Why do Navies suck so badly in Civ?

[GodKing]

1) Double movement points for all ships.

Yep. Something need to be done about movement.

2) The first unit is the trireme which is limited to coastal warfare.
3) This is replaced by the early Middle Ages by the medieval warship, which is sort of a proto-caravel. Caravels are abolished.
4) This is replaced by the Sailing Transport (Galleon is a stupid name) and the Ship of the Line. The game is structured in such a way that these are good for about 350-400 years. These are used for exploration and conducting embargoes (the trade link system is tweaked to make embargoes easier - a sea lanes doctrine).

Look to real historical shipping. Lots of good styles, names, classifications, etc.

5) Ironclads are abolished. They are slow, they suck and they take away from the glory of Sail. Plus the Ai builds lots of them and they steam around for no useful purpose.

Sorry. Got to disagree. Ironclads were important, but mostly for RIVER warfare. Read a bit about the US Civil War and you will see. We need to add a system of including a Brown Water Naval element into this game.

6) The Dreadnought Battleship is the first "modern" ship. It remains the premier ship in close combat until the end of the game.

Dreadnought was a specialized battleship that had only the large guns. With the introduction of aircraft, the smaller guns had an important role to play again. First, be able to build Dreadnoughts, then later on upgrade them to battleships with the invention of the aircraft carrier.

7) Destroyers are small and cheap and of use primarily for anti submarine warfare - they are next to useless against transports and capital ships. But they are fast.

You ever been on a thin hulled transport that was being shot at with a 6” gun on a boat 2 times as fast as you are? The destroyer is the workhorse of the modern navy because it is inexpensive, flexible, and capable of dealing damage. Sure, put a single destroyer against a single battleship, guess who will probably win. But put 30 of them up against the battleship, and guess who is going to get hit by the most torpedoes?

8) The present sub system is fine - except more nukes should be allowed.

I mostly agree, but check out the thread about truly invisible units.

9) Aircraft Carriers are divided into two kinds, roughly WWII and Nuclear. They are upgradeable. Nuclear Carriers are faster and have a greater carrying capacity. WWII carriers cannot carry jets.

Many of the WW2 aircraft carriers were in service until the 60 or even the 70’s. Yes, they can carry jets. But they are smaller and have less capacity. Jeep carriers from WW2 were even smaller and were used to ferry planes from the US mainland to the front line carriers. They are small, fast, and had almost no armor IIRC.

10) Aegis cruisers are revamped. They are faster and can conduct bombardments from long range (tomahawk missiles). They replace destroyers as the ultimate sub killers.

They should replace battleships, as that is what they did in real life. Also, they should be able to carry a single nuke, and although less strength in bombardment, they have the ability to select a target from a stack.

Sorry if it sounds like I am attacking you. Not my intention.
--GK

[Agathon]

Originally posted by GodKing

Look to real historical shipping. Lots of good styles, names, classifications, etc.

That's the general idea.

Sorry. Got to disagree. Ironclads were important, but mostly for RIVER warfare. Read a bit about the US Civil War and you will see. We need to add a system of including a Brown Water Naval element into this game.

I'd considered this, but I think it would be too difficult to incorporate into the game.

Dreadnought was a specialized battleship that had only the large guns. With the introduction of aircraft, the smaller guns had an important role to play again. First, be able to build Dreadnoughts, then later on upgrade them to battleships with the invention of the aircraft carrier.

Yes, I know about Dreadnoughts. However, the battleship became quickly obsolete during WWII. I don't see the need of demanding an upgrade that almost no one would find useful.

You ever been on a thin hulled transport that was being shot at with a 6� gun on a boat 2 times as fast as you are?

No, have you?

I'd thought about including cruisers for this sort of role, as destroyers historically did not have the range.

The destroyer is the workhorse of the modern navy because it is inexpensive, flexible, and capable of dealing damage. Sure, put a single destroyer against a single battleship, guess who will probably win. But put 30 of them up against the battleship, and guess who is going to get hit by the most torpedoes?

That's true. I can't think of any real objections to this. I just don't want to see everyone using all and only destroyers. I'd like to see them as primarily anti-submarine escorts for capital ships. They are replaced by Aegis Cruisers.

I mostly agree, but check out the thread about truly invisible units.

I shall.

Many of the WW2 aircraft carriers were in service until the 60 or even the 70�s. Yes, they can carry jets. But they are smaller and have less capacity. Jeep carriers from WW2 were even smaller and were used to ferry planes from the US mainland to the front line carriers. They are small, fast, and had almost no armor IIRC.

I'm pushing for the upgrade option so as to recognize the difference between the old carriers and modern ones. Less capacity for the old ones would do that job as well.

They should replace battleships, as that is what they did in real life. Also, they should be able to carry a single nuke, and although less strength in bombardment, they have the ability to select a target from a stack.

I see them as having long range bombardment capacity but not being the match of a battleship in close combat. Battleships are so expensive that it makes sense to keep them around, or no one will build them.

Sorry if it sounds like I am attacking you. Not my intention.
--GK

No. No problem, some interesting ideas there.

[joncha]

I'd really like to see navigable rivers in civ4.

I realise that the easiest way to do this is to compromise and go back to having rivers inside each tile (like civ2) instead of as tile borders (an idea, I admit, which has its own drawbacks) and allowing some ships to travel on (some) river tiles. However this is worked out, I think it would really pay off in the end.

jon.

[Fosse]

I agree with joncha. Rivers go back to the center of the tile, an we get two kinds: navigable rivers and nonnavigable. The smaller rivers can carry tiny ships and trade can occur around them. Land units can stand "in the river" just like they could in Civ 2 or SMAC.

Larger ones can hold bigger ships, trade, and must have a bridge built over them before units can cross them.

[Fake Boris]

I love the idea that navies could have a range and carry missions, just like air units.

I think the reason they don't have much importance, is in fact because foreign trade is neglected. Put back abstract trade routes as in AC and have merchant navies develop. Protecting these lines will then become a top priority to any player. It could also be possible (until modern technologies appear) to blockade trans-oceanic cities and colonies, thus negating the city's financial contribution to your empire.

The absence of true colonization is also an important factor. Make it that oversea cities absolutely need some kind of naval connection to the home country (until the advent of planes or radio). Failure to do so can result in disorganization which renders the colony vulnerable to takeover or outright revolt.

And about Marines: I think all units should have the ability to carry amphibious assaults, albeit with a significant penalty. Just make it lower on specific units with the Marine training.

These are only modest suggestions, but if there is something we can all agree on and that Firaxis could hear: FIX THE NAVIES!

Godking:

Ironclads are a bump in history, they didn't have much importance even in their lifespan. I don't recall them being used in a significant manner very often. Still, they can be included in the game, I agree with you. (Certainly considering GePap's comments).

[Brent]

I'm not very naval. I don't like combat ships, but I guess they're useful at defending my transports.

Trade

Like in Colonization

Rivers

Yes back in the middle of tiles, yes navigable. Let there be special ships designed for rivers.

Relations between Land and Naval ships

I like being able to build a ship that can't transport anything so I don't have to use as much resources. I want to be able to abandon a ship and use the people that were part of the ship unit to explore, conquer, and/ or settle land. I want to be able to build a ship unit and a land unit at the same time and have them automatically connected until they reach another landmass. Whoops, that should be Relations between Land and Naval Units.

Faster

I would enjoy having faster ships, not because of realism, but because it would make the game easier and more fun.

uselessness

I don't like having ships to manage when they have nothing more to do. Often this means when all the oceans have been explored. It would be better if I could do like I said and transform the ship into a land unit. One thing that would be good is if I could tell my useless ships to automatically re- explore, looking for enemy targets.

Currents and Winds

Maybe our ships won't go exactly where we want them as easily as we want them to. Maybe bring in another feature from Colonization, have separate linked maps that represent different sides of oceans, you go to the edge, you reappear on the other map. We could do this with separate included maps for the Americas and the Old World, whose main purposes may be to be used separately without being linked.

[POTUS]

How was trade in Colonization?

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by POTUS
How was trade in Colonization?

I strongly disagree with the idea of making trade as in Colonization.

Basically, it mas a manual trade system in which cities produced goods that could be directly sold by YOU. Civ is much more elegant in having trade arrows bypassing this old-school, micro-management prone system.

The only way I think trade could be nicely implemented a la Colonization is if the game had a strong economic model, in which goods produced and not gobbled up by internal needs are offered on a world market (which gradually opens up with techs and trade agreements) and PASSIVELY bought by your civ (unless, perhaps, you are communist).

Then, building a navy to protect trade lanes would become a top priority. Hey, we need to stay on-topic.

[Bonaparte]

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.

I agree with you 100%...wait I can only agree with you 99.9% because I had recently played a game where there was major naval combat involving Frigates, Man-o-Wars, and Galleys....I'm not sure how this all came about (guess nobody had coal) but it was a refreshing change for once!

[Filippo]

Caravels should come with Engeneering. Middle Age equals Caravel. Just thinking to board a medieval PIKEMAN onto a freaking prehistoric GALLEY makes me bang my head against the desk. It's simply ludicrous, yet pikemen are 4 techs away from Caravels. That's frankly too much. Astronomy placed there is also a joke.
I would place Caravels with Engeneering and Frigates with "Astronomy" (let's say in a tech that fits at that stage, cos Astronomy surely doesn't).

Ships need to move from 50% to 100% faster, BUT have many more chances to sink due to bad sea conditions, and be quite good chances even with Wonders or the knowledge of certain techs. I mean, the Atronomy will not save a Caravel from a sea tempest or an iceberg (Titanic anyone ?).

[Filippo]

Also the need to make a fleet important looks quite simple to me. To trade goods via sea (and you almost always do that) you need a harbor and proper scientific knowledges. Well, I don't recall what game I used to play that had this, but how hard is it to implement a port blockade feature ? No need for complicated commercial routes, pirates and pirating etc... sure they might add to it and I welcome them, but starting from simple stuff, a blockade is the way to go. You will need a fleet to defend your ports or you won't trade anything.

[lord of the mark]

are aircraft carriers useful in Civ3? In civ2 I had difficulty with carriers, simply because the limited speed of ships made it very hard to assemble a task force with suitable escorts for the carrier. To do so meant holding ships a long time, when the shields could usually have been used for something better.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Filippo
Also the need to make a fleet important looks quite simple to me. To trade goods via sea (and you almost always do that) you need a harbor and proper scientific knowledges. Well, I don't recall what game I used to play that had this, but how hard is it to implement a port blockade feature ?

Imperialism 2.

[Filippo]

ahhh yes, thanks for reminding me. I haven't played it in ages. I don't even know where the CD ended up

[Kuciwalker]

Why do Navies suck so badly in Civ?

I take it you haven't played the Byzantines in C3C yet