Unit Strengths by Era

[planetfall]

Sub unit needs fixing

Subs in this game are ridiculous. In sub vs gallery, both lost the same points. The sub should be able to attack once and disappear without taking any hits when going against galleys, caravels, ironclads. They did not have any capability to respond to a modern sub. Other games have a first strike sub advantage where sub gets extra hit points for first attack and then gets the option to continue attach or retreat. This capability seems much more in line with sub's real use.

Summary changes to sub unit:
1. attack vs obsolute units with no hits
{they can't find the sub}
2. first strike power advantage
3. retreat option after first strike

Should not be hard to program. Just add ability to bombard with a torpedo with range of 1 tile for the first strike.

What do you all think??

[Zachriel]

Re: Sub unit needs fixing

Originally posted by planetfall
Subs in this game are ridiculous. In sub vs gallery, both lost the same points. The sub should be able to attack once and disappear without taking any hits when going against galleys, caravels, ironclads.

That is not correct. Subs of the first half of the 20th century had to surface to fire torpedos. They also had to be close to the target for any sort of chance of hitting anything. They are therefore subject to counterattack. Long-range bombardment would not be the correct model.

There is still plenty of room for improvement. They should let the sub hit the weakest member of a stack for instance.

[player1]

Re: Re: Sub unit needs fixing

Originally posted by Zachriel
There is still plenty of room for improvement. They should let the sub hit the weakest member of a stack for instance.

That's an excellent idea!
That would make subs transport killers.

[Zachriel]

Re: Re: Re: Sub unit needs fixing

Originally posted by player1
That's an excellent idea!
That would make subs transport killers.

That is what subs were for. Very risky too. Sink the transport, then hope to survive the counterattack.

Would be easy for Firaxis to implement.

[planetfall]

zachriel's naval history

RE: "That is not correct. Subs of the first half of the 20th century had to surface to fire torpedos. They also had to be close to the target for any sort of chance of hitting anything. They are therefore subject to counterattack. Long-range bombardment would not be the correct model. "

I can't find any data to support contention subs had to surface to fire torpedos. The average torpedo range seems to be about 2 miles, effective probably a mile as Japan had a long range torpedo of 4 miles. Firing a torpedo from 1 tile away with no return fire, like a bomber attack on land tiles seems reasonable. With 1 tile distance, counterattack of survivor would be likely. But if target is wooden ship with no sonar how are they going to find a submerged sub????

Sub - the very early Submarines operated in a manner which is much different from the
"Run Silent, Run Deep" way that we think of them today. Submarines were really surface
vessels, which had the ability to submerge beneath the surface for small periods of time
(usually under an hour). In WWI, U-Boats operated by running along the surface until they spotted a target, then if the vessel had the ability to fire back at them, to submerge long enough to move in for a torpedo shot, then move away and resurface.



See included sub history summary and URL's especially:
Diary of a U-boat commander

Adolf K.G.E. von Spiegel commanded a German U-boat during the First World War. He published his memoirs in 1919. Here he
describes the attack on a cargo vessel in April 1916.

[Zachriel]

Re: zachriel's naval history

Originally posted by planetfall
I can't find any data to support contention subs had to surface to fire torpedos.

Quote from your text file:
U-boats traveled under water unseen, could close in on a surface ship, fire a torpedo and slip away

[Zachriel]

Re: Re: zachriel's naval history

I will humbly apologize for not being clear. The sub must surface to periscope depth to find the target, where the wake can often be seen by surface ships.

Nevertheless, it would certainly be extremely unlikely for a wooden vessal to sink a sub, and more than likely it would be because the sub commander made a serious mistake, or because of a mechanical problem, such as probably happened on the Kursk.

I do stand corrected.

Here's a good link describing a sub attack:

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/chalcraft/sm/attack.html

[planetfall]

very, very interesting

Ok Zachriel in the URL finding. And I did think you were saying the sub had to be on the surface vs at periscope depth. More history than I wanted to learn today, but very interesting.

Now back to civ3 world, still think the sub unit needs to be fixed. In WWI only US involvement stopped German uboat attacks, and
in WWII for every German UBoat the allies had to allocate 3 units.

I like the idea of picking off transports from the bottom of the stack. Uboats were not good against warships, but were great with psychological impact on supply ships. Hard to image real effectiveness was only 1% of total tonage shipped.

Until fixaxis changes sub, workaround may be to increase attack strength of sub by 1.

Have a good weekend, and thanks again for the url and the clarification.

[Encomium]

Subs in WW II attacking convoys at night usually remained on the surface to move quickly between the ships. They submerged only after they attacked to try to avoid detection.

Nuclear subs always stay submerged and run very quickly; WW II era subs only could make several knots underwater. That difference is not reflected in the game.

Naval Warfare in Civ III is a JOKE.

Bombers can't sink surface ships?? Did Sid miss Pearl Harbor?? How absurd. I changed all bomber values in the Editor to allow them to attack.

Privateers and submarines were in reality designed to attack Trade Routes and merchant shipping - not warships. But any number of privateers between rivals' harbors will accomplish NOTHING in Civ III!

And naval warships did not spend all their time bombarding improvements. I removed that function from every ship except battleships and Aegis.

At least in Civ II we could atack seaborne caravans and diplomats.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Encomium
Subs in WW II attacking convoys at night usually remained on the surface to move quickly between the ships. They submerged only after they attacked to try to avoid detection.

Exactly. Traditional subs were air-breathing machines.

It should be easy for the gamemakers to redesign naval warfare to better reflect naval combat, using a bombard attack (I have changed my position on sub bombardment.)

- Subs should be invisible unless a unit just happens to enter their square.
- Most defenders should not see the sub, but just get a notice that they have been attacked and what the damage is.
- The sub should normally attack the weakest unit in the stack.
-Like all bombardment, traditional subs should end their turn after the bombardment.
- After the attack, the defenders units could spread out searching for the sub.
- Cruisers should be able to sight the sub at a distance of one square.
- Advanced subs should be able to move after the attack, as a counter to the cruisers.

- Cruiser could be the cavalry of the seas, and should also be able to move after the attack.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Encomium

Bombers can't sink surface ships?? Did Sid miss Pearl Harbor?? How absurd. I changed all bomber values in the Editor to allow them to attack.

Keep in mind that a Battleship unit represents a small fleet, not an individual ship. And even in the attack on Pearl Harbour, a number of ships survived the attack and were able to get away, or they were heavily damaged and were repaired later. There weren't really that many ships that were completely destroyed.

[player1]

Originally posted by Willem


Keep in mind that a Battleship unit represents a small fleet, not an individual ship. And even in the attack on Pearl Harbour, a number of ships survived the attack and were able to get away, or they were heavily damaged and were repaired later. There weren't really that many ships that were completely destroyed.

But in Civ3 you CAN'T ever destroy a single enemy battleship unit.

Still, Cruise Missiles are usefull for DESTORYING ships.
But, there is one problem:
-you can't attack 1hp ship with cruise missiles (BUG), although you can destory 2hp ship
-You can't transport cruise missle by water

If someone from official team consideres to give Radar Atrillery a movement of 2, then Cr. mis. should have land movement of 2 also.

[Willem]

Originally posted by player1

But in Civ3 you CAN'T ever destroy a single enemy battleship unit.

But that's the point I'm trying to make! Even in Pearl Harbour, the Japanese were not able to destroy ALL the ships of the Pacific fleet. Some got away and some were repaired/rebuilt later. And since a single ship unit represents a fleet, like at Pearl harbour, then aircraft should not be able to destroy a unit completely, only damage it severely.

-You can't transport cruise missle by water

Yes you can, check out this thread. There's another one around somewhere as well, called Cruise Missile Tweaks.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40278

Originally posted by player1


If someone from official team consideres to give Radar Atrillery a movement of 2, then Cr. mis. should have land movement of 2 also.

Thanks for pointing that out to me, I didn't realize their range was so limited. That is rather ridiculous. Cruise missiles are a medium range weapon, there's no way they should only have 1 movement. 3 would be more like it, maybe even 4. Oh well that's easy enough to fix in the editor.

[player1]

Just to clarify:

It's land movement is 1 (transport), but its Bombard range is 2.

Both of them need to be boosted.

[Willem]

Originally posted by player1
Just to clarify:

It's land movement is 1 (transport), but its Bombard range is 2.

Both of them need to be boosted.

You think? Those things can fly for hundreds of miles! What were they thinking? I've been noticing a LOT of unit stats that don't make any sense.