Punishment to obsolete units, need feedback

[Scipio Africanu]

Frigates look very similier to Missle Guided Destroyers. I think that animation would be better used for that rather then the Modern Frigate.

I think because of the factor that land modern units will have to be edited in power will natraully increase the modern sea units so that balancing doesn't become an issue. It should natrually balance if you increase things by a certien precentage and at the value of which would best represent their capability at the time. Giving one or two untis superior capabilities simply for balancing, in my opinion, destroys the entire process of balancing for realism.

By the way the modern frigate is not an offensive weapon and has a very low ability to attack since all this equipment is crammed on a smller, faster, more heavily armored ship. The modern frigate at most would have an increased attack, but like I said it doesn't bring anything new to the table so why have it? my opinion at least.

 

[Kryten]

To Scipio Africanu,

Wow! That's an EXCELLENT and detailed report of yours! And very, very well researched! Thanks very much for sharing it will us. (I always get confused with modern ship classes, especially as the US Spruance-class DESTROYERS and the US Ticonderoga-class CRUISERS are both built on the same 9,600 ton hull!)

Question: would activating the 'intercept' ability on a ship work? I thought it would only work for aircraft. If it DOES work, then great, we can add another layer of 'reality' to modern naval warfare.

Would it be possible to keep to the spirit of civ3's 'generic' unit types by adding all your suggestions onto the current exsisting units? Civ3 isn't Harpoon, and I'm a bit worried about having lots of modern ship types. As Vger pointed out, the AI isn't clever enough to understand the concept of 'mutual support'. Nothing drastic, and using your ideas:-

---A Typical Modern Fleet---
Carriers (same as WWII: 6 aircraft, and radar representing WWII recon planes and modern AWACs)
AEGIS Cruisers (2 interception range, best attack, no cruise, no ASW, but has radar....and maybe ZOC as well?)
Battleships (same as WWI & WWII: now with 1 cruise missile, best bombardment)
Destroyers (same as WWII with ASW: and now 4 cruise missiles)
Nuclear Subs (no nukes='hunter-killers', with nukes='boomers', 1 cruise missile, and it's up to you how you use them. I'd give these the radar abiliy as well: they are dam good at finding targets or AVOIDING being found!)

This way we don't have to add ANY new warships, just tweek their current stats a bit and add cruise missiles.

One last thing...yes, it's that "Queen of Discussions", the old "Queens of the Sea"!
If I may quote you: "We still have the ability build battleships.We just don't want to."(this true and I do agree)"If some nation could afford it and want to continue to produce them after 1950 I think they should be allowed to in the game".
The problem is, in civ, "IF" becomes "WILL". IF it's possible to build battleships in the Modern Era, then the AI nations WILL build them. I still don't think this is historicaly correct.
Let me illustrate my point with the following examples:

---Scenario 1---
You're playing a game of civ. You have several battleships. You reach the Modern Era and can now build AEGIS Cruisers as well as battleships, so you do so. You reach the middle of the Modern Era (say, about the year 2000 AD). You now have anything between 10 to 20 battleships, and so do several other AI nations on your world. You play on. You reach the year 2050. You now have about 20 to 30 battleships. So do several other AI nations. The total number of battleships in the world is over 100. Game ends.

---Scenario 2---
You're playing a game of civ. You have several battleships. You reach the Modern Era and can now build AEGIS Cruisers INSTEAD of battleships. You start building this new ship and have still got your old battleships, but they are a bit precious to you now because you can't build any new ones. You protect them a bit more and only use them when necessary. During times of peace you may even keep them nice and safe from suprise submarine attack by leaving them in port (i.e. mothball/decommission them), but they are still there if you need them. You may even upgrade them by adding a cruise missile to them, but you can't build any more. You play on. Wars happen and some battleships belonging to the other nations are sunk. You yourself may be in a war and some of your battleships are sunk. You reach the middle of the Modern Era (say, about the year 2000 AD). You may still have a few battleships, so may the other nations, but there are a lot less floating about than there used to be. You play on. More wars, more battleships sunk. You reach the year 2050. There may be one or two battleships left in the world. There may even be none. Game ends.

I hope that you agree with me that scenario 2 looks a lot more like the world we live in today than scenario 1.

Thanks once again for all your hard work.

 

[Agent Roo]

"AEGIS cruisers don't carry Cruise Missiles"

hmm - Ticonderoga Class armament C1980:
2*Octuple (8-barrel) Harpoon SSM launchers (16 missiles)
2*twin (2-barrel) Standard SM2-ER/ASROC SAM/ASW launchers (68 Standard/20 ASROC missiles)
2*5" Dual Purpose guns
2*20mm Phalanx Close In Weapon System (AA guns)
2*Triple (3-barrel) Mk32 ASW Torp. Tubes (14 Mk46 torpedoes)

BBs aren't built because AC in real life are more capable of sinking ships - in civ3 they can only cripple ships (1HP left and thats it - not destroy ala real life) which is why i'm arguing for BBs and "Modern BBs"

Modern Missile Proponents, take note: it was estimated in the 80's that it would take 5 harpoon missiles to sink the Soviet Kirov or Kiev class vessels! And Harpoon has a heavier warhead than a Tomahawk - so it could be that 6 of those are needed!

As for torpedos, the WW2 Cruiser General Belgrano (Argentina, Falklands war) was destroyed by WW2-vintage Mk8** torpedoes, because they had a heavier warhead and more could be fired in a salvo than the modern Mk24 Tigerfish Torpedos - proof that "old stuff" isn't *necessarily* better than "new stuff"

BBs are still "used" by the USN for one good reason - you cannot currently shoot down a shell; certainly not as easily as a missile. their main use is to eliminate SAM/AA sites in safety. Interestingly, at one time the Iowas were to be equiped with 10 Mk23 shells with a W32 warhead...
Finally, 16" HE round weighs 1900lb. The AP round weighs 2700lb!

 

[Scipio Africanu]

hehe Agent roo, while your researching ships I think you should tkae a look at what those missles do. A cruise missle (in Civ III at least and the more lamen look at missle's. Cruise in the navy is determined by its guidence system and altitude of delivery) is defined as a guided ordinance that is a FaF (Fire and Forget) weapon launched from a platform (be it air or sea or land) at a surface target. Ship to ship missle's don't count which is what the Harpoon missle is. So thats out the door. ASROC and SM-2 are standard missles used for surface to air so those arn't cruise missle's either. the 5' guns are for sea to sea combat as well as shore bombardment. The phalanx system is a defensive only system used as a last measure to combat ship to ship missle's as well as incoming aircraft threats. Lastly the Mark48-50 torpedoes don't consist of platform to surface guided missles. So no, cruisers carry no tomahawk or AGM-86b cruise missle's, which today is standard issue besides the CALCM (Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missle) for the entire U.S. armed forces.

In my opinion I think its a bad idea to join the destroyer and guided missle destroyer class's into one. Destroyer's were originally your submarine hunters of WWII which also provided small fire support through 30mm HE MG (High explosive machine gun) and one 5" gun of more recent (their role has continued to be submersible defense). The Guided missle destroyer is the evolution of a new breed of ship. I believe it is very important to keep both present. One, because I think the destroyer must be represented in WWII combat as a submersible hunter (its main role in WWII), and two, because the guided missle destroyer doesn't have the same capabilities as most ships. It carries only missle ordinance and if ship to ship missle's have to be factored out since every (and I mean every, including attack and ballistic sub's) warship in today's Navy has them we can't well include them into attack and defense factors or every ship would be a cruiser (yes most ships are being outfitted with the phalanx system ). So in my opinion the modern naval power should consist of...

Modern Sea Power
-----------------------
AEGIS Cruiser - Your main ship to ship attacker and defender
Guided Missle or GM Destroyer - For Air defense and cruise missle delivery.
Destroyer - Your sub hunter and finder
Modern Battleship - Your heavy fire support on the ground and sea, if you can afford it. Also carries one cruise missle.
Attack Sub - Your main undersea attacker with the capability to carry 1 cruise missle.
Ballistic sub - Your tactical nuke transport and delivery system.
Carrier - Your air support, weak in every other catagory.


I think yuor WWII sea power should look like this...

Industrial Sea Power
-------------------------
Destroyer - Sub hunter, some fire support.
Submarine - Your underwater attacker.
Battleship - The queen of the seas . Your bombarder and biggest attack rating of the industrial age at sea. AEGIS cruiser will change that around in modern times to signify the switch to cruisers as your main attack role.
Carrier - Air support.

You could include a cruiser but with all the modern untis it would be hard pressed to account for it. Plus it was a faster version of the destroyer with heavier guns and though it was important to the war efforts I think due to unit limit constraints it can be overlooked to give way for more accurate modern sea warfare.


I don't like the idea of completly factoring out the Battleship once more. It just doesn't make practical sense from a realistic stand point. We can produce them but we choose not due to constraints of warfare. What we have to do is make teh constraints of warfare make the Modern Battleship not nearly as viable a weapon as it was during the height of the industrial age.

Scenario
-------------
You have say 10 Battleships during the industrial age, they consist of your greatest firepower at sea. Suddenly you can build a stronger more combat prepared unit with AEGIS Cruiser. The AI and yourself start pumping these out for the better attack and defense rate. At the same time the Modern Battleship becomes available making the Battleship obsolete and unable to be built. The Modern Battleship is faster but has a reduced attack, it can carry cruise missle's now but cost's a lot more to produce, and I mean ALOT. This is a deterernt, and even if you wanted to pump em out would it be worth it? not likely. So you continue on producing the newer, better ships with higher attack and defense rating such as the GM Destroyer or the AEGIS Cruiser which now provide the backbone of your Navy. Sure you may have some Battleships in service, but only a few due to the fact that their maintnence and cost of production is far to high.


Let us not forget that the battleship still plays a significant role in today's Navy in times of escalating conflict. We didn't recommision and upgrade them so they would look prettier . They have a specialized task and objective that ONLY the Battleship can fulfill. But by making them so cost ineffecient to the scale of making them foolish for production then I think that will balance it out. You may be thinking, well what about the AI? Even if they do decide to push em out they'll be easy targets for your attack subs, Cruiser's, and GM Destroyers. Think of all the fun you could have watching a ship that takes 15 turns in modern times to produce in a city rich with shields sink in flames from a 4 turn Cruiser . Realistic, I think so. Lets not forget to make the original battleship very Expensive to produce and maintain as well, we don't want 30 old battleships cruising around the world. Try and limit it so even if you did step up production everywhere the most you could turn out before the AEGIS is discovered is say 10 - 12 and their maintnence should be appaling. I think that would better represent the modern Navy and why we don't have the battleship in service to date.

 

[Vger]

Kryten,

Thank you for your continued graciousness. This thread is a pleasure to participate in.

As to the replacement for the BB (not in MY bic file! <grin>), I would say that everything stays the same, so far as the AEGIS cruiser goes, but add the Super Carrier that they should have put in from the begining. That's the real replacement.

Also, I would rather not see boomers in the game. In reality, they spend their time trying not to be seen and practicing with all their weapons. Personally, I would never want to take on a boomer with an SSN. From what my boomer-driver friends have told me, they spend WAY more time in practice attack runs on other subs than any other activity, whereas SSN duties are more varied.

They're also VERY quiet. Civ 3 doesn't model that at all well, so you'd see them way more than you should and they would be too vulnerable. Since we have ICBMs I don't think we need the rest of the nuclear triad in the game.

In my game, I gave all the modern ships (DD, BB, CG, SSN and CV) the same movement rate: 8. Giving them all the same rate is realistic, as all these classes are capable of 30+ knots and 1 knot more or less in speed at this scale isn't worth the huge distinction that 1 movement point creates.

Other than that, I've left their combat factors the same in relation to each other. However, I've yet to make it to the modern era in a game to see if this 150% combat factors will be satisfactory or not.

Yes, I have some excuse for that. I've been rotating my time from playing through the expansion campaign in Mechwarrior 4: Black Knight, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Civ 3 while waiting on a patch for Europa Universalis 2.

So many games, so little time ...

 

[Scipio Africanu]

Once again I have some of my own opinion to displace .

To Kgar I don't know what exactly your referring to when you say boomers but I imagine your talking about SSBN or Ballistic Submarine's since SSN is representative of Hunter Subs. My understanding from what I've learned from what I cna read on the happenings at JSOC (Joinst Strategic Operations Command) is that SSBN's spend their time in evade menuever's during practice in preperations of defensive measures only, SSN's spend most of their time practicing for the hunt and doing ordinance operations. The current nuclear sub represented in the game is a mix between the SSBN and the SSN, giving it less ability while allowing a small payload of Nuclear weapons. Though ICBM's offer a stalt worth approach to disengaging tactical missle produciton and placement it is a viable and highly used option for nations today, and so would best represent realism by having it. If you mean boomers in another term then i'm sorry for the mistake and hope you will clarify. On a footnote I'd have to say yes subs are quiet but not enough to properly evade the High ping sonar and side scan sonar of todays Destroyer Fleet. They usually steer clear of your surface sub hunters, or at range nominal to attack them while remaining outside of sonar range. Sub to Sub sonar is less nominal since they have to hide themselves while trying to ping their target, something very difficult to do. To bad we can't give the sub a ranged attack without denying it the ability to bombard land targets.

Also most subs have a maximum speed of 25 knots for SSN's and 23 knots for SSBN's making them a drag weight if accompanying a fleet, which is why I think they should have a slightly reduced speed. This 7 - 5 knots can cause a significant reduction in distance traveled, specifically over large transit times.

By the way I know what ya mean when ya say switching your time between a few different games. My Realism mod with Naval, Land, and Air upgrades is still in testing mode and looks to be out within the near future, as long as I can get past this industrial age. By the way I would suggest trying out Medal Of Honor:Allied Assault MP demo, it may change your mind on the gameplay of RTCW.

 

[Kryten]

To Scipio_Africanu,

Well, what can I say. You have completely won me over! I agree with all your suggestions and am truly looking forward to playing your Realism Mod when it becomes available.

My idea of making battleships become obsolete when AEGIS Cruisers come into play was crude, but it would have had the EFFECT of stopping battleship production so that they would have become fewer and fewer as the game wore on. But your ideas are better, because you give a CAUSE as well as an EFFECT. I tip my hat to you.

Just a couple of small things: is it worth going through all the hassle of designing and creating a new unit (i.e. the Modern Battleship), if nobody is going to build it due to its very high cost? And how can you make battleships (Modern or old WWII ones) costly to maintain? I thought that ALL units in civ3, no matter what they are, cost one gold each per turn.

Nonetheless, you still have my total support. The list of your proposed modern warships, even though they only exist on paper at the moment, is enough to give me that elusive "feel" of modern naval combat that the current game of civ sorely lacks.

I promised Ungooo that one day I would shut up. Now I will.
("I heard that! Who shouted HURRAY!")

 

[Scipio Africanu]

Ahck your right Kryten, there is no way to modify the maintnence cost on units which is too bad. However I think this can be over looked by increasing the cost to produce even more so. Perhaps nearly three times the rate of the AEGIS (therefor if the cost of an AEGIS is 20, a battleship is around 55. Not a happy production number ) and by also making their defense very vulnerable to attack from other ships making them a less attractive unit. I hope my mod can do my ranting's justice however, its easy to idealize while its hard to realize however i've never been one to back from a challange . Thanks for the nice words Kryten and I hope my consistency in blabbing on and on didn't turn some off from the possibiliteis the suggestions hold, though thats my opinon and biased one at that. Good luck all on your mod's and good civ'ing.

 

[Kryten]

Thanks mate.

And keep tweaking your mod (!).