Naval Overhaul (Alpha 27)

[AIEND]

在 2023/01/12 上午 4:27，wowgetoffyourcellphone 说道：

因为在dps中1:1炮舰>箭舰。 远程单位往往只是停放和射击，而近战单位则拉近距离并进行高 dps 打击。

I think warships equipped with catapults should not participate in naval battles, because catapults are difficult to hit other ships in rough seas, and their operators are also a fixed number, and adding other soldiers on a warship will not improve the catapult power and work efficiency. Catapult ships should be dedicated to destroying structures along the enemy's coast, they don't need to be large or heavy, and they can't match those ships with shooters in naval battles.

[AIEND]

We only need three types of warships. The first type is a light reconnaissance and transport ship, which can carry a small number of shooters and can board or ram enemy ships.
The second type of medium-sized warship is the main force of naval warfare. It is fast and can carry more shooters. It can also board or ram enemy ships.
The third type is the catapult warship. The combat system of this kind of ship is divided into two parts. One part is the catapult, which has fixed working efficiency and damage, and is specially used to attack fixed coastal buildings. The other part is the same as the medium-sized warship, relying on the archers on board to shoot arrows at the enemy ship, but the number of archers that can be carried is smaller, and they can also board or ram the enemy ship.
As for the heavy warships of some countries, it must be known that in the era without steam engines, too large a ship meant cumbersome. The giant ships built by countries such as Ptolemy and Seleucid are actually not very efficient in combat. They are more of a spectacular decoration to reflect national power. These large ships can be used as Easter eggs to reflect, but they do not have to be included in the The main consideration of naval warfare.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

The idea is to make ships that are dedicated to a purpose so that a countering system can be devise, kind of like a video game. 

[Genava55]

But all civs would get the boarding ships?

Same question for the arrow ships.

I am asking this because if any civs miss a counter unit, it will increase the gap between the civs on naval maps.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Genava55

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

16 minutes ago, Genava55 said:

But all civs would get the boarding ships?

Same question for the arrow ships.

I think every civ would get an arrow ship and either a boarding or ramming ship. Artillery ships are harder to justify for every civ. What do you think? 

 

My other idea is to strip everything down to 1 warship per civ and the differences between civs would be that you can have (or not have) upgrades to stronger ships based on civ. So, every civ gets at least a 'Light' warship, with some civs getting techs for 'Medium' and then 'Heavy' upgrades for their warship (SINGULAR). Further differences would come with special naval techs.

[AIEND]

3 小时前，wowgetoffyourcellphone 说：

这个想法是制造专门用于某个目的的船只，以便可以设计一个反击系统，有点像视频游戏。 

I think your reference is AoM, but honestly I don't recommend it. After all, this game is not a world view of mythology and magic. The forms of warships and naval battle concepts of different civilizations in the ancient world are different, but they are unified in archery and boarding combat, so the main focus of naval battles should be based on this Both, the ram and the catapult may perhaps characterize Mediterranean warships.

[AIEND]

52 分钟前，wowgetoffyourcellphone 说：

我认为每个文明都会得到一艘箭船和一艘登船或冲撞船。 炮舰更难为每个文明辩护。 你怎么认为？ 

 

我的另一个想法是将所有东西都剥离到每个文明 1 艘战舰，而文明之间的区别是你可以（或不）升级到基于文明的更强大的船只。 因此，每个文明至少获得一艘“轻型”战舰，一些文明获得“中型”技术，然后为他们的 战舰（单一） 升级“重型” 。 特殊的海军技术会带来进一步的差异。

There should be a basic template where each civilization has at least one light ship and one medium ship, both of which can shoot arrows and board ships, because obviously we don't need to specifically design so-called "melee ships" and "range ships" ".

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

4 minutes ago, AIEND said:

There should be a basic template where each civilization has at least one light ship and one medium ship, both of which can shoot arrows and board ships, because obviously we don't need to specifically design so-called "melee ships" and "range ships" ".

This dilutes exactly what I'm attempting with this design. 

While every ship was capable of multiple roles, most had a primary role. For example, the Athenian Trireme (in combat) was nearly 100% a "melee ship." Its ranged capabilities were largely inconsequential to their tactics. This design is meant to exaggerate those roles into identifiable classes of ships for easy and fun gameplay. 

[AIEND]

8 分钟前，wowgetoffyourcellphone 说：

这恰恰稀释了我在这个设计中的尝试。 

虽然每艘船都能担任多种角色，但大多数都扮演主要角色。 例如，雅典三列桨战舰（在战斗中）几乎是 100% 的“近战舰”。 它的远程能力在很大程度上与他们的战术无关紧要。 这种设计旨在将这些角色夸大为可识别的船舶类别，以实现简单有趣的游戏。 

Obviously, a Greek trireme with a ram is more suitable for melee combat, but this does not mean that we need to split the functions of boarding, ramming and archery from the same ship to different types of ships, just according to different civilizations Just focus on the corresponding aspects. For example, the warships of China, Persia, and India are obviously more prominent in archery, while the Celtics and Romans are more prominent in boarding.

[AIEND]

7 minutes ago, AIEND said:

很显然，希腊三列桨战舰加冲撞更适合近战，但这并不意味着我们需要将登船、冲撞和射箭的功能从同一艘船拆分到不同类型的船上，只是根据不同文明的侧重点而已在相应的方面。 比如中国、波斯、印度的战舰，显然更突出射箭，而凯尔特人和罗马人更突出登船。

One point I mentioned earlier is to let the soldiers on the ship play their own combat effectiveness, not just increase the number of arrows on the turret of the warship. If the Greek/Roman warship carries javelin soldiers, these javelin soldiers should be like fighting on the city wall. As above, throwing at enemy ships can only be done at close range, and will be damaged by enemy fire.
Then the Greek/Romans should let the warships approach the enemy quickly so that the firepower can be used while ramming or boarding the ship, instead of saying that in order to show that these warships are better at melee combat, we have to cancel their projectile firepower or put Firepower reduced to irrelevance.

[AIEND]

And I must say that naval design principles are not only used in navies, we also have to think about how to modify siege weapons.
For example, the siege tower, if we realize that the archers in the warship shoot arrows and the melee soldiers board the ship to occupy the enemy ship. Then we can also realize that the archers in the siege tower shoot arrows and let the melee soldiers climb the city wall to occupy the city wall.

[AIEND]

在 2023/01/11 上午 5:52，wowgetoffyourcellphone 说道：

 我可能会建议将码头分成码头（经济）和造船厂（海军）

I suggest doing this, it is very necessary.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I don't think you understand what is trying to be achieved. Think about actions per minute (APM). If you have to have units on deck and then use APM for those units, you now have to have a small number of ships because APM is limited by the human player. By getting rid of the entire "garrisoning units on deck" aspect, APM can be freed up and more ships can be allowed. If you want lots of ships in a battle, then you have to remove things like units on deck and multiple roles etc etc. If you want ships to be multi-roled and fully featured with on-deck garrisons you have to micro, etc., then you have to lower the number of ships. The proposed design in the first post is opting for more ships with a single role per ship. And for pathing reasons it is desired that ship models be decreased in size, which makes soldiers on deck even more awkward from a visual and gameplay standpoint. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

22 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I don't think you understand what is trying to be achieved. Think about actions per minute (APM). If you have to have units on deck and then use APM for those units, you now have to have a small number of ships because APM is limited by the human player. By getting rid of the entire "garrisoning units on deck" aspect, APM can be freed up and more ships can be allowed. If you want lots of ships in a battle, then you have to remove things like units on deck and multiple roles etc etc. If you want ships to be multi-roled and fully featured with on-deck garrisons you have to micro, etc., then you have to lower the number of ships. The proposed design in the first post is opting for more ships with a single role per ship. And for pathing reasons it is desired that ship models be decreased in size, which makes soldiers on deck even more awkward from a visual and gameplay standpoint. 

This is a great direction to take naval combat.

[AIEND]

35 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

我認為您不了解要實現的目標。 考慮每分鐘操作數 (APM)。 如果您必須在甲板上放置單位，然後對這些單位使用 APM，那麼您現在必須擁有少量船隻，因為 APM 受到人類玩家的限制。 通過擺脫整個“甲板上的駐軍單位”方面，可以釋放 APM 並允許更多的船隻。 如果你想要在一場戰鬥中有很多船隻，那麼你必須移除甲板上的單位和多個角色等。如果你想要船隻具有多重角色並且具有甲板上駐軍的完整功能，你必須微觀等。 ，那麼你必須減少船隻的數量。 第一篇文章中提出的設計是選擇更多的船隻，每艘船隻有一個角色。 並且出於路徑原因，希望減小船舶模型的尺寸，這使得甲板上的士兵從視覺和遊戲玩法的角度來看更加尷尬。 

I think the main difficulty lies in how to achieve boarding and occupation of enemy ships, and how to make the melee soldiers carried by warships play a role in boarding battles.
It's not contradictory to make range soldiers work, the important thing is how to distinguish the attacks caused by different types of ranged soldiers, even if the soldiers are not displayed on the deck, they will not be injured. I don't know if it is possible to add a variety of different turrets to the warship, corresponding to archers, slingers, and javelins. The default ammunition is 0. Adding corresponding types of soldiers will increase the corresponding projectiles. The different kinds of range soldiers have their own specialties in land battles, and I imagine they should do the same in naval battles.
If this is not possible, like in Total War: Rome II, train a warship carrying soldiers of the default type range, fix the firepower of such a warship, and the additional range soldiers carried are simply transported.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

10 hours ago, Genava55 said:

But all civs would get the boarding ships?

Same question for the arrow ships.

I am asking this because if any civs miss a counter unit, it will increase the gap between the civs on naval maps.

I don't think every civ needs every ship type. For one, Having a missing element of a soft counter system is not a disaster, the player will need to recognize this weakness and take precautions. For two(?), this discrepancies could be made up by unique upgrades, unique "special" ships (ie fireship, we should think of 1 or 2 more), and naval civ bonuses.

Edited February 3, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce

[Genava55]

13 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I think every civ would get an arrow ship and either a boarding or ramming ship. Artillery ships are harder to justify for every civ. What do you think? 

 

My other idea is to strip everything down to 1 warship per civ and the differences between civs would be that you can have (or not have) upgrades to stronger ships based on civ. So, every civ gets at least a 'Light' warship, with some civs getting techs for 'Medium' and then 'Heavy' upgrades for their warship (SINGULAR). Further differences would come with special naval techs.

I think that if every civs get at least the arrow ship and the boarding ship it could work. From this they could defend themselves. Ramming and artillery would be unique to naval civs.

[gui456wSERTDYF]

I like ships as they are now, I like naval maps and play regularly. It is true that ships require quite some micro managing, but I think that is what I like about ships, it is not just spamming units like we often see in mainland games. From my point of view:

• What I like now:
  • Cannot spam ships onto the enemy, because expensive and micro managing.
  • Garrisoned units make them stronger.
  • Without garrisoned units they are useless.
  • Garrison catapults and they throw rocks.
  • All ships can transport units.
• What I don't like now:
  • They are "stupid", i.e. they get stuck too easily when navigating. (This improved wrt previous versions I have to say.)
  • They overlap multiple on the same spot (I think this happens also with siege engines). For the ships this is often too much.
  • Formations don't apply to ships. You have to take care that they arrive together.
• What I would like to have/change:
  • Easier to fix: Maybe to add some button, like it was done with drop resources, that when you press it the ship automatically goes to some shore (that you may specify with e.g. a rally point or a right click), it unloads the units, they fix the ship, they garrison back in it and the ship returns to the combat position. This would greatly reduce the micromanaging still without allowing to spam ships.
  • As with the catapults, if you garrison bolt shooters the ship shoots these stronger arrows.
  • Allow to focus the attack on some specific unit. If the enemy has a war ship and 10 fishing boats, I want to be able to focus all my arrows on the war ship and not waste fire power on the fishing.
  • When a ship is attacked, damage not only the ship but also the crew (and they gradually die). In that way it is not possible to have an immortal ship that you fix hundreds of times with the same crew.

[Lion.Kanzen]

the best post of the year.

We must give more depth to the gameplay.

Nobody plays water maps.

[hyperion]

Visible garrison is quite the joke without scaling, battlements on walls look like shin guards. Now I imagine an archer roughly the height of ship body in a crow's nest.

I doubt making ships anything else than simple units which work mostly like land units will ever lead to something playable.

[asterix]

@Freagarach some nice suggestion few posts above

[Alar1k]

I'd like to add some ideas on this topic:

1. I love the idea about the free scout ship - would be nice if it could be implemented to get it when you build your first shipyard and would also add a symbolic price (like 50/100 wood) when you need to build another if first one gets destroyed or you need a second scout ship (if there would be possible to make more then one)

2. I really believe that upgrading naval combat will make this game stand out from other similar games in the genre and would make meta of the game more interesting -balance wise the paper/rock/scissors model would work wonders and I think it was already mentioned in previous comments - I agree with that concept 100%

3. About civilization diversification - maybe give carthaginians options to have all of the ship types just like macedonians have all of the siege options and persians have every cavalry option  - and other civs can be differentiated for example celtic civs get ramming ships and helenic get boarding and ramming ships romans/han/ptole/kushites get artilery and boarding ships (celtic civs already don't have much naval options so I was going with the current ideas of them having not as strong ships compared to other civilizations) - and on the side note consider something like fire ships (like iberians have now) to be added to celtic civs to give them a chance and balance things out a bit

      3. 1. If there could be a possibility to get han civ option/tech research to chain ships into one large construct like in that "Red cliff" movie o m g that would be amazing because technically battle of red cliffs is historically was 208-209 AD - Han and Carthaginian civilizations would really shine with future naval overhaul in my honest opinion

4. Upgrades for ships ideas: basically everything delenda est mod has is pure goldmine for the research tech ideas since it has excellent diversification between all civ groups

5. This one is a wishful thinking but maybe consider dividing romans into two separate factions like delenda est did and focus republican period on naval combat so there can be a genuine Punic wars scenario/campaign in the future

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Patch for Naval Overhaul

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D5213

Quote

This brings a number of changes to ships.

Most consequential:
A. Removes Building AI and gives them Unit AI.
B. Creates new Warship classes with a rock-paper-scissors countering system (Scout Ships, Arrow Ships, Ramming Ships, Fire Ships, and Siege Ships)
C. Ships can now transport Relics (aka "Catafalques"), a previous mistake (IMHO)

Sound problems: Refs #4000

Ship Classes:

Scout Ship

• Available in Village Phase
• Cheap
• Small ranged attack
• Good for exploring, harassment, and small landing parties
• Outclassed by every other Warship
• Every civ should have one of these

Arrow Ship

• Available in Town Phase
• Basic medium ranged Warship; most or all civs should get one
• Good vs. Scout Ships and Ramming Ships
• Countered by Siege Ships (Arrow Ships have low crush armor)

Siege Ship

• Available in City Phase
• Heavy ranged Warship; throws catapult stones
• Good vs. Structures (2x) and Arrow Ships
• Countered by Ramming Ships (Siege Ships have low hack armor)

Ramming Ship

• Available in City Phase
• Fast melee Warship
• Good vs. Siege Ships (3x)
• Countered by Arrow Ships (Ramming Ships have low pierce armor)

Fire Ship

• Available in Town Phase to a select number of civs
• Constantly lose health
• Cause "Death Damage" when they die
• Use a Fire damage attack, so applies equally to all ships
• Countered best by Arrow Ships

 

Possible additions:
D. A "Corvus" Ship for the Romans. A special "Boarding Ship" unit that captures enemy ships instead of destroying them.
E. Make Fire Ships have an 'upgrade' to set them alight; instead of them currently starting to lose health right away, they don't lose health or cause damage until they are upgraded to Flaming. This is very easy to implement (already in DE).
F. Garrison effects in a different patch.

 

 

Patch requires the latest SVN development version of the game in order to test.

[alre]

what about the civs that don't have access to some of those ships. how does their gameplay change?

[Grautvornix]

@alreThese non-naval civs could possibly have specific coastal defense options offering a different counter strategy. It might not be very historical nor interesting in the sense of gameplay to just equip them with the same capability as naval civs.

If I may, here are some rough ideas for coastal defense options:

• a finite max population of fire ships that can be built (something like the Iberians), say, 12 max at any time, after the technology was researched
  
  (BTW, I'd love to see fire ships generally having an "ignition" or "attack" command starting to countdown , instead of just starting it when cosntruction is finished, so one could build a few in reserve  preparing a defense and place them strategically like a kind of sea mines - that could add interesting strategic options. I believe however these should not have a "proximity fuse"  but need to be manually activated (good timing would then be crucial).
   
• military harbours ("sea forts") that fire back on ships (like the Britons have?). These could either
  • be more resistant to ship artillery fire (most likely difficult to distinguish from land artillery fire), or
  • create a higher damage to ships when firing back, or 
  • have a longer attack range, or
  • provide an enforcement/protection aura for own (smaller melee ships)

Also attack range and damage of artillery ships might need to be carefully balanced so that they can only attack buildings at the immediate coastline. For further damage at land one would need to disembark the troops. A typical defense scenario for such non-naval civs could then look like a wall and towers placed a bit off the coast..