Naval warfare

[Lord Maxwell]

One thing has always bugged me about the civ line of games, when it comes to naval warfare a Mahan strategy is basically worthless. Maybe Mahans ideas of all out main fleet warfare isn't the strongest naval strategy, but it should atleast be a viable option. (It is probably one the most used naval strategies in real history.)

[Henrik]

Naval warfare has allways been one of the weakest things in civ, all you do whit your ships is to bombard.
Reall navies blockade and patrol.
How often do you get involved in a naval war in civ?
Where the action is at sea?
Never...
There should be reasons to maintain large navies and they should be able to do a lot more.
Navies are much better handled in Imperialism I and II there one of the first thing I do in a war is to either blockade the enemies main ports (If I have the pleasure of having naval supremacy) or to try and save my own navy from the enemy.
In the first case the enemy can do two things:
1 He doesnt use his ports at all (losing all goods from territory not conected to him whit roads)
2 try to fight back (maybe after first retreating whit the entire navy elswhere and gather reinforcements for his fleet), if a ship is beaten (a trade ship or a warship (in imperialism 2 you manage them about the same way, galleons for example can be used for both things) it could sink, or it could be captured by the other actor in the naval battle).
If I am blockaded the same thing happens basicaly but this will often cripple the economy of the blockaded nation, I have concluded peace treaties after not winning any territory, but knowing that the enemy no longer has any fleet and thus can't hurt me no matter how large his armies are.
He will obveisly rebuild the fleet but that takes time, and since he hasn't been able to trade during this time it will be really hard for him.
In this game navies are important, in civ they aren't since the only thing you can do whit them is to bombard and move troups.

[raingoon]

This brings up the question of "ports" in civ. For some reason, the military and economic importance of major ports has not been widely discussed here. In Civ 2, the ability to move your caravan to any tile on the coast and from there load it into a transport as easily as if it were in a coastal city is just one reason why ports were functionally non-existant.

I would LOVE to see Civ model a port city. It should be a BIG deal if one of your cities becomes a port, and the uses of that port should be exclusive -- merchant marine, naval base, etc., should all either help to make it a port or be the benefit of having a port actually built there.

I would also hope we'll be able to create "Navies" the way we'll be able to create "Armies." It's just a small detail, but in CTP they were always simply called "Armies" no matter what units were in the group. Which is unacceptable, if only because we should be a notch or two above Risk.

[Henrik]

About the blockade thing, I think it would be ok, if you when you move a ship into a city you would get a menu, there you could chose:

• Raid
• Bombard
• Blockade
• Cancel Action

Raid, would let you raid a city, maybe destroying a city improvement and get the money usually gotten from selling this improvement, the more guarding units present the harder it would be to raid a city. If a coastal battery is present in the city this option would be unavailable, or atleast have a 60% higher risk of failing. Also not all ships should have this option, modern ships wouldn't get this option becouse they are ussually not very well suited for raiding parties to use, the ships that where allowed to do this would be:

• All ancient ships (like trireme)
• All light warships (not merchant ones if such ships exist), whit light warships I refer to sloopes or barques or the like (ships used for privateering)
• Larger ships (like Galleons, Frigates or Man Of Wars) would not get this option, and no ships past the Ironclad would get it either.

An example of raiding would be: virtually all privateer landings... Oh and raiding parties could capture population as slaves if such aare included in the game (example of this would be the ancients and the 17th century)

Bombard: This option would allow ships to use thier cannons to turn city improvements to dust, and it would also be able to reduce population, there will ofcourse be a chanse for no building beeing hit, more than one building being hit or for the bombarding ship to be sunk/dammaged by the coastal batteries (if such installements exist).
Ships allowed to bombard would be:

• All major cannon ships, like galleons, frigates and Man of Wars
• All ships more modern than ironclad (whit the exception for submarines and carriers, a carrier wouldn't bombard by itself, it would let its planes do the job)
• No ships from the ancient era (like trerimes or galleys(note: Galleys where still used in the Napoleonic wars so they doesn't really quallify as ancient but where introduced around then))

For an example of really serious bombards I give the bombing of Copenhagen by the brittish during the Napoleonic Wars.

Blockade: A blockade would cut of all revunes from the city (well there could be say: 10% smugling/blockade running) in question to the rest of the empire (unless there is a land connection), all trade routes to other cities would also be temporarily terminated (if they still work as in civ 2). If there are any ships in the blockaded city they would reduce the amount of income lost from the city (as they escort the merchant ships) and there would be an increasing risk of confrontation the more ships there is in the city. If it comes to a confrontation the ships do battle in the normal way (but if the escorting ship lost there would be 25% of it joining the blockaders(but whit a health bar in total black) as a captured price ship).
Also if the blockade is going smothly the blockading civ would get about 25% of the trade arrows normally generated by the city distributed among the blockading civs port towns.
A blockading ship would stay fixed in the square it moved into the town from and would have a little "B" on its shield.

This, I think along whit the presense of trade ships, would make the ports and navies more importants part of the game.
Oh, and if you think this would overcomplicate the game it's not, you would only get the menu and see the blockading ship all the rest would be handled by the computer.

[Cyclotron]

Ports in civ were qualified by the port facility, which allowed veteran sips to be buit and repaired docked ships.

This may not be suffiecient for Civ 3, but the idea of only being able to load up units is ridiculous.

First off, if I can't load a unit from a regular tile, than why can I unload a unit on one? It is impossible to have one without the other, and you must be able to unload units anywhere for obvious reasons. Granted, sea warfare needs some changes... like stacked units, bombarding, etc. But exactly what would a port do that a large city with a harbor and a port facility could not? I haven't heard any speifics.

Henrik: The action at sea is missing? I use blockades in Civ2... to cut off trade, and to prevent enemy landings. Sea units like carriers I use for mobile strike and support bases, and I need to protect these with capital ships in turn, etc. Sea warfare actually has just as much depth as land warfare in Civ2. You can do much more than just ferry troops and bombard.

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"Any shred of compassion left in me was snuffed out forever when they cast me into the flames..."
- Marsil, called the Pretender

[Henrik]

How where you able to cut off trade whit the help of your navy?
And what exactly could your ships do other than fend of invasions and support invassions?
Have you read my rather long post? You arent able to do anything like that in civ2
Also I also think that you should be able to load unload on any tile.
[This message has been edited by Henrik (edited March 14, 2001).]

[Bender]

I know this is a touchy subject on another thread, but introducing resources to the game would improve naval strategy and priority. Blockading ships and raiders would be able to destroy, intercept, or pirate resources being traded from one civ to another. Warring nations would therefore be extrememly reliant upon resources, trade, and NAVIES.

I'm not in favor of overcomplicating anything, but the simple addition of resources could drastically improve this aspect of the game.

[Cyclotron]

Henrik, I cut off trade by sinking AI ships holding caravans. On an island map, any inter-civilization trading has to go by sea and if I control the seas I become the economic power.

You say that Civ2 navies are for supporting invasions and stopping them. I would say that they also block trade and serve as transport for missile/air strikes. Really, what else does a navy do? All navies are meant primarily for supporting invasions and preventing them. That is the purpose of a navy, and I fail to see why this is somehow limited and what you would propose they do in addition to this.

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"Any shred of compassion left in me was snuffed out forever when they cast me into the flames..."
- Marsil, called the Pretender

[Urban Ranger]

In CtP you can use your naval units for blockade and piracy. It shouldn't be too bad to add these features to Civ 3. To blockade a sea trade route in CtP all you need to do is to move a combat unit on top of a trade route (you can see those) and that stops trading on that route. However, the route is cut permanently, i.e., it doesn't reestablish itself even when the combat unit moves off.

[Henrik]

quote: Originally posted by cyclotron7 on 03-14-2001 09:55 PM Henrik, I cut off trade by sinking AI ships holding caravans. On an island map, any inter-civilization trading has to go by sea and if I control the seas I become the economic power. You say that Civ2 navies are for supporting invasions and stopping them. I would say that they also block trade and serve as transport for missile/air strikes. Really, what else does a navy do? All navies are meant primarily for supporting invasions and preventing them. That is the purpose of a navy, and I fail to see why this is somehow limited and what you would propose they do in addition to this.

I think missile launching is part of the invassion thing I wrote.
And how often do you sink a ship that has a caravan on it?
You can hardly blockade a traderoute from a city to another civ 2 can you?
Again I'm not sure if you read my entire post.
What I am sugesting in the blockade part of it is very different from just sinking ships whit caravans on them.

[Deathwalker]

I agree with the points made above the vavel aspect of Civ has never been used or cultivated. I personally feel that Imperialism and Colonization made better use of the navy, I also fell that the AI should be made to use aircraft carriers as just that, they never do?

[stonewall]

I think that Civ3 should model reality. In order for troops to land on any tile, they should require the use of amphibious landing craft. Also, the type of terrain they are landing onto should determine how long it takes to land. Landing on a sandy beach is different than landing against a sheer cliff. As for loading ships, if you want to load ships from any tile they should follow the same rules as for landing.

[Cyclotron]

quote: Originally posted by stonewall on 03-15-2001 09:12 AM I think that Civ3 should model reality. In order for troops to land on any tile, they should require the use of amphibious landing craft.

This is actually not reality; ships of the line in the Napoleonic area just sent out small boats and had their men wade ashore from there. Armies have made "amphibious landings" millenia before there was an actual "amphibious landing craft."

Henrik: How often do I sink a caravan? Well, using cheat mode, I can see what enemy ships are carrying. I did a study where I lockaded an enemy island, and found that several ships were sent out with caravans or frieght, as well as other units. I can use both naval units and land units as a "blockade" to stop enemy trade, by getting in their way. If I am not at war with them, I can also waylay their caravans by blocking crucial straits or railways and using spies to bribe their caravans.

But somehow you think that all this is not a blockade? How is sinking/blocking ships with caravans in them not a blockade? What would you say a blockade was? Civ2 does an excellent job with naval warfare, although I wouldn't mind adding some other options like piracy from CTP.

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"Any shred of compassion left in me was snuffed out forever when they cast me into the flames..."
- Marsil, called the Pretender

[Sirotnikov]

I think that it's true that beyond some point in technology of both ships and other units, a special amphibious specialty is needed to land or load from non-port tiles.

What can be done:
[list][*] After the Iron Clad, big ships can't load/unload regular units on regular coasts but only at ports.[*] This also means: There are now two port buildings instead of the one now. One is the regular Port which allows building and docking of ships, the other one is Upgraded port that adds things such as healing, veteran ships, more trade, what ever.[*]Special marine ability for units that can load / unload from boats anywhere. Only people have this ability ie - no marine tanks.[*]Special unit - Hover Craft which has docking ability in all places and can carry troops but has to stay within one tile of land (like termime but always sinks). It is transportable by sea and by carrying air units (ex. city has lots air defenses - a heli droping a craft and commandos near shores).[*]Terribly Big Hover Craft - for carrying light vehicales. That means, bikes, jeeps, mech inf. NO tanks, missile launchers etc.[*]Heavy vehicales have to be transported to a port. Where did you see a tank coming to shore from water?

I think this will add both accuracy and fun as I have to plan more, have more interesting options, and I'm don't feel this will cause great frustration.

I think that this is a very good idea, and that my solution in particular is a very good one. I would like to see it very much as it is not that tough to program, and simply adds two params to rules TXT. If one could edit the ship's ability to dock, I could already have used this.

[colossus]

quote: Originally posted by raingoon on 03-14-2001 01:32 PM This brings up the question of "ports" in civ. For some reason, the military and economic importance of major ports has not been widely discussed here. In Civ 2, the ability to move your caravan to any tile on the coast and from there load it into a transport as easily as if it were in a coastal city is just one reason why ports were functionally non-existant. I would LOVE to see Civ model a port city. It should be a BIG deal if one of your cities becomes a port, and the uses of that port should be exclusive -- merchant marine, naval base, etc., should all either help to make it a port or be the benefit of having a port actually built there.

I like your points!

I would like to make a few more points:

1)Units can only be loaded in city, but can be unloaded anywhere.

2)Loading a unit in a city without port ends the turn of the unit(just as fortifying); loading a unit in a city with port costs it 1/3 MP, the unit can still move when it unloads in another city.