Naval aspects

[Dis]

yeah it's annoying, but ships can slip pass other ships. But is this true in modern naval warfare? (with air surveillance)

Of course that doesn't count on the first turn, since that is essentually a surprise attack. Surprise attacks suck, but face it guys. We do it to the poor AI.

coastal cities should be better defended. But, and this is a big but. If they have fighter planes patrolling, they should be able to spot the incoming ships.

[MasterDave]

Originally posted by Dis
I never used cruise missiles, but I felt they worled well in civ2 in knocking out the effectiveness of my battlships. As it is right now, battleships are useful up until 2050.

And yes, subs need to be able to choose their targets. Not being able to do so is just plain silly. Probably the stupidest design desicion in civ4. Yes I know game balance and all that crap. How is it balanced to have a useless unit?

I don't think subs are useless. They are less expensive than desty's and almost as strong. They are also nice, fast ways to move spies around.

[Strudo]

Originally posted by sparkyal
As for slowing TRN's down, I disagree. One of the coolest things about amphibious warfare is the ability to strike anywhere at anytime. This is the way of that type of warfare. I would suggest that costal cities are well defended

My issue isn't so much about coastal cities getting stomped by amphibious assults, but more the pillaging the ensues. When 3 boat loads of cavalry rock up, your gonna loose a lot of the terrain improvements. You'd have to keep a dozen strong, high movement units within each coastal city to minimise damage. Seems excessive to me. Maybe TRNs could have an amphibious promotion as well, which would negate the slow down penalty.

Just throwing ideas around in the hopes that someone is reading who can do something about it.

[Virdrago]

Originally posted by MasterDave:

I don't think subs are useless. They are less expensive than desty's and almost as strong. They are also nice, fast ways to move spies around.

I agree. With a mere 5xp, a sub can have an 80% retreat rate. Stick three or four of these together, you have a nice wolfpack (Think Germany WWII) who can take out almost any stack. At least they can cripple a transport stack severely. Two or three of these wolfpacks can demolish your enemy's navy.

[Virdrago]

BTW, how do you get the "originally posted by" quote inside the box? Sorry, off-topic again.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Virdrago
BTW, how do you get the "originally posted by" quote inside the box? Sorry, off-topic again.

just to the right of the edit button (just above the actual post) is a button called "reply with quote" which is what I'm using right now.

A box comes up with the quoted text all set up. You just write what you want underneath it (or you could move the cursor and put it on top, but that seems silly).

[Virdrago]

Thanks. That's a lot easier than typing out "Originally quoted by ???" before the quote.

[sparkyal]

Can ships pass other ships? Tough question, there are a lot od variables. The biggest being the emcon conditions. Let's say you've got a brand new Aeigis cruiser sailing around with it's radar going. It can detect any aircraft within say 300 miles. BUT, everyone within 1000 miles knows the speed, course, and type of ship. If the CG has eny interesting improvements they may even know which ship and who captain's it. If you know that info you can get around it or plan on how to kill it. Now, it detects aircraft at 300 miles, but what about ships? A large ship like a CVN at like 50-60 miles. So, if you are cruising around in another CG |(much smaller then a CVN), you can stay a nice 70 miles away and you will not be seen (if it's at night). So, is it possible, yup!

This is why most ships do not use radar all that often. they may have their helo's go up, fly 100 miles away, and turn on the Radar. Being in the air it can see everything (ships, planes) up to 150-200 miles. Now that is harder to get around. But, you know where the helo is...you can kill it.

Planes, fighters have decent radar for the most part, , there are fast and they tent to operate in pairs. all of these things help, but their surface search radars are of poorer quality.

So, in the real world, it really is possible to sneak past and hit a beachhead. As crazy as it sounds, a determined enemy with a well planned out invasion plan which would include radar suppresion, EMCOM warfare, etc...can sneak past some ships.

Also consider this, a modern amphib assutl can move in on hovercraft that travel at like 40 knots. that's pretty fast.

sparky

[Dis]

I was in the navy for 8 years, but I admit, I don't know all that topsider gadget stuff. I was a guy who worked in the pits (engineroom).

I believe the ships do use their radar mostly. But I was on ships with aircraft (aircraft carrier, and a marine amphibious helicopter carrier). They needed radar to detect their own aircraft. .

So I don't know how easy it is to detect other ships. How would you know it's not a civilian ship? Radar signitures can't tell the difference. Sonar would be more reliable in detecting if it's military or civilian. But what's the range on sonar?

In the navy we still ran what we called darken ship. Which means we don't operate white lights outside at night. We do use red lights on outside areas so you can see where the hell you are walking without falling off the side of the ship. . Red light doesn't travel as far as white light I believe. But that may just be a throwback from ww2. In many ways, the navy still operates similar to what it did back in ww2. It's so out of date in some areas.

Can a fleet slip past another fleet? I think so. Though as I mentioned in a post above, if a defending city has fighters, or if there is an aircraft carrier with fighters on it, they should have a chance of spotting, and intercepting the incoming transports. I think the fighters should have a free shot at them. And not only should the transport take damage, but the units inside should suffer from collateral damage. That way the enemy wouldn't have full strength units landing on your shores. It only makes sense some of the troops will die when their transport is attacked by fighter aircraft. It makes no sense actually that they take no damage when their transport is attacked.

[sparkyal]

I agree, when a CV is in the area, atleast the E-2C is up and running so the radar is pretty much a given. so for CV's, you shoudl be able to spot that stuff pretty well. No CV and it would be a piece of cake to slip by (unless a helo was operating).

As for civ, I also agree that if a TRN get's hit, it's cargo should suffer colateral damage. I think that is an easy thing to represent. good idea Dis

sparky

[sparkyal]

I agree, when a CV is in the area, atleast the E-2C is up and running so the radar is pretty much a given. so for CV's, you shoudl be able to spot that stuff pretty well. No CV and it would be a piece of cake to slip by (unless a helo was operating).

As for civ, I also agree that if a TRN get's hit, it's cargo should suffer colateral damage. I think that is an easy thing to represent. good idea Dis

sparky

PS: Red lights have 2 advantages: (1) they don't travel as far, as you said; (2) they don't ruin your night vision

[Tattila the Hun]

One thing, I'd love to have a "continuous surveillance"-mission for airplanes. The plane would fly the recon mission every turn, without me telling it to do so every time, and I would be informed of any foreign shipping they spot. Same for planes on CV's, only their mission gives them further basic view, like Sentry on steroids.

Also, It'd be nice, if planes on CAP would have a chance at taking pot-shots at any ship attacking the stack they are in.

Another thing that bugs me... I have two DD's and someone sails at me with five frigates and five galleons. Any modern destroyer would tear apart a force with sails... But they go after one ship at the time. And the galleon manage to land troops.

And another... I can live with groundtroops destroying my air units stationed in foreign city... (Maybe give them a chance to fly away, 50-50?... I wonder what the city's owner thinks of him waging war in his city?)

But boats! Any boats! One damn destroyer enters the city and destroys 20 of my bombers! Argh! They could tear the ship apart...

One more thought... Lethal sea bombardment. For planes, cannons and artillery. Artillery would behave the same as in landbattles, have a chance at being destroyed, and destroy ships. Collateral, too.

I wonder, how many of these were omitted, because the AI can't handle it?

[MasterDave]

Originally posted by sparkyal
Can ships pass other ships?

Only in the night...

[CerberusIV]

The problem with surprise landings of troops is that the enemy can just unload all their transport ships in one go. It isn't that easy to unload troops and equipment across the beach and never has been in reality. I'd suggest that transport ships (galleys, galleons and transports) should only be able to unload one unit per turn unless they are in a city. Maybe exempt amphibious units from this.

Then defending ships and aircraft would have time to attack the beachead units and the ships before they finish unloading. With earlier units there would at least be an opportunity to get reserves moving up to the battlefield and to contain the pillaging.

I know Civ is a TBS game but it is rather silly that entire armies can be unloaded without the defenders seeing it coming or having a chance to do anything about it.

[sparkyal]

Can't unload all that? D-Day ring a bell? Invasion of Italy? Okinawa? the planned invasion of Japan? you can unload quite alot on a given beach over a short period of time. Especially if it is undefended. Besides, I think the fact that TRN's can only carry 4 units takes this into account. Besides, then how would the Marines make any difference?

The amphib assult part of the game is really ok IMHO. I understand wanting planes to have some beter abilities as well as the navy.

and yes, it is terrible that modern ships cannot attack more then once in a given turn. I'm not sure how you wouod modfiy it so DD's have two attacks but 8 movement and BB's have 3 attacks and 6 movement.

sparky