Turtle Ship makes sense historically...

[woodshadows]

most games i dont even build a single boat, maybe one caravel to find natural wonders and explore coastlines, that's IT. i love naval history and if naval units had a stronger bombard strength i would consider them more viable, or if the ai built more navy units themselves and threatened you with them, but this rarely happens. even suleiman just ends up with a zillion caravels and pings you for 1 damage on the shore per turn.

 

[Drawmeus]

Turtle Ships are underwhelming because the sole point of a navy is exploration right now. This isn't a matter of naval units not being powerful enough - several are (Battleships, Aircraft Carriers). This is a problem of fighting over the seas aren't worth anything. Land tiles are worth production, gold, science, population, sometimes culture, and especially new cities. That's a huge amount of benefit for having control over a certain area of land. Ocean tiles are worth... nothing. A small amount of food/gold for coastal cities.

In short, even when the weapons are good, there's nothing worth fighting over. If ocean-going trade were modeled well in this game (I mean in a streamlined, usable game system, not some extensive economic model), huge portions of your national wealth and some amount of your national production would be heavily dependent on keeping open sea lanes. If that were in place, dominating the seas would be key to being a powerful nation. As things stand now, you never need to go on the water at all unless it'll support your land conquest objectives.

 

[Uberfrog]

Turtle Ships are underwhelming because the sole point of a navy is exploration right now. This isn't a matter of naval units not being powerful enough - several are (Battleships, Aircraft Carriers). This is a problem of fighting over the seas aren't worth anything. Land tiles are worth production, gold, science, population, sometimes culture, and especially new cities. That's a huge amount of benefit for having control over a certain area of land. Ocean tiles are worth... nothing. A small amount of food/gold for coastal cities.

In short, even when the weapons are good, there's nothing worth fighting over. If ocean-going trade were modeled well in this game (I mean in a streamlined, usable game system, not some extensive economic model), huge portions of your national wealth and some amount of your national production would be heavily dependent on keeping open sea lanes. If that were in place, dominating the seas would be key to being a powerful nation. As things stand now, you never need to go on the water at all unless it'll support your land conquest objectives.

Agreed.

But even for its current limited use the naval unit tech progression is inadequate. If I remember correctly, a Trireme can only be upgraded when you get to Frigates, which is three eras down the line. That's going from 6 to 30! A trireme is pretty much wiped out by a Crossbowman in the middle ages: there really should be an intermediate coastal defence ship capable of escorting a Medieval fleet on a coastal/island-hop.

I would suggest some sort of War Galley, appearing somewhere in the Medieval era, with combat strength around 15 (same as caravel) and ranged attack 12 (same as crossbowman). This would make the caravel a purely explorative unit, compared to a warship. The War Galley would still be restricted to coasts, but provide an intermediate between Triremes and Frigates.

Then the Turtle Ship could be a souped up War Galley, and while its usefulness could still be debated, it at least wouldn't preclude intercontinental exploration for Korea.

 

[Drawmeus]

Agreed.

But even for its current limited use the naval unit tech progression is inadequate. If I remember correctly, a Trireme can only be upgraded when you get to Frigates, which is three eras down the line. That's going from 6 to 30! A trireme is pretty much wiped out by a Crossbowman in the middle ages: there really should be an intermediate coastal defence ship capable of escorting a Medieval fleet on a coastal/island-hop.

I would suggest some sort of War Galley, appearing somewhere in the Medieval era, with combat strength around 15 (same as caravel) and ranged attack 12 (same as crossbowman). This would make the caravel a purely explorative unit, compared to a warship. The War Galley would still be restricted to coasts, but provide an intermediate between Triremes and Frigates.

Then the Turtle Ship could be a souped up War Galley, and while its usefulness could still be debated, it at least wouldn't preclude intercontinental exploration for Korea.

I think the point of the unit is to preclude intercontinental exploration for Korea and limit general exploration. Their goal with Korea's unique stuff seems to have been to create a civ where you'll focus purely internally for much of the game - a civilization which naturally encourages the player to and rewards the player for being a builder/researcher and an isolationist.

I can see the problem if you want Korea to just be another civ with slightly different benefits, instead of something where you have to approach the game entirely differently. I can also see the problem if the benefits Korea gets for cutting off naval exploration are too weak to offset the drawback. But I think the solution to the former is "That's not what Korea is, but you can mod it if you want" and the solution to the latter is upping the internal benefits Korea gets to science and/or adding production or commerce benefits.

 

[smallfish]

Korea's more of a land science civ, really. The exploration limits imposed by the caravel-lack is counterbalanced by the Hwacha and its science UA.

Really, all the different civs have different playstyles, and that's one of the things I think the franchise as a whole should really go all out for.

 

[binhthuy71]

Seeing as how Korea, in CiV, usually turtles up it's only natural that they should have a Turtle Ship.

 

[headcase]

I don't have the DLC but their UA is pretty amazing, right? So maybe this was supposed to be underwhelming for that reason.

 

[General Awesome]

Just remember that balance/gameplay beats historical accuracy so... if it wasn't you would have modern day civs be 10000x OP compared to ancient civs...

 

[Noatz]

1. Judge a unit with the civ in general in mind. Turtle Ships are a hindrance and are worse than Frigates one tech down the line, but the UA is so strong it hardly matters.

2. While its true civs are designed to reflect their actual history, remember the game isn't supposed to be a copy paste of history. Korea acted as it did because of its surrounding politics and geography. In a game of Civ (unless you use real world starting positions on an Earth map for every Civ), things will be different.

 

[Peng Qi]

Can't work boats travel over ocean squares when you get Navigation?

 

[Scaramanga]

I would have the caravel unit rely on the Commerce policy branch being open since many other civilizations including Korea just waited for the caravel-possessing people to reach them. Give a boost to the Commerce tree too. By the logic they used for the Turtle Ship; Japan, China, and probably India should have a non-oceangoing variant of the caravel.

 

[binhthuy71]

I won't say that Turtle Ships are my favorite unit but, in their defense, they have the same HP as a Frigate (30) and they do only 3 less damage at the same range (12 vs 15, range 2) as the Frigate. They cost 120 vs 185 for the Frigate so you can build three Turtle Ships for the production cost of two Frigates. Yes, Frigates are only one tech away from Caravels but you're in the same part of the tech tree as Gunpowder which is in turn only two techs away from Rifling. Depending on the map type if I'm being pressed by the AI I'd do my best to tech my way to Rifling and leave Navigation for later.

 

[Noatz]

I won't say that Turtle Ships are my favorite unit but, in their defense, they have the same HP as a Frigate (30) and they do only 3 less damage at the same range (12 vs 15, range 2) as the Frigate. They cost 120 vs 185 for the Frigate so you can build three Turtle Ships for the production cost of two Frigates. Yes, Frigates are only one tech away from Caravels but you're in the same part of the tech tree as Gunpowder which is in turn only two techs away from Rifling. Depending on the map type if I'm being pressed by the AI I'd do my best to tech my way to Rifling and leave Navigation for later.

Same part of the tech tree apart from being the far top track vs the far bottom one. Using the fairly common Education beeline followed by Astronomy bulb for the RAT opener tactic, you are a fair way away from Gunpowder and Rifles.

Also there is the minor disadvantage of not being able to enter ocean. This makes Turtle Ships usable only in defence most of the time, and since their bombard is not particularly strong you're almost certainly better off with a Hwacha or even an Xbow unless you're really pressed for space. Of course you can use it to gobble up land units the AI herpderps into the sea, but you can do that with a trireme.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well they probably could have beefed up the unit.. (made it slightly Better at Combat than a Frigate?)... perhaps something like 35/15 instead of 30/12?

 

[binhthuy71]

Same part of the tech tree apart from being the far top track vs the far bottom one. Using the fairly common Education beeline followed by Astronomy bulb for the RAT opener tactic, you are a fair way away from Gunpowder and Rifles.

RAT opener? This is the first time I've seen that acronym. I''m creating a list of CiV acronyms and terms for the War Academy so I'd be very grateful if you would tell me what RAT stands for. I'll add it to the list.

 

[chazzycat]

by RAT I think he just means rationalism.

My take on the turtle ship is that it's a good unit for historical AND gameplay reasons:

History:
- Korea had an extremely isolationist foreign policy during this time frame, so building caravels wouldn't make a lot of sense. However, there is an argument to be made that this is probably true of other civs as well.
- They were used as a shallow-water defensive force in the war against Japan, which mirrors how they should be used in-game.
- Flavor. The fact that these things existed in real life is friggin' cool! Turtle ships have been in tons of games (AOE comes to mind) and are a part of pop culture. People would be mad had they not been included.

Gameplay:
- Korea has a very strong UA and also the Hwacha, so having a niche unit as the 2nd one makes sense for balance reasons.
- Considering the main benefit of caravels is faster trading partners for RAs, and that Korea's specialty is already science, they may just have been too overpowered with regular caravels.
- It can be useful in its niche (Maddjinn used them nicely in his recent LP for instance)
- If exploration is a concern, navigation is only one tech away, and Korea has great tech
- They are turtle ships! Did I already mention how friggin' cool they are?

 

[binhthuy71]

Thanks, chazzycat. My attempt to corral all of the acronyms and terms related to CiV means that I've read more comments ithe past month than I have in the year before.
I very much appreciate any help that I get along the way.

Your comments regarding the historical accuracy of Turtle ships are spot on. If Seagoing was added to the fact that their stats are a close match to the Frigate at a substantially lower production cost then they'd be OP.

 

[spicytimothy]

Playing a Korea game right now and couldn't agree more... I forgot it replaces caravel and just assumed I haven't got to that tech yet, then suddenly some Germans came on shore from across the world :-/

 

[Drawmeus]

1. Judge a unit with the civ in general in mind. Turtle Ships are a hindrance and are worse than Frigates one tech down the line, but the UA is so strong it hardly matters.

2. While its true civs are designed to reflect their actual history, remember the game isn't supposed to be a copy paste of history. Korea acted as it did because of its surrounding politics and geography. In a game of Civ (unless you use real world starting positions on an Earth map for every Civ), things will be different.

You can push argument 2 very, very far. Spain hit a golden age of colonization because it couldn't go up into Europe. Arabian cultures looked a certain way because they were desert dwellers. It's at least plausible that EVERYTHING about every culture simply has to do with geography and the actual facts of history.

Really, there's a decision point early in the design of a game like this - are you going to make every culture a blank slate or are you going to try and capture the actual behavior of that culture, even knowing that it might be ahistorical sometimes? In the case of Civ 5, they're making cultures unique, and giving them benefits that push them strongly into behaving as they did in the real world; it's essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy.

With that in mind, arguing that Korea shouldn't be designed as an isolationist civ because that was just a matter of historical circumstance is arguing against the whole direction of Civ 4 and Civ 5 that civilizations should have unique gameplay considerations.

 

[Noatz]

You can push argument 2 very, very far. Spain hit a golden age of colonization because it couldn't go up into Europe. Arabian cultures looked a certain way because they were desert dwellers. It's at least plausible that EVERYTHING about every culture simply has to do with geography and the actual facts of history.

Really, there's a decision point early in the design of a game like this - are you going to make every culture a blank slate or are you going to try and capture the actual behavior of that culture, even knowing that it might be ahistorical sometimes? In the case of Civ 5, they're making cultures unique, and giving them benefits that push them strongly into behaving as they did in the real world; it's essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy.

With that in mind, arguing that Korea shouldn't be designed as an isolationist civ because that was just a matter of historical circumstance is arguing against the whole direction of Civ 4 and Civ 5 that civilizations should have unique gameplay considerations.

Its more that the player's civ will just end up conforming to their surroundings despite the flavours of their civ. If you start playing Korea and you have lots of really inviting city sites you're likely going to expand quickly to fill them and not RP and say, well this triple lux river and mountain site here looks good but I'm not the expanding type.

Of course I can't speak for everyone...

This doesn't mean civs shouldn't be designed with their actual history in mind however - how else will the civs be dfferent gameplay wise? From a design standpoint if you don't work with their real world traits you may as well decide on the effects of Unique Assets by rolling dice.