A Maritime Manifesto

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hey Captain, Great Ideas!!

I reckon the best would be a combination of ideas 2 and 3, but with a slight modification:

Privateers should be invisible, and perhaps with an ability to treat all squares as roads (to simulate their speed, but without having to increase the movement rate!). They should have a low attack (not zero) and a decent defense-they should also be cheap and have a bombard strength of about double their normal attack strength (but with a low rate!) That way, you can use them to blockade AND to attack coastal cities (but perhaps not do much damage). You would then give your Frigates a "see invisible" flag, so that they can hunt the pirates!
Idea 3, though, I reckon would work well just as is! I'm note sure if the AI would know what to do with it, though!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Lurker,

These are some great ideas, but we are still limited to what we can effect given the limitations in the game design.

The best feature from CtP2 was the trade routes: being able to see the trade route used made them vulnerable. At present we can only either blockade a port or cut off a capital city to effect the same thing. I would much rather have the Privateers sailing forth to sack treasure ships than run around and pretend to be useful.

If you haven't tried to put together a mod using the editor, it's a long slog: the level of detail increases the time required exponentially. I have done some play testing with increasing the naval unit strengths and movement under the 1.29 patch, with mixed results. Increased movement from 4 to 8 for a frigate, and upping the bombardment strength made for some brief and bloody battles in far off corners of the world. It made a difference in the diplomacy efforts since it didn't take 10 turns to put some ships in place to lend support to an allied civ so they were less likely to be annoyed.

However, it also changes the value of protecting your homelands. I had to build chains of coastal forts for artillery and coastal fortresses in all cities to prevent them from being leveled by a mere 3 Ironclads. The AI isn't wasn't able to fully exploit the changes as I was able to do, but it was definitely a more fluid environment.

Among the changes I made was to reduce the bombardment range to 1, since even 16" guns wouldn't be able to reach much past 20 miles. And I allowed some ships to carry troops (foot units only) to simulate having an invasion forrce sitting on the deck before going ashore. To create a more modern navy, I allowed upgrades to AEGIS Destroyers and Frigates.

I do wish there was some way to increase the support costs since to make more modern units usually means that the cost to build is similar to the previous generation's costs, but upkeep gets progressively more expensive.

Take a look at the editor and I will see what I can do about post ing a .bix with most of the changes mentioned above and a few of my own too.

D.

[civilleader]

Originally posted by SieGermans
oh, i also figured that it'd be cool to give each civ it's own special naval unit as well. The Greeks get Triremes (replaces galley), the Romans get Fire Galleys (replaces galley), the Egyptians get Reed Boats (replaces outrigger), the Chinese get Junks (replaces caravel), the Japanese get Assault Landers (replaces landing craft and can carry armor), Americans get Gunboats (replaces ironclad), the British get East Indiamen (replaces Galleon), the Russians get K-19 Subs (which replace nuclear subs), the Germans get U-Boats (which replace regular subs), the French get Ocean Liners (which replace transports), the Iroquois get Dugouts (which replace the outrigger). Any other suggestions for the remaining Civs and a better one for France, please feel free to add!

What about Zululand, India, and Persia?
The Zulus never had a navy, the Persians were mainly continental, and India had a tiny naval force compared to its army. The brits get two naval units in this arrangement, and this could create problems.

[Nuclear Winter]

You could give Russia Typhoon subs, and the fire galley should be property of the ottomans. The roman galley could have the boarding ship(a ship to board the enmy, please! ) high attack and low defense.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Well, if you're going to give the Romans and Ottomans an excellent, early naval vessel, then you'd DEFINITELY have to give one to the Carthaginians as well! After all, they were the greatest naval power of their age!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[lajzar]

In fact, the Romans were famously poor sailors. Their entire naval technology base was a direct result of captured Carthaginian vesels. I wouldn't give them a special naval unit. Unique units should be for areas the civ was famously good at. The Romans certainly had ships, but were only so-so sailors.

The Fire galley should be reserved for the Byzantines anyway.

Whe giving out special units, it should be a case of everyone gets one in a broad class. The mongols weren't that good as sailors, and don't deserve a spcial ship.

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by lajzar
In fact, the Romans were famously poor sailors. Their entire naval technology base was a direct result of captured Carthaginian vesels. I wouldn't give them a special naval unit. Unique units should be for areas the civ was famously good at. The Romans certainly had ships, but were only so-so sailors.

The Fire galley should be reserved for the Byzantines anyway.

Whe giving out special units, it should be a case of everyone gets one in a broad class. The mongols weren't that good as sailors, and don't deserve a spcial ship.

The tricky bit about the Romans as sailors was the corvus -- "the crow" -- a spiked boarding plank used against the Carthaginians quite successfully which let Roman troops board the Carthaginian ships at a significant advantage.

-Oz

[MqsTout]

All this talk about the units, but little talk about his idea for the buildings. I REALLY liked the idea of 3 different buildings for the 3 different effects of the harbor. I'm actually in favor of splitting up the effects of all the buildings as I've seen some mods do. The marketplace being split up into one for luxuries and one for commercial bonus, etc. It adds more choices to have to be made for build orders. It'd increase the maintenance costs too, which would probably nicely change the way economics works in the game (particularly by end-game having way too much money income per turn).

Of course, like everything, I'm sure it completely screws the AI like everything else we can try.

[MqsTout]

About the naval movement rates, how about a series of small wonders (that aren't too terribly expensive) each with the +1 or +2 increases movement rates of ships that could be used create a building-based 'tech tree' for naval improvements? They could have each requiring the previous to build. (Scratch that, then they'd all have to be in the same city.)