Why do Navies suck so badly in Civ?

[Paddy]

Yes, I agree that a lot of work is required in fixing up the great navies of the game.

And as to their importance, why bother having water in the game if the navies are not relevant, as they have been in the histories of this planet

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Azazel

How about .... 'Galleon'?

Didn't Galleons include fighting ships?

Frigate is dumb too, unless we take GePaps solution and have Ships of the Line as well.

[POTUS]

Ships of the Line would be more accurate. Frigates were only used for scouting, serving as couriers for fleets, and as occasional merchant raiders. Ships of the Line were the battleships of that time.

[LDiCesare]

no pre-indstrilized society could have built such ships.

This is wrong.
Korean turtle ships were built in 1591 without steam power. They were ironclad, had cannons that threw cannon balls or huge arrows, and did huge damage to the japanese fleet. Check this link: http://www.franklinsidekicks.com/Yisunshin.htm
Also check this one: http://www.ohiotkd.net/taekwondoreporter/page321.htm to see how effective they were and why these ships spelled the doom of the vastly superior Japanese ground forces (supply lines).

So, historically, ironclads existed before the 17th century. Bear this in mind when delaying ironclads. A different Korea could have built more ironclads and ruled the seas at this time. Had they been in a stratgeic position like England, Venice or Portugal, their fleet might have ruled the world ny the end of the 16th century.

[Bonaparte]

I agree the navies are bad. Naval bases, shipping lanes, etc. should be added. Also, the AI needs more time to be able to effectively use there ships.

How many times have you noticed the AI launching a naval invasion only to end up declaring peace before there ships ever reached your shores...ships are to slow...but the dumb AI, instead of "parking" there fleet close to your shores where they could get to you quickly if war breaks out again, end up spending many turns returning all there ships back home.

[Optimizer]

Please read my Maritime Manifesto about developing the naval aspect of Civ 3.

One problem in Civ 2 & Civ 3 is that you have no use for a great navy. You might need a few ships for exploration, and later on some invasion vessels and escorts for those. In the real world, the main task of navies have been protection of commercial fleets.

In my never-finished mod I try to induce the need of a navy by allowing barbarian ships and Privateers to bombard. Then they will demolish your terrain improvements, and you will need at least some warships to secure your coasts.

[Agathon]

But that quickly becomes too complicated for a good game. That sort of thing works in Hearts of Iron, but I can't see it working in Civ.

[MrFun]

I have a question . . . . .

in Civilization III, what was the point of building Frigates when, by the time you have a small navy of those sailing ships, you have already discovered Steam technology, so that if you have easy access to Coal, you have just built up a navy of Frigates, but now they're useless just when you're ready to use them.

[jdd2007]

I am not buying another computer game until the crew of any ship can abandon their vessel and become a 'sailor' or 'corsair' or 'what have you land unit.'

[Agathon]

Originally posted by MrFun
I have a question . . . . .

in Civilization III, what was the point of building Frigates when, by the time you have a small navy of those sailing ships, you have already discovered Steam technology, so that if you have easy access to Coal, you have just built up a navy of Frigates, but now they're useless just when you're ready to use them.

My point exactly. Death to ironclads.

[GePap]

"Ironclad" in civ 3 terms is not the same as any old ship clad in iron, no matter what the name says, just as "frigates" in civ 3 means all warships of the age of sails. What about Steam Frigates? the Sort of warships of the civil war? A Korean turtle ship would have been torn to shreds by such non-ironclad ships- simply becuase of speed and firepower. An Ironclad in Civ3 would include the USS Maine and other such coal driven ships form the 1860's to 1890's.

The problem in civ 3 is that the age of sail, which went from the mid 1500's to 1820's (ignoring for now the intermidiary age of steam and sail ships) has less time to play itself out than the era of warhips from 1860 to 1890. Sailing warships need to come much sooner- primarily, magnetism needs to come much sooner. Honestly, knowledge of magnetism came before physics as a discipline, just as knowledge of agricultural techniques came before biology as a discipline.

[yaroslav]

I agree with navy sucking in all civ games. Let's analyze why navy has been so important in this world, and why isn't it in civ2.

1) The navy as a way of trade (in any age). Well this isn't bad reflected in civ2, but maybe in civ3....

2) The navy as a way to bring food to the cities - being un-"navied" against a "navied" enemy means you can't siege their cities as he/she would recieve food from their navy. Not reflected in any civ game (as far as I know).

3) The navy as a pirate machine to stop your enemy's colonies treasures reaching the mainlad... (very important in the 17th century, for isntance). Not reflected very well in civ2, maybe well reflected in CTP I, not reflected at all in civ3...

4) Navy as a powerful way of destroying cities... Why did the japanase surrender to Perry? Could that happen in any civ game?

And more... let's think on it.

----------------
Summarizing: navy is a way from comunicate your lands and TRANSPORT not only unit but also merchant goodies (and food) from one point to another AND also a way to hurt your enemy's cities. The enemy cities is reflected in many games, better or worse, but reflected. But the poin of the merchant goodies hasn't been very well reflected in too many civ games and maybe there is the point of navies sucking...

Plus, the game runs too fast in tech age and many units get obsoleted before you've used them a lot (but this happen also with other kinds of units - specially after each new expansion adds more units)

Just my humble opinion.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by yaroslav


Plus, the game runs too fast in tech age and many units get obsoleted before you've used them a lot (but this happen also with other kinds of units - specially after each new expansion adds more units)

Just my humble opinion.

I know -- this is very true, unfortunately.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Optimizer
One problem in Civ 2 & Civ 3 is that you have no use for a great navy. You might need a few ships for exploration, and later on some invasion vessels and escorts for those. In the real world, the main task of navies have been protection of commercial fleets.

In my never-finished mod I try to induce the need of a navy by allowing barbarian ships and Privateers to bombard. Then they will demolish your terrain improvements, and you will need at least some warships to secure your coasts.

The problem with that is $ is not properly represented in the earlier games. There are several things that needed to be done. First, put in a maintenance cost in $ (i.e. arrows). This represents labour and other costs. Second, rush builds have to cost extra $ (extra people on shifts, etc). Third, all military units take up $ (salaries and such). Then make sea routes trading lucrative and introduce pirates and privateers.

[Optimizer]

Magnetism should not have the role it has had in Civ 1, 2 & 3. Magnetic compasses were used long before Columbus, but the physical nature of magnetism wasn't understood untill the mid-18th century.

There were other innovations during the 17th and 18th century that made ocean traffic easier - mostly instruments like chronometers and sextants.