Post G&K naval design

[rfxmills]

Interesting discussion so far. I pushed for the introduction of 1 range ships in VEM, but as G&K has changed the rules for navies I think it's only right to start with a clean slate.

This is an overview so I've placed the ships by era instead of a specific tech. I've also tried to concentrate the ships into either melee or ranged, with some auxiliary types.

Ranged type is generally the capital ship of the era.
Melee type is the workhorse focusing on mobility to protect shipping and raiding.
Explorer type is a subset of Melee with extra sight options and a defence bonus.
Torpedo type is a subset of Ranged with only 1 hex range, an attack bonus and versus sea domain bonus (they'll be able to attack land units on the coast, but not as effectively).

Era ................| Melee (M) .......| Ranged (2R) ........| Explorer (M)| Torpedo (1R) ..| Other ...
Ancient |Galley||||
Classical |Bireme|Trireme|||
Medieval |Galleass|Galleon|Caravel||
Renaissance |Frigate|Ship of the Line|Carrack||
Industrial |Cruiser|Ironclad||Torpedo boat|
Modern |Heavy Cruiser|Dreadnought (3R)|Destroyer+|Sub|Carrier
Atomic ||Battleship* (3R)|||Supercarrier
Information |||Corvette*+|Missile Sub*|

* Can carry missiles
+ Can spot subs plus Anti-Air defences
Industrial units are slow in the ocean, but double speed in shallow water

Specific ship notes
Privateers aren't present as they are a type of Frigate.
I've put Cruisers in melee and Destroyers in explorer (a subset of melee) for a few reasons, some semi-historical, some gameplay:

Frigates are the Renaissance era melee unit and Cruisers are their like for like replacement.
Destroyers are most commonly used as escorts rather than attack vessels, even smaller and faster than Cruisers. Also Destroyers should get anti-air and sub detection abilities so I think they fit the Civ scouting role better, while Cruisers can act as the primary offensive melee unit.

 

[gunnergoz]

rfxmills: I like it, but would divide Modern into Great War and WW2 sub-categories. That way you could have Dreadnoughts in the Great War section and Battleships in the WW2 section. As a historical note, Cruisers are actually better in the Explorer category since they were originally created to be the scouts for the battle fleet and as long-distance commerce raiders and provide foreign trade route security. Destroyers should be the Melee units in the Industrial, Modern and Atomic eras if we are trying to follow historical use.

But that's just my thinking about historical aspects. I like the overall approach and would add a Super Carrier to the Atomic era, since there is now a mod for it.

 

[gunnergoz]

Sorry for the duplicate post, Civ Fanatics is loading very, very slow for some reason.

 

[Stalker0]

Here is a question I would like to ask....what should ships in general do in Civ V? What do we expect out of them, so that we can then design for that to happen.

Here is my list:

Domination of Coastline

The primary reason I build ships is not to control the water, its to control coast. I want to be able to park my ships on a coastline and wreck shop. Destroy cities, destroy land units. As the quote goes, "He who commands the sea, has command of everything."

I feel the base game does a really good job of this from the frigate onwards. Frigates are actually pretty strong ships in the base game and do a great job attacking land units and cities provided you don't neglect the techline (which is easy to do if you are not going navy).

And then once you move into battleships, you can dominate a coastline very easily through the majority of the game.

Its really early on that I feel I can't do this as well. Early ships just don't have the strength compared to siege units to take a city out, and ranged units are more comparable to ship damage imo.


Exploration - LIMITED
Exploration needs do depend on map type, but again in general I find I have one point in the game I really need ship exploration, right after astronomy. Once the whole ocean is up for grabs, I want to explore it quickly. Find islands to colonize, meet all of the civs I haven't met yet and set up trades, and find those last city states.

but until that point, I don't find ship exploration that important (archipelago maps are likely an exception). My ships can't go that far, and they cost hammers that could have gone to something else.

And then after the age of sail, I've explored the world for the most part. I don't need ships to find land, I need ships to control it.

This is why I respect the desire for an exploration type ship in the age of sail, but I don't think its a category that should be extended for the whole game.

Naval Combat

To me, naval combat is a necessary evil, in that I don't want to do it. I don't want my ships blowing up other ships, I want them blowing up cities and land units. I engage in naval combat because if I don't then the other guys ships get to blow up my cities and land units!

So with that in mind, I personally don't want ships designed purely for naval combat. Now, that doesn't mean I don't want ships that are better at killing ships in general, but I want to give them more than that. Something else they can do when they aren't killing ships. So with that in mind.

Booty!

One reason navy design is hard in Civ is that Civ tends to ignore one of the major reasons navies exist, supply chains and commerce. Ships carry gold, valuables, and supplies. In WWII nearly the entire reason the German Uboat fleet existed was to kill merchant ships, not military ones.

And kill them they did. They crippled allies supply lines for a time until counters were built for them. I would like that represented more, and I think GK has given us some mechanics to do that.

Privateers already have the ability to steal gold from cities they kill. What if we expand this to melee ships more generally, and make it that every attack (or kill if needed for balance) generates gold. This represents the pillaging of supply ships (and since civ doesn't have merchant and supply ships really, then we will say that killing military ships also is killing the merchant ships they were protecting).

That means that killing another navy now isn't just a means to an end, the end can simply be treasure.

Further, I recognize that CivV has a blockade mechanic, but its not that great, especially in the early game. Late game, I might lose 1/4 of my squares to a blockade. Early on its going to be one or two and commonly I can just shift those back to land with no issue. It would be great if blockading could also siphoning a bit of trade line commerce from the city as well.

 

[rfxmills]

Gunnergoz I edited my original post to add the Supercarrier and explain the reasoning for putting Destroyers and Cruisers where they are, partly historical, but mainly for gameplay so that the cruisers fulfil a more offensive role and the destroyer/corvettes a escort/detection role. I've left the Battleship where it is as their are more WW2 units in the Atomic era than the Modern one.

 

[Tarquelne]

Another idea for adding value to coastal trade and blockades:

Create buildings (Say, two: One for Classical and on for Renaissance) that may only be built in coastal cities and give either gold (by multiplying trade route income, from sea tiles, or maybe just a straight or % bonus to the city's income) or add resources or production. The buildings shut down during a blockade.

I guess the simplest thing to create would be a building that adds gold to worked sea tiles.

 

[Txurce]

One reason navy design is hard in Civ is that Civ tends to ignore one of the major reasons navies exist, supply chains and commerce. Ships carry gold, valuables, and supplies.

This is perhaps the central point in this entire discussion. It's why the emphasis on navies can feel disjointed and unsatisfactory. The game doesn't allow you to do what navies really did, and at times it feels as if a fake compensatory mechanic is being set up.

Privateers already have the ability to steal gold from cities they kill. What if we expand this to melee ships more generally, and make it that every attack (or kill if needed for balance) generates gold. This represents the pillaging of supply ships (and since civ doesn't have merchant and supply ships really, then we will say that killing military ships also is killing the merchant ships they were protecting).

This could work fairly simply, with privateers still serving a unique purpose as ship stealers.

It would be great if blockading could also siphoning a bit of trade line commerce from the city as well.

This would be fantastic, but I have a feeling it's not possible.

Another idea for adding value to coastal trade and blockades:

Create buildings (Say, two: One for Classical and on for Renaissance) that may only be built in coastal cities and give either gold (by multiplying trade route income, from sea tiles, or maybe just a straight or % bonus to the city's income) or add resources or production. The buildings shut down during a blockade.

I guess the simplest thing to create would be a building that adds gold to worked sea tiles.

This variation on the blockade notion is also interesting, although it would require rebalancing. It might be my favorite idea if 1) sea tiles lost +1 gold and 2) a blockade would actually affect it.

 

[Tarquelne]

if ... a blockade would actually affect it.

A little info:

Blockade range for ships is in global defines: So while we could change it from 2, it'd have to be the same for all ships. And the AI might not understand changes there anyway.

lua may offer a straightforward way to check for a sea-route and/or a blockade:

(pCity:GetNumBuilding(GameInfoTypes.BUILDING_HARBOR) > 0 and not pCity:IsBlockaded())

Given that, if this were Civ4 I'd be sure most of the ideas presented for pimping out sea-commerce could be added fairly easily. But it looks like it'd require some lua, so a modmod could be tricky.

 

[Hawawaa]

I probably will be shot down but what the heck, missile subs to atomic, you get tactical subs in information age, and Railships/Advanced Battleship or Battlecruiser (railgun battleships) information age. Crazy no?

 

[Ahriman]

I think any attempt to increase sea trade (either through trade routes or tile yield) but have it be disrupted by ships is going to be doomed by the inability of the AI to understand such mechanics. The human will be about to exploit the hell out those mechanics while the AI will be left helpless.

Empire Total War is about the only game that I have seen that really got navies right in the sense that trade routes were really profitable but required an expensive navy to protect, but even there the AI didn't handle it very well.

So I think making naval units important for coastal warfare by taking cities and bombing land tiles is the only feasible way to go.

On some of the other proposals; note that we still can't easily get new unit art, so we are heavily limited by that for the moment.

 

[Txurce]

I think any attempt to increase sea trade (either through trade routes or tile yield) but have it be disrupted by ships is going to be doomed by the inability of the AI to understand such mechanics.

That's probably true, although Thal getting the AI to pillage gives me some hope that there's a way for the AI to hone in on the trade routes the game does chart.

So I think making naval units important for coastal warfare by taking cities and bombing land tiles is the only feasible way to go.

Again, probably. We already have this, of course, so it's a matter of whether it should be extended to triremes being city conquerors, and whether melee units need to be about as useful as ranged ones (as opposed to more of a specialty unit). I prefer triremes to have little effect on city conquest, and have as little problem with ranged units being the backbone of a navy as I do with melee units being the backbone of an army.

 

[mitsho]

Sea Raids / "Coastal Pillaging" would be also a good way to make the navy more important. If you can pillage that iron resource from the sea with a ranged attack, a defensive navy suddenly becomes more important.

 

[Txurce]

I always liked that in earlier versions of Civ: pillaging both luxury and strategic resources... maybe even roads.

 

[Tarquelne]

That's probably true, although Thal getting the AI to pillage gives me some hope that there's a way for the AI to hone in on the trade routes the game does chart.

Yup. Depending on the mechanics, it's possible all the AI will need to understand is how to blockade, and that it's a good thing to do.

Hopefully it won't be any more exploitable than just having a navy bombarding units on the shore, which currently seems to be in the AI's blind spot. (Along with most other ranged attacks?)

Pillaging shore targets might still be too easily exploited by the player. I suspect that's why Civ5 doesn't have that and, for example, more complicated border/resource connection rules. (Though of course maybe they were judged too complicated for the desired human market.)

Anything that reduces strategic resources more easily than a ground unit in place and pillaging might be a big problem for the AI. (Like my favorite sea-route idea boosting strategic resources.) The consequences for a shortage are pretty dire.

But sea-routes giving more money or production - anything that a shortage won't hand you an immediate crisis - seem a lot more likely not to be too-exploitable.

 

[Catastrophe90]

Ship Stuff

I'd like it better if the Explorer line was rolled into the Sub line. So you would have:

Caravel -> Carrack -> Torpedo Boat -> Sub -> Nuclear Sub

That would give a line of 1-Range ships that are initially good for scouting (great when you need scouting after you get Astronomy) that later get anti-ship capabilities (when the usefulness of mass scouting wanes).

 

[Stalker0]

So I decided to try an archipelago game on Emperor to get a better feel for navy works and see if it changed my opinion.

Well all I got was a game with completely no combat. The AI never attacked me once. I finished a space victory before anyone else had even finished the Apollo Program.

So....I'm going to say that the AI isn't quite as good at handling the islands

 

[mitsho]

I guess the AI needs help in expansion on Archipelago maps. When we get the AI of GEM (the one that spends its surplus gold) and tinker it a bit for those kind of watery maps (i.e. buy settlers earlier, buy more ships, etc. ...), it should work better.

Or am I seeing that wrong?

 

[Dunkah]

I would like to see Privateers that can attack and or raid any other player regardless of DOW's. Like they used to...

A land based Pirate or Terrorist that could do the same thing would be cool.

 

[Ahriman]

I guess the AI needs help in expansion on Archipelago maps. When we get the AI of GEM (the one that spends its surplus gold) and tinker it a bit for those kind of watery maps (i.e. buy settlers earlier, buy more ships, etc. ...), it should work better.

Or am I seeing that wrong?

I think the problem is partly that AI expansion and militarism are in part based on tile distance and on border pressure, and the much lower density on island maps ends up meaning that most of the time the AI never does anything other than build up on its home island and anything really close by.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'm reading this thread, just not focusing on naval design yet until I get to that stage in GEM's release. This conversation will be helpful when that time arrives.