Why doesn't the AI build destroyers?

[Sevorak]

Venger,

Read the article, and the contributor biography below. Stuart Slade is also in a position to know, and he offers lengthy proof as well as an explanation as to how the 40 knot myth got around.

Going by unit graphics, that IS a Spruance class destroyer, and that IS an Iowa class battleship. Yes, you get the destroyer before the battleship, but that's because there are too few naval units. Ideally, we'd at least have Destroyer, Cruiser, Battleship, Carrier, Missile Destroyer, AEGIS Cruiser, Supercarrier, and Antisubmarine Frigate, but since they have decided that a destroyer is a destroyer regardless of time, that's what we're stuck with. As for Civ3 combat fantasyland - aren't we already there?

-Sev

[Venger]

Originally posted by Sevorak
Venger,

As for Civ3 combat fantasyland - aren't we already there?

-Sev

Can't argue with that...

Venger

[FrankBullit]

In the Fascism patch (unofficial!) for Civ2, the Dreadnought unit was added as a step between the age of sail and the modern era. This unit successfully reflected the world as known in the Imperialist Age and really added alot of fun as England, Germany, and other sea powers peaked at the height of coloniol expansion.
Maybe the present destroyer unit could be redesigned as a 'dreadnought unit' to precede the battleship and another destroyer unit at lesser value could be also designed.

[The Andy-Man]

i was pissed when i saw (ages ago) that they only had Destroyer, Ageis and battleship.

I mean, i even though Civ 2 missed out on naval units, but 3 is a bit pants. Waht about steel cruisers? Drednaughts?

plus, i this the stats (still aint played game )are a bit out of context, i would have thought they got the balance right with Civ2, to me these destroyers look to powerful compared to Battleship and Aegis to week...... (in civ2 a Vet Aegis was about 10times mopre usful then ANY other unit (except howie)....

[Wrong_shui]

Ive never seen th ai throw out a decent sized navy, so the lack of ships doesnt bother me.

[dexters]

Wrong, what difficulty level did you play?

[StevanVB]

I agree with those who say naval units are "broken" or at least unrealistically depicted in Civ III.

First off, a frigate, man o´war or ironclad doesn´t have a snowball´s chance in hell to hurt, not even mention sink, a WWI-era DESTROYER, I won´t even go into battleships and cruisers. Their iron cannon-balls would simply bounce off the destroyer´s steel skin ineffectually - IF they could even hit it, given the latter´s vast speed advantage (~36kn vs. ~10kn). Instead, the old crates would be ripped apart by the destroyer´s grenades and torpedoes.

Therefore, modern naval units (destroyers, battleships, subs, AEGIS-cruisers and carriers) should have substanially higher stats than their predecessors.

Secondly, those modern ships´ stats need some serious re-balancing, too.
This is a bit complicated, since battleships and destroyers have changed quite a bit through the century, due to the advent of missiles, computers and modern sensors.
Nevertheless, the general rule, that a battleship -given the same technological level- could beat a destroyer hands down holds true (you have to compare a Gulf War era, modernized battleship to a contemporary destroyer, not a WWI battlewaggon!).

Thus, the battleship should be powerful enough to take on two or three destroyers at once and survive (my fully edited civ3mod currently uses 18 for DD attack vs. 50 for the BB, all other units edited as well, ofc.), but also be extremely expensive to build, so losing one should really hurt (same for carriers, esp. with full airwing). Also, it, (&maybe the destroyer as well) should see 2 spaces, given that BBs were the first military units to be equipped with radar and have the ability to carry cruise missiles (the Iowa´s carried 32 of them back in the Gulf).

Destroyers, on the other hand, should move faster (at least 2 spaces/turn, though ship speed needs to be increased through the panel), see subs and be EXPENDABLE, i.e. cheap, since it is this feature that really distinguishes them.
Destroyers (&modern frigates) are the backbone of the fleet. It is their duty to protect the mission-critical capital units (carriers, assault ships, transport convoys etc.) down to the point when they put themselves in the path of missiles or torps aimed at the capship.

Speaking of expendable, transports are much too expensive in the standard rules. If those things had taken anywhere that long to build in real life we´d have lost the war (both wars, actually).

Finally, subs, both conventional and nuclear, really need to be beefed up.
Their attack ratings are FAR too low. It shouldn´t be much of a problem for a sub to sink any ship, up to and including CVs and BBs. On the downside, a detected sub should go down in no time when attacked.
Furthermore, conventional subs (WW2 era, as depicted in the game) were rather cheap to produce, giving lots of bang for the buck, which is why the Germans, bombed and low on resources could chugg them out at a decent rate even late in the war.
Modern nuke subs, however, are a totally different story.
Basically they´re capital units these days. Not only do their guided torps, anti-ship missiles and TLAMs give them tremendous offensive power, but they are also fast (30+, CONSTANTLY, since they can´t run out of fuel, they can keep up their max speed almost infinitely), dive deep and do this extremely silently.
The flipside is their price and that they take rather long to build.
Again, some serious editing needed here.

Anyways, I don´t think it makes sense to bother Firaxis with these issues, though, as those people didn´t, it seems, give much on this board´s and its fanbase´s opinion in the first place, I´d be surprised if they did now.
Rather, each of us who dislikes the rules as they are should take some hours off and edit them.


Regards,
Steve

[GePap]

About BB's

Lets start by answering a question:
Venger-as is BB's, like all other ships bombard once, only diff is that they have range 2. If you edit them and give them the bility to blitz (attack more than once) then you get to bombard as many times as you have movement points.

As to BB vs destroyers: Ladies and gentlemen, this is a very difficult case and a game like civ 2 could never model it perfectly realisticly, so we should not even try. Remember a few things- the BB's main battery would really rarely hit the DD, which is moving too fast and is too small. It could use its secondary batteries but these have a shorter range, the sane as the DD. One thing not modelled are torpedoes, which dertoyers do have (or did in WW2). One of the most important tactics of DD's were torpedo runs, in which DD's would charge the line off BB, launch torperdoes and then turn back. This was done in Jutland with little effect, but was far more effectively done by the US at Leyte Gulf. The last BB vs. BB battle took place between a force of old US dreadnaughts (including Pearl survivors) and the southern Japanese taskforce, which included 2 BB's. If you read up on this you will see that while the US BB's did fire many rounds, few hit the Japanese, but the Japanese ships were advancing through a narrow strait, so their ships could not manuever. Several US DD's carried out tropedo runs and it was mainly the Torpedoes that sunk the Japanese. The point of the history lesson is that while a DD would generally be unable to sink a Battleship alon, it is not impossible and it would be very hard for the Battleship to sink the DD's either. More reason to bring back Cruisers....

[Sevorak]

StevanVB,

A Gulf War remodernized battleship differs from the 1945 version by:

16x Harpoon missiles in box launchers with an inadequate targeting system,
4x Phalanx CIWS that are effectively useless,
32x TLAM (note: not TASM!) in ABL's as well.

In modern ship to ship combat the guns are useless so we ignore them.

The modern destroyer perforce carries:

2x Phalanx CIWS that are effectively useless,
8 cell Sea Sparrow SAM,
21 missile Mk 49 RAM (anti cruise missile),
61 cell Mk 41 VLS, which can be assumed to hold 8 Harpoons and 53 SM-2 SAMs, but could be part TASM, part SAM as well)

So when they spot each other, each fires their missiles. The is firing them out of ABL's with inadequate targeting, so it does so slowly. The destroyer fires off its ABL missiles in quick succession as the VLS also fires off its anti-ship missiles.

As the missiles bear down on the battleship, its Phalanx CIWS uselessly spatter the air with bullets. The missiles start slamming into the battleship, and it starts taking serious damage.

As the missiles bear down on the destroyer, it engages its anti-missile defences. Its Phalanx are equally useless. However, it engages its Sea Sparrow, its RAM, and also starts firing SAMs out of the VLS boxes.

Chances are, the destroyer (which actually HAS antimissile defence) will live rather than the battleship, whose designed defence was always the armor (and against modern warheads, that's a no-go).

I would wager that as technology advances, the destroyer gets better and better and the battleship falls more and more behind. Naval guns are outdated, and if you want more missiles, get an AEGIS cruiser and pack the VLS full, it will ALWAYS carry more than some old battleship.

No one uses battleships (even remodernized ones) any more, because all a battleship really is nowadays is sea-borne artillery. Yes, it is useful in that respect, but air power does it so much better that there really is no contest. I do not expect Civ to model this, however, since a large, expensive unit that does a job a less expensive unit does better that is in a game tends to not get used.

As for your naval theories, destroyers may be smaller, but that hardly makes them expendable. Yes, they do practice drills where they fling themselves in front of a torpedo, but that's ONLY to protect the supercarrier. Supercarriers are not adequately represented either - currently, the CivIII carrier isn't that expensive and carries only 4 units. Anyway, destroyers don't practice ramming torpedoes for the fun of it. They are some of the most valuable and versatile parts of the fleet.

GePap,

If we're talking WWII, pre missile era, yes, the battleship (assuming Iowa class) runs down the destroyer and pounds it with its secondaries. If the battleship's not fast enough, the result is inconclusive as neither can really do serious damage to the other, but leaning towards the BB and a lucky main gun hit (which shatters the DD like a toy).

-Sev

[player1]

Just one note:
Destoryers, Battleship, AEGIS Cruiser maybe have unrealistic stats, but I think that they are pretty nice gamebablanced (considering their costs).

But, I don't think same for Privateer & Subs.

[dexters]

Subs are a tremendous waste of resources for their cost, they can barely do anything and from reports, it would seem the AI can see them without Aegis

[player1]

If AI won't see them & they have 10 attack, they would be OK!

Since then, only they will attck & 10 attck is fine for sinking destoryers & maybe Btalleships & AEGIS (still this one could see it).

[CyberGnu]

I actually build almost entirely destroyers... Since the AI inists on churning out ironclads and galleons like they were going out fo style. If I can build three destryers in the same time as two battleships, that's one more ironclad I can kill for the same production value...

Besides, seeing my battleship getting sunk by a trireme made me so depressed I didn't feel like build any more of them...

[Dev]

Sevorak, what makes you think the Phalanx system is useless ?

I doubt you're right about your BB stats since the US based entire battelgroups around their modernzied IOWA BBs which would be rather stupid....
(Pure speculation from my side though).

/dev

[Altuar]

Yeah, I'd like to hear more on the alleged uselessness of the Phalanx as well.