Ships!

[Yekaterina]

3 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

@YekaterinaIs it possible to position the artillery in front of the mast? I kinda don't like my projectiles going through my mast & sail...

Yes, I can do that. But there is limited space on the decks though...

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

On 27/07/2021 at 5:11 AM, Yekaterina said:

Perhaps we can make ship garrisons similar to wall garrisons where the units inside are susceptible but not the wooden bit of the ship. 

I think this is a great idea. 

On a side note does anyone agree that more units should be able to pack up on stone walls? Right now it is 8 and usually it is not practical to have them up there. I feel having 16 would be more useful.

[Yekaterina]

8 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

On a side note does anyone agree that more units should be able to pack up on stone walls? Right now it is 8 and usually it is not practical to have them up there. I feel having 16 would be more useful.

16 would be more practical, yes. The only concern is an artist one: the units will look quite crowded if we fit 16 of them on there. 

[nifa]

if there is a plan to distinguish between arrow-attacks (archers) and bolt-attacks (catapult), then the ships shouldn't turn for attacking with arrows.

Let's say soldiers, citizens, elephants, heros, and fishing boats are attacked with arrows, while buildings, siege and bigger boats are attacked with bolts.

Seems weird if the whole ship is turned to attack a single soldier standing on the beach. They should be able to shoot in any direction then.

[alre]

11 minutes ago, nifa said:

if there is a plan to distinguish between arrow-attacks (archers) and bolt-attacks (catapult), then the ships shouldn't turn for attacking with arrows.

Let's say soldiers, citizens, elephants, heros, and fishing boats are attacked with arrows, while buildings, siege and bigger boats are attacked with bolts.

Seems weird if the whole ship is turned to attack a single soldier standing on the beach. They should be able to shoot in any direction then.

if turrets (people on the deck) is implemented for ships, they won't need to turn for attacking with arrows from the marines.

[Yekaterina]

14 minutes ago, nifa said:

if there is a plan to distinguish between arrow-attacks (archers) and bolt-attacks (catapult), then the ships shouldn't turn for attacking with arrows.

Let's say soldiers, citizens, elephants, heros, and fishing boats are attacked with arrows, while buildings, siege and bigger boats are attacked with bolts.

Seems weird if the whole ship is turned to attack a single soldier standing on the beach. They should be able to shoot in any direction then.

what I am planning is let the hull offer either a ram attack or arrow fire like a siege tower (so no need to turn), then, additionally, units /artillery can be 'garrisoned' on the ship deck and can be commanded separately. 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Yekaterina

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

2 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

what I am planning is let the hull offer either a ram attack or arrow fire like a siege tower (so no need to turn), then, additionally, units /artillery can be 'garrisoned' on the ship deck and can be commanded separately. 

I like the combination of attack methods proposed here. This means there are a number of different things to account for during a fight even between 2 ships. Also, this makes naval battles less all-or-nothing, since some or all units will get hurt despite being aboard the ship. Usually the losing ship has to retreat and drop off the units unless they want to lose 50 units to the lack of swimming (swimming OP).

[Yekaterina]

Yesterday someone suggested another approach: let the ships have specific roles like infantry instead of a general distinction by size. Let there be ranged ships and melee ships:

• Ranged ships can garrison archers or artillery, can shoot other ships and land entities from a distance, but has relatively low damage per second. The current quinqueremes are good examples.
• Melee ships have to sail very close to an enemy ship then deal heavy damage at a very high rate. However it cannot attack land units or buildings close to the sea. 

Within these 2 categories we can have more distinctions:

Arrow ships: garrisoned by ranged units and shoot arrows at other ships / entities from afar. Deals mainly pierce damage.

Artillery ships: garrisoned by either bolt shooters or catapults and shoot these crushing projectiles but at a low rate of fire.

Ram ships: charges towards an enemy ship and rams them until they sink.

Fire ships: like Iberian fire ship

Capture ships: captures an enemy ship or murders enemy units onboard. 

Transport ships: can transport large number of units, siege and elephants at once. 

And of course there are the merchants and fishing ships. 

 

This way we can avoid the race to build first warship and also sorts out balancing issues that arise from the current quinqueremes. 

[nifa]

37 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

what I am planning is let the hull offer either a ram attack or arrow fire like a siege tower (so no need to turn), then, additionally, units /artillery can be 'garrisoned' on the ship deck and can be commanded separately. 

Sounds good to me.

A shooting angle of maybe 45 degrees for artillery on ships without turning might be okay as well. Less turning means more realistic battles (also slower turning but that's a different story).

A catapult shooting both in the direction of the front and the back is unrealistic, might be hitting the own sails, so there would be a need to turn.

We would need to check for historical accuracy, what the exact positions would be for each unique ship. Whether they were fighting to the front, to the side.. maybe both, or to the back... and with how many on each side

[alre]

53 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Yesterday someone suggested another approach: let the ships have specific roles like infantry instead of a general distinction by size. Let there be ranged ships and melee ships:

• Ranged ships can garrison archers or artillery, can shoot other ships and land entities from a distance, but has relatively low damage per second. The current quinqueremes are good examples.
• Melee ships have to sail very close to an enemy ship then deal heavy damage at a very high rate. However it cannot attack land units or buildings close to the sea. 

Within these 2 categories we can have more distinctions:

Arrow ships: garrisoned by ranged units and shoot arrows at other ships / entities from afar. Deals mainly pierce damage.

Artillery ships: garrisoned by either bolt shooters or catapults and shoot these crushing projectiles but at a low rate of fire.

Ram ships: charges towards an enemy ship and rams them until they sink.

Fire ships: like Iberian fire ship

Capture ships: captures an enemy ship or murders enemy units onboard. 

Transport ships: can transport large number of units, siege and elephants at once. 

And of course there are the merchants and fishing ships. 

 

This way we can avoid the race to build first warship and also sorts out balancing issues that arise from the current quinqueremes. 

I think what is often overlooked here is the scale of naval battles. Quinquiremes now have a line of sight that is approximately two times the whole lenght of the ship itself, then, there is the dimension of the maps and the seas in the maps, that can only host this many ships before being strategically saturated.

So, if we want to differentiate vessels so that there is a satisfactory new balance involving rock-paper-scissors mechanics and such, I don't think that ships this big will do. This is the reason why most RTS have disproportionately little ships.

The games I know that do have ships proportional to men, only have one class of warships doing both the fighting and the ferrying.

[Yekaterina]

24 minutes ago, alre said:

The games I know that do have ships proportional to men, only have one class of warships doing both the fighting and the ferrying.

Exactly. I am suggesting a enlargement of the model of ships by a scale factor of 0.3 to 0.4, so that ships can sail into the Adriatic Sea, Agean Sea and prevent pathfinder issues.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

9 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

Exactly. I am suggesting a enlargement of the model of ships by a scale factor of 0.3 to 0.4, so that ships can sail into the Adriatic Sea, Agean Sea and prevent pathfinder issues.

An "enlargement" of 0.3 would be a reduction, nay? 

[Ceres]

17 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I think this is a great idea. 

On a side note does anyone agree that more units should be able to pack up on stone walls? Right now it is 8 and usually it is not practical to have them up there. I feel having 16 would be more useful.

 

17 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

16 would be more practical, yes. The only concern is an artist one: the units will look quite crowded if we fit 16 of them on there. 

How about >8 and <12 units, so they fit nicely? And it depends on the length of the wall segment, right?

And what are your plans for the ships in this regard? Do you plan to show units embarked on ships? How many? (again, also an artist topic, I guess) Sorry, if I misunderstood the recent posts. Currently, my time if very limited, so I'm reading here and there a bit, without being able to offer much myself.

[Yekaterina]

11 minutes ago, Ceres said:

How about >8 and <12 units, so they fit nicely? And it depends on the length of the wall segment, right?

Yes, I think that is a better value. Maybe 12 will do. 

11 minutes ago, Ceres said:

And what are your plans for the ships in this regard? Do you plan to show units embarked on ships? How many? (again, also an artist topic, I guess) Sorry, if I misunderstood the recent posts. Currently, my time if very limited, so I'm reading here and there a bit, without being able to offer much myself.

I have consulted some lobby players and they think my idea of deck and hull being is just for fun, not really good for balancing. 

The idea is, ranged units and artillery have an extra button that allows you to choose whether you want them in the hull or on the deck. Melee units, rams and elephants don't have this extra button so they can only be garrisoned in the hull. 

There is an extra button next to the normal garrison button. 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

3 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

Yes, I think that is a better value. Maybe 12 will do. 

I have consulted some lobby players and they think my idea of deck and hull being is just for fun, not really good for balancing. 

The idea is, ranged units and artillery have an extra button that allows you to choose whether you want them in the hull or on the deck. Melee units, rams and elephants don't have this extra button so they can only be garrisoned in the hull. 

There is an extra button next to the normal garrison button. 

We could make this balanced by only allowing garrisoned arrows to attack other ships, while "garrisoned-up" units could attack what they want. This way if you want to raid the coast it will not always be a one sided situation.

Forts could also benefit from this, with a reduction in range of garrisoned arrows and adding a +5 pierce defense and +5 hack defense and +20% range to "garrisoned-up" units. 

Right now, the arrow count on the forts is a single function where players just throw units in to get the upper hand in a fight. I feel giving the units "garrisoned-up" in a fort a range bonus and a defense bonus could allow the player to make a choice of how to use the fort. I feel this would mean that the choice is more important.

In a24 building two opposing forts usually means that that area of the map is basically removed from the playable area. If we reduced range of fort to that of cc, then it would be harder to defend them and easier to play around them. If this were combined with the opportunity to move some garrisoned units up to enjoy more range and defense, then forts would be less a "preventative" defense and more a defensive asset that helps with a defense.

 

Edited July 29, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[happyconcepts]

The ships in fork A.D. are nice.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, happyconcepts said:

The ships in fork A.D. are nice.

ok

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I had the notion to have soldiers build ships on the shoreline, like how in DE soldiers build catapults (instead of "training" them from an Arsenal). 

[LienRag]

On 28/07/2021 at 8:43 PM, Yekaterina said:

Yesterday someone suggested another approach: let the ships have specific roles like infantry instead of a general distinction by size. Let there be ranged ships and melee ships:

• Ranged ships can garrison archers or artillery, can shoot other ships and land entities from a distance, but has relatively low damage per second. The current quinqueremes are good examples.
• Melee ships have to sail very close to an enemy ship then deal heavy damage at a very high rate. However it cannot attack land units or buildings close to the sea. 

Within these 2 categories we can have more distinctions:

Arrow ships: garrisoned by ranged units and shoot arrows at other ships / entities from afar. Deals mainly pierce damage.

Artillery ships: garrisoned by either bolt shooters or catapults and shoot these crushing projectiles but at a low rate of fire.

Ram ships: charges towards an enemy ship and rams them until they sink.

Fire ships: like Iberian fire ship

Capture ships: captures an enemy ship or murders enemy units onboard. 

Transport ships: can transport large number of units, siege and elephants at once. 

And of course there are the merchants and fishing ships. 

 

This way we can avoid the race to build first warship and also sorts out balancing issues that arise from the current quinqueremes. 

Historically, naval  battles were a combination of ramming and boarding, with very limited role of on-board archers I believe ?

Also a few catapults on Roman ships, and incendiary traits sometime used by some, and of course greek fire.

But to have interesting tactics using such technologies, I guess that the game would need a different scale as it had been pointed out ?

 

About the anti-infantry use of ships (that is overpowered as of now) :

If the ships are made less efficient against infantry/buildings and cannot anymore by themselves interdict a land strait, they would need a specific togglable mode for their onboard infantry "disembark, destroy and re-embark" so that they could be put near a land strait (like Gibraltar in the Meditteranean map, where as of now putting two warships allow to kill all merchant convoys between north and south) and have the onboard infantry destroy any enemy coming near (unless of course the enemy is strong enough to defeat said infantry).

Also, ships would need a slow healing effect, so that it's possible to use such tactics without micro-healing the troops.