Post G&K naval design

[Ahriman]

I've been thinking about some of these issues a bit more, in part because of a recent game where I had a lot of naval warfare.

Some things that game really highlighted for me were:
a) Melee ships are really underpowered. My group of 6 frigates was able to defeat a *much* larger group of privateers, because they took damage on offense and defense and I took damage only on defense, and because I could focus fire and kill particular ships, while they could only get 2 ships at a time to attack one of mine, and then I could rotate the damaged ship back behind the others.
b) There is too large a gap between age of sail ships and battleships/destroyers. My foe on another continent was far ahead of me in tech, but even a couple of tiers of tech didn't give them any naval advantage over me.
c) Prize ships is too strong an ability; it also really favors the human over the AI. It probably belongs only on the Ottomans, or as an ability that requires 2 or 3 naval specializations on a melee ship.
d) The AI can and will build a large fleet, and can use melee ships to attack coastal cities.
e) There are problems with some upgrade paths, too many units stick around for too long; caravels stick around until ironclads; privateers stick around until destroyers, triremes stick around until caravels.

These indicate to me that:
i) We should try and keep melee naval units in where possible; the AI can use them, and threatening coastal cities is interesting. Most eras should have a ranged and a melee ship. This means there should probably be a melee counterpart to a galleass (cog?), and that there should probably be a ranged counterpart to the ironclad (battlecruiser?), and that the destroyer should probably stay melee.
ii) However, melee ships should be powerful enough that they can threaten cities, that they aren't left obsolete too long, and that they are actually effective against ranged ships. Ranged fire is much more effective because it can concentrate fire more effectively and because it takes no damage in response. This means that melee ships of an equivalent era need to be higher strength. So for example, if we have a (no strategic resource) frigate that is say strength 24/26, a privateer or galleon (with no prize ship promotion but with an extra ability) should be strength ~28.
iii) Melee ships are heavily penalized by the fact that they take damage every time they fight, even against civilian units. To compensate for that, allowing modest healing outside borders or heal after kill is sensible.
iv) To make ships like destroyers still work as a melee unit, they need some extra role. I suggest giving them a hardcoded bonus vs subs, so that we have something of a RPS: capital ships good vs land, surface vessels and weakening cities, subs good vs capital ships and embarked land units, destroyers good at scouting, good vs subs capable of capturing cities.
v) Upgrade lines shouldn't skip tiers.

So one possible design:
Melee:
Cog (no ocean going melee) -> caravel -> Privateer (or rename to Galleon, since no prize ships) -> battlecruiser -> destroyer -> modern destroyer
Carrier (can't attack).

Ranged:
Trireme -> galleass -> frigate -> dreadnought (coal requiring capital ship) -> battleship (requires oil) -> missile cruiser (requires oil)

Ranged only vs other ships.
Uboat -> submarine -> missile sub

I'd probably have the frigate be relatively weaker than it is now (compared to the privateer) but not require a strategic resource, but that could go either way.

Uboat could use the sub art, battlecruiser could use the ironclad art, so art requirements are really just for a dreadnought, a modern destroyer and a cog.

 

[Ahriman]

Submarines should not have 3 range! Ridiculous... they shouldn't be able to sit in a city and shoot my battleships. Possibly they'd even work better at 1 range.

 

[mitsho]

Submarines feel to me like they should be the Chariot Archer equivalent of the Seas. Fast, rather weak, but moves after attack and ignores zone of control.

I agree with your points a-e, but I feel you add too many ships, kind of a reverse of what you say otherwise Also could you clear up your units line, there are more melee than ranged, which seems hard to synch up. I mean, it's not clear to me which tiers/techs you would put them on.

Also, the coal->oil ressource switch with ranged ships seems like bad gameplay, not?

 

[mystikx21]

Coal is already in game for ships and is historically the transition between sail and oil. Seems fine to move or add a ship to it to give age of sail a terminating point that it presently lacks. Privateers and the like hang around way too long.

Subs should be range 1, agreed. Otherwise they're way too powerful to disrupt ships rather than shipping.

Skeptical of destroyers as melee city, but an escort ASW role certainly makes sense. I suppose these melee versions wouldn't be powerful enough to do much damage to cities. I don't think a modern version is necessary.

Dreadnought and Cog seem like the only necessary additions. Ironclad is probably fine instead of the battlecruiser. But a capital ship upgrade from SoL/Frigate would be good and an early melee makes sense with triremes going ranged. U-boat has some logic to it, but should be slower or offer no capital ship bonus

 

[mystikx21]

One other option. Most VEM s were lower or equal at least to . Battleships should be hard to sink, good against cities and effective against (surface ships). Basically. That's easier to do if strength is high (say 80) and ranged is lower (40-50) I thought.

 

[pthmix]

(I don't know much about CiV modding.) From what I've gathered the behaviour of AIs depends heavily on leader flavours. Is it possible to load different leader flavours with different maps? For example a pangea map would load leader flavours with low focus on naval stuff and an archipelago map would load flavours with a high focus on naval and a low focus on land.

Is that a stupid idea?

 

[Ahriman]

Submarines feel to me like they should be the Chariot Archer equivalent of the Seas. Fast, rather weak, but moves after attack and ignores zone of control.

That doesn't make much sense to me. IRL submarines are *slow*, and they hit strong but are vulnerable to counterattack.

I think their current basic design role - anti-naval glass cannons - works well. Though I might tweak it so their offense:defense ratio isn't quite so high, and so that promotions aren't meaningless on them (currently they're 60/35 with +100% attack, so the ratio is ~4:1, and % modifiers don't make much difference).
I don't think ignoring zones of control would be good design - or mechanically feasible. You *should* be able to use destroyer pickets to protect your carriers and battleships.

I agree with your points a-e, but I feel you add too many ships

It feels like my design adds very few compared to some in this thread. There are 2 ships at each era except the first, and once subs are introduced. It doesn't try to maintain separate capital ship, melee ship and recon ship lines.

Also could you clear up your units line, there are more melee than ranged, which seems hard to synch up

Trireme stands alone as ancient range.
Then cog and galleass come at the same time, caravel is separate but is the only one that can do oceans, and has more of an explorer role than a main combat role.
Then privateer/frigate, battlecruiser/dreadnought/u-boat, destroyer/battleship/sub (and carrier), modern destroyer/missile cruiser/missile sub.

the coal->oil ressource switch with ranged ships seems like bad gameplay, not?

Not really. It makes sense historically, it is no weirder than iron->oil, and it fits with how it used to work in VEM (where the ironclad was a pre-battleship requiring coal). I think it is more sensible to have a strategic resource line than the current version which ships between strategic resource and not (caravel -> ironclad -> destroyer).

Skeptical of destroyers as melee city

I know, but the AI uses them and I think the design should probably sticks closer to what the AI knows and keep a melee unit, and destroyer makes more sense as melee than anything else does. In particular, the ASW role is ok for melee because subs are weak on defense, so the destroyer won't take much damage when attacking them.

Dreadnought and Cog seem like the only necessary additions

I think a modern destroyer is necessary, otherwise the melee line terminates too early, and destroyers are useless against modern ships and modern city strengths.
U-boat perhaps isn't necessary, but I find the current sub to be far too effective vs ironclads, let alone the frigates and privateers that are still around when you get it.

Ironclad is probably fine instead of the battlecruiser.

That would be basically just a name change, I'm largely indifferent, but I think Ironclad makes people think too much of Monitor and Merrimac, rather than the late 19th century warships that I think we should be modeling.

One other option. Most VEM s were lower or equal at least to . Battleships should be hard to sink, good against cities and effective against (surface ships). Basically. That's easier to do if strength is high (say 80) and ranged is lower (40-50) I thought.

I have mixed feelings about this. They get a lot of this by their 3 range already, and I think its important that they're vulnerable to aircraft and subs. Otherwise they're just good at everything. If their base strength is too high, it will be too hard for a couple of subs to sink them.
Also in my current game, the battleship is shooting at a city with ~90 strength. If you reduce the ranged value down to 40-50, its hardly going to do any damage at all.

 

[Ahriman]

Is it possible to load different leader flavours with different maps? For example a pangea map would load leader flavours with low focus on naval stuff and an archipelago map would load flavours with a high focus on naval and a low focus on land.

Is that a stupid idea?

Not stupid, this would be great if it was technically feasible. Most island maps are basically unplayable because the AIs don't realize enough that they need to expand overseas, build navies, and fight people who aren't close to them.

 

[mystikx21]

That would be basically just a name change, I'm largely indifferent, but I think Ironclad makes people think too much of Monitor and Merrimac, rather than the late 19th century warships that I think we should be modeling.


I have mixed feelings about this. They get a lot of this by their 3 range already, and I think its important that they're vulnerable to aircraft and subs. Otherwise they're just good at everything. If their base strength is too high, it will be too hard for a couple of subs to sink them.
Also in my current game, the battleship is shooting at a city with ~90 strength. If you reduce the ranged value down to 40-50, its hardly going to do any damage at all.

Mostly I think of the Graf Spee or the Hood if we call it a battlecruiser. I'm not sure this historical reference problem is resolved by changing the name. They're an early 20th century thing accompanying dreadnoughts more so than the mid-late 19th century thing that ironclads are representing. Monitor and Merrimac mostly come up because they were early designs. I think it's fine the way it is. "Armored Cruiser" is more where I thought you were going with the late 19th. Which is pretty lame as names go.

VEM design left a (large) city attack bonus on capital ships like battleships or SoL and I think they would still do enough damage to notice and still have 3 range to contend with as well. A +50-100% city attack could suffice to bring it back up to 80-90 range, and a 40-50 anti-ship attack would still do substantial damage to any melee ships in range. Subs would likewise have a capital ship bonus to make them reasonably effective at killing. The airplanes issue is the only one that would worry me, as they should be vulnerable to air attacks until Missile Cruisers get an intercept. I think it is possible the numbers I threw out were too high or not well-balanced for GEM, but I thought the concept is worth examining as it seemed balanced in VEM.

 

[Ahriman]

Cruiser or Armored Cruiser would also work fine.
Commerce Raider would be the other possibility.
But leaving it at ironclad is also ok. We should probably stick with the vanilla name when there isn't a strong reason to do otherwise.

I'm not fond of sticking in too many 50-100% modifiers, because those then make other modifiers (like great admirals) basically irrelevant.

I also think it is better if as far as possible we can make the counters soft-counters that work largely by unit role rather than too many specific hard-coded bonuses. The canonical example is that horsemen are good vs archers and siege units because they have high mobility and can get to them, they don't need a built-in bonus. Similarly, battleships are good vs cities because they can sit out of range and pummel them; they probably don't need a specific vs-city bonus. Subs can be good because they can approach unseen and have a powerful alpha strike.

If you beef up the base strength of the battleship, then destroyers and aircraft will be ineffective against them, even if subs were ok from a specific hard-coded bonus.
I think the battleship should be good vs destroyers, but that can be achieved through role (it has a solid ranged attack); the destroyers should still function ok vs the battleship if they can swarm it.

I'm ok with missile cruiser having a moderate intercept chance, but really I think we also want to encourage use of carriers with intercepting aircraft as bomber counters. I'd be more inclined to give the carrier itself an intercept chance, representing a built-in defensive air-wing? That would also serve to give the AI some benefit from building carriers that it doesn't use well.

Would it be weird for destroyer type units to have a defense bonus? That might help in their screening role?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

my 2 cents would be that there's need for a general nerf to naval range, the AI really has no idea how to deal with ships with long range attacks.

 

[Ahriman]

Naval range? Or are you just talking 3 range battleships and missile cruisers?

I find that an AI with a powerful economy will build up a decent navy if it has a lot of coastal cities. I've also found that even once I defeat their main naval force, they will build another one, and they'll attack with several units at once rather than piecemeal (if they have multiple coastal cities that they can buy stuff in).

So I've been offshore with a couple of battleships pounding on a city after defeating the enemy navy, and then they throw 2 subs and 2 destroyers at me.

And I think it is fine for battleships to be good at pounding on the enemy once their navy has been defeated; naval superiority should mean something. But that's part of why I don't think we should make the base strength of these too high; a few units all attacking a battleship need to be able to sink it.

I'd also note that relative to vanilla, oil is much more scarce so strategic resource units like battleships should be more powerful, and I'd note that shifting oil requirements off aircraft should help the AI build more and the AI should then be better at using those aircraft against battleships.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

sorry, not a native speaker

yeah, I'm referring to the range of ranged attacks for navies. 3 range is especially bad, it becomes really easy to shoot and retreat -> AI has no idea what happened -> rinse and repeat. this can easily turn the whole naval gameplay into a giant exploit fest .

 

[Ahriman]

I'm still a bit confused; are you saying that you think all naval units with ranged attack need to be nerfed, or that all naval units with ranted attack need to have their ranged reduced, or that naval units with a range of 3 need to have their range reduced?

Personally I think a range of 3 is very important to allow you to shoot from outside city attack range, and to allow you to shoot a decent distance inland. Its an important way to make navies powerful in the late game.

3 range is especially bad, it becomes really easy to shoot and retreat

Then the problem is promotions that allow move after attack, no?
Or are you saying on multiple turns, that the AI won't chase you down?
That was definitely true pre-G&K, but I've found it less bad post G&K. It's still possible to do hit and run raids if you have the England ability/great lighthouse/naval tradition policy, but I think that is as it should be.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'm still a bit confused; are you saying that you think all naval units with ranged attack need to be nerfed, or that all naval units with ranted attack need to have their ranged reduced, or that naval units with a range of 3 need to have their range reduced?

the last you said, for this reason:

Or are you saying on multiple turns, that the AI won't chase you down?

it's good to hear the expansion pack improved this though, I'll have to test it some more.

I think the real issue comes from the interaction between high range and fast speed: both are things the AI struggles with, and when combined it gives em big headaches

 

[Ahriman]

I think the real issue comes from the interaction between high range and fast speed:

Right, battleships and missile cruisers should be fairly slow, especially compared to Destroyers.

I would probably lean towards speed 4 battleships vs speed 6 destroyers, 5/7 for missile cruisers/modern destroyers. Subs should probably be the same speed as battleships. [U-boats same as dreadnoughts, missile subs same as missile cruisers.]

Ironclads are currently speed 2, double moves on coastal tiles. This is ok, but it does mean that with speed boosts from Great lighthouse/England UA/Commerce social policy that they end up being *very* fast on coastal tiles.
Dreadnoughts would probably be speed 4, 2 range. Or they could be the same speed as ironclads.

I think reducing the range of battleships/missile cruisers to 2 would make them a lot less useful/fun.

 

[Stalker0]

I personally don't want to see new ships added. Naval combat is always going to take a backseat to land, so we don't need the same kind of diversity.

For destroyers, one idea might be to give them the charge promotion is that is possible. That way they can compete with stronger ships later on with the charge bonus and gives them good formation synergy with ranged ships.

 

[Ahriman]

Naval combat is always going to take a backseat to land,

On many map types this is not the case.

so we don't need the same kind of diversity

Land units have 5 or more unit types at most tiers (spear, sword, horseman, catapult, bowman) going up to 6 with vanguards, so I don't think 2 and sometimes 3 naval unit types is overboard.

The main reason in my view for new units is that there are naval units that cannot be upgraded for multiple eras, and that become totally useless. Privateers are useless by the mid industrial, but they can't upgrade until destroyers. Triremes are useless against galleasses, but there is no upgrade until caravels. Caravels are useless by the mid renaissance, but there is no upgrade until ironclads. This is particularly problematic for melee ships that are supposed to be attacking cities, because city strength rises so much that they are totally outclassed.

For destroyers, one idea might be to give them the charge promotion is that is possible. That way they can compete with stronger ships later on with the charge bonus

What would this be trying to represent?
I don't see how you can balance destroyers for both modern and information age by adding a bonus; either it will make them too strong in modern or they will remain too weak in information.

 

[Seek]

Privateers are useless

What? Privateers can capture any ship, up to the highest tiers (including subs!) - they're never useless! Unless the AI has no navy, that is..

Similarly with caravels, their range of vision is useful long after their "usefulness" militarily has waned (military strength isn't really the point of caravels in the first place..)

This are how these units were designed, I don't see a problem here in either case.

 

[Ahriman]

What? Privateers can capture any ship, up to the highest tiers, including subs - they're never useless!

Useless at attacking cities, which is supposed to be a big part of what they're for.
The Prize ships promotion is broken and IMO should be removed. It hugely favors the human over AI. And it's just ridiculous in realism terms to think of privateers attacking and salvaging submarines or battleships.

Similarly with caravels, their range of vision is useful long after their "usefulness" militarily has wanes

I do not find this to be the case. When there a privateers and frigates around, I find the caravel useless. A small vision boost isn't really worthwhile; it doesn't help you vs naval units or cities or land units significant, particularly when other ships are faster (+1 speed > +1 sight).

The caravel has a window of usefulness for exploration, but after that, I don't find they have value. They need to be able to upgrade to privateers. [Or galleons, if people prefer that name to privateer once the prize ship promotion is removed. Its a bit ridiculous to think of privateers as main frontline naval units.]