destroyers with Electricity. Enough time to the age of sail...

 

[V. Soma]

I counted 11 naval units for the whole game...

Maybe it is satisfactory, I don't know...
But compared to the 4 wild animals - it looks just too small a quantity...

 

[DrewTate]

The ironclad is so damn annoying the way the computer moves it

 

[mitsho]

the 4 wild animals is just the climate regions of the Earth, so they are flavour units, in reality therefore one unit.

nn

 

[KrikkitTwo]

well one solution would be for Iron clads to Not make Frigates obsolete, (Ironclads could be much slower vessels, suitable only for coastal defense.. assuming that civ IV allows some other use for sea vessels)

 

[invoke41]

Maybe they could just add 'Ship Propellor' as a tech

I mean no floating clunk of metal will go anywhere without combustion and a propellor to drive it.

 

[Nyvin]

They really should add something like 'fuel supply' if they're adding something like 'health'. This would make the frigate in use for a longer timespan. I'd like to see the frigate used more too.

Saying of course...that they dramatically increase the need for a navy in the game. And also remove all the AI naval stupidities.

 

[Pep]

After looking at the units in the World Builder:
http://www.3dgamers.com/screenshots/games/civilization4/425693/
and the units avaliable with Chemistry and Steel at the tech chart:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/techtree/
it's clear there will be no Age of Sail in Civ IV...

Furthermore, I see no privateers (and also no Aegis Cruisers...)

Now, I'm waiting for Civ IV first expansion: "Civ IV: Play the Sea"

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, a lot does depend on how Frigates and Ironclads actually work. In the real world, both types of ships-for a long time-operated in the same historical time frame. However, wheras the ironclad was a very poor vessel for long-distance travel into sea and deep-ocean terrain, the Frigate was ideally suited for them. Thus, we saw ironclads largely limited to the role of 'Coastal Monitor', whilst the Frigates ruled the oceans-at least until the industrial age detroyer, battleship and cruiser came along. Hopefully this will be properly reflected in Civ4
That said, I wouldn't object to moving some of the naval vessels around a bit, to extend the age of sail just a little bit more.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[The Fjonis]

The 18th and 19th centuries are among my favourites in real world history. Hope they expand them in Civ4, including the naval bit. Would be loveable.

 

[sk065]

Looking at the new world editor screenshots i can see NO POINT IN BUILDING NAVAL UNITS. Its far too abstract now, especially in the modern era. For example, I can see what I presume is one transport, one submarine (prob wwII) , battleship (wwII) destroyer or cruiser and an aircraft carrier. What happened to AEGIS and nuclear subs among others? All i can say is im glad this game is moddable.....

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Actually, the absence of Subs seems very odd indeed, given that the developers have mentioned them in interviews-which I doubt they would do if it was left out. Lets hope there was just an oversight in that screenie, one which will be dealt with before the release of the game.
I do agree, though, that more naval units would be good, but I confess that I have genuine faith in the modding community-and I wouldn't be suprised if the first expansion is one which focuses on areas dealing with naval matters-such as the Age of Colonization and a re-visiting of the Pacific War. Fingers crossed!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.