Brainstorming thread for improving Civ III's naval aspects

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My Maritime Manifesto

Please read and comment my Maritime Manifesto for ideas and opinions on this topic.

[korn469]

RedBird

I don't understand this. Why aren't they fast if the do attack? You can still move after you attack. Do you lose your road rate after you attack or something? Why does it make the ships slower if they attack?

a battleship in the blitz mod has 4 movement points for example (this still might need tweaking)

if it uses all of its movement points for moves it can move up to 12 tiles, however if it does 2 attacks then it loses 2 movement points, depending on when it did the attacks it would be able to move between 6-8 tiles which is quite a bit less, and if it did 3 attacks it would only be able to move between 3-5 tiles, and 4 attacks would mean it would be able to move between 0-2 tiles

How do you set Battleships to carry CM's? In the editor I see settings like "Transport only aircraft" or "Transport only Tac Missiles", but no "Transport CM's".

Also, just curious, why don't you have this capability for subs?

ok i haven't tested it enough with 1.29f (it worked in 1.07-1.21) to know if it still works, but if you set a battleship and an Aegis Cruiser to carry only foot units and only tactical missiles and then set cruise missiles to foot units then these two units can carry cruise missiles but not tactical nukes while the nuclear sub can carry both

as for submarines maybe i will make them carry one cruise missile, but to me they are attack subs like the gato, or los angles, or akula class, while the nuclear subs are ssbn and ssgn like the ohio, typhoon, and oscar classes...

So, presuming visible trade routes, if a ship's ZOC covered the route the route would be blocked?

i don't think visable trade routes are needed, and as far as the calculations go, any open square wis a possible trade route so i don't think it would look very good

but yes to your question

however leaving things as they are now, a blockaded city could show up on the map as having a red strike out circle (you know, like the ghost busters symbol) around the port for the city in question

[RedBird]

Originally posted by korn469
a battleship in the blitz mod has 4 movement points [...] it can move up to 12 tiles, however [...] if it did 3 attacks it would only be able to move between 3-5 tiles, and 4 attacks would mean it would be able to move between 0-2 tiles

I see, I forgot about the blitz part.

if you set a battleship and an Aegis Cruiser to carry only foot units and only tactical missiles and then set cruise missiles to foot units then these two units can carry cruise missiles but not tactical nukes while the nuclear sub can carry both

Ah. And the battleship and Aegis can't carry MI for example, because they also have the "only tactical missiles" flag. Neat. I'll try that out.

[korn469]

Ah. And the battleship and Aegis can't carry MI for example, because they also have the "only tactical missiles" flag.

hehe yea that is the idea
just make sure you change cruise missiles to have the load ability

[Mikel]

I'll repost a thread I started about 2 months ago. It deals with a lot of the ideas people are putting forward here.

"First off let me say that my job entails a small amount of application development, so I understand that no matter how simple the program and how seemingly simple the change may appear it is not always possible to incorporate the change into the original design.

Secondly I suggest this change to make tactical advantages to the game, which may well be especially appreciated when there are human opponents to face, not because I can give any real world justification for these alterations. If anyone can come up with any plausible reasons then tack those on below. Also all values are suggested to illustrate the point

So here is a question, why build a navy at all? The obvious answer is to transport units over water. If that is all they are useful for then naval strategy in the game is very week, after all there are no resources in the game that appear in ocean squares that a navy could seize hold of. The only tactical advantage that can be gained by a navy is attempting to blockade every single enemy port to block their trade routes. This is very difficult to do and it seems impossible to tell if you have succeeded. So here are the suggested changes.

First some basic changes to the defence factor of water tiles. Coast 50%, Sea 20%, Ocean 0%. Then increase all ships attacks by 40%. These changes should make no difference to battles in coastal regions, however attacks become much deadlier in the sea and extremely lethal in the ocean.

I will use the later game in this example but the tactic could be applied to Frigates and Privateers.

Now increase the Destroyers speed by 3.

This is the big change. Give a new ability to submarines ”Blockade”. When a submarine is blockading it not only stops trade in the square it occupies but also in a city shaped perimeter around it (privateers could be every square around it). Give a new ability to Battleships “Escort”. When a battleship escorts it cancels the effect of any Blockade in every square around it (Frigate cannot escort to cancel a submarines blockade square). These actions will only effect civilizations that your country is at war with (even the privateers just to keep it simple).

Now if you desperately need a supply of X and your enemy has filled the oceans with unseen submarines what do you do? Build a chain of battleships through the ocean where they will be vulnerable to attack? Or send out fleets of speedy Destroyers to find and eliminate the subs?

A few last things. For this tactic to be usable throughout the later stage of the game the ability of an Airport to supply a trade link would have to be taken away, unless anyone can think of a simple tidy solution to that problem. Also the player would need more feedback i.e. when a unit performs one of these new actions their area of effect remains visible to their owner at all times, and perhaps a message from one of your advisors telling you that your blockade has cut the supply of X."

I have never come up with a simple way of incorporating air combat and transport with this system.