naval units

[kristopherb]

we all know the naval units in civ4 can be improved.But how?we can add more units ,better promo's or a unique naval unit.So please help us to come up with more naval units.Just a another question should optics allow all naval units to cross the sea?.

nukeclear submarine
crussier
tanker

 

[Collier20]

I miss the pirate ships from Civ III, but I think there should be a way for them to pillage trade routes (like in CTP).
I think the English UU should be a Ship of the Line. They were a dominate world power for so long because of their navy, not their red coats.
This may be true, but I think a ship's movement points should increase with the size of the world map.

 

[Sisiutil]

I think the solution is not just more naval units, but to enhance the ones already in the game. Here are a few ideas I've had:

• Give Battleships and maybe Frigates the ability to cause collateral damage to units on coastal tiles (especially cities); this would definitely make the units more valuable. As a counter, Artillery could gain the ability to cause collateral damage to ships.
• Add a late-game tech like Radar that increases modern ships' visibility range by 1 or 2; this would enhance their ability as interceptors. (It could also allow you to build Radar Beacons in your cities, which increase the chance of SAM or Fighter interception of attacking aircraft.) And maybe it should be a prerequisite for Satellites or something.
• It might be complicated (or very simple) to set up an equivalent to naval blockades, where you are able to block your enemy's intercontinental trade routes. I'm not sure how to implement this one, though--I never much liked Call to Power's messy-looking trade routes, so I don't want to see that come back.

 

[Titus]

I just posted this in another thread, check it out: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4844103#post4844103

 

[Titus]

Also read this on general naval improvement, some excellent suggestions here:

Hey there Prof. I really sympathise with what you are saying, but I fear your 'solution' would only add needless Micromanagement without actually solving the problem of 'irrelevent' navies. Civ2 had caravans which you had to transport in order to form trade routes, and I STILL found myself never building much of a navy!
Possible solutions to the problem though might be:

1) Limiting the terrain that land units can reasonably travel over-thus making early naval units more important for transport and exploration.

2) Have resource trade routes show up on the screen a la CTP 1 and 2. Then allow for units to pillage these trade routes.

3) Make the blockade of port cities prevent the function of harbours, as well as preventing the use of neighbouring sea tiles (then blockades will REALLY hurt).

4) Along a similar line to harbours, perhaps have a 'Merchant Navy' city improvement which further boosts trade income from that city (perhaps requires a harbour to build!).

5) Allow naval units sitting near a trade-route (non-resource based) to actually block the function of that trade route-at least for that turn.

6) Grant naval units their own set of promotions, to allow players to specialise their fleets, to make naval combat more 'strategic', and to encouraging conflict in order to generate XP.

7) Allow early-industrial and later naval units to bombard units in a similar fashion to air units.

8) Allow certain pre-industrial naval units a chance to capture other pre-industrial naval units.

9) Improve the AI to make them AWARE of all the above abilities, as well as the existing advantages of navies, and to use them accordingly.

Anyway, those are just a few key ideas. As you can see, none of them require any kind of extensive micromanagement, but I feel they will all help to increase the relevency of navies-especially in the age of sail!

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Titus]

[*]Give Battleships and maybe Frigates the ability to cause collateral damage to units on coastal tiles (especially cities); this would definitely make the units more valuable. As a counter, Artillery could gain the ability to cause collateral damage to ships.

Yeah, some sort of stronger bombardment would be nice, perhaps collateral damage without any risk to the ship (as it is, there isn't even a collateral damage promotion for naval units, let alone against cities). Or a small chance to wipe out a building, or lower the population. The coastal fortress might be brought back to combat this, or like you said, simply allowing siege units to fire back at the ships. In any case, just bombing out the city's defence percentage is useless in itself, unless you have an invasion force outside the city. And if you do plan to invade, you might as well use catapults to lower the city's defence %.

Or maybe they should just let you target terrain improvements like in Civ 3. With the threat of someone coming from nowhere and bomb a town back to a cottage in only three turns, then having to wait 50 (or whatever) turns again to get it back to full strength, you'd want to obtain naval superiority.

[*]It might be complicated (or very simple) to set up an equivalent to naval blockades, where you are able to block your enemy's intercontinental trade routes. I'm not sure how to implement this one, though--I never much liked Call to Power's messy-looking trade routes, so I don't want to see that come back.

There is a very simple way to do this. If you put a ship (a warship, not a transport ship or Caravel) on:

1) Any water square within a hostile city's radius

Or if that seems too powerful:

2) A coastal square adjacent to the city square (meaning the ship can be bombarded with siege units)

- it's a blockade! As long as you keep it there, the city earns no income for its trade routes that depend on the water, and no trade of resources with other civs is possible if that city is the only trade network connection to his trading partners (in other words, you might have to put a ship outside each one of his coastal cities to stop him from importing that oil to build Destroyers ). As soon as the ship moves or is defeated, the trading recommences.



Naval blockades of this sort, along with a degree of city/shore bombardment and counter bombardment, would probably be very easy to implement, and would add a lot of strategical depth to the game. As it is now, I can't really be bothered to build ships just to raid fishing nets. It's so petty.

 

[abuaftab]

Battleships can get a collateral damage promo, but obviously it only works against other ships.

 

[cobains disease]

My previous ideas for improving the use of naval units was to make overseas trade routes vulnerable. keep it the same except make them visible, and represented by trade ships that could be pillaged. the "trade ships" wouldnt be built by the player, instead they would simply appear automaticaly when a trade route is created or shifts. the "trade ships" could move 3 spaces movement but there would be enough of them for regular intervals per turn.

 

[gunnerxtr]

There needs to be a ship in between the galley/trireme and frigate/galleon. I know there is the Caravel, but they can only transport 1 unit and the type of unit that can be transported is limited.

 

[Thedrin]

There is a very simple way to do this. If you put a ship (a warship, not a transport ship or Caravel) on:

1) Any water square within a hostile city's radius

Or if that seems too powerful:

2) A coastal square adjacent to the city square (meaning the ship can be bombarded with siege units)

- it's a blockade! As long as you keep it there, the city earns no income for its trade routes that depend on the water, and no trade of resources with other civs is possible if that city is the only trade network connection to his trading partners (in other words, you might have to put a ship outside each one of his coastal cities to stop him from importing that oil to build Destroyers ). As soon as the ship moves or is defeated, the trading recommences.

That only works with isolated cities (if it even works with them). Any coastal city connected by land to other friendly coastal cities would still get it's trade routes - they would be rerouted through other cities and then across land.

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I don't think that there's much (if any) room in the technology tree for an entirely new naval vessel. I don't see what missing role it could fill that couldn't be filled by adding a new ability to current naval units (such as collateral).

I also don't see how adding collateral abilities to naval units can both 1) make them much more useful and relevant to the games outcome and 2) not be overpowered.
1) The same thing can usually be done by landing artillery - it's slower but the outcome for the attacked city would be identical.
2) Not allowing a civ to move around its city-stacked-forces before a large, surprise naval invasion takes place sounds overpowered to me.

As far as I can see, the best way to make navies more useful and relevant to the games outcome is, as mentioned by Cobainsdisease, to link them to trade routes, though I disagree with the implementation suggested.

 

[JonnyB]

I don't think the problem is the number of ships available, but the number of ships in the water.

Make all ships significantly cheaper to build, this makes large fleets easier to amass and would then make naval warfare more interesting and more important.

 

[cobains disease]

I don't think the problem is the number of ships available, but the number of ships in the water.

Make all ships significantly cheaper to build, this makes large fleets easier to amass and would then make naval warfare more interesting and more important.

Im not sure if this would help. for some all it takes for an overseas invasion is to get a bunch of loaded transports, declare war on someone dump your cargo and delete the transports. Civ IV has made it so that navys are almost unnesessary. protection of trade would make navies more useful.

 

[Lone Wolf]

The AI should build more naval units, so that a pile of Transports trying to unload their cargo on the AI's land will get destroyed before unloading. That will make you build some naval units beside Transports to protect those Transports. I don't even bother to defend them in the game (or, when I am really worried about my cargo ships, I just escort them with a very weak defence, like one Frigate in the Middle ages and one Battleship in Modern Times - that proves to be enough).

 

[JonnyB]

Im not sure if this would help. for some all it takes for an overseas invasion is to get a bunch of loaded transports, declare war on someone dump your cargo and delete the transports. Civ IV has made it so that navys are almost unnesessary. protection of trade would make navies more useful.

More warships in the water would make it harder for a fleet of transports to get through.

 

[Thedrin]

No it wouldn't. The current AI tends to mass its navies in its coastal cities. This allows transports to dump an invasion force on land before any of the defending navy can mobilise against it. Giving the AI cheaper vessels would cause them to build more of other things or build larger navies but not do anything different with them.

 

[kristopherb]

i had an idea while doing my paper round

1) when a ship sinks or is destroyed,there will be some survivers and they will go the nearerst port(friend or foe)if the port is friendly they will come back vai the trade routes(each trade route transport 1/4 turn) .if not the foe gets the advantage. the advantage is when the survivers come home (or stay) it will give the next naval unit being built boost in hammers,more moral(no moral if they are captured) and the leadership promo.the chances are of getting these "survivers"will rude futher away from land

2)each turn all sail ships have 25% chance to move 50% more that turn only

 

[kristopherb]

new units

some type of scout naval unit
1st 4m
50% withdrawal chance

one version of these for each era?