Ways to make Sea Units more appealing

[Wodan]

Ships can already effect a blockade.

Simply stationing a ship outside an enemy city will prevent that city from working the tile the ship is on, plus all 8 adjacent tiles. This reduces both food and commerce for the city.

Oh, I realize you're probably talking about temporarily halting actual Trade Routes of the city. But, in reality that's small change to the amount of commerce you are actually costing the city by preventing the coast tiles from being worked.

Wodan

 

[Thedrin]

Oh, I realize you're probably talking about temporarily halting actual Trade Routes of the city. But, in reality that's small change to the amount of commerce you are actually costing the city by preventing the coast tiles from being worked.

A coastal city recieves a natural bonus to trade route income and the harbour bonus. Most developed coastal cities can easily take in 20 commerce per turn. That's equal commerce to 10 coastal tiles.

However, I suspect that the game does shut off trade routes entering via the sea when a blockade is in effect. If so the majority of coastal cities will still be linked to their trading partners via land links to other coastal cities. So if blockades don't prevent trade entering coastal cities via the sea but were changed to do so then - under current game rules - it would make hardly any difference.

 

[Wodan]

A coastal city recieves a natural bonus to trade route income and the harbour bonus. Most developed coastal cities can easily take in 20 commerce per turn. That's equal commerce to 10 coastal tiles.

Late game, yes. Early or midgame, hardly. Midgame, you're lucky if you're making 6 commerce from routes. That's only 3 coast tiles.

Anyway, we're just quibbling here.

Wodan

 

[jUNGLE cHRIS]

My sentiments exactly. At the very least, any ship that can bombard (remove) cultural defense should be able to attack units within a city, and pillage improvements within their range.

I am not thrilled with the idea of having to create trade routes, or manage them by posting ships on the ocean. However, I think ships should be able to affect trade through a blockade of some sort, as long as it is kept simple. Ships should definitely be able to destroy lighthouses and harbors! It might be a good idea to increase the transport capacity of various naval units, so you don't have to build so many ships for troop transport. Making them cheaper would have the same effect, I suppose.

I agree with you there. A ship positioned next to a city should be able to cut off resource trade to and from that city. However, the means by which a city is available for sea trade should change. A harbor should definitely be required, and maybe even a lighthouse to ensure safe seas. Ships should be able to destroy or damage these buildings. Should bring back coastal fortresses too, where they decrease the amount of bombardmant damage and may even have a chance at attacking ships during bombardment with the discovery of artillery.

 

[theimmortal1]

Its very simple IMO. Allow sea to land battles and land to sea battles.

Allow more ships to bombard, and allow some ships to actually attack land units. In cities put a cap on the amount of damage it can do (say 50 percent) but in open field they are fair game.

Also I'd do the style where certain ships cna attack cities/units at a distance. The earlier ships have to be adjacent, whereas the very modern ships can be a 2 or 3 spots away.

Also make it so certain land units can attack ships. The older "long range" land units can only attack ships adjacent but the newer ones can attack ships further away.

 

[Naismith]

I like the ideas of both jUNGLE cHRIS and theimmortal1. Some of it should sound familiar to people who played Civ3. Basically, ships should operate much like bombers, able to bombard cultural defense and attack units within a city. There should be some variation in range (battleships now have a range of 1 - yech!).

My main concern would be the poor, misbegotten AI - could it ever use these enhanced naval capabilities properly? I guess that's one of the reasons I would pattern ships after bombers - it makes sense and hopefully would make it easier to allow the AI to use them intelligently. Of course, I'm assuming the AI uses bombers somewhat intelligently, which is a stretch. (I don't have much experience with that, since my games don't tend to get that far.)

 

[Ben E Gas]

You can use bombers and fighters to destroy farms and mines, but not roads in railroads (which you should be able to do). It'd be nice to see the Civ 3 style of bombardment back too, where you attack the unit without it attacking you. Put that in for ships and siege weapons.
.........................

I agree. That is one thing I liked better in civ3. I was disappointed when I found out I could not bombard the same way.

 

[ElWanderer]

I like the way sea trade routes are handled in Rome: Total War. As with Civ 4, the routes are automatically determined for you, but they're shown on the map as little dashed lines. Every few seconds, a little boat graphic appears and follows the line to its destination. If you can get a ship close enough to the line, the trade route is broken, the line dims and the little merchant ships disappear when they reach your ship. Of course, the game allows you to blockade ports to cut off all their trade in one swoop, but I like the idea that a lone raider cn hide out of view and reduce trade route income by its presence, as it means you have to patrol the seas occasionally.

I would guess the hard part would be determining an exact route to plot on the map... in R:TW, the map isn't randomly generated so there's no need for special path-finding.

 

[tycoonist]

I like the way sea trade routes are handled in Rome: Total War. As with Civ 4, the routes are automatically determined for you, but they're shown on the map as little dashed lines. Every few seconds, a little boat graphic appears and follows the line to its destination. If you can get a ship close enough to the line, the trade route is broken, the line dims and the little merchant ships disappear when they reach your ship.

rtw does do it very well, i think there are a lot of things civ could incorporate from rtw

coastal bombardment is a good idea.
i also want to be able to attck land units in land/cities on the coast

 

[marioflag]

I suspect that something about ships will be adressed in the next xp.Portugal, Netherlands were two great seafaring powers and are not yet in the game.
They have done a lot of changes to balance nearly all aspect in the game but ships are not yet touched.Battleships which don't have a terrain bombardment is just absurd and make navy worthless.I hope they are just reserving all this balancement to navies for the next xp because it's just absurd that they balance in an effective manner everything but they are just blind on how sea warfare is managed.