Ship of the Line and Man-o-War

[PrinceMyshkin]

Ooooooh! I thought it would be another WH map, so I didn't bother. The word "columbus" brings Americas in my mind!

My mistake!

What about the Australlian factions?

[Dale]

Well, Columbus' Dream was that "Asia/India is over there" not a huge rock in between.

As for the Asian/Pacific factions, no they aren't in the game as yet. As for Australia, it was really only contested by one country: England.

If you used Asia/Pacific that at least brings in Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, German and English.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Cool!

[PrinceMyshkin]

I didn't say anything to Smak this morning, because he seemed pretty angry in his post.

I found what you've said quite insulting really.

If this work is so useless as you claim, why is it ranked no.1 by no. downloads at civ fans?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=cat&id=110&sort=downloads

No. 1 AoD II, 4300 downloads
No. 2 Blue Marble 3600 downloads.

Do you think that's an accident? Or is it another 4300 people who think this mod is a little diamond?

I have also beaten revolutionary in 35 turns, so what's your point? If you think this is how this game should be played, we fundamentally disagree.

Thank god, there are still some people, who do not think like you, and actually invest time and effort to take C4C into a new strategic dimension.

If you do not like this work, this is fine. But please don't come here to insult people, who work their socks off; saying "you do all this to compete for the mod..." is at least pathetic.

I don't give a damn, if Dale competes for the best made mod. In my opinion he should, because it is the best. Sorry to hear he cannot.

Dale has improved C4C, and this is what makes a change for me. Surely, I will give my best to support his effort!

If the bugs, which you mentioned are so important for you, don't waste your time blaming others who work, but put your head down and fix them yourself.

Thanks,
Mysh

[Dale]

Originally posted by PrinceMyshkin No. 1 AoD II, 4300 downloads
No. 2 Blue Marble 3600 downloads.

Do you think that's an accident? Or is it another 4300 people who think this mod is a little diamond?

From all sources: 14562 (according to my Google Analytics on my site)

[smak]

I did not say age of discovery 2 was useless, i said it doesnt not work in multiplayer. And since i find single player to be the biggest waste of time, i suppose you could infer that age of discovery 2 is useless, to me.

Single player is about as entertaining as sudoku, the end result is the same every time.

The only thing more boring would be programming, and thats why i dont work on mods. But i do have suggestions for those that do.

Hmm no thats not true, i dont want to see these put into a mod i want to see them added to an official patch:

1. There needs to be at least a 50% negative modifier to attacking from sea. As it is right now one frigate and one cannon in a caravel can take out any city by bombarding with frigate and attacking from safety with cannon. It takes time because the cannon will need to heal up but it will kill the defenders faster than they can be replaced. And it gets even more disgusting when you play dutch and fill a merchantmen with cannon for a stack attack on the city.

2. When you take guns, horses, or tools off a unit then you should lose 50% of them in the transfer. With current game mechanics you can request military aid from king and get a soldier for around 500 gold, put horses on him for about 111 gold, take him to your city and strip all guns and horses off him to sell to indians for about 1200-1500 gold. Thats a profit of over 600 gold leaving you with a veteran soldier you can re-equip later. Then you can turn around and buy a cannon and another dragoon with that 1500 gold and repeat the process. It would make better sense that when something gets used you lose, break, or somehow end up with less than what you started with.

3. There needs to be a 15-20 second window at the start of each round where you cannot move or attack. How many times have you been playing and you get attacked before you can respond? How many times did your unit die when he had a promotion available that could have been used to heal up before the fight? I have also seen a bug where the turn starts you out with one unit selected like a ship or something and you go to click on the unit you want to move first and it jumps back to selecting the ship.

4. Remove the ability to "stack attack" from multiplayer. It just doesnt make sense to allow the attacker to send several units at the same time on attack forcing you to resolve all those attacks before you get a chance to retreat or counterattack.

5. Cannons should be able to damage ships that are bombarding your city, if you have a fortress. So every time a frigate or ship of the line is used to bombard a cities defenses every cannon in the city should get a shot at the ship. Since cannon is 3 str and frigate and ship of the line are 8 str one cannon will never kill a ship by itself, but 4 or so should be able to sink a ship.

6. Make cannons a material that is required to build warships in addition to tools and guns. It should take a combination of tools, guns, and cannon to build combat ships. As it stands it takes a rediculous amount of tools and guns to build a ship of the line, better to require less tools and guns and a few cannon instead.

7. Add slaves to the game, and when a privateer sinks a ship thats holding colonists it should take 1 or 2 slaves. Give slaves the same stats as converted natives. Also privateers should be able to pick a promotion that allows them to be able to steal a % of the enemies gold when they sink a ship. Maybe 5-10% and require vet 1 or 2 before they can pick the promotion.

8. Fix the bug where missions will randomly give converted natives to the same country of origin but different players.

9. Change the ranger and mountaineer promotions so that those infantry can hide in a square and ambush any enemy that enters that square, provided it has the forest/jumgle or hills/peaks they need to hide in. As it stands infantry are of limited use and this would spice things up a bit.

10. Change scouts so their nationality is hidden just like privateers. This way when your scout finds another player they will not know who you are. Its not like a scout is going to open diplomatic relations in real life, they just report back to their commander what they find. Also this would allow scouts to enter other nations borders and pillage improvements. The other player could kill your scout if they can catch him without starting war. How many times have you seen a scout and wanted to kill it but were playing a game with rules of peace for x number of turns at the start?

11. Make it so you can combine three regular soldiers and create one veteran soldier. Make it so you can combine three cannon and create one artillary. And make it so you can combine three ships of the line to create one man of war. This would allow you to field expensive but highly effective units.

[Dale]

These answers are in relation to AoD2 v1.04 (not vanilla):

1. I feel this is defunct now as cannons in fortresses will now fire on enemy ships.

2. I have upped the price of horses, tools and muskets. There is still a tiny profit in doing that, but not 1000 gold profit in doing it. Would take a lot of work to make that strategy work now.

3. This is a part of playing MP. It's been that way since Civ4 came out in 2005. I see no issue sorry.

4. Again, has been like that since 2005. I've seen house rules where they ban stack attack though.

5. Was implemented in v1.04.

6. I have redone the costs of ships. The high end military ships (frigate and SoL) are now cheaper and quicker to build as a result.

7. Not required. For all intents and purposes, this is what indentured servants are for.

8. Has been fixed for months.

9. You already get bonuses to combat for those tiles, I don't see why you would want an ambush ability too. Makes those promotions way too powerful with double move, 50% bonus AND ambush.

10. I like it! Will put it in the next version.

11. Very unrealistic. Plus, artillery and MoW are supposed to be King only. That's the point of the game!

So basically, AoD2 addresses nearly every one of your points. And if these points are why single player is useless to you, then I see no reason why you wouldn't try AoD2. Plus, given the time that has elapsed, I wouldn't count on seeing a patch coming.

[snoopy369]

A lot of those complaints, in MP, are due to settings not set appropriately. Set "Minimize Popups", "Quick Combat", and similar options, and (at least) 3 and 4 go away right away.

[Cornhog]

Well, no one paid attention to what I said before, so I'm going to include pictures this time I think your changes (by making SoLs cheaper and more powerful) will only exacerbate the problem mentioned earlier. As it is, I have about 24 ships and the king has closer to 30.

The first picture is of my colony with the ENTIRE coast lined with ships of the line. The year is ~1715.



Each un-upgraded ship of the line has better odds than a man of war. The ships get a 10% coastal defense bonus along with a 50% rebel sentiment bonus. Obviously that's only a slight advantage, but couple that with a quick counterattack and the inevitable upgrades and you've got an easy recipe for victory.

This second picture is a trapped man of war looking lost and confused. In the initial wave the king lost two ships full of troops to my ships. I didn't lose any. I think my previous suggestion would fix this easily. You can remove ships of the line because there's no real reason for them. Frigates have the same strength so they would serve the same purpose. Replace the man of war's +50% frigate bonus with a +50% when attacking a frigate bonus. This would force the player to keep his ships in port or have them decimated. The player could still attempt a naval victory, but he would have to be smart about it, making sure not to leave a frigate out in the open.



P.S. - I'm not sure why my pictures didn't post inside the messages all pretty like.

[PrinceMyshkin]

New MoWs now move faster and can transport more troops.

I haven't done much play testing though yet.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Hello guys,

I have been doing a small study of ships recently and have gathered sufficient information to suggest the following:

Frigates should have an extended visual range by 1 or 2 tiles, to better reflect their use in naval warfare of this era.

The best example is the naval battle of Aboukir Bay on 1-2 August 1798 during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.

The British fleet under Admiral Nelson won a decisive naval victory against the French, which was commanded by Admiral Brueys. Despite British navy being outgunned, the French navy was weaker due to the lack of Frigates, the "eyes" of the fleet.

The British battle fleet was composed of thirteen 74 gun ships-of-the-line. The French fleet was accompanied by a man-o-war (120 gun warship), three 80 gun ships-of-the-line, and nine 74 gun ships-of-the-line.

Nelson tracked the French down to their Anchorage in Aboukir Bay. The French were taken by surprise with many men ashore fetching supplies. As a result only eight French ships-of-the-line were engaged by thirteen British ones; later the French man-o-war L'Orient joined and put a fierce fight; but it was too late for the French.

War analysts support French defeat was due to the lack of French frigates, amongst the French fleet. The French had only four frigates (40 gunships), and none was employed for scouting duties.

Hence, I support Frigates should have an extended visibility range by 1 or 2 tiles with the option to extend it further with Navigation I to better reflect their use in naval warfare.

Thanks,
Mysh

Sources of information: 1. Battle; A visual journey through over 5,000 years of combat by G.A. Grant, 2. www.royalnavy.mod.uk

[Hermann the Lombard]

Hmm...I'd go for +1 visibility, I think +2 is a bit overpowered.

In related news, did you notice that Odyssey Marine Exploration just found the wreck of HMS Victory (the predecessor to Nelson's flagship). It was a 100-gun, first-rate ship of the line.

[wodan11]

Yeah I also saw the British government is trying to claim the salvage.

[PrinceMyshkin]

You are right an extending their visibility by one tile, topped with navigation I, would do the trick making them formidable scouts.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Yeah I also saw the British government is trying to claim the salvage.

Yep. I think under international law warships remain the property of their government even if no effort has been made to salvage the wreck. Some years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of those who found the Atocha, but subsequent decisions would have gone the other way.