Naval units "useless"?

[Ascote]

Battleships have a range of 3, are you telling me that you had only 2 cities in that range? I had 8 in my game, and with a couple of battleships those cities and all units that tried defending them fell.

 

[mnf]

In the few continents game I've managed to play, there have been no shortages of AI cities vulnerable to battleship bombardment. In fact I let my Commandos travel with a battleship just to take and raze enemy cities behind the line. It's the poor man's nuke.

Now Pangaea games are another story. Sometimes you seriously have no need for naval units.

 

[UWHabs]

Another big flaw of all civ games has been that it's so easy to do an inter-continental invasion without needing any ships. You can just float your units across the water, and basically land on the new landmass in empty space, and then go declare war. And then usually I have enough units in my first wave that I never really have to send more over. And honestly, in so many cases, the water isn't large enough to worry about, especially after steam power when embarked units move 5 tiles.

Solutions:
-AI needs to have a standing navy to protect itself
-Naval units should be able to "fortify" in the water, so that even with a standing navy, you get defensive bonuses for having your ships in the coast
-Naval units enforce a 2-tile zone of control on ranged ships and a 1-tile ZOC on melee ships (so that you can't just sneak through their navy).
-AI needs to realize that basically any embarked units moving towards them means war, and treat that the same way as when they currently ask you to move your troops (not only trigger that when they're right near their border)
-Embarked unit movement needs to be cut down heavily - it should be 1 tile early, then 2 tiles by Steam Engine, then maybe 3 tiles by the modern era. To me, embarked units should also have a sight range of 0, and should not be able to move into undiscovered terrain. So you can't just send your scout floating across the unexplored ocean, you need a ship to discover the path first. If land units take forever to walk through the jungle, sea units should take forever to trudge across the empty land.
-It's also ridiculous how the harbor removes movement restrictions when embarking to land. If my builder is on the water, he has 5 moves, and then he can move 5 tiles on land. It means it would be faster for my builder to move to my harbor, then next turn use that massive move bonus to come back inland.
-And as mentioned, there needs to be a bigger benefit to coastal cities. As well as other ways to defend them. Should be a coastal fortress district or building which works like the encampment does for land to better defend water cities.

With slower moving across water, and no sightlines for embarked units, then it becomes very risky to try to cross the open ocean. And if it will still take you a couple turns after declaring war before your units actually reach the shore, then the AI would have some time to defend itself. You should basically have to come with overwhelming naval force to clear the path for your land units, and with cities up to 3 tiles away from the water able to build a harbor, that should help the AI at least not be stuck without a navy or the ability to build one.

 

[sigmakan]

One of the Harbor buildings should provide 1 hammer to sea resources. That would add some value to coastal cities.

 

[JellyRev]

Rising Tide showed us that making water tiles usable is a hard gambit to take. It's hard to keep territorial disputes alive when so much more usable space is available. Granted, Civ wouldn't open the entire ocean to colonization, but that only It reduces the scope of the problem. It doesn't eliminate it.

I wonder what kinds of mechanics might make naval superiority as important in the game as it was in history.

A game that had some big yield ocean resources that could be farmed outside of the border. And a unit called the colonist that farms a single tile that returns yields to where it was born. Spain, England and Norway would get special buffs for colonist unit. Cities on the coast have triple range on colonist. Every tile inland from the coast a colonist colonizes cost 3 range instead of 1 on sea tiles.
To compliment it I would change the DoW system to only when borders are going to be penetrated. Have another skirmish level of conflict so a colonist could change hands, navies important to protecting colonist. skirmish level of conflict would also prevent people from floating their land army unprotected outside of their borders.

 

[LDiCesare]

Another big flaw of all civ games has been that it's so easy to do an inter-continental invasion without needing any ships. You can just float your units across the water, and basically land on the new landmass in empty space, and then go declare war.

Do you mean Civ V and VI? Because Civ I-IV required transport ships of some kind. They were removed more or less because the AI didn't understand how to handle them (be it put troops on board, protect them, bring units to the carrying point). With 1upt, it would be quite hard to do it that way again, though.

 

[steveg700]

Yeah, I'm playing a game on islands right now, and nobody's building ships. Everyone's just embarking massive numbers of land units with no escort. Easy pickings.

The harbor is kind of obnoxious because it doesn't really do what it needs to do: provide a civ near the coast with a food supply.

 

[Big J Money]

That's if there are any coastal cities worth taking. In my last game [...]

In my current game, almost half the cities of the world are coastal. Very happy to have naval dominance. It's helping me sink Scythia's army (which she's bringing across the water) with ease. Albeit, I think embarked ships should be easier to sink, but this is still at least several "free" attacks.

And neither of her coastal cities will stand for long because my navy can sweep in and take them. No need to be pessimistic, just keep playing. Have you even tried to build a navy with coastal raiders to see how effective they are?

 

[King Jason]

1. The harbor district is too expensive for what you get. If you build this you should get some great bonuses to make it worth while.

2. Settling on the coast is too inefficient. A city on the coast has probably half of its tiles filled with useless water tiles. Water resources need to be improved dramatically to make up for all the wasted tiles.

Also

1. The value lies mostly in the trade route, which currently has extreme value.

2. You're using all tiles in your cities? I'm lucky if I can end any game with my highest pop city being above mid teens. No city needs even close to all of it's tiles, so this is a non-factor when it comes to city placement. Neither is water; it's need is grossly over-exaggerated. So the claim that coastal cities are inefficient is misleading because this would imply it's efficient to make use a city's full tile radius.

Which, if we're talking straight numbers - if you're doing that in any of your cities then you aren't playing "efficiently" - because the game should be over.

 

[Big J Money]

FWIW I'm the opposite. Almost every city is out of tiles, and the majority of my cities are at or above the mid-teens. But I"m playing China on Prince. Don't know how doable this will be on hard difficulties yet. But I do have some breathing space as far as amenities are concerned, and I haven't even exhausted all my trade deals in that arena yet. Mostly because the AI gives awfully one-sided deals, even when they are supposedly friendly or even allies.

 

[civplay]

Tbh, I played basically exclusively immo/deity in civ 5 and naval was basically useless then too (in SP). I think i'd build a galley and 2 caravels a games, then maybe a couple of battleships. I also literally never built air units.

The problem is international trade is waay UP in civ series (compared to history, I mean venice became a european super power just by trading with the ottoman) , and so controlling the oceans to ensure trade isn't really needed, and not really possible wit civ mechanics. Make naval trade stronger, able to escort trade units, and be able to attack trade units without DOW for receiving lots of gold (privateers) and naval units will be equivalent to their historical power.

 

[King Jason]

Well I'm not saying one will or won't or can't win maximizing space. I'm just saying that someone shouldn't make a blanket statement of saying a city near the coast is useless based largely on the fact that it can't use half the tiles and will therefore be inefficient - an empire filled with 7-15 pop cities is all you need to beat this game under any circumstances. When you have a city of 7 pop you only need 10 tiles and you can reach 3 tiles out; So there's nothing inefficient about being on the coast.

If anything, I find I'm dragging on the game if I actually try to maximize space, regardless if I'm playing Prince or Deity. Most of my cities end up being clustered so it really makes little difference if another city is gobbling up my tile total or if it's the ocean, or mountains; The city will produce.

Between gold, trade routes, industrial districts, and more works slots; one of the biggest benefits of a city is the fact that it enhances the collective output of your empire.

I mean, 1 trade route is worth more than a Market, Bank, and Stock exchange combined. This scales across the game as empires develop; trade routes are usually worth between 6-10 gold before Banks. So You get immense value from just placing the district on the map. To say nothing about internal trades. A Shipyard easily offers as much production as a workshop, and at Naval Tradition, can offer as much or more than a powerplant's bonus exclusively for the host city, yet it comes before the factory and is cheaper to build. If you actually have a good spot, then the shipyard can offer that production without the naval tradition policy, and the amount of all the industrial district buildings combined if you choose run it; again, this is before you can build factories. But this doesn't stop you from throwing an industrial district in that same city either.

Now, that last part is all about harbors - but again, the issue is settling on or off the coast. Which I addressed in the first part of the post so basically; Just like there's no reason to settle on the coast, there's really no reason not to either. Losing tiles is not valid reason in terms of gameplay efficiency - you don't need much more than half of a city's radius.

 

[redwings1340]

Now, that last part is all about harbors - but again, the issue is settling on or off the coast. Which I addressed in the first part of the post so basically; Just like there's no reason to settle on the coast, there's really no reason not to either. Losing tiles is not valid reason in terms of gameplay efficiency - you don't need much more than half of a city's radius.

Yeah, I've settled on the coast a lot of times. It's not usually the best city, but there are enough factors you want to lay out that settling on the coast can be valuable. If there's not a river in the area, for instance, getting the initial +2 housing can be better than nothing, and is a reason to do so. Alternatively, a city with a lot of fish 2 or 3 tiles out can be a reason, or if an adjacent city is taking up a lot of landspace, but you still want another city there.

There are reasons to do it.

 

[bcaiko]

Battleships have a range of 3, are you telling me that you had only 2 cities in that range? I had 8 in my game, and with a couple of battleships those cities and all units that tried defending them fell.

I ended the game long before Battleships came online with my impressively strong land army.

 

[Victoria]

The majority of our world is water but naval battles were always the exception not the rule and for good reason.
Most countries limit naval investment to what is required.

That said it is a part of Civ that has always lacked any real pleasure.
There are many naval gamers out there and a good Civ naval side would encourage.

Development wise... while there is no terrain to confuse the AI, the high movement rate at sea increases options exponentially and does make it much more difficult to program, especially when the AI (as it seems to be currently) has no memory of what it has seen roughly where. Roughly does not compute. To conquer this area will not be simple. If it could be done well I would be highly impressed and even buy an extra copy just to say thanks.

For me personally, I rule the waves with a couple of high tech ships and they end up asleep outside a dock or on a dodgy part of a trade route unless holding some landlubbing blubbing settler to their "long white cloud".

I literally ache for naval engagement.

 

[bcaiko]

No city needs even close to all of it's tiles, so this is a non-factor when it comes to city placement.

But a variety of tiles is important. Having options is always ideal. Being surrounded by water tiles certainly limits your options currently. That's bad for the player.

The majority of our world is water but naval battles were always the exception not the rule and for good reason.
Most countries limit naval investment to what is required.

To be fair, that's partly because ships were so expensive to build, especially in the modern era. In World War 1, Germany and Britain were afraid to engage each other because a single torpedo could sink a Battleship with a cost that could bankrupt the economy. Previous to the modern era, naval engagements weren't common, I guess, but were certainly well known. Korea's navy entirely saved it from the Samurai invasion of Hideyoshi's Japan. The modern "OMG can't lose that unit, it's so expensive" would probably not create good gameplay.

 

[Disgustipated]

I have a question related to naval units, I'll ask here rather than create a another thread about it.

I have 2 jet fighters on an air craft carrier, I deploy one, and now it says I have only 1/2 spots being used on the aircraft carrier. Is this a way I can "cheat" and get 3 units on an aircraft carrier? It seems like when I leave the area, my deployed jet fighter remains in place. And what does a deployed fighter actually do anyways?

And how do I select my fighter that has been deployed? It seems I can't click on it.

 

[LDiCesare]

Deployed fighters fly around in circles above their tile. From there, you can give them air strike missions to attack targets.
I guess they probably also perform air superiority missions but I never saw the AI field a plane.

 

[Victoria]

my only gripe is that most great admirals aren´t worth much.

The nice thing about admirals is they give you promotions and having a promoted navy is useful.

Coastal cities are bad,

If you are just thinking about size or usable hexes then sure. But they are useful based on situation and can be great gold earners. Not every city needs to be 20+ population... a coastal city can be. Its also quite defensible and to be really honest they give me more variety in the game.

I also like playing England.

 

[Jimdigriz]

I was trying to find somewhere to post this info/ask questions but couldn't see anywhere relevant!

Just started playing...I notice that Builders can embark with Sailing (very early on) so I waited until my Builder had one charge left and sent him to sea. Discovered quite a lot and is still doing so - way before any other units can embark or before I've even built a galley!

Is this right? Very handy for the huge Islands map I'm on!