[Ideas] Naval Warfare

from Elemental Forums

I would like to see naval warfare aspect enhanced to cover six areas;

  1. Transports - troop transports and merchant ships to transport.
  2. Ships - galleys (using rowers) and galleons (using sails) (perhaps a naval unit design option - i.e. some galleys have rams, other catapults)
  3. Ship Attack Actions - ship-based archers, weapons such as catapults and rams
  4. Boarding Attack Actions
  5. Technology for ships - naval research should be its own tree. Many land powers of the ancient world; Athens, Phonecia, Rhodes embraced the sea while others such as Athens, Egypt and Rome focused on the land. Technology and "crew training" can increase the speed and manueverability of your ships in combat
  6. Magic - Air spell summons a wind that allows a ship to move faster, summoning magic to summon sea creatures, Fire magic to burn the sails of enemy ships
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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Well I reckon that the best way to do it will be to just let it go for now, and then release an expansion where they are dealt with properly, with unit design - somewhat akin to what's in GalCiv II, though obviously not to that depth. Just hulls, and crews, and riggings (worrying about wind in strategic would be a hassle, but more sails can give more speed, and lateen rigging could improve combat speed). Possibly a later weapon or two. Selecting from options as with units would work fine for this.On your points.

1. A hull would have a certain amount of space, and a crew would take up a certain amount of space. Remaining space would be carrying capacity. A merchant pack (like the packs used by settlers and whatnot) would change the ship into a sea-based caravan, with bonus determined by the amount of space remaining. Naturally, there would be a default merchant ship available.

2. Oars could easily be an early option, which could supplement rigging later on, for a speed bonus of 1.

3. Rams are good, but to make them work, we'll need the charging code that presumably will be in 1.2. Catapults tend to not work well on ships, as ships are not sturdily grounded. Pure lateral-force weapons such as ballistae work better. There should probably be something like Greek Fire on the magic tree.

4. That would be basic ship-to-ship melee.

5. I totally disagree with naval being its own tree. It should be spread out, with some options in war, some in civics, and some in magic, as well as some effect from existing adventure techs (sea-oriented quests) and perhaps one from Diplomacy to enable trade of ships. It would be entirely possible to invest in naval or ignore it this way. Making it its own tree in fact does the opposite, because as time delay on new naval tech lowers compared to other trees, you are greatly encouraged to at least dabble in it.

6. Those are all good ideas, although I reckon that the last one should be not a specific spell, but a trait of ships - extra susceptible to fire magic. In addition to those, there should really be some sort of water magic. The only thing that comes readily to mind is an "unsinkable" spell, telling the sea, "yo sea, don't go eating this boat up" and giving your ship a boost to hit points.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Water magic spells for naval combat could include;

  1. "Ocean Current" to give the ship extra speed
  2. "Whirlpool" to damage a boat in combat or trap it in a vortex, spinning it around and around.
  3. "Gaint Wave" to damage approaching ships
  4. "Suction Current" to pull a ship closer to your ship
  5. "Rain Storm" to reduce visibility

Earth magic spells would be of limited use at sea as there would be no boulders to summon or lands to raise or sink.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Hey we have summon Mountain and Curgen Inferno - those surley do work even with several kilometer deep Oceans :D (K Maybe the mountain would be a tiny Island ^^

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I posted this a wile ago in a forum for navy stuff.  Ill re-post in this one for fun.

 

Mod Request:

Name: Weathering the Tides

Sea Monster/Navy Mod

Sea Monster Part:

-Spawning sea monsters

-Spawning Pirates

-Wreckage on costliness/mid ocean floating wreckage/stranded at sea which are only accessible by ship.  (goodie huts/Quests/recruit-able heroes)

-recruit-able factions sea going factions (mermen, magical sea beasts)

-lost islands (Quest type - they remain invisible until the chain of events, in a quest line, places them on the map.  Place treasure or faction to recruit on the island.)

-Oceanic world events [weather (damage to ships that pass through, maelstrom(impassable sea tile), red tide (no sea movement for X turns), Moon movement (tides rise 1 level, all constructions on coasts or 1 tile in are destroyed), Violent seas (all moment sea reduced by 1)

Navy Part:

-More ships - (Cutters, heavy cutters, battleships, Fire Bombers, Magic ships (can remain hidden for X turns, or can have combat bombardment before tactical battle), other cool ideas for magic ships/normal navy combat, example: a winged combat carrier (think air ship that can transport/aircraft carrier to use modern terms).

-Tactical navy battles, half the screen is the ship attacking the other half of the screen is the other ship defending, or water where the sea monster came from or is. (could use a plank or ropes to move across ship to ship to reach non range damaging units if if its ship to ship.  It its ship to monster have the monster on the ship deck.  If you want to step it up have a large monster have tentacles or what not on half the ship and the body in the water)

-Units, specialized creation of navy crew to combat nay ship to ship/ ship to monster combat. (please do not use transporting units to combat monsters like knights etc... (limit the amount of crew/created units per ship depending on the size of the ship.)  Cant load a Heavy cutter with 20 squads of Sea men units, limit to 5 or what have you.

-New spells especially to focus on navy combat, ( wood rot: damage to ship over x turns, Rogue wave: damage to all units on deck/all tentacles to sea monster.  have fun with it)

-Ship capturing.  This is a bit tricky let me explain a bit.  Ship would take overall damage during turns of tactical combat, after a set number of hit points ship would sink, all crew lost, you win.  If you can defeat the crew before the hit points of the ship is lost then you have a free ship.  Here is  the thought, between each turn (attacker defender movement/combat) the ships take a turn where they simply fire there cannons at each other or the sea monster. The damage they do is simply to the ship/sea monster and not the crew on the decks. The hit points of a ship can be already damaged from the weather effects listed above, ranged bombardment from another ship before an attempt to capture so the ship might come to battle already half defeated already.  Like current mobs you fight in the game now.  If the combat is with simple Mermen jumping on deck then that "ship to ship cannon fire" does not occur.  Its only ship to ship or ship to giant sea monster combat.

-Rare/legendary ships, you have to win these ships in combat, they don't spawn every game/there are particular quests to get them to spawn etc...  these ships provide a bonus like a hero does on land (+1 to navy combat/ +1 to all ocean movement/+1 to bombardment/+1 to sea monster combat)  and they come with a very specialized crew/magic crew (use your imaginations, anti monster crew with harpoons etc..)

 

Thanks Frog!

Edit:  I wanted to add here under Navy:

Captain units, hero units for the sea, recruited by sailing into your waters with there own ship or seen exploring/or stranded in wreckage(without a ship).  Ship heroes come without a crew or with a small weak crew.  Just like how roaming heroes work now.  (might be funny to see a hero floating around in a  dinngy to recruit)

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Without any sort of economic rationale to develop a fleet, we're better off not having naval combat. Otherwise ships end up like in every other game -- a pointless addition used only when you need to move your land troops across a body of water.

I'd suggest having neutral resources in the water that can be harvested by ships without needing city access to the tile. 

Fishing Ships, say, could establish a resource collector (even in enemy turf! civ influence has no sway on the sea!) that provides long term access to the resource. It'd have to be sufficiently rewarding that players prioritize and are willing to fight over it. Stuff like shoals of fish providing three units of foods per turn, or clambeds that provide ten gilder per turn in pearls, or something of that nature. Also have naval trade provide 20% (or twice the bonus of land trade)  to gilder production in both cities.

Finally, I'd suggest removing the high end resources -- like elementium -- from being generated on the ground. I'd instead have them produced exclusively by neutral coastal cities. These cities would provide, say, three trade slots that any player could stick a ship in that each generate a single elementium (or whatever) per turn. You could conquer the buggers, but then the quays would disappear and the city would generate only one unit per turn. You could also choose to occupy the city, but keep it independent. This'd let you station troops there, and nations at war with you would no longer be able to generate elementium by holding one of the slots. 

I think adding in stuff like this would ensure that the ocean was worth the time of players. 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Fishing Ships, say, could establish a resource collector (even in enemy turf! civ influence has no sway on the sea!) that provides long term access to the resource. It'd have to be sufficiently rewarding that players prioritize and are willing to fight over it. Stuff like shoals of fish providing three units of foods per turn, or clambeds that provide ten gilder per turn in pearls, or something of that nature. Also have naval trade provide 20% (or twice the bonus of land trade) to gilder production in both cities.

This, plus sea monsters and pirates! Also don't forget that control of the ocean would really boost troop movement capability and allow control of the islands as well.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Aeon221, reply 5
Without any sort of economic rationale to develop a fleet, we're better off not having naval combat. Otherwise ships end up like in every other game -- a pointless addition used only when you need to move your land troops across a body of water. 

Naval functionality also provides strategic military options;

  1. Why take the long overland path when you can take a much shorter route over water - of course an enemy fleet could stop this (Ancient Greece)
  2. Opens up new options for raiding behind enemy lines (Vikings)
  3. Protects your lands from sea borne invasions. (Athens during the Greek-Persian wars)
  4. Safely scout enemy positions from the safety of the sea
  5. New and strange lands to explore, new quests to solve (Columbus, Ponce de Leon)
Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Most of the time players go to war with adjacent targets. They can just teleport around any distance issues, and if mountains are an issue, mountains can be lowered. If the enemy is across a strait, they can build a land bridge in about ten seconds flat and not fiddle around with the hassle of putting troops into a container, moving the container, and unloading them. Why would anyone bother with ships again? Want a tactical advantage against the enemy for raids? Land bridge, mountain at the exit, lower the mountain for when you want to raid and then pull your troops back and mountain up again. Lord knows why you'd bother, since you can just wipe them out, but whatever.

Terraforming makes ships irrelevant. Either create an economic rationale for having ships, or create a whole lot of utterly useless ship models.

 

By the way, all the historical states mentioned were made rich by overseas trade. Yes, including the Vikings.