Limited sea warfare and a chance to fix it.

[Cyrus The Mike]

I've allways had a problem with the sea warfare system, it limits you to warships that have a 50% chance at everything. What I mean is I have a battle ship with combat 1 and I go into battlewith another battleship with nothing and I lose?... all the time? and only because of the coast???

So what I thought a solution would be was, and this would only work in industrial on up, to put a min. production on a ship and let you place how much you want to go into your ship. Lets say that the amount to build a battleship is 200 with the enhanced battleship you can invest 450 to gain 10

These "enhanced" battleships can have a limit to like 10 ships or something. so what do you guys (and girls) think?

[Tattila the Hun]

Ooo, superheavies! I like! I say, that would be a grand addition to all military unit production. Quality versus quantity.

[snoopy369]

I'm not sure that 'more ships' are a good idea... I don't think it fixes the main problem with sea warfare (the lack of reason to do it). I don't see why the '50%' issue is a problem - I'm perfectly happy to take on 50% odds, i'd just send two ships. If I have 2 ships that cost me 400, if I need to spend 450 to get only a small bonus (that's what, 30%?) why would I want to do that?

[Cyrus The Mike]

I'm not saying more ships I'm saying the enhanced the ships that are in use now by putting more into it, so you can have one battleship at 70 and another battleship at 45 wile clicking on the same button, and I dont care if you invest 10 and get 50 extra , thats for the programers to figure out. do you see what I'm saying?

[Sabre2th]

I understand what you're saying and I like the concept, but I'm concerned that it might be more complicated a system than I would want to deal with.

[inca911]

Also would be nice if maintenance costs were unchanged for the "stronger" unit, so I can have an early age army that doesn't break the treasury. Perhaps the "stronger" units can be created by investing hammers in the existing promotions right out of the gate on top of other experience granting improvements (e.g., barracks, aggressive trait). I'd love to be able to spend a little more time to build city raider, archery bonus axemen.

[Fleme]

How about making every player have the ability to have a flaghip in his fleet, which would basically be a beefed up version of whatever ship is state of the art?

Historical examples would be HMS Victory for the British or Battlecruiser Yamato for the Japanese. The ships should be in some manner altered versions of the actual ship, perhaps in terms of or other things, such as mobility, cargo space or other special features? I could think of a whole bunch right away and there would be a lot of historical pointers to what flagships actually did.

So, instead of just adding a GG to your ship thus making it a general unit, how about you add your GG to the ship and it becomes a flagship instead, with increased attributes? Another alternative would be to have flagships as national units which you can only have one (or later on in the game, two or three, depending on mapsize maybe?) and just required more than their regular versions? Once a flagship became obsolete by tech it could be forced to dock at it's home port and to give +experience to naval units created at that town or a cultural bonus or something like that. Researching Military Science or Tradition would enable you to have flagships. I love the whole idea and I would really get carried away with it.

I can already see it...

Battleship Yamato (Battleship)

50 (+10)
Causes collateral damage
Can bombard city defenses (-30% turn)
5 (-1)

HMS Victory (Ship of the Line)

12 (+4)
Can bombard city defenses (-20% turn)
+50% vs Frigate
4 :move (1+)
Cargo space: 2 (+2)

USS Nimitz (Carrier)

25 (+9)
Starts with Sentry, Medic I, Medic II
5
Cargo Space: 5 (carries fighters and bombers) (+2)

Ahh, it'd add so much flavor

[Theben]

Personally I'd ditch the +10% DEF on coasts, and add +5-10% to ALL offensive actions. Land and sea, as the attacker usually gets to choose the point and time of initial contact. The defender got to choose the terrain, so why not?

[Krill]

CiV idea...a possibility, but is there a way to introduce choice into the equation.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Cyrus The Mike
I'm not saying more ships I'm saying the enhanced the ships that are in use now by putting more into it, so you can have one battleship at 70 and another battleship at 45 wile clicking on the same button, and I dont care if you invest 10 and get 50 extra , thats for the programers to figure out. do you see what I'm saying?

And I'm saying that making more kinds of ships available - which is fundamentally what you're doing, it's no different form making a new ship that is a bit stronger, even if the 'feel' is different - doesn't fix the fundamental problem with sea warfare, which is that there's no reason to do it. Trade route blockades were the best chance, but they're simply too complicated - and it goes too quickly from 'too weak' to 'too powerful'.

Basically - on most maps (non-archipelago), what's the purpose to a fleet? What real benefit does it give you (especially in MP)? The amount needed to prevent an invasion is prohibitive, because all it takes are a few scout ships to figure out where the bulk of the navy for the other side is, and then you just go the other way with your ships.

It takes something like 8x to 10x the force to be able to reliably own the waters; because on the other team, all they need is enough ships to survive getting over to the other side with all of the transports intact. I don't care if you kill all 15 of my battleships, if my transports make it over alive then I've already won - and it would take you probably 80 or 100 battleships at least in order to be able to actually kill my 6 transports and 15 battleships reliably in the short time you have to try it (assuming I have some small ability to scout).

Since that's the only purpose to navys in Civ4 - trade routes are slightly useful, but still not really enough - it makes it generally a bad investment; you invest just enough to force your opponent to invest a decent amount also, and roll the dice and hope you guess right on which approach enemy ships might come from; but you don't make any real effort to own the seas. Heck, it's not that different from real world navies, pre radio and radar/sonar; before WWII how many navies just passed undetected by enemy ships because they were a mile or two out of sight range? If you don't have a limited access (ie English Channel type situation), your ships might as well stay in port and wait there for the attackers...

Give ships a purpose other than simple troop transport (either boost trade route blockades in a way that doesn't force everyone to have huge navies, or figure out something else) and you fix the sea warfare problem. Otherwise there's just not that much point outside of cities...

[Wiglaf]

The game sucks enough already, let's not make it worse, gang.

[johnmcd]

I agree with the 'navies are pointless'. It's a function of such badly modelled trade in general. The only purpose of military in Civ is conquest of land, or occasionally to extort small sums of money or resource out of someone.

Navies should be all about controlling international trade, but as trade in the game is practically abstract how you would make boats act on it is hard to sea.

[Supr49er]

Maybe there should be a naval scenario, an air force scenario, etc.

Then those who like the huge variety of ships could have a ball.

[dregor]

Is there a way to out and out ignore another users posts so they don't show up?

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
The game sucks enough already, let's not make it worse, gang.

Wiglaf, what happened to Cheney?