PRI#9: Naval problems (all race)

[makazuwr32]

I do not like current situation with water fights in general and thus we might need naval update later.

can be later - however if u know any big imbalance there, we need a new topic where it can be discussed and quick fixed.

It is just a mess.

Those problems are not too critical yet but they sure will arise along with buildings and magic updates.

General issues why i do not like current naval fights:
1. On water maps humans, undeads and dwarves (planned) have advantage over elves, scalefolks (planned) and orcs because they can construct some actual warfare for water.
2. If tc is not near water than orcs, scalefolks and elves just waste production in many cases. Humans, dwarves and undeads will not because they can train workers and build actual warfare.
3. In general lack of water units for all races. Expecially for undeads among ready ones.
4. Lack of defences. It basically is about "who has higher numbers and proper counters is sure to win" in many cases right now.
4.1. Bridges. They are separate issue.

And some race specific issues (here is specifically about water related units).
Humans:
They are one of the most powerful mid-late game naval races right now. Due to ability to carry units who can act inside on variety of ships as well as due to great variety of ships itself.
Orcs:
Casters, problem with transports, some balancing issues with nature of amphibious merblins and merlocks.
Elves:
They lack some good tough unit to tank damage. Sea serpent is not effective for that role. Transport problems.
Undeads:
Too thin unit-wise naval fleet that is from only skeleton pirate (and monster form) and ghost vessel. They need more content.

In short current situation between 4 ready races in naval fights is not too bad but i can't say it is good either due to issues above.
And it is not something we can solve with simple fix.

[DreJaDe]

What if serpents are instead balanced to be the tank for now?

Aren't there mermaid workers for elves? Maybe make them be able to summon tank units for their sacrifice but can also go back to old form but with long CD. That's two I could think of.

Why is transportation a problem? Is it because siege can't use transport ship? For normal units, I don't see much of this problem. I can think of two solution. Add a tech that would allow elven siege to cross water. Since those seige units ​are also basically giants.

A tech that would allow their bridge that can hold their siege unit to be more faster will be good. I use this tactic on old naval maps back then LOL

[makazuwr32]

Transportation is problem because ud, elves, scalefolks and orcs have only transport with carry cap 1.
Also 3 of them have very low speed.
It is not related to siege specifically — humans and dwarves can move hordes of units with their transports and warships while elves need actual transportation and need to use tons of transport shios to get them to new land.

Related to tanking — we need island turtle unit here.
Serpent is not good to make as tanking unit.

No sacrifices for elves.
And workers will not get any extra functionality aside from construction of something.

Bridges:
Tough bridges will have that functionality at base but only for mechanical non-ship units.
Alas problems with bridges are that you can use them as walls which i do not like and are thin enough that even cavalry can destroy them and few other less major problems.
For example i think that all bridges must be excluded from all foot melee bonuses but instead they must be capturable. Perfectly also excluding tough bridges from possible targets for non-siege units.

[DreJaDe]

Transportation is problem because ud, elves, scalefolks and orcs have only transport with carry cap 1.
Also 3 of them have very low speed.
It is not related to siege specifically — humans and dwarves can move hordes of units with their transports and warships while elves need actual transportation and need to use tons of transport shios to get them to new land.

Related to tanking — we need island turtle unit here.
Serpent is not good to make as tanking unit.

No sacrifices for elves.
And workers will not get any extra functionality aside from construction of something.

Aren't riding that brain name creature kinda just the same? For me that's kinda enough. I look at it's description and it costed two, quite cheap for a ride.

Then why not just make their transport ship have more capacity then? For elves. Or at least make them able to carry more varied units. I don't see why you couldn't carry mounted dudes on ship. There's also that treetop archery and there's a tree in the elven ship lol.

I mean looking at it, aren't sea serpent kinda look rideable? Nahh, just joking on that one.

Gotta nice idea. What if Serpent have this aow ability called submerge and cause devastating damage when attacking from below? I think that's a great idea though not in topic.

[Stratego (dev)]

this is also off topic here so i exctract naval talk to a separate balance thread.
what is the priority on it btw?

[Stratego (dev)]

wait it was already said to be not so critical.
so i set it to pri:10

[makazuwr32]

Transportation is problem because ud, elves, scalefolks and orcs have only transport with carry cap 1.
Also 3 of them have very low speed.
It is not related to siege specifically — humans and dwarves can move hordes of units with their transports and warships while elves need actual transportation and need to use tons of transport shios to get them to new land.

Related to tanking — we need island turtle unit here.
Serpent is not good to make as tanking unit.

No sacrifices for elves.
And workers will not get any extra functionality aside from construction of something.

Aren't riding that brain name creature kinda just the same? For me that's kinda enough. I look at it's description and it costed two, quite cheap for a ride.

Then why not just make their transport ship have more capacity then? For elves. Or at least make them able to carry more varied units. I don't see why you couldn't carry mounted dudes on ship. There's also that treetop archery and there's a tree in the elven ship lol.

I mean looking at it, aren't sea serpent kinda look rideable? Nahh, just joking on that one.

Gotta nice idea. What if Serpent have this aow ability called submerge and cause devastating damage when attacking from below? I think that's a great idea though not in topic.

Hippocampus riding is not good problem solving since it allows only elves transportation and does not allow glades, centaurs and other units.
It also requires good amount of units to transport an army this way and takes good amount of place.

For that ship specifically to carry giants or 3 units will be too much due to cheapness of treetop archery. We need separate carrier for that role.

Submerging idea in general is interesting but here is problem with "can see invisible units". I approve this idea and will give it a thought. Probably we will need some changes to "can see invisible" mechanic in aof to make this viable (i have some ideas for that anyway by the way but no actual ideas yet).

[DreJaDe]

For that ship specifically to carry giants or 3 units will be too much due to cheapness of treetop archery. We need separate carrier for that role.

Cherry-picking for balance might be a good idea. Since stratego is willing, I think this could be an easy one and just change later on when the real change for balance happens. Since the navy update would take so long after all.

Like let us say that only the 2nd upg would affect the ship.

Okay, I don't get the relation between treetop upg and giants. Is it because the giants have carry capacity? Now that I think about it, I don't think there's a specific need for giants to be transported. Also, there's the wood shaper guy.

[makazuwr32]

Ent warriors have.
And units inside it can act even if this unit itself is inside transport where it can't act from inside.

So yes it also is related.