Air Naval Combat for Firaxis and Modders and You

[notyoueither]

OK. Apparently the game of development is still afoot. Maybe.

So a lot of people have great ideas for a much improved (but still simple) air and naval system. So, what should be done by Firaxis? What can be done by modders? What can Firaxis do to enable modders? The intention of this thread is to collect those ideas as they can be found and put them all in one place. Easy for Firaxis, easy for modders.

It might also keep us naval (and air) fans and buffs out of the way of the rest of the forum. Better feelings all around. If they think it's just fine the way it is, they can ignore this thread. If you think it could be better, worse, or just different this is the place. Peace.

Some of you will have to forgive me. I have never started a thread like this. I think I'm supposed to update this first post periodically to incorporate the general consensus. Is that right? Well, if I get it wrong, just point me in the right direction (even if it's to the door).

Oh yeah, one last thought. I picked general for the thread, well, just because. If it is inappropriate, the Mod's (forum gods that is) can move it. I'll track it down.

So. For opening suggestions, here goes.

* Ship movement should be greatly increased. It just takes too long for those big, expensive BBs and CVs to get anywhere. But how fast? Can these values be auto-scaled to map size?

* Air ranges should be increased. This would help offset the increases in naval speed. It would not be too traumatic to the land game, considering the defense ratings of terrain improvements, pop, and buildings have all increased in successive patches.

* Air should be allowed to sink ships.

* Modern war ships (DD and newer, and maybe Transports) should have AA values. Actually, all units could be allowed AA in the editor, but only modern war ships have it in the *standard* bic

* Fighters on CVs should be allowed almost auto intercept abilities vs air attacking ANY ship in its square. Even if the CV moved or the Fighters executed missions during their own turns.

* Air meant for land based ops (level Bombers) would have to be given a massive penalty in attacking shipping.

* There would be naval air units that would be effective against ships, but have no more than Fighter abilities on land. You could have just 1, the Strike Fighter, basically a fighter-bomber suited to attacks on shipping. I don't know if there is a need for Torpedo and Dive bombers.

* The land based air vs naval air effectiveness might be best accomplished by a new bombardment value (vs ships). Leaving the old bombardment value for land ops.

* Bombard units with naval bombard value should also have a switch that allows that bombard to sink ships or not. For instance, Artillery has a small naval bombard value, but is not allowed to sink ships. Naval strike aircraft have a high naval bombard value and are allowed to sink ships, etc.

* Some air units need to be prohibited from landing on Carriers (like Bombers).

* ASW. Naawww. I'll leave that to others who have thought it out better.

Over to you

[notyoueither]

Am I supposed to reserve more space? Just did.

salve

[Kilroy_Alpha]

Well, the truth is I believe the air and naval combat systems are basically ok.

That's not to say, I believe it's balanced, because I don't. The first thing I did when I started modding civ3 was beef up the sea and air units. But the SYSTEM, as designed by Firaxis, is pretty solid IMHO.

Air units can't sink ships. Yeah, this isn't "realistic (tm)," and I can certainly understand how it ticks some people off, but on the other hand ships can't strike back so this seems balanced. Sure, Firaxis could release a patch that incorporated AA and then allow air units to destroy ships and vice versa. In fact, I WOULD like to see this, but it really wouldn't change the game as much as you think it would, since you wouldn't be making either unit any more powerful (the two effects would cancel out). So it's not high on my list of things I want to see get done.

The only problem I have with the air and navy units is their complete weakness compared to ground units. You'd think a battleship would have attack and defense values at least APPROACHING a modern tank, but it doesn't. The result of THIS is that air and sea units are pretty useless for bombarding land units. Fortunately, this can be fixed with the editor.

So, I haven't contributed anything to your list but I have lengthened this thread a bit. You're welcome.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Kilroy_Alpha
So, I haven't contributed anything to your list but I have lengthened this thread a bit. You're welcome.

Not at all. Thank you.

If I'm not mistaken, I have caught you suggesting that naval bombardment should be more effective vs ground units.

All for the good.

Salve

[Encomium]

The best mod I have ever seen is Plutarck's LWC mod on the Civ Fanatics forum. Check it out.

As for naval warfare, I suggest:

1. No more cheating AI ocean-going galleys!!!

2. Air defense factors for ships reflecting its Anti-aircraft fire and ability to evade attacks. This would at least give the semblance of some form of carrier warfare; yes, merely attempting to simulate reality is inherently valuable to us, even if it does not significantly shift the balance of the game or some such concept.

3. A lot more types of naval units. (See that LWC mod and thread). Faster units, also.

4. Privateers and submarines can in reality seriously damage trade and commerce (and thus the economy) by merely getting on the trade routes of rival civs. They were never intended to attack enemy warships, not by the U.S. or Germans; the Japanese tried that to their great DISadvantage in WW II. The Germans almost won two world wars by doing that - not by blockading ports.

5. Less shore bombarding of improvements. Navies did not operate that way, and only ships of the 20th century had the firepower to cause real damage.

[notyoueither]

Encomium.

Ocean going galleys. I'm not sure this is the most pressing issue, but it doesn't hurt to bring it up here. I think they start doing that if their civ discovers Navigation, or if they have the Lighthouse. Don't yours?

AA for ships. You bet. Has to go with air sinking ships.

More types of naval units. I agree. I would like to see Cruisers. How about you?

Things to do to make Privateers and Subs better. There's a problem. Do you allow them to pick targets in a stack? If so what are the Carriers ASW escorts doing while the Sub is attacking it? Hmmm. Maybe not simple.

As for terrain bombardment. You're right. Also I think the designers are moving your way on this. Last patch increased terrain defence value (I think). This one bumped up buildings and pop.

Salve

[Grumbold]

If Firaxis provided space for 50 more techs, 100 more units and several more variable values per unit then almost everything anyone wants could be modded eventually.

One variable should be a setting for how many mp's are lost when a blitz unit conducts an attack, allowing sea units to get bigger ranges without becoming super-blitzers. Another could be an indicator of whether their AA attack was passive (only when personally attacked) or aggressive (will fire at any enemy air conducting a mission in the tile). The third and fourth would be straight air attack and defence values.

Encomiums submarine suggestions are interesting. Really they shouldn't have to attack, merely lurk near enemy ports to have an adverse impact on their economy. It would be for the opponent to actively hunt them down (which means the ability to see submarines would have to be random otherwise destroyers would be too effective). Unfortunately that would be a pain for the player to perform and bring back excessive AI patrol syndrome. The boardgame Rise and Fall of the Third Reich had strategic bombing/subs/raiders conducted off-map where the level of attackers and defenders on both sides were compared and losses to units and wealth calculated globally. I can't think of a better way to eliminate micromanagement of this feature.

Ocean going galleys is an option I'd like to be able to turn off. Seeing how games work if two continents are separated until one discovers galleions would be really interesting.

All that and the Civ III editor would be making a little progress toward being as versatile as SLIC coding in CtP, while being 100 times easier to program for the modmaker. I'm not expecting anything like it this side of the "Gold" release

[notyoueither]

Grumbold. Wow. Hopes are high.

More tech slots. More unit slots. OK. What say we give Mike 2 weeks to accomplish this? OK, Mike?

Ships Blitz! Kick myself for not including this originally. BBs should really be able to sink more than 1 Galley per turn. Hmmm. I think Soren hinted that stacked combat might be / could be in the cards. I may have read him wrong. However, Blitz would be a good intermediate step. Requires one more setting in the editor. Possible, yes. Practical, perhaps (we're asking for a few already).

Hmmm. You know, I wouldn't mind seeing a BB sink 24 Galleys in a turn. I don't think those old sails could really help a scatter, do you? And not restricting Blitz (1MP per attack) would not be a killer would it? Against other modern vessels, you would quickly get quite badly dinged and want to retire from battle would you not?

Aggressive AA? Adds complexity. I don't think the designers are going to go for it. Tried Harpoon?

Ahhh, Third Reich. A good part of my youth was whiled away on Third Reich.

Yes the strategic warfare worked quite well, but it was a static political situation. Maybe do something like Sats in SMAC? Subs, DDs, Bombers and Fighters in any home city can depart into the *abstract* area? Potential. But what would they do? Decrease an enemies commerce income? Care to send a copy of Third Reich to Hunt Valley? Very complex changes (read not likely to be done). I'm sure the designers have some good ideas in their own deck.

Agreed that Galley never going to sea might be good. But just what is a Junk anyway? Oriental Caravel?

Yes to SLIC as a wish (although I never modded CTP2, I hear it's great), but by the Gold release it's done. What do we want that may influence the designers before then?

Salve

[notyoueither]

Thought re Galley in Ocean.

What were those Vikings sailing in anyway?

Salve

[Grumbold]

Well one or more superb sailors may have nursed their longships to America and they may have founded a small colony but it had such a tiny impact I think we ought to ignore it for simplicity's sake. Trade and full scale colonisation of the sort supported by Civ was too impractical. Had Columbus & co arrived to find the natives immune to diseases and familiar with European language and customs then it would be different.

The abstract box is exactly the same idea. Yes it should impact upon commerce and productivity of the enemy cities (much like the corruption factor). If you want to bomb somewhere specific you've got the standard combat missions.

Blitzing 24 galleys might be ok if you believe in the technological supremacy model (and the extra unit slots means there should be several more intervening ships) but it could allow massive bombardments of cities or terrain which is not so good.

I wasn't putting forward my list as what I seriously think we will ever get. Its what I think we need to make the realistic model some people really want. I'm content with unsinkable ships in the meantime.

[Solver]

I am playing on Standard size maps, and that's why I view it all as OK. However, I think that:

for maps larger than Standard, both air and water units must have their movement/operation range increased by a certain percent, according to the map.

I'm fine by air not sinking ships, but wouldn't either mind if it was the other way. However, wouldn't then the Jet Fighters you get everywhere to protects yourself from Bombers become too powerful, able to sink ships?

And yeah, Submarine base movement should be 4, not 3...

[Harovan]

A constructive post from Encomium? Wow, that's been rare .

AI has no ocean-going galleys, unless they have either Navigation or Magnetism, and no seagoing unless they have either Astronomy or the Great Lighthouse. You can prove that by trading maps with the AI.

I also would like more ships. In current state, destroyers are kind of lame and it isn't worth to build them, because battleships are only one tech away. I would make destroyers faster and may be detecting subs (though I would have a problem with nuclear subs), and like to have a cruiser with the same range like destroyers, not detecting subs, but with more firepower.

[notyoueither]

Grumbold.

OK. Galleys on Ocean is a persistent needle. If the consensus is that it go away I wouldn't cry.

Abstract SW. Hmmm. Yes. Lose commerce income and possible disruption of resources. It would be nice.

Does Blitzing effect bombard? As you can tell I haven't tried that. I haven't modded very much yet personally. Until the final editor is out I prefer to devote my limited free time to playing (and kibitzing here of course). More on this when I can get home and test something.

Salve

[notyoueither]

Solver.

Yes. It would be really nice if the Air Sea movement ratings scaled up a certain percentage with Large and then again with Huge maps. I can see how it would make modding easier. 1 mod fits all. Problem with it would be documentation. They could say *on standard size maps, some movement rates increase with larger maps*. What percentages?

Yes, Jets. However I don't think their bombard is that great. I don't find them incredibly effective in that role, do you? In fact, they might tend to get shot down by AA more frequently than they accomplished anything. The real killers would be the naval strike units.

Subs movement, and all the other non-ancient (?) ships, need significant increases.

Salve

[Willem]

Re: Air Naval Combat for Firaxis and Modders and You

Originally posted by notyoueither

* There would be naval air units that would be effective against ships, but have no more than Fighter abilities on land. You could have just 1, the Strike Fighter, basically a fighter-bomber suited to attacks on shipping. I don't know if there is a need for Torpedo and Dive bombers.

Why not just have an aircraft that can only be based on Carriers, and only those have the ability to sink ships?