Navies

[Thalassicus]

Here's a thread to discuss ideas for improving gameplay of navies, especially in the modern era.

First topic: submarines! Right now I think most people can agree they're in rather bad shape. Destroyers are cheap, resourceless, fast, high sight range, can attack land, air and sea, AND spot submarines at huge sight ranges. Also, every other unit can spot subs adjacent to them.

On another topic, would people like if ships cost less maintenance than land units? I don't have a strong opinion on the subject.

 

[Ahriman]

See posts:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10214531&postcount=120
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10213955&postcount=236
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10214119&postcount=238

* * *

I find I never build anything other than destroyers. Cheap, fast, good damage, sees subs, and attacks planes with AA. I used to build something different now and again, but that was mainly from boredom.

Agreed. I think the solution to this is to ensure that Destroyers:
a) Aren't very good vs aircraft.
b) Are weak vs battleships (do barely any damage while getting crushed in return)
c) Don't do much damage vs infantry or better land units, or cities.
So, they're high speed and cheap, but aren't that great in combat except when attacking subs (or previous era naval units)

While Subs:
a) Are very good vs battleships/MCs and carriers
b) Are good vs destroyers iff they fire first
c) Don't interact with land units/cities
d) Are slow

Battleships/MCs:
a) Crush all surface vessels, vulnerable to subs
b) Good at shore bombardment
c) Expensive, oil-requiring.

Carriers:
a) Allow air unit transport
b) Have built-in interception capability (basically, they have some additional defensive CAG that isn't part of the air units you land on them), like an AA gun.
c) Gets crushed by subs, battleships
d) not that expensive, does not require oil.
e) No attack of their own.

* * *

It'd be really easy if only submarines were their own combat class... for some bizzare reason the developers put subs in the standard "naval" combat class. This is why they get the Bombardment promotion to attack land units - even though they can't do so! Helicopters got their own combat class so I don't know why subs didn't as well. Who knows?

This seems like something potentially fixable?

* * *

would people like if ships cost less maintenance than land units?

I don't really see any particular reason for this; I'd prefer naval units to be good, rather than cheap.

 

[Thalassicus]

The combat class thing is more difficult than it might appear, because attack animations are somehow coded into the combat class. I tried fixing this a few months back. Everything worked fine except their attack animation did not play... I've had this on my todo list since then:

- Look through *.fxsxml files to link attack animations for subs

The tricky part with naval units is what we discussed once before: most of them are so close in strength rating to their land-based cannon/artillery counterparts they've reached the limit of buffs to combat capability. I've always wanted more complex naval mechanics in Civilization... visually displayed and blockade-capable sea trade routes... a decent AI that forms fleets instead of haphazard lone ships... but without these complex things in place (and the limit to strength buffs), I think one potential band-aid adjustment is to reduce ship cost.

 

[Ahriman]

I've also suggested that we make use of the existing unit and art to add the ship-of-the-line back in as a generic unit.

This way, we could make the frigate a proto-destroyer (high movement, low strength, resourceless), and the ship of the line a proto-battleship (low movement, higher strength, requires iron, more expensive).

[I'd also love to see a war galley or galleas (there are two entire eras with no naval units, classical and medieval)), but beyond the scope of this mod I guess. A modern destroyer would also be nice.]

So:
Trireme -> frigate -> destroyer
Caravel -> destroyer
Ship of the Line -> ironclad -> battleship -> missile cruiser
Sub -> nuclear sub.

Or ideally:

Spoiler :

Trireme -> frigate -> destroyer
Caravel -> destroyer
Ship of the Line -> battleship -> missile cruiser
Galleas -> ironclad -> battleship
Sub -> nuclear sub.

 

[Ahriman]

The tricky part with naval units is what we discussed once before: most of them are so close in strength rating to their land-based cannon/artillery counterparts they've reached the limit of buffs to combat capabilit

Solution here would seem to be to give them a lower strength with a % bonus vs naval units?

I seem to vaguely remember the vanilla patch did something that "increased damage" from naval units vs naval units, but didn't affect naval units vs land units. How did that work?
Is naval bombardment somehow different from land bombardment?

 

[Sneaks]

The game always takes into account what you are shooting before deciding on the damage. My guess is that the patch gave all naval units a base something like +25% against naval. Basically a hard-coded promotion without visual representation.

 

[SSgtDuke]

I think the solution to this is to ensure that Destroyers:
a) Aren't very good vs aircraft.

I think something in the sea needs to provide decent defence against aircraft. I wouldn't leave it up to only aircraft carriers because they're somewhat situational. I think the destroyers' threat to aircraft is currently balanced.

 

[Ahriman]

I think something in the sea needs to provide decent defence against aircraft. I wouldn't leave it up to only aircraft carriers because they're somewhat situational.

If carriers are situational, then why not make them *less* situational by giving them an extra role, like air defense?
If destroyers are already too good-at-everything, why not remove one of their roles?

Destroyers should be fast and simple, I don't see a need for them as anti-air, and its not terribly realistic either. And they already have too many roles.

I'd say that missile cruiser and aircraft carrier as having some AA abilities, plus carrier-borne fighters, would be sufficient.

Remember that air units take damage even from normal bombing runs (unlike Civ4), so just because you don't have an interception chance doesn't mean that you're helpless against aircraft.

 

[Joneill]

The combat class thing is more difficult than it might appear, because attack animations are somehow coded into the combat class. I tried fixing this a few months back. Everything worked fine except their attack animation did not play... I've had this on my todo list since then:

Wouldn't an easy way to fix this be to add the new promotionline you want for subs (I guess survival) to all naval units and then simply add two dummypromotions, one as prereq for the bombardment-promotions (this would be given to all naval units except subs) and the other one as prereq for the new sub-promotion-line (only subs would start with this one).

 

[Ahriman]

Wouldn't an easy way to fix this be to add the new promotionline you want for subs (I guess survival) to all naval units and then simply add two dummypromotions, one as prereq for the bombardment-promotions (this would be given to all naval units except subs) and the other one as prereq for the new sub-promotion-line (only subs would start with this one).

This would work (have a "surface navy" dummy promotion) but it would be a bit clunky.

Its a good idea for a hack-fix, but I'm not sure if it would be worth it just to get the sub combat animation to work.

 

[rhammer640]

So i dont have much to add as far as modern era navies as my games often dont go that far but i have a few comments regarding early eras.
1. I think there needs to be another ship between triemes and caravels, its just too long of a gap as ahriman pointed out above.
2. I think the big issue with ships sucking so much in early eras is that there is really no use for them. You dont need them for defense and a scout explores much better. It might be a nice addition if there was a ship unlocked at sailing that acted almost like a scout of the sea and was fast and cheap but weak.
3. Also currently the only real need for a navy early game is to protect against barbarian ships, but the only thing they ever do is blockade you from working sea tiles which can be a pain but not so much of a pain that you cant just wait till your city destroys them. Is it possible to give ships the abilty to plunder sea resources? Also would it be possilble to give them an abilty that allows them to plunder one tile away from them so that could act as sending out a raiding party type of thing?
4. Lastly they need to be stronger vs archer class units so that it really is necesary to build ships to defend against ships instead of just an archer which defends land and sea.

 

[Ahriman]

Is it possible to give ships the abilty to plunder sea resources

Not quite sure what you have in mind here. You can already pillage a fishing boat (destroying it).

 

[rhammer640]

Not quite sure what you have in mind here. You can already pillage a fishing boat (destroying it).

yeah pillage is what i meant, lol. ive never seen a barb do this though so i wasn't sure it was possible. Why would land barb units pillage but not naval ones and is it possible to encourage them to do it more?

 

[Ahriman]

I think Galleys may not be able to pillage, not sure.
Triremes certainly can.

I think though that having the early game naval barbarians unable to pillage was a deliberate design decision. Unless you have a navy in the right place when a barbarian galley shows up, there is no way that you're going to be able to stop it from pillaging if its trying to do so.
The big advantage of a coastal start is the high yield from those coastal resources (with fishing boat) but you lose the entire value of the fishing boat if its pillaged.

I think coastal starts would be too weak if barbarian galleys could pillage your fishing boats.
Making triremes a bit more resilient to archer fire (or giving archers and crossbows a penalty vs naval units) might not be a bad idea though.

But the fundamental naval problem is still really the AI. As long as the AI wastes its navy by throwing it uselessly at bombarding coastal cities, with no army in sight, then naval warfare is never really going to be very interesting.
But I don't think we have the tools to rewrite the naval AI.

 

[orangecape]

I think the reason barb ships don't pillage sea resources is that you can't just go repair them - you have to rebuild the work boat entirely. You also cannot reasonably field a fleet that can protect your entire shoreline from barb ships in many cases because the number of ships required would be extreme. In addition ships move so fast that barb ships would run in from out of sight and pillage your whales/pearls before you could react at all. Basically I suspect that they deliberately removed that ability because it meant that improving sea resources was just a waste of time because of the huge cost of protecting them.

I personally find that destroyers are simply too good. 1 destroyer in a fleet means that all enemy subs get 1 shotted, often before they can attack or even see the fleet. I would remove the 'spot sub' ability from destroyers so that subs are actually really dangerous and countering them requires your own subs or a lot of moving boats around trying to find them. Basically I would like refrigeration to be like iron working - you get it and say "Yes, now I can build these units and go crush some dreams!" instead of saying "I guess I will build an offshore platform and then go get some real techs."

Also I think the defenses of the carrier need a look. They are actually hugely flimsy and if I was playing against another player I would *never* build them. At their vanilla strength they get 1 shotted by subs/battleships/artillery and probably 2 shotted by destroyers. The fact that they have 3 units on them but are so trivial to destroy feels like a real problem. I would give them substantial antiair defenses and very high combat strength to make them really challenging to destroy. It might be a good idea to make them really expensive too so that they are a big investment but are a fortress of the sea.

 

[rhammer640]

I think though that having the early game naval barbarians unable to pillage was a deliberate design decision. Unless you have a navy in the right place when a barbarian galley shows up, there is no way that you're going to be able to stop it from pillaging if its trying to do so.
The big advantage of a coastal start is the high yield from those coastal resources (with fishing boat) but you lose the entire value of the fishing boat if its pillaged.

I think coastal starts would be too weak if barbarian galleys could pillage your fishing boats.

well if you have sailing to get the fishing boats then you can get triemes to protect them. You need to build units to protect your land resources from barbs so it would make sense. Also ppl usually dont have a ton of costal cities so having a trieme more then usual wouldn't be all that hard but in my opinion would make it feel a bit more dangerous.

Also how do you feel about boats pillaging coastal land tiles? The ai navy is definitely broken, im just trying to think of ways to make building a navy early worth while like it was in real life.

Because they move so fast maybe making them require their entire movement to pillage so they cant just run in then run away again. And really if you have one or 2 ships in the beginning thats enough to protect your resources, you dont need to protect your entire costline. Also you still have cities to help defend as well. Maybe work boats could get a reduced cost so it isn't crippling if one gets plundered

 

[Ahriman]

well if you have sailing to get the fishing boats then you can get triemes to protect them. You need to build units to protect your land resources from barbs so it would make sense.

But the two situations are not the same.
Land barbarian units are slower, can be blocked by zone of control, and can be interdicted some distance out, and no matter what, a land army that you build to defend against them is going to be useful and can be upgraded. Whereas building a couple of triremes is often very low value unless you're on an archipelago map.
A pillaged land improvement can be rapidly repaired by a worker, whereas a pillaged fishing boat is gone forever and has to be replaced.

Also how do you feel about boats pillaging coastal land tiles?

I can't think of any easy way of implementing this; pillage requires that you be able to move into that tile.
Another possibility would be some kind of aura effect where naval units reduced the yields of coastal tiles, but that would also be hard to implement and the AI wouldn't really understand it - and it would make being coastal into a liability, rather than an asset.

I don't think that barbarian galleys not pillaging much is a big design problem.

 

[rhammer640]

i agree with all of the above, i was just trying to think of ways to make building a navy usefull at all in the early game. I find that its very immersion breaking to never have to build ships for anything at all. Damn firaxis, they just need to release full access to the code already, lol

 

[Ahriman]

I think the only way to make navies more important in the early game is to increase their effectiveness vs land units; I think trying to punish coastal players for not having a navy is not the way to go. Carrot, rather than stick.

But I'm ok with not much navy in the early game, its later on where I'd like to see navies more significant, particularly once you're moving armies around over water.

One way of doing this would be to increase land-unit movement rates on water, to make naval movement faster than land movement along roads.
If going via sea was a fast way to move your army around, then that would increase naval value significantly.

Navies are only ever going to matter if:
a) Sea trade is really important economically
b) Sea is very important for moving land units around.
c) Naval units are very powerful vs land units and cities near coasts.

a) is not really feasible in the Civ5 engine, so b) and c) are the only real options.

 

[rhammer640]

Fair enough,

b. The problem with this is that the AI either wouldnt use it or wouldn't protect the units once they were in the water making them easy targets.
c. again it is a huge improvement for the human player because we can use the naval units on the offensive but the AI wont defend against them properly and still wouldn't use them to their advantage while attacking. I think the only way to make this work is if its possible to increase naval value for the AI for use in defense against your units but that becomes very hard to balance.

Im not sure we are going to find a balance for this issue without source code that will really work well. On a side note i do really like the idea of making travel across water the faster way to travel on a game-play and realism level if we could make it work for the AI