Ranged Naval Units

[Txurce]

What do you think about keeping the ships in more tight combined formation I mention above? Has anything changed in this area recently or am I getting a wrong impression? I do not have time to play at all these days, so I haven't tested the last 2 betas.

I think/hope this is part of what ilteroi meant.

There isn't much defensible terrain at sea, so i think whoever has the bigger navy should be able to win battles. To have AIs build more ships we could change the coal requirement on ironclads to coal | iron or just iron and that should make human players rethink how they want their fleet to be composed as both ships now require iron.

Not having ironclads require coal would go a long way to giving the AI even more units they like to fight with.

I really, really disagree with this assessment. Is your opinion that an AI without a dominant navy should just lose all coastal cities? You don't think that's harsh? The inability of field guns or muskets to repel even small forces of frigates isn't a problem to you?

I said no navy, not a non-dominant one. A solid melee navy capable of 2-shotting frigates can defend a city. Land ranged units ae usually effective against frigates unless they have extra-movement promotions. It's not easy for frigates to reach that promotion, because they haven't seen much action as dromons or galleasses. If they have the GL promotion... they deserve it. Otherwise, let's nerf England.

To start, at one point you need coal to build melee ships, which really harshly limits their number. I pretty much never use ironclads, because this strategic requirement is a huge burden for a unit which I don't actually need. I will often disband cannons to get more cruisers, and I intentionally often have more frigates than iron because I want as many ranged naval units as possible. And when the AI does spend a coal on that big, bad ironclad, the best case is it hits one cruiser, one time before the death ball of ranged ships kill it. The more common case is it hits my corvette, because I usually keep about 4 around, just to look for ships and take a hit so a frigate/cruiser doesn't have to. Let's say he brought a big group of like 7 ironclads (where he is getting 7 spare coal I have no idea), and he really surprises me, and he gets to like, 1 corvette and 1 cruiser? The ball of death wrecks him, then moves out of his line of sight.

As per above get rid of the coal requirement. Fixed!

You need to factor line of sight AI doesn't have imperialism, they can't see your ships that are 3 tiles away, but you can see theirs, so you can move in, shoot, and move out of their vision range. Why surprise him with melee, surprise him ranged so you don't take counterattack damage, and you move towards logistics. Melee ship promotions are new and cool, but logistics is logistics, it is bar none the best promotion in the game, and moving it to tier 5 slows me down but it doesn't stop me. The AI's 2 sight land units sometimes don't even know about the frigates that keep slamming them.

You keep using land units as the primary defense against naval attack. I've already said that stronger melee ships are supposed to do that job — and with a buff, do it well enough to make land support just that: support.

Moving logistics down to 5th helps at the frigate level. Knock it down to 6th if you think it makes the game better, which it sounds like you do.

G knows more about AI than we do, but I suspect that there isn't a "just make the AI better at naval warfare!" button. This particular aspect of the AI is probably burdened by the need to make the AI fast for convenience, the line of sight and movement options for ships are far more numerable than for land combat.

That's why buffing melee ships makes so much sense. It automatically makes the AI better vs human ranged ships.

 

[Stalker0]

I’m interested in seeing melee ships get stronger again, but once again pointing out our history.

Melee ships used to operate in that model. It was changed because battles were very swingy, leaving one side with a completely destroyed navy. Now personally I didn’t mind that, but it was a legitimate concern...and one of the reasons the naval promotion line was significantly changed

 

[Txurce]

I’m interested in seeing melee ships get stronger again, but once again pointing out our history.

Melee ships used to operate in that model. It was changed because battles were very swingy, leaving one side with a completely destroyed navy. Now personally I didn’t mind that, but it was a legitimate concern...and one of the reasons the naval promotion line was significantly changed

Yeah, I remember that, and agree with you there as well. Completely destroyed navies are historically common.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

The most glaring issue I see comes from the lack of home terrain on the Naval front. Outside of being able to Heal your Navy w/o any auxiliary Promotions and faster reinforcements, fighting at home lacks many defensive options that Land combat offers.

Give Naval Ranged a Penalty vs Cities and boost Bombardment City bonus. Also, remove Targeting bonuses vs Land Units. These changes would lower the damage Naval Ranged Units are able to do, somewhat.

We could move Coal Refineries earlier or increase the amount of Coal they give, though are just in the next tier, at Electricity.

 

[pineappledan]

Maybe naval inaccuracy could be dropped from siege units? If there’s an imbalance on how naval units can bombard inland, is it because they don’t have a land penalty, or is it because land’s sea penalty is so harsh at -25%?

Re: the ironclad debate, it is my opinion that we have been too timid with our buffs to ironclads. I don’t think the issue is that ironclads have a coal requirement, it’s that ironclads are not unstoppable wrecking balls. In the era they arrived in, ironclads were completely untovuchable; the only thing that could beat an ironclad was another ironclad. Make those ships worth their coal and have them just melt a frigate’s face off.

Drop the city bonus
Give them a new ironclad promotion:
+100% vs units from previous eras
-25% from ranged attacks

 

[Rekk]

Maybe naval inaccuracy could be dropped from siege units? If there’s an imbalance on how naval units can bombard inland, is it because they don’t have a land penalty, or is it because land’s sea penalty is so harsh at -25%?

Surely it's because the navy can bombard the army while taking zero return fire? The severity of the combat penalties don't matter if damage is only going one way. Before the army can do anything to help against a naval bombardment, the navy has to be stuck in range of the army.

 

[CrazyG]

You could give cannons +10,000% damage to frigates, a 5 move frigate can still take 0 damage from cannons. You can reduce frigate damage on cities or land units, but all you do is slow them down. I still deal more damage than I take. If I deal some damage and I take 0, I will eventually win. You could make damage so low that it just gets healed off, at which point you have made frigates incapable of taking cities or actually mattering, thus pretty much all navy won't matter beyond pillaging the occasional trade route. On this forum, when I find the problems with 2 range naval units, I keep seeing the dromon mentioned. Dromon can be a 1 range unit, Galleas too, and frigates still be 2 range.

I said no navy, not a non-dominant one. A solid melee navy capable of 2-shotting frigates can defend a city. Land ranged units ae usually effective against frigates unless they have extra-movement promotions. It's not easy for frigates to reach that promotion, because they haven't seen much action as dromons or galleasses. If they have the GL promotion... they deserve it. Otherwise, let's nerf England.

If my navy is dominant to theirs, the AI will quite quickly have no navy. It is very easy to get extra movement, all you have to do is take imperialism.

Nerf England? I don't think England is anything special on the water, Ship of the Line are a below average UU in my opinion; I don't really care if I have stronger frigates, normal frigates already kill anything they can reach.

Stalker also made the point in the other thread, which I really agree with, that naval ranged units are quite tedious at the moment. You form a giant death ball of like 12 frigates, and any unit which comes too close dies. Moving them around isn't fun and it really is super AI unfriendly, it even feels like a gimmick when you do it. You can buff melee ships and have the AI build swarms, they still can't threaten cities without frigates.

I think we ought to reduce sight on naval units, it helps you spot the AI fleets before they see you. We could even consider giving high difficulty AI extra sight.

Maybe naval inaccuracy could be dropped from siege units? If there’s an imbalance on how naval units can bombard inland, is it because they don’t have a land penalty, or is it because land’s sea penalty is so harsh at -25%?

If I recall correctly, siege units are not supposed to have naval inaccuracy, but archers are. Frigates having a penalty against land units is fine, but if they have a penalty against land units and cities and melee navy are supposed to be the anti-ship unit, what exactly do frigates do?

 

[Stalker0]

Dromon can be a 1 range unit, Galleas too, and frigates still be 2 range.

I would probably be okay with 2 range Galleass at that point as well, since they don't have a strong niche at the moment and they are extremely vulnerable to Caravels with their ocean movement. At this point in the game if you don't have ranged units you are likely dead anyway Combine that with a land attack penalty and you have a good start for a city focused ship that can also attack land but is not as strong at it. Is that different enough from our previous range 2 ship attempts?

 

[Bhawb]

I haven't had an issue killing the AIs naval units and repelling their invasions without a single ship of my own. And even completely uncontested it takes far longer for an overwhelming fleet of frigates to take a city than even a modest land invasion, so I don't personally agree the issue is how strong everything is vs each other. The problem to me (similar to mounted ranged) is that a good player can assault any coastal units and tiles using Frigates without taking a single bit of damage in return, but the AI doesn't do that.

 

[Txurce]

If my navy is dominant to theirs, the AI will quite quickly have no navy. It is very easy to get extra movement, all you have to do is take imperialism.

Nerf England? I don't think England is anything special on the water, Ship of the Line are a below average UU in my opinion; I don't really care if I have stronger frigates, normal frigates already kill anything they can reach.

If anyone wipes out anyone's navy, making their coastal cities vulnerable to shelling, they earned it. And they didn't earn it solely because of the frigates' extra moves. They earned it by killing a lot of melee ships that (in future patches) could 2-shot ranged units.

Unless you think Imperialism is OP, you also lose something by not taking one of the other trees. I'm fine with Imperialism's extra move.

England starts with the extra move you find so problematic.[/QUOTE]

Stalker also made the point in the other thread, which I really agree with, that naval ranged units are quite tedious at the moment. You form a giant death ball of like 12 frigates, and any unit which comes too close dies. Moving them around isn't fun and it really is super AI unfriendly, it even feels like a gimmick when you do it. You can buff melee ships and have the AI build swarms, they still can't threaten cities without frigates.

Tediousness is not a reason to change movement. The solution for that is ilteroi coding meta-moves.

Buffing melee ships defends AI cities — I never said it helps take them. For that, the AI use frigates, in the same tedious way. I've seen them do it on multiple occasions, so I assume you have, too. They just don't do it as well we we do. That's par for the course in combat.

I think we ought to reduce sight on naval units, it helps you spot the AI fleets before they see you. We could even consider giving high difficulty AI extra sight.

I think we've already done this, but I'd have no problem adding to it at higher levels, if it addresses a problem.

 

[CrazyG]

Here is a picture from a game where I made extensive use of frigates and cruisers to conquer cities. Let's look at London, York, and Duri-Kirgalzu.

Spoiler Screenshot :

With 2 range frigates, how many could shoot at London? At most 4.
York= probably 2 frigates.
Duri could be attacked by up to 7.

Note that this often requires me to put a frigate adjacent to a land territory, meaning that it is extremely vulnerable to inland units damaging it.

With 1 range frigates, how many can attack London in a single turn? What about the other two? Depending on movement, you can hit them with like 12 while allowing very few units to return fire.

Frigates already have really poor damage against cities, I probably shot Duri-Kurigalzu more than 100 times, that's 200 XP and 200 great admiral points. I do not farm XP intentionally, but I was genuinely taking the city as fast as I could.

Let's say you give me a city attack penalty. What changes? The siege takes longer, which really just means that I farm even more XP and great admirals from each city. I really hate how I'm forced to farm cities like this, but it is what frigate design encourages. I do not like taking several minutes cycling frigates/cruisers every turn. @Stalker seems to think that it 2 range navy was a blatant failure, but exactly what is fun about the current frigates (other than you win the game). We have ideas to limit their damage to inland units. I think this design is the failure, and I swear it was meant to be an experiment. The AI is clearly incapable of mass cycling frigates the way a human does; making them build more melee won't address that problem.

The current frigate design is that a unit which is very weak standalone, but OP in large groups due to its movement. You could make it even weaker, but I think that makes the bad design even worse.

 

[pineappledan]

This community’s grievances with naval movement/sight range is matched only by its unwillingness to do much about it. I've brought this up before, and all I managed to convince people to drop movement from Treasure fleet and overlap 2 existing bonuses (movements promotion & G. Lighthouse)

• Reduce England’s movement bonus to +1
• Change Treasure Fleet promotion to +15% CS/RCS and heal outside borders.
• Remove Venetian Arsenal’s Venetian Craftsmanship promotion and replace it with a +100% Production and +20 XP for naval units in that city
• Remove the free navigator II promotion from Lighthouse of Alexandria, and give it a % bonus to trade route diversity, increased +2 vision on all your borders, or something else.
• Bring Ironsides to the imperialism opener, add a unique +20% attack promotion for air units to the finisher. Drop the +1 move/sight

Then you will have only the Navigator II promotion and England’s +1 from the UA to contend with, instead of all this mess with 3 different civs with +3 moves on all their ships.

 

[Bhawb]

I agree with removing some of the extraneous movement from areas. With all the various movement options ships get pretty insane, which also makes bullying really weird.

 

[Legen]

Change Treasure Fleet promotion to +15% CS/RCS and heal outside borders.

Iirc, Treasure Fleet doesn't give movement, for quite some time already. It's +1 sight, bonus when attacking and heal outside friendly territory. No bonus movement.

I don’t think the issue is that ironclads have a coal requirement

I think it is. Factories, Train Stations and Seaports are powerful enough that it's costly to build Ironclads instead of them. It's perfectly possible to end without coal left for Ironclads (and Destroyers).

 

[pineappledan]

@CrazyG

Spoiler naval penalty on siege :

Spoiler No +movement on Treasure Fleet :

I was right and I was wrong.

I think it is. Factories, Train Stations and Seaports are powerful enough that it's costly to build Ironclads instead of them. It's perfectly possible to end without coal left for Ironclads (and Destroyers).

What I meant was that, if people want to drop coal from ironclads that's fine, but we can make coal on ironclads work, we just haven't made them good enough to justify the strategics

 

[CrazyG]

I think we do have some agreements

• Logistics should go
  
• Ranged promotions should change
  
• Siege weapons shouldn't have naval target penalty

@pineappledan
England's UA already gives 1 movement. Do you want to remove the gold maintenance reduction, or the embarked movement? If you remove +1 move/sight from imperialism, frigates are standard a 4 move unit, with only England able to change it, right? Frigates are pretty bad with only 4 movement, this is what I mean by the move after attacking design doesn't work, the difference between 4 and 5 is just so large.

I think treasure fleet should lose the +1 sight, supply alone is enough to make it worthwhile. I think the Great Lighthouse is okay giving 1 movement (but maybe not 1 sight). I already never build it, I just conquer it if I decide to go with frigates. Maybe if imperialism's movement goes it would be better.

Tediousness is not a reason to change movement.

So exactly what would be a reason to change something? Maybe that the AI handles it poorly, or it makes the game easy? I don't want to sound extremely negative, but what exactly are the positives of the current frigate design? I can think of one (it can't shoot inland), but that's it.

What do you think frigates should do exactly? Looking at your responses, they aren't supposed to be good against melee naval units, or land units, and you suggested a penalty against cities as well.

 

[Txurce]

So exactly what would be a reason to change something? Maybe that the AI handles it poorly, or it makes the game easy? I don't want to sound extremely negative, but what exactly are the positives of the current frigate design? I can think of one (it can't shoot inland), but that's it.

What do you think frigates should do exactly? Looking at your responses, they aren't supposed to be good against melee naval units, or land units, and you suggested a penalty against cities as well.

I'll ignore your first two questions, since they're basically just attitude.

Frigates take cities, and help melee ships pick off other melee ships. If they can't move out of city range, they'll get destroyed. Which is why I don't like taking away their movement. Which I said many posts ago.

If you don't have anything new and substantive to say to me, then I think we're done.

 

[Gazebo]

So what if we do this-

- cut vision by 1 for ranged naval ships.
- increase naval ranged ships back to two range
- remove move and shoot for naval ranged units

G

 

[Txurce]

So what if we do this-

- cut vision by 1 for ranged naval ships.
- increase naval ranged ships back to two range
- remove move and shoot for naval ranged units

G

That might work, and the only way to find out is to try it.

 

[Legen]

So what if we do this-

- cut vision by 1 for ranged naval ships.
- increase naval ranged ships back to two range
- remove move and shoot for naval ranged units

G

That brings back the old situation where ranged ships were insane for two reasons: they were very punishing to melee ships (who ended overextended too easily for losing all movement after attacking) and too effective vs land units, denying so much terrain from the enemy army.

Ultimately, we disagree about how naval units are supposed to affect land combat and sieges. They have to be useful somehow, otherwise, they're just escort for land units to cross the sea. The ranged ship class somehow has to do it, as the melee class has no use vs land units, but the ranged class shouldn't be neither too strong vs land units (which happens with range 2), nor being too strong vs cities (which the skirmish play allows due to how movement allows to end out of the city's ranged attack).

I'm thinking if we couldn't play with two contemporary classes of ranged ships, one with 1-range skirmish play and one with 2-range no-movement-after-shooting play. One could be purposely meant to be good vs land units and weak vs cities, the other class being the inverse. Melee ships currently only does the last hit when against cities, which could as well be done with an embarked melee unit, and are absolutely useless vs land units. We could try converting these melee ships into skirmishes, with the current ranged ships being the 2-range no-movement-after-shooting class.

Say that we opt for skirmishers being meant to harass land units. The skirmisher naval class could have a massive penalty vs cities and no access to promotions that help vs cities on its promotion tree, maybe even lose all movement points if it attacks a city. Meanwhile, the 2-range naval class, meant for sieges, could have a big penalty vs land units and no promotions boosting CS vs land units, but have a big boost vs cities, innate cover and access to multiple promotions meant for sieges.