How do we improve the maritime side of Civ 4?

[Optimizer]

In Civ 4, there is not usually much need of a navy or a civilian fleet, except for crossing straits for settling or invasion. Contrary to real history, the seas divide people rather than connecting them.

Civ 3 had the same problem, and then I wrote a "Maritime Manifesto":

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39791

The first and most obvious change should be speed - most ships deserve a movement increase by 2.

Should anything more be done?

[Impaler[WrG]]

Second!

In addition...

Blockading Trade and the ability to actualy "cease" gold from doing so. The effects of Harbor and lighthouse should be negated along with trade lines being cut when a city gets blockaded.

More resorces in the water that need to be protected, Shrimp would be the next logical additon

More Pirates in the water that can mess with your trade and resorces

Animals in the water that can be battled (Giant Squid perhaps)

More Islands on the map to give us a place to sail too

Goody Huts in the water (call them "Floatsum and Getsum" or "Ship Wreck survivors"). Basicaly Unity Pods ala SMAC

Longer bombardment ranges for Navel Units

Earlier ability to enter Ocean plots, perhaps a unit that takes about 1/3 damage when it ends its turn in an ocean and thus can only make short crossings.

Bring back Tri-Reams

[ghen]

how about just letting ships attack ground units directly.. Just give them a -50% bonus towards land attacks (or defenders get a 50% terrain bonus when attacked from sea), and 75% retreat in those kind of fights.

[Alashar]

Blockades of port cities would be a cool option. Also, bring back bombardment! I miss it.

[Fosse]

I don't know if I agree with the speed changes, since it's so map dependent. On standard continents speed feels right to me.

For the best maritime experiences with vanilla Civ 4, it's gotta be MP on continents or archipelago. The human players can and will use ships to starve your cities and attack your improvements, plus stage intercontinental invasions. I had an extraordinarily exciting game with two ocean fleets battling an enemy. Sinking a Galleon full of muskets that are headed to support an island you're warring over is the best.

That makes me think that the best way to improv the SP naval experience is with the AI SDK. If the AI could be taught to use ships more aggressivly, the human must too, and the game gets more exciting. The navy is useful if you build it, and the best prompt to build it is another enemy's fleet.

[Fosse]

The best changes I can think of, outside higher prioritizing by the AI:

Add unhappiness effects to blockades. This makes it easier for ships to starve big coastal cities, which makes protecting them even more important. Say something like +0.3 unhappiness for every tile that's blockaded (I thougth about for every enemy ship, but that could quickly get out of hand.).

Add types of Sea unitsMuch like land units have archery, melee, and mounted classes, each with bonuses against the others. Set up a paper/rock/scissors navy system, which forces players to build some of each category to have a strong navy. A bigger enemy navy will lead to a bigger player navy, which will lead to both sides using them more often.

A class of cheap ships that were weak in strength but had a huge bonus to sink transports would be a neat touch. meaning you and the AI can cheaply defend yourself from invasions that aren't backed up by warships. Which means you'd better build warships... and since you have them you might as well go blockade something....

I love the ideas of shutting down lighthouse and harbor effects when a blockade is in place. Also, as above, the more islands there are, and the more often those islands have resources (especially resources that are rare on the mainland), the better for navies.

[djpsychonaut]

Historically, blockades have had a significant impact on wars. Take for example, the Cuban Missile Crisis (US blockades Cuba), the US Civil War (Union blockades Confederacy), and the World Wars (Britain blockades Germany). I think naval blockades should be an option, either implicit where your units automatically blockade when at war with another civ or through a unit action similar to bombardment.

I think there should also be more non-food ocean resources for example Pearls as luxury item.

[Strudo]

And bring back precision strike for subs. I loved being able to take out the transport in a stack of destroyers.

[Saldrin]

Naval activities need a serious boost. I'd welcome about any enhancement.

One thing I would love to see, is a polite "borrowing" of a concept from Rome:Total War. In which sea trade (trade generated by a harbor) is reflected in trade merchant vessels going between harbors. Would be uber cool if those were pillagable Also to blockade, have a ship physically block the harbor like it did in Rome:TW. Nothing can get in or out by sea and there was a graphic to represent this.

I have no idea how blockading works in Civ 4 at present since I never see the effects.

[Xerxes712]

I moved the Caraval to be had early with Compass instead of Optics (or maybe make Optics cheaper to research). It can only really carry non-combat units for exploring and missionary work. It helps if you start on a small island and it can cross rival territories without open borders.

The Caraval even though it is rated at power 3, will lose to a Galley of 2 due to the Galley +10 strength defense bonus on the coastal square. Caraval also cannot pillage a 'work' fishing boat, nor initiate a blockade. It is just to get you across the ocean to explore the world, maybe a settler to get a toe hold on a new continent before it is all gobled up.

A blockade is for real, if you put a galley or any other warship unit in the enemy city water square, that city cannot get food or work that water tile within 2 squares.
Really helpful to wear down starve out a city before capture.

You can do this to land cities too, but it is only for 1 square around is denied for the city to work the tile (even with no improvements you or the AI can work a tile -look for the small hut icon or small fishing boat- unless the enemy is nearby). It is not very well documented in the game manual.

[upsidedown]

Concentrate on a map-mod combo that would hash out the maritime side of Civ4 then move on to incorporating this into other mods.

[Mandla]

Adding a promotion (or even a naval unit) that allowed the capture of enemy ships would be nice (like in SMAC).

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
Longer bombardment ranges for Navel Units

Navel units - an interesting thought

[James009]

Originally posted by Alashar
Blockades of port cities would be a cool option. Also, bring back bombardment! I miss it.

It seems to me that naval units are almost worthless other then to protect transport units. The "bombard" they have now is weak and almost worthless. I would definatly like to see a better blockade function, bombardment of units, and bombardment of terrain improvements.

Also, no more of this rock/paper/scissors, I believe every unit should have its own function not what its good against.

[slawless2]

The naval model in the game needs some work for sure. I would definitely suggest bringing back the bombardment ability of ships like battleships. Currently, you can only bombard a city to reduce defenses. You should also be able to fire upon unit stacks and tile improvements to destroy them. This should be available from within say 2 tiles of shore. It would also be cool if you could target specific abilities within a city, say production or culture. This would be similar to the old precision attack of the submarine and would simulate a planned strike on a particular wartime production facility or resource dump in real war.

Just a few ideas.