Thinktank : How should naval warfare look like in a Civ-game ?

[Spiffor]

Well, I'm not a military buff, and I don't know rats about naval warfare in real life. But we all know that naval warfare could be made better and more interesting in Civ. The intend of this thread is that people share their ideas or knowledge on that issue.

First, I'd like to ask a couple of questions to our military fans here : what was the historical function of naval warfare ? What was its tactical role ? Its strategical role ? What was specific in naval warfare and wasn't comparable to land warfare ? How did the progresses in hullmaking and navigation affect it ?

Second, I'd like to ask some questions to all of us Civ fans : Does naval warfare need to be overhauled ? What does it lack to be fun ? What could be done to make it more interesting ? Or maybe more realistic ?

Thanks

[Spiffor]

My biggest qualm with naval warfare in Civ is mobility. Naval units are slow. They are even terribly slow once railroads are around. Except in intercontinental wars, ships are completely useless. And even in intercontinental wars, ships are mostly useless once the troops have been transported on the other side. It is much more effcient to rely on land unit's superior mobility rather than relying on the slow advance of ships.

However, you can't just give ships a huge mobility and be done with it. With a huge mobility, the exploration process will end much sooner, and a part of the game's excitement would die too quickly . A huge mobility would make the limitations on Triremes and Caravels useless as well.

I have thought of a solution : a mix between the naval moves as we know them, and Civ3's aerial moves. More precisely :
- Ships have a few moves per turn, which work exactly the same as the ones we now know. For example, if a trireme has 3 moves, the players gets to move it 3 tiles per turn.
- But ships have an "operating range" like planes as well : once a turn, you can "relocate" your ship to an explored sea/harbour tile, within a radius. This "operating range" is much bigger than the normal tile moves. However, since it only concerns explored tiles, it doesn't spoil exploration, that will remain slow.
Ships that move this way are subjected to be intercepted by enemy ships en route;

What do you think ?

[Kuciwalker]

Other solution - make land units less mobile. Decrease (severely) the railroad movement bonus.

There's a problem you didn't look at in increasing sea mobility - if you make sea units too fast, it's impossible to intercept them.

You could give advantages to amphibious assaults, as well. This may be somewhat inaccurate, but it could do the job.

[MattH]

Sea travel seems to center around the movement of people and cargo. Nearly all pre-modern age sea battles took place to prevent/allow travel. In ancient times, the sea was the quickest way to move goods over long distances. Later, invasions of foreign lands (especially by England and Spain) were carried out by boat. In WWII, fierce naval battles took place to prevent England from receiving supplies. However, ships act more like a real fighting force in the modern age. Carrier battle groups have the real ability to project power and AEGIS cruisers can launch missile strikes from long distances.

In CIV III, it's hard to have real fun until the modern age (for me, at least). I always mod ships to move farther. Carriers hold more planes, and ships bombard farther.

Spiffor: I agree that mobility is an issue, but just adding 1 or 2 points will fix that. In my opinion, the reason there aren't so many heated battles is that (1) With a large ocean, it's hard to know where to send your forces and (2) there is real reason to fight.

Point 1 can be fixed with a modern age wonder like a spy satellite ( maybe you have to build parts for it, just like the SS?). Issue 2 is harder to solve. Maybe a new resource that is in the oceans?

[MattH]

I'VE GOT IT!!
Trade between civs could be mapped out in trade lines. They would look like those lines that are the borders, contain both civs colors, and connect two cities over water. These lines would be visible to all. An enemy ship over the line would cut off trade (maybe it would have to be there for two turns?). There are two options that I'm thinking of: (1) the ship automatically cuts off trade- not a declaration of war or (2) the ship/civ must declare itself as hostile. A navy and naval combat would be necessary to preserve your interests- just like in RL .

[Fosse]

Point two... that there is no real need to control the seas, and hence to need to fight in the ocean, is a result of over simplified water trade.

If Civ had a more CtP like trade system, where routes are established and potentially interrupted, then there is a real call for a navy to protect that and disrupt other civ's trade. As it is now, an effective blockade is improbably (and not fun) in all but the most extreme situations.

Another thing preventing the Civ player from needing a Navy is the fact that a nation's wealth is created by "working" tiles... instead of taxing the revenue that private citizens create... if private citizens are scared of pirates and other civs, they won't sail... your country loses money.

Of course, addressing this isn't really withing the scope of Civ (though the gang over at Clash of Civilizations is trying to deal with stuff like that), or at least not without big changes to the wat we play.

I would propose that all ocean trade cease if you go to war with a civ that has signifigantly greater naval strength in the region than you do, and that trade routes exist over water that can be interrupted. Those two things would make navies fun and needed, I think.

[Kuciwalker]

Perhaps pirating trade routes could be implemented. Give ships an "operation range", say 2 tiles. Then, you can set them to "pirate trade routes". If you manage to completely blockade a trade route, you have a 95% chance of getting all the trade along that route each turn. If you blockade only a possible route, you have a % chance, inversely proportional to how close you are to the shortest route (say, 50% if you were directly on it), of getting all trade along that route. This percentage slowly decreases as the traders learn to take different routes (though it doesn't if you stop the entire route).

I think trading should be redone somewhat. You should only be able to trade n distance away. If all of the potential trade routes are more than n distance away, you can't trade. Roads and railroads should decrease the distance cost of a tile, while difficult terrain should increase it. Sea tiles should count a lot few distance points (say 10 sea tiles count 1 point). This advantage increases as you discover techs like navigation and steam power. Thus, the sea becomes critical to trade.

Also, resource distribution within your empire should be based on the trading model - if the city is too far away, well, it doesn't get the resource. People could even pirate resources moving through your nation - denying the resources only to the cities the routes lead to, though.

[MattH]

A limited trade distance is fine- until you get magnetism. The british were trading with asia and sending prisoners to australia around that time.

[Kuciwalker]

Exactly - but they were doing it by sea, because it was too far by land. So the limited distance would force you to do it by sea.

[MattH]

Oops, sorry... I didn't read your post carefully enough

[Cruddy]

I don't see a huge amout wrong with the naval rules of Civ. They're not as good as playing any version of harpoon, but harpoon doesn't let you crush your opponents cities.

Main gripe; giving carriers their own specialist air units and not letting land based aircraft use them. Give carrier based air the ability to destroy naval targets.

Second biggest gripe; Getting an ASW helicopter that can spot subs without waiting for AEGIS cruisers.

Both of these can (I think) be addressed with the editor. But I thought I'd state them for the record.

[Kuciwalker]

Cruddy, you can restrict the units that can be on a carrier. Just make the unit you want NOT to be on a carrier Carry 1, carry only air, carry only foot.

[Sandman]

I've got a nice, simple solution.

Amalgamate all sea squares, so that they correspond to about nine land squares. So, whilst the land squares are the same size and shape as ever, the sea zones are much larger, and may have to be a bit irregular to support the coastline.

The advantages:

Ships move much faster.
Ships can exert dominance over many more land squares, as in real life.
Much easier for ships to control chokepoints and enact blockades.
Simple and easy to use.

Concerns:

Ownership of the sea zones, what if there are two cities of different civs who both want to launch ships into the same sea zone?
How will the resources of the sea zone work?
Ship values will have to be extensively reworked.

[Kuciwalker]

Sandman, the problem with increasing ship mobility is that you cannot DEFEND against assaults from the sea, because they can hit you the same turn they launch to attack you. This means that the only worthwhile naval units would be offensive ones. It also means you can't intercept convoys.

[Rommel2D]

I think naval rules should be a sort of blend between current ground and air rules. Ships move like they do currently (maybe with some increased movement, esp. more modern ones), but give them an intercept option. Once sentried, they would blockade in about a two square radius and intercept any enemy ship that enters that radius.