The America Thread

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Naval Melee: Universal Surface Combatant

What is it actually? 'Destroyers' built in 21st Century or ill-built US Navy LCS?

 

[pineappledan]

What is it actually? 'Destroyers' built in 21st Century or ill-built US Navy LCS?

Based off my understanding of this project. There are a few other UCS projects underway in Europe. Essentially multi-roll frigates which can fulfill anti-air and anti-submarine rolls, with some limited ship-to-ship capability as well.

I think the idea is basically that with modern missile and long range engagement equipment, these replace the roll and weight class of a destroyer

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The old classes of Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser have become so intermingled as to be nearly useless in modern navies (post-1980s). The Zumwalt 'destroyer' is over twice the weight of the Ticonderoga class 'cruisers' to take one example, while the little 700 ton Swedish 'corvette' carries as many missile launching systems as ships 10 times its size.

That means, I think, that the game needs a Post-Modern set of Upgrades and changes to naval surface units, if for no other reason than to show the extreme changes from the Atomic Era/World War Two ship classes and capabilities.

I would suggest making a meaningful distinction between piston and jet-powered aircraft for starters. Something along the lines of classifying jet aircraft as 'strike aircraft' with both air superiority/intercept and ground attack capabilities, which would make them distinctively different from the piston Fighter versus Bomber classes. Then allow only 'Supercarriers' to carry jet aircraft, and they get a substantive increase in their air group capability not available to smaller carriers.

Of course, since the majority of the 60+ 'carriers' active today are smaller than Supercarrier size, have them capable of carrying cruise missiles or UAVs or however Civ VII decides to go with those weapons and Helicopters, just as similar ships do today.

The modern surface ship, call it Frigate or Cruiser or Corvette or Destroyer or Sloop of Doom or whatever, would be primarily a missile/UAV platform with anti-ship, anti-air, and anti-submarine capabilities, just as the multiple launch platforms on modern ships have. Some of them (Swedish UU?) could also have 'stealth' capabilities, similar to the Civ VI Raider capability of being invisible unless adjacent.

I would think very carefully on adding more ship classes, since late-game units, unless they radically change the course of the game, are only marginally useful. Full Disclosure: I have built Information Era units exactly once in all the years I've played Civ VI, and that was just to see what they looked like on the map. I have only had a handful of games that even lasted into the middle of the Atomic Age, no matter how I tried to stretch them out. I am, therefore, leery of late-game complexities unless there is also a substantial change in late-game progress and ability to obtain a victory

 

[pineappledan]

A lot of this discussion, up to this point, is about what kind of UU an American civ should have.

My own two cents is that there should be a hard cut-off for how late unique units should be for civs. Probably no later than the Industrial age (1800s).
The later any component unlocks, the less likely it is that player will survive long enough to use it. That hurts the experiences of both playing AS that civ and playing AGAINST them, because the game is more interesting when you get to interact with the unique aspects of each civ.

For America, I would say the prime candidates are unique units anywhere from their pre-independence 13 colonies era up to the Spanish-American war

• Frontiersman (unique renaissance scout unit)
• Minuteman (unique militia or scout unit)
• Ironsides Frigate or Constitution Class. A name to invoke the original 6 frigates of the US Navy (unique renaissance ship)
• Gatling gun (early-unlocking machine gun)
• Monitor (unique industrial ironclad or speceal shallow-water ship)
• Parrot Rifle (unique field gun)

I would think very carefully on adding more ship classes, since late-game units, unless they radically change the course of the game, are only marginally useful. Full Disclosure: I have built Information Era units exactly once in all the years I've played Civ VI, and that was just to see what they looked like on the map. I have only had a handful of games that even lasted into the middle of the Atomic Age, no matter how I tried to stretch them out. I am, therefore, leery of late-game complexities unless there is also a substantial change in late-game progress and ability to obtain a victory

The idea that late eras wouldn't have the regular boosts to unit CS is the complexity, in my books. In game terms, they just need to keep combat strength incrementally progressing with tech progression to the very end. If certain unit lines cease to improve after a certain tech level, that decouples tech progression from military advantage and creates a gap in the military overview, which then affects the meta more than if regular upgrades kept coming.

The idea that regular unit upgrades is somehow more complex than spotty, inconsistent ones is bass-ackwards

 

[Evie]

Which I agree with as far as units that actually use their combat strength is concerned. There should be regular upgrades going into the late game, no problem there.

But the carrier in lots of ways plays an in-game (and real life) role more along the line of a naval support unit (even if it does have combat strength) than a naval combat unit, hence the specific difficulties surrounding that particular unit : combat strength is just not very relevant to it. It's a very specific case with very specific needs, and those needs have very little to do with increased combat strength.

In that light, the observation balloon - Drone upgrade path is probably more in line with what the Carrier Upgrade should look like. A very good example, actually: the main addition being that the drone now grants +5 bombardment strength to adjacent artillery and gain +2 line of sight. A +5 strength to planes based on the carrier (larger carriers and high-end catapults allow for heavier payloads compared to earlier carriers), and +2 line of sight (special electronic surveillance aircraft that are too narrow to represent as game units give the modern carrier unprecedented area-awareness capabilities) would be a pretty on point set of carrier bonuses.

 

[BuchiTaton]

My table of naval units is like this:

IX	Littoral Combat Trimaran	Electromagnetic Railgun Ship	Supercavitating Submarine	VTOL Carrier
VIII	Corvette	Crusier	Nuclear Submarine	Fleet Carrier
VII	Destroyer	Battleship	Hunter Submarine	Escort Carrier
VI	Brigantine	Frigate
V	Xebec	Galleon
IV	Galley	Carrack
III	Lembus	Quinquereme
II	Penteconter
I	Canoe*

- VTOL Carrier, with reduced detectability included its smaller size since it accommodate UAV (Drone Fighters) capables of vertical take-off and landing.
* Canoe is only availabe for civ that gain "Naval Culture" from a sea resource as their first source of food in the "Neolithic/Tribal" Era.

About America, an unique "Super Carrier" is a proper option considering that USA is truly the civ that deserve it the most, but sadly naval, aircrafts and late game units are all usually of little value in CIV series. So I would keep the Pioneer as my UU choice for America.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

A lot of this discussion, up to this point, is about what kind of UU an American civ should have.

• Frontiersman (unique renaissance scout unit)
• Minuteman (unique militia or scout unit)
• Ironsides Frigate or Constitution Class. A name to invoke the original 6 frigates of the US Navy (unique renaissance ship)
• Gatling gun (early-unlocking machine gun)
• Monitor (unique industrial ironclad or speceal shallow-water ship)
• Parrot Rifle (unique field gun)

Some comments:
1. The whole point of the Frontiersman is that he not only scouted new territory, he Settled it. I would be tempted to make this unit a Settler with a defense factor, so that it can be pushed into unsecured territory to found a new city/settlement.
2. "Minuteman" would be a purely Militia Unit, raised, perhaps from the civilian population but with lousy factors. On the other hand, from the late 18th century on, Americans and the US Army raised Riflemen as special light infantry troops: Morgan's and Berdan's the 2 best-known in the Revolution and Civil War, respectively.
3. The Constitution and her sister ships were referred to as "Heavy Frigates" and I believe when the Royal Navy copied them they also used that term.
4. Gatling Gun doesn't unlock all that early: patented in 1862, first service model 1866, and Hiram Maxim's 'real' recoil-operated machine gun patented in 1883: about 20 years in an Era in which the turns are usually more than 1 year (I think they are 5 - 10 years, but don't quote me: I haven't even opened the game in months). That gives the American player about 1 - 3 turns of 'early' machinegun, and the hand-cranked gatling was about the most unreliable weapon ever used: it was virtually guaranteed to jam within a few minutes of firing Every Time.
5. The USS Monitor and all her sister ships (about 60 total) were all coastal types and a fair number of them sank trying to prove otherwise, including the Monitor herself. To compensate they'd have to have really good combat factors, which given their relatively heavy armor and heavy guns is not out of line.
6. The US Army Ordinance Rifle was one of the first explosive-shell-firing field guns, but neither it nor the Parrot siege guns were that much better than the Krupp cast steel rifled guns or Armstrong British rifled artillery being manufactured at the same time.

Mine own list is slightly different, having been a unit historian in the US Army a few decades back:

*Homesteader - an 'armed Settler' similar to what I suggested for your Frontiersman
*Mountain Man - the Unique Scout that can Trade with barbarians as well as fight them
*Yellow Leg - the American Cavalry of the mid-late 19th century, able to fight both mounted and dismounted, the most versatile mounted troops in any army of the period.
*The Old Breed - the early 20th century US Marines. Get a unit for every X combat ships, infantry that has better combat factors and the factors are not affected by losses.
*FDC (Fire Direction Centers) - Atomic Era Unique Upgrade for all US Artillery, allows each unit to fire twice in a turn or artillery units in adjacent tiles to combine their factors into a single Time on Target Concentration on a single enemy unit. Can you spell "evaporate"?

 

[Sostratus]

So I would keep the Pioneer as my UU choice for America.

*Homesteader - an 'armed Settler' similar to what I suggested for your Frontiersman

It pleases me greatly that the unique settler idea has support.

Most civ implementations of America are very bland, and with a unique settler there is a certain level of timeless appeal that could last from vanilla through all dlcs. It’s a game-long bonus that solves the problem of most American UUs only coming late game.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Some comments:
1. The whole point of the Frontiersman is that he not only scouted new territory, he Settled it. I would be tempted to make this unit a Settler with a defense factor, so that it can be pushed into unsecured territory to found a new city/settlement.
2. "Minuteman" would be a purely Militia Unit, raised, perhaps from the civilian population but with lousy factors. On the other hand, from the late 18th century on, Americans and the US Army raised Riflemen as special light infantry troops: Morgan's and Berdan's the 2 best-known in the Revolution and Civil War, respectively.
3. The Constitution and her sister ships were referred to as "Heavy Frigates" and I believe when the Royal Navy copied them they also used that term.
4. Gatling Gun doesn't unlock all that early: patented in 1862, first service model 1866, and Hiram Maxim's 'real' recoil-operated machine gun patented in 1883: about 20 years in an Era in which the turns are usually more than 1 year (I think they are 5 - 10 years, but don't quote me: I haven't even opened the game in months). That gives the American player about 1 - 3 turns of 'early' machinegun, and the hand-cranked gatling was about the most unreliable weapon ever used: it was virtually guaranteed to jam within a few minutes of firing Every Time.
5. The USS Monitor and all her sister ships (about 60 total) were all coastal types and a fair number of them sank trying to prove otherwise, including the Monitor herself. To compensate they'd have to have really good combat factors, which given their relatively heavy armor and heavy guns is not out of line.
6. The US Army Ordinance Rifle was one of the first explosive-shell-firing field guns, but neither it nor the Parrot siege guns were that much better than the Krupp cast steel rifled guns or Armstrong British rifled artillery being manufactured at the same time.

Mine own list is slightly different, having been a unit historian in the US Army a few decades back:

*Homesteader - an 'armed Settler' similar to what I suggested for your Frontiersman
*Mountain Man - the Unique Scout that can Trade with barbarians as well as fight them
*Yellow Leg - the American Cavalry of the mid-late 19th century, able to fight both mounted and dismounted, the most versatile mounted troops in any army of the period.
*The Old Breed - the early 20th century US Marines. Get a unit for every X combat ships, infantry that has better combat factors and the factors are not affected by losses.
*FDC (Fire Direction Centers) - Atomic Era Unique Upgrade for all US Artillery, allows each unit to fire twice in a turn or artillery units in adjacent tiles to combine their factors into a single Time on Target Concentration on a single enemy unit. Can you spell "evaporate"?

1. Should Frontiersman replaces regular settlers in this case?
2. Minutemen is heavily associated with New England States (Mass. and Maine), and George Washington (who once lead either British Army 'Redcoats' Line Infantry or 'American Provincials' (Blue Coats) of the Seven Years War) despises them as being no so discipine. he's more inclined in raising REAL military unit similiar to British Redcoats with the same tight discipline.
3. Did 'Heavy Frigates' becomes 5th Rate in British System if British Royal Navy did reverse engineer it?
The US Navy uses them as ad hoc Ships of the Line. are these actually retains the same speed as Frigate standard of that time and does it has the same firepower as any real Ships of the Line?
4. Also Gatlings are exported. R.J. Gatling even has his factory in Britain and I THINK international export comes from there. any army of 1870s (except those armes forces of the United States) tend to use ones from British Exports.
it doesn't exists as standalone battery though.
one of my favorte gatling gunmount is atop of War Elephants. however gatling men came from Royal Siamese Navy and not Army (and thus they wore Navy uniform).

Soldiers to the left are from Army. I don't know when did fallcollar uniforms like this replaced standing collars of the Napoleonic era. though no generic soldiers of Napoleonic eras wore fallcollar tunics/coats with Shakoes. what Civ6 redcoats are shown in game is sometimes with 'mismatched uniform'.

I think the military advisor might be American. this kind of tunics look very akin to American Civil War.
Men to the right came from Navy, they're 'Marines'.
Wait. did Gatlings a compulsory or optional regimental guns for the Late Victorian armies and navy? does it worth a tech upgrade for 'Rifleman' or 'Fusilier' unit if 'Tech Upgrade' rule is implemented.
5. What is the first oceangoing 'Ironclad' as 'Line of Battle Ship'?
If Ironclads should exists as two separate units. one that FXis likes to represent are brown water types (riverine and coastal, some even belongs to Army rather than Navy! how wierd Army tradition is applied when running NAVY unit ).
What should be then name (and shapes) of oceangoing Ironclads (which wihin half a decade evolves so fast, into 'Pre Dreadnought BB' thing and first used RML guns.)?
6. Also about pre-recoilspring rifled artillery. How does the likes of Armstrong 100 Pounder do against armored ships like that? do these guns really have a good AP factor over smoothbore columbiads (distance cousins to big bombards of the 14th Century) of the same weight ratings?
Does it worths a 'anti-naval' siege unit?
And what's your view about Krupp (or Kruppstahl using) big guns of 1870s including ones that Bismarc toppled Napoleon III? did they still classify as the same thing as Civ6 'Artillery' ? or 'Rifled fieldguns'?
7. Tell me about 'Field Cannon' uniforms shown ingame? Is it Napoleonic or Victorian era? I can't recall if this kind of tunic (no tail) exists in early 1800s
Is this also uniform for rifled cannon crews as well?

 

[Patine]

It pleases me greatly that the unique settler idea has support.

Most civ implementations of America are very bland, and with a unique settler there is a certain level of timeless appeal that could last from vanilla through all dlcs. It’s a game-long bonus that solves the problem of most American UUs only coming late game.

Or perhaps a, "Yankee trader," for such a more, "timeless," and not fully combat unit.

3. Did 'Heavy Frigates' becomes 5th Rate in British System if British Royal Navy did reverse engineer it?
The US Navy uses them as ad hoc Ships of the Line. are these actually retains the same speed as Frigate standard of that time and does it has the same firepower as any real Ships of the Line?
4. Also Gatlings are exported. R.J. Gatling even has his factory in Britain and I THINK international export comes from there. any army of 1870s (except those armes forces of the United States) tend to use ones from British Exports.
it doesn't exists as standalone battery though.

I agree with what I think is being said here, in that - are these two units really unique or special for their general age?

 

[pineappledan]

I think it would be preferable for such a frontiersman/homesteader unit to be a unique scout that is able to found cities. Not a unique settler that can fight.

Turn 1 bonuses are extremely potent, It's a fundamental fact of these 4X games that bonuses are self-reinforcing and compounding. There is very little you could do with such a unit that wouldn't reverberate through the rest of the playthrough. If you ever wanted to reach a sort of balance between different civs, so much of America's "power budget" would be tied up in an early settler bonus that you would be forced to make America a "coasting" civ, who get s a strong early game boost, and then coasts on that early lead for the rest of the game. Sounds very harmful for roleplaying as America to me.

A community balance mod tried giving America a unique settler in civ 5. It was one of the first ideas tried, and was almost immediately scrapped. It wasn’t very fun for one of your main abilities to be “better settlers”, and it didn’t feel like you were playing as 17th century colonists.

 

[Evie]

Unfortunately to make America a mid-to-late game settlement civ (with an appropriate settler UU) you would almost need to model forced removal of insigenous people to make room for those settlers. An interesting idea - how do you represent that - intelectualy, but a marketing manure storm waiting to happen, and for good reasons, in practice.

Making them an early game settler civ just feels off as you suggested. America getting its power spike a little earlier is one thing, but an ancient age power spike is a whole other game.

 

[pineappledan]

You can incentivize razing and resettling. That's one way to do it. For instance you could give America a reward for settling a city on the ruins left behind by a previously destroyed city.

Plymouth colony was founded on the site of a previous Patuxet village that had been ravaged and subsequently abandoned because of European disease.

 

[Patine]

That bonus would be equally appropriate to Span, though, for instance - perhaps even a bit moreso.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Unfortunately to make America a mid-to-late game settlement civ (with an appropriate settler UU) you would almost need to model forced removal of insigenous people to make room for those settlers. An interesting idea - how do you represent that - intelectualy, but a marketing manure storm waiting to happen, and for good reasons, in practice.

Making them an early game settler civ just feels off as you suggested. America getting its power spike a little earlier is one thing, but an ancient age power spike is a whole other game.

No need to model 'forced removal' of original inhabitants, unless you plan to do it for almost everybody in the game, starting with the Indo-European migrants entering Europe, which caused a massive population loss in Europe due to introduced diseases among the 'original' indigenous farmers (original in quotes because the farming was introduced a couple thousand years earlier by migrants from Anatolia, but without, from the evidence, as much concurrent population loss). For repopulating previous sites, note that Athens is a pre-Indo-European settlement and Athens is not a Greek word, and is not the only Greek city that still flaunts its Pre-Greek origins.

The European settlement of the Americas was Genocidal, but not Unique, so it doesn't have to be modeled as both genocidal and unique unless we are also going to model the near-universal human population on the map after the Neolithic explicitly instead of sporadically (ie, with some kind of 'population per tile' as opposed to random Tribal Huts, Barbarian Camps, City States, and Civs)

On the other hand, I agree that the timing of any American Expansion Unique is important both for Balance and Flavor: America the Chalcolithic Powerhouse just doesn't feel or look right (I don't even like the look of 'American' generic Spearmen and Swordsmen in the game, because I know they are Fantasy units unless you are playing as Stonewall Jackson)
So, I agree with an American Renaissance Scout (Frontiersman or Pioneer would either work as a unit title) with Settling ability. Make him Late Renaissance, because to keep 'in the spirit' he should carry a matchlock musket rather than a halberd or pike, and to ring in the early American ethos perhaps he could be depicted carrying both a woodsman's axe and a musket.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Or perhaps a, "Yankee trader," for such a more, "timeless," and not fully combat unit.

I agree with what I think is being said here, in that - are these two units really unique or special for their general age?

The American Heavy Frigates were unique in that they were the only original attempt to combine the near-firepower of a ship of the line with the features of a Frigate: single gun deck, better speed and maneuverability.

Since the British 5th Rate was the lowest class of Ship-of-the-Line, the term could not be applied to any Frigate, since by definition a frigate has a single gun deck and a ship of the line always had more than 1 continuous gun deck. On the other hand, the rated 44 gun frigate Constitution could mount up to 56 guns (and the current "Constitution Museum" mounts 52), including Carronades on her upper, or Spar Deck, and so could out-gun a 50-gun ship-of-the-line (Although, it should be pointed out that by the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars the 50-gun ships were no longer considered by the Royal Navy to be strong enough to stand in 'line of battle' and so were downgraded to non-ship of the line status and the 64 gun became the smallest of the 'battleships')

 

[pineappledan]

My top picks would be the Heavy Frigate or the Monitor, personally. Both are genuine innovations on the part of Americans that competed favourably with contemporary European designs. I also think that pointing the US as being a naval power is just accurate. The US doesn't generally perceive itself as such, but it's just objectively true that they broke British naval supremacy, and are principally a naval power, even in modern times.

The Gatling gun is not so great, and had a very short window before being eclipsed by the Maxim guns, which outperformed them in every respect. It is pretty neat that the US invented the first genuine rapid fire machine gun, and it is a pretty iconic part of US history, even if the design didn't have staying power.

The Parrot rifle is arguably just a straight up bad idea for a unique. They weren't better than European rifled built-up guns. They were cheaper, but less reliable, and getting a cheaper unit is generally not as fun as getting a better one.

I think that mid game and late game stronger settler units should just be available to all civs. I'm biased against the idea of unique colonist units, because it's a QOL thing that shouldn't be locked behind 1 specific faction

 

[Patine]

The American Heavy Frigates were unique in that they were the only original attempt to combine the near-firepower of a ship of the line with the features of a Frigate: single gun deck, better speed and maneuverability.

Since the British 5th Rate was the lowest class of Ship-of-the-Line, the term could not be applied to any Frigate, since by definition a frigate has a single gun deck and a ship of the line always had more than 1 continuous gun deck. On the other hand, the rated 44 gun frigate Constitution could mount up to 56 guns (and the current "Constitution Museum" mounts 52), including Carronades on her upper, or Spar Deck, and so could out-gun a 50-gun ship-of-the-line (Although, it should be pointed out that by the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars the 50-gun ships were no longer considered by the Royal Navy to be strong enough to stand in 'line of battle' and so were downgraded to non-ship of the line status and the 64 gun became the smallest of the 'battleships')

But I'm not convinced these distinctions are sufficient for a UU in the somewhat limited detail naval combat is rendered in the Civ series. Not to the degree of, for instance, the role of a Carrack for Portugal.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

But I'm not convinced these distinctions are sufficient for a UU in the somewhat limited detail naval combat is rendered in the Civ series. Not to the degree of, for instance, the role of a Carrack for Portugal.

A lot depends on what generic units the game provides. IF Civ VII corrects the ridiculous lack of the Ship of the Line as a generic Ranged unit for the Early Modern Era, then the Heavy Frigate falls neatly into the slot of providing features from both the Frigate and the Ship of the Line. If either of those aren't in the game, then the Heavy Frigate just becomes a stronger or faster version of the one that is and has minimal significance.

It's very hard to 'rate' any unit, generic or Unique, without knowing what else is in the unit mix for the game.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

The American Heavy Frigates were unique in that they were the only original attempt to combine the near-firepower of a ship of the line with the features of a Frigate: single gun deck, better speed and maneuverability.

Since the British 5th Rate was the lowest class of Ship-of-the-Line, the term could not be applied to any Frigate, since by definition a frigate has a single gun deck and a ship of the line always had more than 1 continuous gun deck. On the other hand, the rated 44 gun frigate Constitution could mount up to 56 guns (and the current "Constitution Museum" mounts 52), including Carronades on her upper, or Spar Deck, and so could out-gun a 50-gun ship-of-the-line (Although, it should be pointed out that by the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars the 50-gun ships were no longer considered by the Royal Navy to be strong enough to stand in 'line of battle' and so were downgraded to non-ship of the line status and the 64 gun became the smallest of the 'battleships')

By the Napoleonic Era standards (Which Constitution Class is being built around that era or just before). were Constitution class a 'Sixth Rate' or what according to Royal Navy standards.?