Ship of the Line

[Lancer]

Originally posted by gdijedi7
I've always found it...interesting that ironclads could be sunk by other ironclads and/or frigates in Civ...

They are trying to use the model of land units, cannons replacing catapults... In fact steam powered ironclads didn't replace frigates, or in reality SoLs, they terminated them. No frrigate could ever sink an ironclad ship. Run certainly if the wind favored them, but that's as good a day as they could hope for.

An interesting story exists of a steam/sail combination German surface raider in WWI. It took many prizes and evaded capture for months because nobody could believe that such a ship could be a threat in the age of oil.

[CerberusIV]

It took less than 20 years from the first ironclad duel for ocean going ships to begin to carry rifled guns firing shells with hardened tips designed to pierce armour. In Civ terms that's only a few turns so ironclads should not be invulnerable - just harder to sink.

[Lancer]

nbarcay, coaling stations must also be very hard to model in a game. A nation's system of coaling stations was what seperated the men from the boys back in the day of steam.

[Lancer]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
It took less than 20 years from the first ironclad duel for ocean going ships to begin to carry rifled guns firing shells with hardened tips designed to pierce armour. In Civ terms that's only a few turns so ironclads should not be invulnerable - just harder to sink.

That's the problem with Civ. A nation could build an ironclad in a year, a mere fraction of a turn. By spanning thousands of years, and getting in a rush about it, whole periods of history are glossed over.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Lancer
nbarcay, coaling stations must also be very hard to model in a game. A nation's system of coaling stations was what seperated the men from the boys back in the day of steam.

I think you may be thinking in terms of ships with much greater speed and seaworthiness than Civ IV ironclads have, and thus with much greater ability to engage in operations a long way from home.

[Lancer]

Yes, I think you're right.

[joncnunn]

I looked up on the Wiki today, the US Monitor and CS Virginia weren't the first ones actually built. Nor were they even the second.

The first one built was actually by the French (1859). Followed closely by the British (1860) and neither one along US/CS lines. The British one was definately sea worthy enough to have crossed the Atlantic, however it needed to stay in European waters to keep an eye on the French one. The French one resembled an SoL while the British one resemebled a Frigate and was much faster than the French one.

Oh, and it turns out "Iron Clads" were several classes of ships, many of the ones built becoming obsolete before they were finished consturcting because technology was improving so rapidally.

The US also seems to have waited until designs finalized into what became known as the "Pre-Draughtnaught"[sp?] before building modern seaworthy ships C. 1890.

[Kuciwalker]

The Monitor and the Virginia were just the first ironclads to fight each other.

[Quillan]

Originally posted by joncnunn
The US also seems to have waited until designs finalized into what became known as the "Pre-Draughtnaught"[sp?] before building modern seaworthy ships C. 1890.

Dreadnought. HMS Dreadnought was the first "modern" battleship constructed. Prior, the large battleships had a mixture of big and medium guns to engage different targets. The Dreadnought went with only big guns in the main battery, so they could put more of them on the ship and standardize the fire control. It revolutionized naval design in the early part of the century, and obsoleted the old ones.

[Lancer]

The beauty of wooden ships in the age of sail gave way to black smoke belching metal horrors that could sail against wind and tide. So far about 170 years since machine driven ships took to sea. Their time has been short.

The time of the trireme lasted about 2500ish years, yes? What about sail? 350-400 years.

[gdijedi7]

Originally posted by nbarclay
the ability for a lucky longbow unit to defeat an attacking infantry every now and then is a concession to gameplay.

But this is not a good thing.

Still, not saying you're wrong.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by gdijedi7

the ability for a lucky longbow unit to defeat an attacking infantry every now and then is a concession to gameplay.

But this is not a good thing.

Still, not saying you're wrong.

Whether or not it's a good thing depends on how you define good. From a gameplay perspective, there needs to be some kind of mechanism by which civs that are behind in tech can keep more advanced neighbors from stomping all over them with complete impunity. At the moment, I can come up with three basic ways to accomplish that objective.

1) Make the difference in power between older and newer units smaller than realism suggests it ought to be.

2) Allow civs to build or upgrade to weakened versions of units that other civs have the technology to build but they don't. There would be a presumption that the civ is either copying captured weapons or buying weapons from arms merchants.

3) Create an explicit "arms sales" mechanism of some kind as part of the diplomacy system.

Note that from a functional perspective, the first and second ideas have essentially the same effect. Either way, a civ with obsolete technology has access to weapons that are good enough to have at least some chance of killing enemy units, but not nearly as good as what the civ could build with more advanced technology. The second approach would be better from a perspective of realism, but the first is simpler from a perspective of game mechanics and of the number of different types of units players have to keep track of. So which is more good: a simpler approach that feels less realistic, or a more realistic approach that adds complexity?

I've always interpreted the ability for primitive units to have a chance against more advanced ones as reflecting the concept that the primitive units have managed to get their hands on at least a limited amount of weaponry that is more advanced than the units' names imply. For example, in the old spearman-defeats-tank scenarios from Civ III, the spear units probably managed to get their hands on a few antitank weapons.

[wodan11]

I've always attributed the ability for "primitive" units to have a chance against more advanced ones as reflecting the biggest tactical advantage you could have: surprise.

Combat in CIV is on a "macro" scale. We simply do not know the detailed ground conditions for a battle, and we do not know the detailed tactical conditions. In actuality, ALL combat in CIV is on a strategic level... there is no tactical combat at all.

So, who's to say if that unit of longbows didn't sneak up under cover of darkness and a small hill that the infantry foolishly did not have any sentries to watch? 99% of the infantry troops are snug asleep. A couple flights of arrows from surprise will kill them all quite effectively.

And, for the proverbial spearman vs tank, who's to say the spearman didn't likewise sneak up and catch the tanks with cold engines, and the crew likewise asleep?

One of the very first skills the human race taught itself was how to move quietly and to sneak up on prey. This is the basic first-level tech of Hunting. The same skills that serve against a deer also serve to enable a guy with a simple knife to sneak up and silently kill a sentry or two. From that point, the rest of the infantry or tank unit is a simple matter.

Wodan

[Petrus2]

Zulus defeat gunpowder era troops at Islandhwana. So it has happened. True the number of troops was unbalanced, but do you know how many 'soldiers' a unit represents? Is it a consistent number through the game? Just doesn't happen often.

Wodan, if you consider Civ combat to be strategic level (and I have no argument with that), then the whole sneaking up on unalerted sentries theory doesn't make sense. Tactically, surprise like that could wipe out a company of troops, or maybe a battalion. But not a brigade or division.

Gameplay wins, and I am just fine with that

[wodan11]

Hmm. I agree to some extent. But not totally. Depends on how many troops a "unit" represents I suppose. I think we would all agree that the actual number of human bodies represented by a "unit" differs depending on the unit. e.g., a spearman may be a company. How many are in a tank unit? 100 tanks? 100 bodies (which would probably be 20 tanks)? 1-2 tanks? Something else?

Does a unit of infantry represent a brigade or division? We would all probably have a different answer. Me, I would probably say a company is closer. So, could a company of longbowmen wipe out a company of infantry? Sure.

Wodan