A Maritime Manifesto

[Optimizer]

In Civ 3, as well as in its predecessors, naval units are expensive, slow and weak. They are not used unless necessary, which harms historical realism, strategic depth and fun.

Historical realism
From the bronze age until the advent of railroads, sea travel was with little competition the fastest, safest, and most convenient means of transportation. The seas tied peoples together rather by dividing them, like mountains, forests and deserts did. One of the most important factors behind European technical superiority was that Europe is surrounded by calm waters - the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the English Channel, the North Sea and the Baltic. No other continent has got this advantage. Someone said "Who controls the seas controls trade, and who controls trade controls the world."

Strategic depth
Civs on islands are predestinated losers. They will have a hard time expanding and finding resources.

Civ warfare is land warfare. Naval battles and blockades occur too rarely. In many games you don't really need to build a great navy.

Fun
The Civ world consists of continents with some kind of deep blue goop between them. This blue goop is mostly a problem; it yields little production unless you build expensive improvements, barbarians come from there, you cannot walk on it, and the vessels used to cross it are poor. To be drastic, water is a bit like the fungus in SMAC. If you start on an island, the beginning of the game will be tedious since you cannot explore or interact with other civs.



SOLUTIONS
The trade system is a good step forward from Civ 1 & 2, but not really enough. Much can be done through ordinary modding. Here are some points:

More and better naval units
Here is a suggestion of a unit setup.

I have added Timber as a strategic resource needed for most pre-steam ships. It would be very common in Forests and Jungles. (All trees consist of wood, but far from all are suited for shipbuilding.)

Transport units
* Raft: coast, carries one foot unit, moves 3
* Roundship: coast, carries 2 units, moves 4
* Longboat: sea, carries 1, moves 5
* Caravel: ocean, carries 2, moves 5, requires Timber
* Clipper: ocean, carries 3, moves 6, requires Timber
* Steamer: carries 4, moves 7, requires Iron and Coal
* Transport: carries 5, moves 8, requires Iron and Oil
* Superconductor Ship: carries 5, moves 10, requires Aluminium

Naval power units
* Galley: 1/1/4, coast, Timber
* Dromone: 2/2/4, coast, Timber & Saltpeter (Byzantine-style Galley with Greek fire)
* Ship of the Line: 3/4/5 (3/1/2), ocean, Timber Iron & Saltpeter
* Ironclad: 5/6/4 (4/1/2), zoc, sea, Iron Coal & Saltpeter
* Torpedo Boat: 8/4/6, sea, Iron & Coal
* Dreadnought: 10/12/6 (6/2/1), zoc, ocean, Iron & Coal
* Submarine: 8/4/5, Iron & Oil
* Battleship:14/16/7 (9/2/1), zoc, radar, Iron & Oil
* Destroyer: 7/8/8 (5/2/1), zoc, radar, Iron & Oil
* AEGIS cruiser: 9/10/8 (6/3/2), zoc, radar, Aluminium & Oil

The Carrier and the Submarine remain as before. One could introduce a Super Carrier, too.

I do not know what to do with the Privateer. It is sure fun, but historically the privateers never confrontated warships - just merchant ships. Maybe they could be made really cheap and used for blockades.

Other ideas conerning naval units
If naval power units can carry ground units (which some of them should - a battleship is big enough to hold many soldiers) will the AI use it to transport them?

Sonar buoy - a naval unit with stats 0/1/1, radar, sub, sees subs. Deploy these to watch your enemy.

Demolition ships, like in Age of Kings (missile type?)

Ships can be given the Intercept ability to shoot down passing aircraft, but does it work properly? And can fighters on a Carrier intercept?

Splitting the Harbor improvements into several ones
* Dock (20 shields, expansionist) - gives food bonus
* Goods Port (40 shields, commercial, expansionist) - allows sea trade and provides some culture
* Naval Regiment (40 shields, military) - produces veteran ships


Giving the Marine flag to several units
Assaults from the sea have existed for a long time, so having only one kind of Marine unit is less than optimal. Mostly, convetional infantry have been used in landing operations, often with great casualties. (Think of D-day!) It would be better to remove the Marine and give its ability to several foot units at different technology levels.

One could try Musketmen, Riflemen and Infantry. One possible problem is that these units are defensive, and the AI might not use them for sea assaults.


Removing the All as Road ability from the Explorer
This would make rough terrrain an obstacle throughout the game, and promote expansion over the seas. The Explorer can become useful if it has the Submarine flag, which will make it invisible. Then you can use it to spy on your enemy within his borders, unless he happens to move a combat unit into its square.

Increasing the Commerce output of coast/sea/ocean

To be continued...

What do you think?

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Optimizer,

You make a number of VERY valid points. If you have a look at the thread "All encompassing Civ3 mod suggestions" or the "Mod with no name" thread you will see an edited copy of the Civ3stats files by Nero Would. I have addressed a number of the concerns that you have raised (Though not all).
Most notably, I have suggested that all ancient/medieval ships should have double movement, and industrial/modern vessels should have TRIPLE movement!!

In addition I have come up with stats for about 5 new naval units: The fire galley, corvette, ship of the line, the cruiser and the escort.

I have also thought of a way of having naval mines. A unit that is immobile, naval, is invisible like a sub, has a high attack and defense strength and has a "Paradrop" range of 2 hexes. This would be a great way of protecting your cities from bombardment by enemy by forcing enemy ships to take out the mines in order to get close enough!! Ideally, if you could somehow transport them, then you'd also have an ideal way of enforcing a blockade! Just put them in someones harbour and suddenly they can't trade!!

Anyway, please check out my ideas and let me know if you have any suggestions for improving them!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Zealot]

I subscribe this Manifesto. I was willing to help out the Expansion pack Civs, and I was working on the Portuguese Unique Unit. We were going to do a Nao, which required Navigation.

But then we realized that Navigation is basically a useless tech in Civ 3, because you can get a Galleon without researching Navigation! (go figure how !) And that you don't need Navigation to change the social age! And that there couldn't be much improvement between the Caravel and the Galleon also gave a big demoralization on the team debating about the Portuguese UU...

The maritime factor in Civ 3 wasn't properly tested. As many other things, as you unfortunatly have noticed...

[Optimizer]

Favour the Defender

Naval mines would be great if they can be made to work.

One problem with making ships very fast and important is that balance might be endangered. A solution is to favour defense. During the ages of sails, the defending ships had got the advantage of choosing their heading - the guns could just fire straight starboard or port. Mines would also benefit defenders.

I tried to give coasts a movement rate of 2 to simulate the difficulty to navigate shallow water, but it does not seem to work.

Functional Tech Tree
The tech tree must make sense regarding ships. I don't really know how it should look, though.

[Thrawn05]

I tested your idea about with naval power and all (I'm just dying to get into a naval with japan ). I increased all naval movements by 3x and this is what I've found on a standard island map with 80% water.

01: The AI spreads like rabbits. In fact, by 250 AD there was no land left, and most of the AIs were spread accross the world like poka-dots.

02: By the industrial age, I found that it took about 5 minutes for all the AI civs to finish, why? Because there were hundreds of iron clads running around in circles around my borders!

IMHO, I think somthing like increasing naval ship movment should NOT be pursued due to the fact that the AI dosn't know any better. I don't think it knows how to just keep a ship fortified in the middle of the ocean like I do (in a logical location, like in "international waters" near an potential future enemy civ), instead only programed to just move it.

[Optimizer]

The competition about land is more of a challenge than a problem. World conquest should be difficult.

I agree that tripling the movement rates is exaggerated, mostly because it unfavours the AI and takes time.

[Optimizer]

Questions

There are still things to find out, like:

How does the "secret" Marine attack bonus work (if it exists)?
Can ships with zero defense be captured? What happens to the units they carry?
Can ships be set to intercept? Would be really cool to have an AEGIS cruiser guarding the skies.

[Optimizer]

The rapid expansion could be impeded by increasing the settler cost.

The time needed for road building could be increased. If you play on a continent, the natural way of creating a trade network would be building harbours (or goods ports in my example). As long as you just have coastal trade, this network could easily be blocked. (I hope you don't have to block trade routes at the ports.)

[MGamer07]

I don't care so much about Naval Warfare, that's not my area. But I do care about Naval Trade. I think Merchant Ships or something should be required for trade, making naval blockades actually usefull. A merchant ship and a harbor would be needed to have overseas trade. One ship would then bring enough resources for X amount of turns, making it necessary to have multiple ships. Also privateers could possibly to raid the ship to gain a cash bonus, or even gain the ability to steal the ship (Both of these happened many times in RL, the money part was how Brittain got the funds to fight Spain). And the importance of trade ships would obviusly increase the need for a strong navy.

[Marcus Agrippa]

Very good points. I tried to create a scenario in which I would start out on a small but wealthy island in the middle of an ocean, with the two major land masses to each side. I would act as a Venice/Byzantium/London, the center of trade, and rule the seas, and set up colonies, etc. But I've started the game and I am not doing very well at all. My island only fits three cities, and they are all at maximum capacity already.

The setup for naval units are one reason for this, but corruption is another. Imagine trying to play as the British Empire in Civ III... India, on the other side of the world, would not be the jewel in the crown. It would be a worthless pit of corruption! Currently, Civ III is balanced to favor continental empires over colonial empires... that might have been true in the bronze ages, but in Civ III this balance doesn't even change during the 19th century.

Cheap colonial capitals should be made available.

[Optimizer]

Obviously, distance is a much larger cause of corruption than number of cities. That is too bad for empires with many cities overseas. One could introduce a new government callede Imperialism or something with the corruption rate of democracy or Communism. I am planning a more complete setup of governments.

[godinex]

Will be nice if one or two of the ideas remain. Keeo on Boys.

[Optimizer]

One or two ideas remain? I am making a mod with all the ideas implemented!

[Andrew Cory]

Obviously, distance is a much larger cause of corruption than number of cities. That is too bad for empires with many cities overseas. One could introduce a new government callede Imperialism or something with the corruption rate of democracy or Communism. I am planning a more complete setup of governments.
Umm, I wonder if there is some way to make corruption in far-flung cities decreasable with millitary units? Also, might it be that 19th century England was a republic, but that 19th century English _india_ was a despotism? How would this effect the game? Could somthing like that be implemented?

Obviously some of this stuff could not be done in the editor, but...

[Kinniken]

I totaly agree!

The maritime side of the game is even more under-developed in Civ3 than it was in Civ2.
In Civ2, I once made a modpack setting the game in antiquity where the sea was much more important (more powerful and faster boats, more productive seas), and the result was great (if anyone is interested, a mac version can be found on http://homepage.mac.com/civ2 and I can make a PC version on demand, email me at kinniken@mac.com).
Optiomizer, when your mode is done I want a copy! Normaly it should work on a mac as well. BTW, how are you planning to do the graphics? Wouldnt that be hard, especialy considering that every graphics must be done in 17 colors? (or is that automatic?)

For that provincial captial thing, would it be possible to switch the forbidden palace to building status, allowing people to make as many as needed? An other solution would be to beef up the courthouse, if that's possible (wasnt in Civ2...)