Ship Combat

[Cassador_Chris]

Just something from the new screen shot.

Mythos_Ruler :: November 3 2008

Greek, Roman, Persian, and Karthaginian ships will have the ability to ram. Ranged firepower is provided by the units garrisoned aboard. So if you garrison Archers and Javelinists aboard the ship can fire arrows. If you garrison siege weapons aboard, then the ship can fire like a siege ship. Garrison melee infantry aboard, then the ship can have a higher ram attack. That is the idea.

Nice Mythos. Oh, and I hope Iberian and Celtic ships have a much higher resistance to ram attacks, and perhaps boarding melee troops would give it even higher resistance. Not only would it be a good balance, but it'll be realistic as well. When Caesar was going around Gaul, he fought a sea battle with some Celtic tribes near modern Brittany. His typical roman-ram ships where ineffective against the Celtic ones, which where very strong and well-built. He resorted to using grappling hooks and tore down the masts of these ships, at which point they were helpless.

Anyway, I wanted to bring up the idea for Celtic and Iberian ships. Am I somewhat correct in my idea? Or does Wildfire studios have something very different in mind? How will Celtic and Iberian ships stand out? And how will navel-strong civilizations (like Carthage) be different then other ram-ship civilizations?

[MrEmjeR]

Hey man, nice

I just made a seabattle screen shot some time ago and I would look if i can release it next month

~~~

Mythos made me ship master so talk to me about the ships system. I just made a persian trireme wich is being textured atm.

Edited November 5, 2008 by EmjeR

[Cassador_Chris]

Question is directed at you then EmjeR. Any idea how the ships of civilizations will differ?

And good luck on the Persian trireme. From what I've gathered this past year, the Persians are going to be awesome.

[Lord Feloric's Ambassador]

This naval combat pleases my Lord. The naval combat in Age Of Empires 2 was quite poor by my Lord's standards.

[arifbuda]

Will the sea combat be like Rise and Fall: Civilisations at War?

I really like to see boarding grappling and etc.

By the way Lord Feloric's ambassador why are you talking a little weird?

Of course don't be offended.I have no problem with that.Just out of curiosity.

[Jugulator]

So, the naval battles might be great in graphical or gameplay terms?

[HG-Alex]

The ramming and everything sounds great. Nice to hear it will be more realistic than most games. I do want to see more screenies of 0 AD ships though.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Our ships won't be exactly like Rise & Fall's ships. If we have units appear on-deck, then they will stand in pre-assigned slots and not run around on-deck. What is 100% positive is that ships will be effected by the kinds of units you garrison aboard. A ship's primary attack will be ramming and there will be some kind of "boarding" feature that allows players to take over enemy ships. Ships will be bigger than AOM or AOK, but smaller than R&F.

[Danta]

its interesting.. at least it will be better than AoE 2

[arifbuda]

Ok Mythos.

I just want to see them not run in the boat or something

[sneaky_squirrel]

Will "boarding" units actually move to the other ship and do battle or stay in their boat while the units on the other boat are being damaged?

Edited May 23, 2009 by sneaky_squirrel

[MrEmjeR]

we are still thinking about that...

it would be nice as infantry units realy enter the enemey ship, but also hard to code.

archers ofcourse stays at their ship

i hope we can make units walk on the deck and not just stand at a solid stand...

if you don't garrison men, the ship will still be able to move and ram.

[sneaky_squirrel]

Just don't push yourselves too far, but hurry up! (Mixed signals)

It is also ncie to get a response from the team other than mythos ;p.

Keep up the good work.

[MrEmjeR]

a year ago, i wasn't at the team yet, i was very active here.

but i got other jobs to do so i forget to post here

[sneaky_squirrel]

The problem is the forums are a bit slow around here (For me), but since I got myself a new DS game I'll be pretty busy ;p.

[Justinian]

They've always been pretty slow, but yeah I'd say they are just a tad slower than before...

[Mythos_Ruler]

I really encourage evryone to check out our ModDB profile here:

http://www.moddb.com/games/0-ad

That's where me and PPE have been releasing most of our screenshots and game renders and news. It's just 10x easier to do that over there than here.

[Justinian]

we are still thinking about that...

it would be nice as infantry units realy enter the enemey ship, but also hard to code.

archers ofcourse stays at their ship

i hope we can make units walk on the deck and not just stand at a solid stand...

The cheap way of doing this would be to add it as... I don't know, a different height. Then add bridges as "dynamic" terrain, and hey presto. This would also enable Scalable Walls, and Siege Towers, etc.

For Garrison add an 'if" command and have the game check if someone is on-board. This would make Navy intensive games lag much, but meh.

[sneaky_squirrel]

How fast are boats gonna be?, realistic (Semi slow) or uber fast?

[Mythos_Ruler]

Prolly slow. But of course ramming will be faster.

[MrEmjeR]

i think they will be faster as running human but slower than a running horse

[MrChocolateBear]

The cheap way of doing this would be to add it as... I don't know, a different height. Then add bridges as "dynamic" terrain, and hey presto. This would also enable Scalable Walls, and Siege Towers, etc.

For Garrison add an 'if" command and have the game check if someone is on-board. This would make Navy intensive games lag much, but meh.

Scalable walls and siege towers would be very impressive! Are there any plans for these in the game? If so, I bow down to you!

[buggy123]

Ahh, walls actually supporting troops on them. That's a revolutionary idea that has been depicted in only a few RTS with limited success. Good luck! I'm sure you guys can do it

Oh, and another thing.Will heavily damaged ships sink randomly? Will the ships have different defense and properties based on the different areas of the ship? I'm aware that the Soldiers will be utilizing shields which gives them more attack on the front and things like that so will a similar aspect be implemented on ships? Also, will masts be damageable and destroyable? And if so, how will it affect the rate of the ship movement?What about repairing ships in harbors and such (or maybe hire carpenters and sailors on board to further boost recovery/speed?)

Implementing these will add more depth to the game and make tactics actually worth while. Instead of whoever has more ships and soldiers on-board wins, tactics like mast tearing will render ships immobile, making it vulnerable. Or maybe, ramming the enemies ships posterior will be much more dramatic than say, ramming them on the hull where it has the most armor. Something like that

These might be challenging to make but they are certainly worthwhile to implement after the release.

btw how will the ships board each other? Will it be graphically represented or will it just be a 2 ships next to each other with a boarding icon on top of them? How about grappling hooks and swing aboard like they do in Pirates of Caribbean? Set a plank and run across?

Edited July 4, 2009 by buggy123

[MrEmjeR]

Oh, and another thing.Will heavily damaged ships sink randomly? Will the ships have different defense and properties based on the different areas of the ship? I'm aware that the Soldiers will be utilizing shields which gives them more attack on the front and things like that so will a similar aspect be implemented on ships?

i think there will be a random faction in there... but i'm sure there will be som code that looks if the ship is hit in the front or in the middle.

a ship hit in the middle at maximum speed will certainly sink at once!

what is your source about the shields?? the only thing i know is that they just used the shields as defence of the guys on the deck or the rowers.

Also, will masts be damageable and destroyable? And if so, how will it affect the rate of the ship movement?What about repairing ships in harbors and such (or maybe hire carpenters and sailors on board to further boost recovery/speed?)

masts can't be damaged because the will be laid down in battle.

i'm not sure about repairing but i think they will be repaired automaticly when there is any normal soldier aboard. since all infantry can build and repair. And a ship that will be repaired when it's near the harbour isn't a bad idea either.

btw how will the ships board each other? Will it be graphically represented or will it just be a 2 ships next to each other with a boarding icon on top of them? How about grappling hooks and swing aboard like they do in Pirates of Caribbean? Set a plank and run across?

not sure about that. i'm even not sure how the did in history. in the book of Thucydides about the poleponnesian war, I read about a sea battle between Corcyra and Corinth. the Corinth fleet had 150 triremes manned with hoplites, archers and javelin throwers. The Corcyrians had 110 triremes of themselfs and a support of 10 athenian ships also they had about 1000 hoplites, a lot of archer and javelinman aboard. they charged at a very close formation, so it was hard to ram another ship at the required speed. they ended up as a mess of ships layed next to each other and there was only men to men fight. Thucydides called it a land battle on sea.

this gives the feeling that hoplites and other man where just able to walk or climb to other ships without entering anchers or planks.

btw for who's intrested: both sides claimed the victory after the battle. Corinth because they defeated the most enemey ships. and Corcyra because the got the Corithians on flight and they ruined their base camp at land. the last event was mainly because the Corinthians saw thirthy new athenian ships at the horizon, comming to support the Corcyrians. since the Corinthians where afraid of athenain ships, cuz the athenians where ways better in seafarring, they fell back and went home.

[AuroN2]

Emjer, about the shields, he meant in ground battles, no doubt.

And thanks for the history lesson