Submarines

[eyrei]

What is the use of submarines? Their original purpose was to be able to attack with surprise, and then submerge and escape without being counterattacked. Every strategy game I have ever played has simply treated subs as every other naval unit. I had hoped that civ3 would be the first to give submarines a special attack or ability, but, unless I am really missing something, I seem to have been let down again. I have at times been suspicious that submerged naval units are invisible to human players but perfectly obvious to AI players - Is this the case in CIV3, or do subs just suck again?

 

[BigBirdZ28]

Subs can carry 1 tactical nuke, that's it.

Personally, i'd just hold out for the sattelite advance & depend on battleships & ICBMs.

 

[Mike C]

Subs are now indetectable to other units except for the destroyer and other subs.

That means if the other side doesn't have a destroyer around, you can use the sub to attack the enemy unit. But the enemy won't be able to attack the sub.

Whether your sub wins the combat though is another story.

 

[eyrei]

Yeah, I know about the nuke. The whole point of submarines carrying nukes in the first place is that the enemy would not be able pinpoint the location until the nuke is fired. Subs would be very useful if they could lurk unseen off someones coast until war started. That is how they are used in reality.

 

[eyrei]

Are you sure subs are indetectable. I could not find anything in the manual about this, so I just assumed they didn't work right.

 

[Caelth216]

In my experience subs are only undetectable except for destroyers and other subs. Other ships can still "run" into them by accident and sink them. I had one game where I was at war with England and he had a Man-O-War that ran into my sub defending my main port city. He didn't know it was there until he ran into it. A battle ensued and my sub was sunk! A ship with no anti-submarine capable weapons (i.e. torpedoes, depth charges, etc) sank my submarine. A bit screwy if you ask me.

 

[jaguara]

I would agree that this would be screwy for a modern sub, but contrary to common belief...WW2 submarines spent most of their time on the surface...unly submerging to attack, or to evade attack.

A large number of submarines were caught by surprise and sunk while surfaced...though this was usually by bombers...as it takes a very inattentive sub captain to not notice a man of war approaching to within 100 yards or so to attack...

Cheers,

Jaguara

 

[KillerRabbit]

Well, the nuclear sub should by no means be sunked by anything else than by other subs or aegis cruiser!

and if a unit actually tries to enter its square, it will just go over it, as ships do!

And subs are very weak in the civs game.... but in reality the can be very devastating (cruise missile, nukes, torpedos) and should easily destroy a battleship in my opinion!

grrr

 

[eyrei]

I think subs should be able to retreat against all but the units that can actually see them. This would allow them to play an important strategic role of weakening, or even crippling enemy ships before the rest of the fleet moves in for the kill.

 

[jaguara]

If you were to ask me, which no one did...

Modern subs should be only vulnerable to aircraft, destroyers, subs and aegis cruisers...secondly, they should be ALL bite with almost no defense - and no ability to retreat.

Why?

Because in modern operations, the sub is very dangerous...and is the greatest threat to an American carrier (about the only threat really). A modern sub shouold have high enough attack to sink a carrier or even a battleship. The problem is, that once they reveal their position by firing weapons, they are sitting ducks.

Firing weapons gives very good location information to the enemy battlegroup...which is then made to pinpoint accuracy with helicopter deployed active sonar within minutes...

Anyway, I am oversimplifying for the purpose of saving space and time...but you get the point.

Jaguara

 

[eyrei]

By retreating I only meant not being required to fight to the death on the turn they launch the surprise attack. Even with this option, the submarine would be a sitting duck on the defending players next turn provided there are units capable of tracking its movements. Now if the only ship in the area were a carrier, the sub might well manage to retreat, especially if its torpedoes were on target.

 

[jaguara]

Well,

Perhaps the sub should have more like a bombardment attack (range of 1), where, if successful, the defending ship is damaged and/or sunk?

The would fix the galley sinks submarine kind of deal...but destroyers, cruisers, subs and perhaps even carriers should have the opportunity to destroy the sub while being attacked. The reason for this is that the first thing a ship/sub does when they detect a torpedo launch is to counter-fire a torpedo down the opposite trajectory...and the carrier would launch helos immediately. Torps are slow...about 60knots...and that gives lots of time for defending ships to counter-attack, or for helos to catch the sub (mind you, they might not have a place to land...).

My idea is a bit complicated though, and amounts to including a new combat type just for subs...which they probably would not do. Your idea would be better than what we have now...

I would like to see it that someone using carriers or battleships has to protect them carefully or lose them to subs...that is not a worry right now...except for transports. But building subs just to intercept transports sucks. Think about it...if the sub had teeth, then it is incorporating the whole nuculear war dilemna for navies (a big part of cold-war naval theory). That is...to protect the carrier from conventional threats, you keep air-defence and sub defence close to the carrier...but if you do that, it makes you vulnerable to that sub carrying a tactical nuke...

The problem with the tactical nuke on a sub right now, is that there is no reason to stack your fleet or keep your fleet tight around the carrier...unless you have a strong navy, I guess...

Just one more beef...I just loathe the idea that bombers cannot sink ships/subs (the WW2 subs of course). I should not need a navy to defend my mainland, if I have a strong enough air force. Which brings up another thing...I miss scouting with my air units (perhaps I just haven't figured out how to do it yet). Hey there is another thing...how can I use aircraft from a city with no airport...and why can't I build field airfields like in previous games...

Oh oh...I am starting to sound like a whiner...

I like the game, I really do. But I have to admit that I liked SMAC better overall...

Jaguara

 

[Mike C]

Originally posted by jaguara
I like the game, I really do. But I have to admit that I liked SMAC better overall...
Jaguara

I wouldn't say SMAC is better. It is just SOOOO frustrating when they come up with such good ideas like resources and luxuries to the game, the diplomatic options to go with it, and then be boneheaded enough to LEAVE OUT some of the great ideas found in the other games like Civ 2, and SMAC.

Just a few examples.

-Aircraft not being able to sink ships. WTH is that?
-No underwater cities (we could have tacked on an ENTIRE NEW POST MODERN ERA and delay the spaceship till then!)
-Castrated the World Council (my BIGGEST beef)
-Leaving out the vassalage of defeated enemy civs.
-Changing the civilization stances found in SMAC.

 

[jaguara]

Agreed again Mike,

I was not clear in my wording...I meant that "At the time SMAC was released, I was much more impressed, than I am now with Civ3 at this time..." Does that make sense? I am not about to abandon Civ3 for SMAC now...which had it's weaknesses as well. In fact I haven't played SMAC in some time...

There are a lot of good new concepts here, but in a lot of other areas, I feel that we have moved backwards.

I agree with the ommissions that you list, though I was not as offended by the omission of underwater cities. I would add...

1. Different types of specialist citizens that you are awarded with as you progress in tech ala SMAC. (And they should actually do something...not this paltry +1 that is not effected by improvements)
2. Importance of ecology and environment played a much greater role in SMAC...
3. Summary screens (advisors) that you can actually use. I find it difficult to see the big picture of my empire in this game...whereas it was much more clear in SMAC and even Civ1. An example of this is happiness - in civ 1 you could look and see exactly what was effecting the people, here you just don't know.
4. Give me some kind of alert that a city might be about to defect for God's sake...at least then I can do something about it...there is no way to gauge this...total guesswork.

Jaguara

 

[rubble]

one of the first things i am going to do when i play with the editor is increase the attack strenghts of the nuclear sub, it is way to weak... in reallity modern nuclear subs are some of the most powerful vesels around so i was going to increase it to about 10... also i was wondering if you could enable the same rule which enables mobile ground units to retreat, this would be handy for subs as it could represent them "submerging" and disengaging from battle

 

[Gholam]

I posted my opinion on subs a while back, but I think nobody noticed, so here's a repost.

This is how I think they should work (long and boring ).

1) Regular submarines.
1.1) Submarine is normally visible to normal units.
1.2) Submarine is normally attackable by normal units.
1.3) Submarine recieves a "Mission: Torpedo Attack" button.
1.3.1) Mission: Torpedo Attack can be initiated in any square
1.3.2) When Mission: Torpedo Attack is initiated, submarine submerges, becoming invisible to normal units.
1.3.3) While performing Mission: Torpedo Attack, submarine's speed is lowered by 1 (number subject to tweaking).
1.3.4) After submerging, submarine automatically attempts to intercept target and inflict a strong bombardment-type attack on it.
1.3.5) After attack, submarine automatically attempts to get away from any enemy units for as far as it can before it is forced to surface.
1.3.6) Maximum range while submerged is 10 squares (number subject to tweaking)
1.4) Submarine can also engage targets without initiating torpedo attack. In this case, it functions as a surface ship, with attack/defense of 4/4 (number subject to tweaking). This mode is mainly for attacking "soft" targets, like unescorted transports or obsolete ships, and simulates cannon firing instead of launching torpedos.
2) Nuclear submarine.
2.1) Nuclear submarine is in constant, controllable Mission: Torpedo Attack mode.
3) Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW).
3.1) Detecting submerged submarines.
3.1.1) Passive detection.
3.1.1.1) When a submerged submarine moves or attacks within a detection range of a Destroyer or AEGIS Cruiser, it has a chance of being revealed. Chance is cumulative for multiple detecting ships.
3.1.1.2) Destroyer has a detection range of 2 squares, and chance of 10% (numbers subject to tweaking)
3.1.1.3) AEGIS Cruiser has a detection range of 3 squares, and chance of 15% (numbers subject to tweaking)
3.1.2) Active detection.
3.1.2.1) Destroyer and AEGIS Cruiser recieve a Mission: ASW button.
3.1.2.2) When conducting Mission: ASW, ships are unable to move.
3.1.2.3) Mission: ASW raises detection chance 10% (number subject to tweaking).
3.2) Destroying submerging submarines.
3.2.1) Destroyers and AEGIS Cruisers are capable of attacking detected submarines.
3.2.2) While conducting Mission: ASW, they do so automatically.
3.2.3) Aircraft are capable of attacking submerged submarines with Mission: Precision Strike.

I believe this should cover it Basically, submarine becomes a sorta-underwater-bomber, while destroyers and AEGIS cruisers can perform interceptor duties. Attacking a fleet covered with an ASW screen is sorta suicidal, but unescorted battleships and carriers are meat Aircraft hitting subs with precision strike simulates them using air-launched depth charges and torpedoes.

 

[Mike C]

I disagree.

You posted too many rules and too many complicated options. The ideal solution is one which makes subs unique without creating a feature creep situation in turning the entire Civ3 game into one complex wargame.

A simple way of making this work:

1) Give the subs a bombard ability but one which allows the sinking of ships. A one tile radius should do nicely.

2) Give the subs the ability to retreat automatically from combat against everything except for destroyers and maybe AGEIS.

3) Otherwise, subs should be treated like every other naval unit.

 

[jaguara]

Gholam,

I have to agree with Mike C. The rules you quote - particularly the ASW rules are far too complicated for a game like civ, and are more along the lines of what you might find in harpoon (I still haven't seen a match for 360's original harpoon game when it comes to naval simulation - how I wish they would update that filling all the holes in the rules that technology would not allow at the time...but don't do it in civ.)

Telling the subs to submerge, or ordering ASW is not something that I can see them making you do...it is more of a tactical decision, whereas this is more of a strategic level game - we tell the sub to attack and it decides how to go about it.

Cheers,

Jaguara

 

[ironfang]

About the Frigate with no capability being able to hit Nuclear subs... what about Japanese fishing boats?

ironfang

 

[Camelmaster]

LOL!