Submarines

[Tassadar]

I dont like the idea of choosing a target into a stack for a sub, i think the best defender should always take care of the attacker.so a destroyer should have a big adventage on regular sub and only aegis on nuclear sub.

 

[graeme]

I agree, and the game is already full of ships that can leave port, attack, and then "slip" back into port in one turn.

 

[Tassadar]

Originally posted by graeme
I agree, and the game is already full of ships that can leave port, attack, and then "slip" back into port in one turn.

if you got magellan its better but listen, take 3 carrier full of bomber.2.- put those carrier5-6 tile from this harbor full of ship afraid to leave the port. protect those carrier, stack 2 transport full of marine with them.
3.- after bombing this coward city move your transport full of marine to crush it.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Tassadar


Then it mean your escort wasnt protect by destoyer which is realistic to be destroy by sub. so taking a port defended by sub will need some unit combination prior to succeed.

Standard subs should have bombard only, though like all naval units it should be potentially lethal bombard. They should always attack the weakest unit in the stack, or even a random one, so there is no pop-up window requiring a choice.

Like all bombard and archers, they should be able to fire in the middle of their movement, and not automatically move into the vacated square if they win. The defender would see the sub shoot, then it would disappear. The defender would have to hunt for the sub. Unless they had a destroyer.

If there was a battleship in the stack, the battleship would get its free, potentially lethal bombard attack. That would take care of the harbor situation.

 

[Alc0p0pz]

I ... hid their nationality to make them like modern day priveteers

What an excellent idea!

I might make exactly two changes ... Submarines to have Hidden Nationality and Destroys to See Subs.

(But using the editor seems kinda ... dirty ... somehow ... )

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by Tassadar
I dont like the idea of choosing a target into a stack for a sub, i think the best defender should always take care of the attacker.so a destroyer should have a big adventage on regular sub and only aegis on nuclear sub.

What then is the purpose of a submarine?????

You use subs to attack specific ships you want gone if you don`t have the power to blast through their defences in another way.

Subs are ideal for keeping invasions away without having to build a huge seagoing navy!

 

[Tassadar]

I understand you opinion Killer, so if a sub can choose the target it mean sub hunting prior to sea landing, it make sens. But do you think some improvement for sub will be done by Firaxis?

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by Tassadar
I understand you opinion Killer, so if a sub can choose the target it mean sub hunting prior to sea landing, it make sens. But do you think some improvement for sub will be done by Firaxis?

btw, I`m not advocating a change where the sub choosea and always suceeds - but at least it should be able to try...

I don`t think that we`ll see any changes soon. Maybe CivIV

 

[Alc0p0pz]

sealman, I set Subs to have Hidden Nationality ... but doing so breaks their stealth ability ...

I built a lot of Subs, and the AI immediately sent all it's ships to sink them, even though it shouldn't have been able to see them ...

 

[maddskillz]

My problem with giving the submarine the ability of hiding it’s nationality is that it may lend an upper hand to the human player. What I mean is the submarine is much more powerful then the privateer (which I think was given average power for a reason) when you compare the attack and defense values to the sub. If one could use a submarine to sink other civs transports, ironclads, frigates etc. . . then you could control the seas with no repercussions from other civs. I think it would cause imbalance in the game. I am assuming that nuclear subs would surely not receive this option as that would alter the game completely.

I think it is a great idea, but there should be a probability of one being caught each time you attack another civs naval units. This way there is a risk involved with such acts of espionage and treachery.

I do think it is a great idea, as this would give submarines a real purpose in the game. There just needs to be a balance as mentioned above (probability of being caught), and assurance that the AI would use these units to its advantage as well as the human player.

Good topic!

 

[anderson]

I did find a good use for subs. I used them to watch the coastal regions when I had a full continent and was going for a spacerace win. The subs are cheap compared to battleships so I could make a number of them and position them to watch the areas around the coast and in narrows. As enemy units would come in range of the coast I would use artillery to soften them up and use the subs to finish them off. If a heavy was escorting a transport then the transport would be exposed because it's defense capability would be higher than the heavy after a few artillery hits. Then the sub attack would be on the transport. This is kind of what some people in this thread have been talking about.
I will have to think about what the new patch will add or subtract to this. If you can take out the heavy with artillery, I guess the sub becomes less valuable.

 

[Marzipan]

The stock subs are not that great. I upped the attack and movement value of regular and nuclear subs in my game so that they will most likely defeat anything they attack. Once their whereabouts is known though, they are quite vulnerable, which I feel is realistic.

The AI in my modded version seems to love subs, they build lots of them. Once I saw the Iriquois using wolf pack tactics with 10 subs in a stack and no other ships! I dunno if it was just a coincidence that the 10 subs were moving together, but it seemed like it was by design to me. I didn't want to let my ships leave port until I had a few packs of my own

I like the idea of giving subs hidden nationality except that I've noticed with the privateers that the AI navies go out of their way to sink hidden nationality vessels once they've been spotted. I removed the hidden nationality characteristic from the privateers because of this so they can be used like any other ship without having them attacked during peacetime.

Subs are great for keeping a watch on certain areas, especially narrow channels. You can see whats coming and going. You can put a couple out in the ocean off of your coast and watch for any ships coming in. You can position them right off of the coast of another civ near a city and keep an eye on what's coming and going from the city.

One thing that bugs me with the naval power in the game is it doesn't make big invasions very effectively because it doesn't wait and have a big force attack all at once. You'll see a string of 4, 5, or 6 transports with an escort and the AI will land the units one transport at a time instead of gathering them together and doing it all at once.

 

[KloePoek]

a while back, when i was still playing (dont have wind0ze on my box atm )
i gave subs bombardment ability, with a strength of 8 or so, and a ROF of 1...
not entirely realistic, since it could bombard shores too, but it did give the real stealthy feeling... move in, shoot a torpedo, and get the hell out again.

ofcourse you could give it a lower strenght, but a hell of a ROF, so that it can sink ships in one shot, but the chance of doing that with stronger ships like battleships and cruisers and such is very small, but enough chance so that it might happen with a transport and such

 

[Arioch]

At the mo I don't build subs or cruise missiles 'cos they're rubbish so...

What about allowing subs to carry the cruise missiles?

They have a relatively short range and are quite destructive, this also allows for land 'bombardments' in a realistic way. Then the stats can be left alone and 2 useless units can be combined to become more effective.

 

[Zouave]

I found a better use for subs (and other useless units): I Edited them into NEW units, such as Shock Troops which would be offensive infantry with a little more punch than Marines and maybe a touch better defensively. They would be available after Infantry and before tanks.

 

[grantnoelsucks]

I disagree with you all. Before this last patch subs were kinda worthless, but now that artillery and planes especially can sink ships, subs have a new use. You can sink their ships and hide off their coast and kill off any transports they might try to send off and they won't know you are there. If you leave battleships there now they will bomb them and sink them with planes.

 

[Marzipan]

Just watched a video documentary about US subs in the Pacific in WW II. Here are some figures they quoted that show merchant ships sunk vs. war ships:

1942

580,390 tons of merchant ships
140,000 tons of war ships

1943

1,341,968 tons of merchant ships
100,000 tons of warships

1944

2,387,780 tons of merchant ships
500,000 tons of war ships

These figures only include ships of 1,000 tons or greater. They say smaller ships sunk were "too numerous to count".

There are some scenes of subs blasting little sailing junks that are not unlike galleys and caravels in civ 3 with their deck guns. When you see the sub just sitting there pounding away it makes the notion of a little boat like that damaging the sub like it would in the game seem rather silly.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Marzipan
There are some scenes of subs blasting little sailing junks that are not unlike galleys and caravels in civ 3 with their deck guns. When you see the sub just sitting there pounding away it makes the notion of a little boat like that damaging the sub like it would in the game seem rather silly.

That shows that; yes, sometimes navies use small vessels; yes, they are normally destroyed by more powerful vessels when confronted; but no, it does not demonstrate that subs never lose to smaller vessels, subs make mistakes, they run aground, torpedos explode on board, a lucky shot, etc; so occassionally, subs will lose.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by grantnoelsucks
I disagree with you all. Before this last patch subs were kinda worthless, but now that artillery and planes especially can sink ships, subs have a new use. You can sink their ships and hide off their coast and kill off any transports they might try to send off and they won't know you are there. If you leave battleships there now they will bomb them and sink them with planes.

Good suggestion!

. . .

Make it so, Number One.

 

[Zouave]

Marzipan's stats show that the real use of submarines was against merchant shipping - not warships. That was even more so with privateers.

Yet in Civ 3 I could have dozens of subs on a rival civ's trade route and it would accomplish nothing.

Firaxis was clueless as to what subs were used for in reality. The Germans almost won two World Wars by having its subs attack merchant ships.