Naval Units Rework Project

[Thunderbrd]

Some future plan of TB's (where units improve or have different/additional functionality as their equipment does).

Although rethinking it, I would presume major pieces of integrated equipment (Sonar, Radar) would be equipment while small things (improved maps, compass, Sextant) should stay as universal tech improvement as they are negligible production wise and easy to distribute.

Maybe a good idea to make these +1 Movement changes promotions then?

That's kinda what he means, yes.

And in most cases, this is indeed the better way. But equipment will be optional. So we need to have some of these be in effect.

But then Weather Lore is the only Classical Era tech that gives that.

In fact the more we analyze these the more I want to keep them all.

I feel the same but the end result IS still an issue, don't you agree?

Our alternative is to have these modifiers wear off at some point but nothing seems logical for that either.

 

[Hydromancerx]

I feel the same but the end result IS still an issue, don't you agree?

Is it an issue? How is the balance in real games people have had?

Also is the bonus for only those that reached it first or everyone who reaches the tech?

 

[Thunderbrd]

- Compass (Medieval)
- Astrolabe (Renaissance)
- Sextant (Renaissance)
- Gyrocompass (Industrial)
- Weather Lore (Classical)
- Navigation (Renaissance)
- Naval Tactics (Renaissance)
- Screw Propeller (Industrial)
- Sonar (Modern)
- Refrigeration (Industrial)

That's all of them? So that's 10 extra movement to all ships by the end of the Industrial. It counts for everyone who reaches that tech.
So that means that between promotions and these benefits and base values, you're looking at ships moving somewhere around 17-20+ movement, perhaps long before Transhuman/Futuristic stuff.

Is that an issue? It certainly makes it impossible to intercept navies with other navies. Most other issues tend to get addressed. Though it also dramatically decreases the need for naval stealth, since speed can get you wherever you're going too quickly to be interrupted anyhow. And I'm NOT a fan of using naval Zones of Control to try to address the matter because ZoC doesn't seem all that rational to me... if you want to take the shots you should be able to keep moving and take some automatic attacks maybe but not forced to keep from moving. Decreasing move speed or increasing move costs in enemy borders could help perhaps but not to keep a defender from being able to protect his shores from land units being dropped off from a massively distant place over the course of one shock round.

 

[Hydromancerx]

That's all of them?

That's all i could find when i searched for "sea domain" in the tech file.

Is that an issue?

Well then we should provide some alternatives to those tech benefits. Either through promotions being unlocked or something. Also how many benefits should there be in total? 1 per era? Would it start in the Classical Era? Would it stop after Modern?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Well then we should provide some alternatives to those tech benefits.

I agree. Promotions could be a good answer to that. In a number of these cases I don't know what those techs are unlocking. Sometimes it could be a better placement for a unit?

Also how many benefits should there be in total? 1 per era? Would it start in the Classical Era? Would it stop after Modern?

Referring to the naval review, the plan for Shockwave ships (the last non-entirely submersible or all levitation-capable ship lines) range between a base movement of 5 and 8. I'd try to keep it down to 4 if we can but given the list you gave, I'd reluctantly accept 5. You'd then have quite a few more possible by movement promos... like another 3.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Ok so a closer look...

Has no promotions at their tech
- Compass (Medieval)
- Astrolabe (Renaissance)
- Naval Tactics (Renaissance)
- Sextant (Renaissance)
- Gyrocompass (Industrial)
- Refrigeration (Industrial)

Has Promotions at Tech
- Weather Lore (Classical) - Polar Worker III
- Navigation (Renaissance) - Navigation III
- Screw Propeller (Industrial) - Repair Naval IV
- Sonar (Modern) - Sonar

So based on that I am thinking the techs that should keep their +1 movement should be ...

+1 Movement from Tech
- Compass (Medieval)
- Astrolabe (Renaissance)
- Sextant (Renaissance)
- Gyrocompass (Industrial)

Note these are all navigational tools. Which is why I think they should get it.

And then some techs that should get some new promotions at their tech ...

Gets a Promotion Instead
- Weather Lore (Classical)
- Naval Tactics (Renaissance)
- Refrigeration (Industrial)

Note that Navigation Promotion are at the following ....

Navigation I = Seafaring
Navigation II = Nothing
Navigation III = Navigation

So perhaps the Navigation line should be extended past 3.

Another idea would be to have some sort of weather promotion line for the weather techs ...

- Cloud Patterns (Ancient)
- Weather Lore (Classical)
- Weather Forecasting (Renaissance)
- Meteorology (Industrial)
- Long Range Forecasting (Modern)
- Climate Models (Modern)
- Weather Control (Transhuman)

Not sure what they would be but I am guessing not a speed improvement.

Note all these are just brainstorming and nothing is set in stone yet.

 

[sunrisereader]

What about removing the restrictions on entering the sea/ocean before seafaring but replacing them with a chance that ships take damage when not next to a shore, with the chance and amount being lower by tech.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Has no promotions at their tech
- Compass (Medieval)
- Astrolabe (Renaissance)
- Naval Tactics (Renaissance)
- Sextant (Renaissance)
- Gyrocompass (Industrial)
- Refrigeration (Industrial)

Has Promotions at Tech
- Weather Lore (Classical) - Polar Worker III
- Navigation (Renaissance) - Navigation III
- Screw Propeller (Industrial) - Repair Naval IV
- Sonar (Modern) - Sonar

So based on that I am thinking the techs that should keep their +1 movement should be ...

+1 Movement from Tech
- Compass (Medieval)
- Astrolabe (Renaissance)
- Sextant (Renaissance)
- Gyrocompass (Industrial)

Note these are all navigational tools. Which is why I think they should get it.

Good evaluation. Despite screw propeller's logic I gave above, I can totally agree here - plus, with equipment, perhaps screw propeller reconfiguration on older ships can become an Industrial equipment factor.

And then some techs that should get some new promotions at their tech ...

Gets a Promotion Instead
- Weather Lore (Classical)
- Naval Tactics (Renaissance)
- Refrigeration (Industrial)

Note that Navigation Promotion are at the following ....

Navigation I = Seafaring
Navigation II = Nothing
Navigation III = Navigation

So perhaps the Navigation line should be extended past 3.

Not a bad idea to extend it. You could get bonuses to movement through reefs and coral and seagrass and such instead of always a +1 movement.

Another idea would be to have some sort of weather promotion line for the weather techs ...

- Cloud Patterns (Ancient)
- Weather Lore (Classical)
- Weather Forecasting (Renaissance)
- Meteorology (Industrial)
- Long Range Forecasting (Modern)
- Climate Models (Modern)
- Weather Control (Transhuman)

Not sure what they would be but I am guessing not a speed improvement.

I like this:

What about removing the restrictions on entering the sea/ocean before seafaring but replacing them with a chance that ships take damage when not next to a shore, with the chance and amount being lower by tech.

A while back I had proposed we do away with the hard limits of where boats can go and replace that by a Seaworthiness ability, which would be a 1-100% rating that would represent the ship's ability to go out past the coastal water and survive without damage. The funny thing is this wouldn't really be all that hard. I could probably set it up in an evening. So maybe it's getting to be time...

 

[Toffer90]

A while back I had proposed we do away with the hard limits of where boats can go and replace that by a Seaworthiness ability, which would be a 1-100% rating that would represent the ship's ability to go out past the coastal water and survive without damage. The funny thing is this wouldn't really be all that hard. I could probably set it up in an evening. So maybe it's getting to be time...

I have one reluctance to it, it will be really hard to ensure that mapscripts create enough ocean between old world and new world so that ships can't reach it too early. It's easy when the only rule is to separate them completely by ocean terrains.
My "World" mapscript already ensures a good ocean distance on the larger than standard map sizes, also depends on the sea-level option. but the other mapscripts have no rule to give proper oceans between new and old world so they may very well create a one tile ocean passage between old and new world.

What I do like however would be the aspect of figuring out where it is possible to cross by gambling ships into the unknown open ocean. One may be lucky and find the passage with galleys or one may be unlucky enough to not find it before steam ships or man of war or something. the ocean damage should not be discounted entirely before the more contemporary ships becomes available (destroyers, battleships, cruisers, hangar ships etc. and perhaps some selected few of those from earlier eras).

 

[Thunderbrd]

I have one reluctance to it, it will be really hard to ensure that mapscripts create enough ocean between old world and new world so that ships can't reach it too early. It's easy when the only rule is to separate them completely by ocean terrains.
My "World" mapscript already ensures a good ocean distance on the larger than standard map sizes, also depends on the sea-level option. but the other mapscripts have no rule to give proper oceans between new and old world so they may very well create a one tile ocean passage between old and new world.

What I do like however would be the aspect of figuring out where it is possible to cross by gambling ships into the unknown open ocean. One may be lucky and find the passage with galleys or one may be unlucky enough to not find it before steam ships or man of war or something. the ocean damage should not be discounted entirely before the more contemporary ships becomes available (destroyers, battleships, cruisers, hangar ships etc. and perhaps some selected few of those from earlier eras).

Well... the Vikings made it to the new world long before Columbus and the Oceanic peoples managed to fill the islands of the pacific on REALLY early boats (special ships with unusually high seaworthiness but not flawless by any means). These kinds of achievements I think need to be made possible, even if risky. Even coastal waters can be very dangerous so perhaps coast/sea/ocean has a base modifier to the risk factor and can cause a lot more damage when the check fails.

The math I envision is something like having a gradient of 1-100 on ships from rafts to Shockwave ships (past which they are completely immune to weather problems and thus have no need to even check seaworthiness). Rafts would have a base of 5, which would mean on an open ocean it would have a 5% chance of not taking 30-300HP damage (most results mean instant destruction.) On a Sea it might mean a 25% chance of avoiding 20-200 HP Damage and on the coast a 50% chance of not taking 10-100% Damage. (or we can make coasts completely safe...) Then we'd gradually step up in stability from there. Very unlikely to safely cross a significant stretch of ocean until later in the game. Particularly once the inability to heal on its own without assistance gets fully implemented as planned on naval units.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Not a bad idea to extend it. You could get bonuses to movement through reefs and coral and seagrass and such instead of always a +1 movement.

Yes we need promotions for that! Great idea!!

 

[Hydromancerx]

A while back I had proposed we do away with the hard limits of where boats can go and replace that by a Seaworthiness ability, which would be a 1-100% rating that would represent the ship's ability to go out past the coastal water and survive without damage. The funny thing is this wouldn't really be all that hard. I could probably set it up in an evening. So maybe it's getting to be time...

if you do this then the Polynesian Culture unit needs to be fixed since it was nerfed awhile back. It was suppose to be able to cross the ocean before other ships could. So if you allow other ships to cross early this Culture Unit should be able to survive well in the ocean without being killed. Even today there have been people in Polynesian ships that have crossed the globe without any modern navigation to show it can be done.

 

[Thunderbrd]

if you do this then the Polynesian Culture unit needs to be fixed since it was nerfed awhile back. It was suppose to be able to cross the ocean before other ships could. So if you allow other ships to cross early this Culture Unit should be able to survive well in the ocean without being killed. Even today there have been people in Polynesian ships that have crossed the globe without any modern navigation to show it can be done.

That's part of the point. It wouldn't be without great risk but they could have a solution that is inbetween 'too easy' to cross the ocean which it was which is why it was nerfed, and impossible, which is what it currently is.

This will be important for the nomadic spreading of people getting eventually all over the world.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Where are we at with the idea of Shipwrecks, as a feature or improvement, at the moment? I'm thinking it could be the result of a ship dying due to poor seaworthiness... And it could be an interesting thing to play off of for other things.

 

[Harrier]

Where are we at with the idea of Shipwrecks, as a feature or improvement, at the moment? I'm thinking it could be the result of a ship dying due to poor seaworthiness... And it could be an interesting thing to play off of for other things.

Are you thinking of putting Terrain damage on water tiles? Coast = -1. Deep coast -2, Sea -3, Deep sea -4 etc.

Then you have to add the promotions to overcome them.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Are you thinking of putting Terrain damage on water tiles? Coast = -1. Deep coast -2, Sea -3, Deep sea -4 etc.

Then you have to add the promotions to overcome them.

Not exactly. You'd have a damage range for a failure to succeed on a Seamanship check on the terrain (probably also greatly enhanced by features). The seamanship check would take place at the initiation of a unit's turn, which takes place at the beginning of the player's turn. You'd also have a threat multiplier. The seamanship rating would be your base rating for avoiding taking damage on the open ocean (which would have a 1 for the risk factor (the lower the worse)) Then you'd have a 5 risk factor for seas (5 seamanship for a raft*5=25% chance of avoiding damage this round) and then maybe a 15 risk factor for coasts (75% chance of not taking damage every round while on the coast) and a 19 risk factor for lakes (95% chance of not taking damage every round while on a lake). The damage on a coast could very likely be fairly insignificant unless you're already on a reef or something. This would give you plenty of time to moor, which would freeze movement but increase the risk factor (thus decreasing the risk) by a lot and thus give the unit a chance to recover, even if very slowly, or get back to a city.

As you upgrade your ships they get better and better seaworthiness (but there should be a minimum of 1% chance for taking damage I think because surprising weather can catch even ships in port and destroy them.) but seaworthiness should also reduce the amount of damage that is taken when the ship does take damage as well. So that raft would reduce the end damage check by 5 as well.

The range of damage for coasts and lakes should be 10-100, Sea 20-200 and Ocean 30-300 (depth is not an important measurement for the danger of overseas travel.) Bear in mind that 100 HP is what nearly all units have as a base (though there are some promos that allow the unit to increase that... a LITTLE... and then merged/higher quality units can have quite a bit more.)

Then ships can get promos to increase their seaworthiness as well. By modern era, it should be very unusual to take damage at sea and when you do you are able to keep it to a minimum or not at all.

Weather Techs could add to the Seaworthiness of all ships, or rather open up equipment upgrades that do that for nearly any ship that gets the equipment (if it can.) This is because it allows the captain to avoid or minimize the impact of inclement weather.

All this would perhaps get some interaction with storms but I'd be initially designing it for the games that don't have storms at all, assuming that storms take place and are gone too quickly to be really SHOWN on the map.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Where are we at with the idea of Shipwrecks, as a feature or improvement, at the moment? I'm thinking it could be the result of a ship dying due to poor seaworthiness... And it could be an interesting thing to play off of for other things.

I suggested the following.

For the ship make it first a "treasure" (special goodie hut). Then when "popped" you get a treasure item/gold/tech and then it leaves a terrain feature. Similar to how we had those Olmec heads left when you popped land goodie huts. The terrain feature makes reefs/coral/seaweed/sea grass when popped. When made the player can put improvements on them such as make it a dive location, archeological site, shipwreck reef preserve, etc.

Unit -> Goodie Hut -> Terrain Feature (with improvement options).

So a goodie hut that turns into a terrain feature that improvements can be added to.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Would we have artwork for it if the system to generate it as a goodie hut, and then to convert it afterwards to a feature were setup?

 

[Hydromancerx]

I think we did actually. I thought we had a shipwreck graphic and/or also some "flotsam".

 

[Toffer90]

I think we did actually. I thought we had a shipwreck graphic and/or also some "flotsam".

We do.