Possible tweaks to Naval Warfare IMPLEMENTED

[b2198]

Now all ships should have proper chances to be used as Ballista, Catapult, Mend and Turtle ships got upgrades. Along with caravel changes from other topic. Already in dev version.

:O nice, this will further improve naval warfare, which is already leagues ahead in terms of variety and strategy than it was at the start of this thread

I'm loving the boarding vs anti-ship vs attack vs siege dynamics now

[Endru1241]

Now there should also Light Ships -> Boarding be much more visible.

But on the other hand Attack vs Siege was never a thing and still isn't.
Attack ships are only good vs ground troops and transports.
So I also wonder about slight bonus damage making Attack -> Light.

[b2198]

But on the other hand Attack vs Siege was never a thing and still isn't.
Attack ships are only good vs ground troops and transports.

I disagree, 2 frigates (with +2 damage from ranged damage research) can solo a fully upgraded cannon ship if they get to attack first, which they usually do because of not having stand still to attack and bigger speed, for the same 8 turn cost, and with proper manouvering, none of them are lost(both stay at 24hp, if my calculations aren't wrong, and assuming the cannon ship doesn't try to flee, in which case only 1 will drop to 24hp, while the other stays intact).

Against elite catapult ships, assuming the 2 frigates are not very close to each other, it's a victory by a larger margin (both stay at 28hp, or 1 at 1hp and the other intact, if no manouver is done)

Against elite ballista ships it gets a bit more tactical, it's still possible to win against them given enough space and speed to manouver, but it will be close (in some outcomes I calculated for 2 frigates vs 2 elite ballista ships, only 1 frigate survives, with 11, 22, 33 or 44hp)

Edit: rethinking some moves in the 2 frigates vs 1 double cannon, the
"only 1 will drop to 24hp, while the other stays intact"
case is guaranteed if the frigates attack first and both players play optimally, and the
"both stay at 24hp"
case is guaranteed if the double cannon ship attacks first and both players play optimally

[b2198]

Also, I was checking the stats of the new ships, and I'm left here thinking, won't Barcha Longa/Caravel/Dromon Ship make Transport Ship obsolete until Cog? And maybe even then, since attack ships have a higher bonus against transport ships than they have against light ships, so the hp difference wouldn't matter that much, and light ships are faster?

[Endru1241]

But on the other hand Attack vs Siege was never a thing and still isn't.
Attack ships are only good vs ground troops and transports.

I disagree, 2 frigates (with +2 damage from ranged damage research) can solo a fully upgraded cannon ship if they get to attack first, which they usually do because of not having stand still to attack and bigger speed, for the same 8 turn cost, and with proper manouvering, none of them are lost(both stay at 24hp, if my calculations aren't wrong, and assuming the cannon ship doesn't try to flee, in which case only 1 will drop to 24hp, while the other stays intact).

Against elite catapult ships, assuming the 2 frigates are not very close to each other, it's a victory by a larger margin (both stay at 28hp, or 1 at 1hp and the other intact, if no manouver is done)

Against elite ballista ships it gets a bit more tactical, it's still possible to win against them given enough space and speed to manouver, but it will be close (in some outcomes I calculated for 2 frigates vs 2 elite ballista ships, only 1 frigate survives, with 11, 22, 33 or 44hp)

Edit: rethinking some moves in the 2 frigates vs 1 double cannon, the
"only 1 will drop to 24hp, while the other stays intact"
case is guaranteed if the frigates attack first and both players play optimally, and the
"both stay at 24hp"
case is guaranteed if the double cannon ship attacks first and both players play optimally

Your examples show possibility.
Not advantage.
Just like archers can outmanouver and defeat siege machines.

But I would never call such balance relation as Attack Ships naturally defeating Siege Ships.

Also, I was checking the stats of the new ships, and I'm left here thinking, won't Barcha Longa/Caravel/Dromon Ship make Transport Ship obsolete until Cog? And maybe even then, since attack ships have a higher bonus against transport ships than they have against light ships, so the hp difference wouldn't matter that much, and light ships are faster?

Dromon having the same carry won't be like that- I forgot to change it.
I am still struggling if it should have repair left and carry removed or repair removed and carry limited to foot units.
As for them being superior to transport ships - well, what they can carry is the difference here.
Single transport ship can have wagon or siege tower with 3 units.
Caravel and Barcha Longa can only carry flesh and blood.

Also this bonus vs transport ships is another reason to add another one, weaker against light ships.

[b2198]

Your examples show possibility.
Not advantage.
Just like archers can outmanouver and defeat siege machines.

But I would never call such balance relation as Attack Ships naturally defeating Siege Ships.

Oh, I thought you were saying that attack ships couldn't fight against siege ships, yeah, I didn't mean to say they had an inherent advantage.

Dromon having the same carry won't be like that- I forgot to change it.
I am still struggling if it should have repair left and carry removed or repair removed and carry limited to foot units.
As for them being superior to transport ships - well, what they can carry is the difference here.
Single transport ship can have wagon or siege tower with 3 units.
Caravel and Barcha Longa can only carry flesh and blood.

Also this bonus vs transport ships is another reason to add another one, weaker against light ships.

Good points, forgot about wagons and siege towers for a moment.
About Dromon, I also don't know which would be better, both versions seem good, but are considerably different ships in terms of usage, but seeing as now barchas/caravels are 4 turns and can carry, maybe remove carry from dromon and leave it as a scout that's not destroyed by a single fire arrow?


On a sidenote: what about elite turtle ships vs heavy quadrirremes, aren't elite turtle ships just overall better, with 1 less speed but 2 more range, same amount of shots to kill each other, require 7 less turns of research and are considerably tankier? I guess they can only be built on docks, so they aren't as easy to spam, but still not sure if that's enough to make them not dominant

[Endru1241]

About Dromon, I also don't know which would be better, both versions seem good, but are considerably different ships in terms of usage, but seeing as now barchas/caravels are 4 turns and can carry, maybe remove carry from dromon and leave it as a scout that's not destroyed by a single fire arrow?

That was my first thought, but then - 3 turns vs 4 turns and not even capable of capturing tc and no self-sufficient survival against rouge fortress?

On a sidenote: what about elite turtle ships vs heavy quadrirremes, aren't elite turtle ships just overall better, with 1 less speed but 2 more range, same amount of shots to kill each other, require 7 less turns of research and are considerably tankier? I guess they can only be built on docks, so they aren't as easy to spam, but still not sure if that's enough to make them not dominant

Research requires gunpowder, so it's at least a little better comparison.
But aside for that - main reason for turtle ship being slightly better, more usefull is exactly the fact, that it cannot be build by workers.
While increase in build time by workers lessened effectiveness of ship spam - it's still viable tactic.
And it still has more than 25% worse damage output.

[b2198]

Research requires gunpowder

Oh, I didn't see that before, my bad, yeah, that makes sense.

[b2198]

That was my first thought, but then - 3 turns vs 4 turns and not even capable of capturing tc and no self-sufficient survival against rouge fortress?

What about making it able to directly capture TCs, so it can be used for early shoreside attacks assisted by other ships, without necessarily requiring ground units to be transported?

[Endru1241]

May be a little limited.
All it takes is tc 1 tile from water.

It would also create a precedent.

[makazuwr32]

Just a reminder that stratego plans to make water tcs later (due to our request for aof).
They will spawn only on water and thus must be capturable by water units (ships in case of aos if you ever implement this).

Not sure when though.

[Endru1241]

Just a reminder that stratego plans to make water tcs later (due to our request for aof).
They will spawn only on water and thus must be capturable by water units (ships in case of aos if you ever implement this).

Not sure when though.

I thought it already works.
Have you checked buildlist.json documentation?
GET_TC task definition sounds like makin different TC types being generated.

[makazuwr32]

Oh. Need to check than.

[L4cus]

Just a reminder that stratego plans to make water tcs later (due to our request for aof).
They will spawn only on water and thus must be capturable by water units (ships in case of aos if you ever implement this).

Not sure when though.

interesting

[Endru1241]

Just a reminder that stratego plans to make water tcs later (due to our request for aof).
They will spawn only on water and thus must be capturable by water units (ships in case of aos if you ever implement this).

Not sure when though.

interesting

Maybe.
But not really for AoS.
Even now after some changes naval battles may seem a little boring, so making pure naval TC won't be good.
Let's say I'd change all ships (or e.g. all except siege ones) to have possibility for TC takeover and turned on naval TC.
Because AoS lacks air and amphibious units (and there is no way to bring them in, still following flavour) - naval TC would only make player good at defending part of the map and still have much more limited attack capability (unless we are talking about very water dominated maps), as production usable on deeper land would be cut at half.

There is also flavour side. AoS timeline ends somewhere on the technological level of first discoveries.
Why would we ever talk about pure naval TC, when the best humanity could do would be island cities?
In such case those TC should be capable of ground unit production, so the whole point of naval TC disappears.

[b2198]

Ok, after a bunch of matches trying out the new ship mechanics and changes, here are some things that, in my opinion, should be addressed:

- Cannon Ship nerf was a little bit too much: they are in a considerably bad spot now, since you need A LOT of turns to research them to maybe not get them one-shotted before they can do anything. Against other ships, I think they are fine now, not the mass ship destroyer machines they were before that dominated the 7 seas without much of a problem, but against land fortifications, which I believe should be their main usage as a siege ship, they are now way too weak to be considered, they die too easily once in range, even with like, 3 of them it's not very likely any will survive to fire the first shot given no advantages to either side, so my suggestion for them is: increase their hp by a small amount (probably on all upgrades, maybe a tiny amount for the unupgraded one, a very small amount to the first upgrade and a small amount to the final one?) and increase back their range to 8 when upgraded (maybe only on the last upgrade, maybe on both upgrades, I'm not sure here). I think not being able to move and attack in the same turn was already a big enough nerf for them.

- Similarly, Catapult Ship was/is/will still be too weak: even with the new upgrade to them, their stats are still not worth it when there is the clearly superior cannon ship. Now, I know, they are supposed to be used more on situations where area damage is more useful, but I made some calculations, and even with area damage and the elite upgrade they will still deal less total damage to a castle than an upgraded cannon ship, while having to be positioned in such a way that makes them hit the 2 center tiles to not get the damage greatly reduced. As you can see on the comparison below, their total damage does go up considerably after researching area damage, but only ever surpasses that of the cannon ship against monasteries, because they have only 2 armor, and armor reduces spread damage way more than single-target damage. So my suggestion here is also a small increase in hp, but instead of also giving them more range, increase their powerRangePenaltyPercent by a small amount (instead of decreasing its powerRangePowerDrop, so that they can use this damage increase even before area damage is researched) when upgraded to elite catapult, so that they can be further consolidated as being more focused on being an area damage siege ship, instead of a single-target siege ship, like cannon ships are.

Damage comparison:

Code: Select all

{
	'cannon vs castle': 238,
	'cannon vs high castle': 235,
	'cannon vs monastery': 239,
	
	'elite cannon vs castle': 286,
	'elite cannon vs high castle': 283,
	'elite cannon vs monastery': 287,
	
	'double cannon vs castle': 334,
	'double cannon vs high castle': 331,
	'double cannon vs monastery': 335,
	
	
	'catapult vs castle': 162.28,
	'catapult vs high castle': 150.28,
	'catapult vs monastery': 166.28,
	
	'elite catapult vs castle': 193.24,
	'elite catapult vs high castle': 181.24,
	'elite catapult vs monastery': 197.24,
	
	'area damage catapult vs castle': 278.664,
	'area damage catapult vs high castle': 260.664,
	'area damage catapult vs monastery': 284.664,
	
	'area damage elite catapult vs castle': 331.512,
	'area damage elite catapult vs high castle': 313.512
	'area damage elite catapult vs monastery': 337.512
 }
}

- Galleons are way too strong: This wasn't that big of an issue before 1.149, because they naturally could be dealt with quickly and at a distance using cannon ship spam, but now that cannon ships are no longer mass ship destroyers, they were left with very few disadvantages to them. The issue with them is not a single one, but just that they are too good in too many things:
- - They tank A LOT (which I believe is their core identity, being some sort of a moving naval fortress, so I think that should be kept)
- - They deal A LOT of damage, (imo nerfing the cannon damage by a bit should solve this issue, because currently they are siege ships in disguise) dealing about 10/13 of the damage of a fully upgraded cannon ship without missing and without having to stop before attacking, like siege ships now have to
- - They are very easily repairable (and will be even more with the upcoming elite mend ships, so a nerf to their mend aff. would probably help a lot),
- - They can be used as super naval siege towers (which I think is also fine, maybe only reduce the carry capacity to 3, to reduce the amount of fire archers that can be put inside at once XD)
- - They are WAY too good at converting other ships, specially when you consider that they can be carrying priests and such, and can reduce mental resistance beforehand with boarding hooks (which is completely valid, IF the player actively sets up them for this purpose, but I think the boarding hooks paired with two 45% chance conversions is making them too strong for this already without needing converters inside, and with converters inside it's stronger than a sailing super inquisitor, so I think they need their base convert chance tuned down, maybe to 25% or 20%, since they are already too strong in other areas to be giving this one much power)



Now for some positive feedback:

- Cannon ship spam is not an issue anymore: the overall variety of ship strategies in the late game has greatly increased
- Ballista ship spam is not an issue anymore: the overall variety of ship strategies in the early game has greatly increased. Plus, they are not in a bad spot, they are still a very strong force against land units and for holding choke points, and will be even more when upgraded to their elite version
- Frigates now stand a chance against other war ships: not that much, they still get demolished by trirremes, turtle ships, galleons and corsair ships, but now they are a viable option to go after some unprotected siege ships and have a greater impact on ground combat due to having 11 damage arrows, which require a significant amount of upgrades and buffs to make it not much of a trouble, so they can help to take control the shores way more easily
- Heavy Fire Siphon is very fun, and is great for dealing with enemies that are packed together (usually due to thin rivers or trying to pass through a choke point) and can also help a lot against ground siege units (except cannoneers, of course) and even against wagons
- Boarding Ships are now a thing, which they weren't before, as far as my experience in this game goes, which is not much, but still. They are a valid counter to early trirremes and turtle ships, since they can stop them, attempt a conversion, and even if they fail, they still get another chance in the following turn, since they aren't that easily killed by them
- Great Cogs are wonderful ways of performing land invasions even to somewhat protected shores, since they can deliver a lot of units if they get to the other side, and not that uncommonly are just tanky enough to get there after taking a single barrage from the enemy fire
- I'm very excited to test the new light ships and upgrades to other ships that will be coming, they sound like naval warfare will have another layer to it, with ships that will probably be used as cheaper and faster, but way weaker alternatives to carracks and galleons in terms of bringing ground units to naval combat and taking over unprotected TCs around the map.

For you that read through this, sorry, I often get a bit too excited to write about things that interest me

Edit: fixing some weird phrasings

[Aral_Yaren]

You miss the theme that, in contrast of Galleon, cannonships can be built by A LOT of builders, so even when double cannonship arrives, one can have more than two cannonship stand by (which can be more as the builder number increase).

One thing is Dock+Mines to sustain Galleon. But that strats is harvested in late game and due to mine's valuable randomness, it is still on the line.

[b2198]

I am taking that into account, but cannon ships are not really that good right now against other ships, because most times they are gonna take the first hit, and the first hit by a galleon (cannon shot + normal attack, add 1 fire archer shot if upgraded) kills them, and then the archers inside the galleon can kill a second one (if not fully upgraded, if fully upgraded it will have 3hp remaining), or it can be converted to fire at a third one. So even with a lot of builders, more times than not, the galleon with units inside will win against the cannon spam (and against almost anything else, tbh) without much trouble. And again, even if a cannon or two fires at it, it's too easy to just use 2 mend ships to repair it and continue the attack.

Now, yes, with sufficient builders, the production speed can start to outmatch them by raw numbers, but to reach that point you would need so many builders (1 galleon can kill about 2 cannon ships in a single turn, to make 2 cannon ships in a single turn you would need 32 builders) that it's likely that the opponent already has a lot of mines and is using them to speed up galleon production considerably, negating that point almost entirely, and this gets worse the more docks both players have, because the amount of builders needed to match the galleon docks in power gets higher and higher faster than the number of TCs, since the number of factories increases at a faster rate.

Edit: that 32 builders comparison was a bit too simplified
to use cannon ships against galleons you would need either:
-to build cannon ships faster than it can destroy (which results in the 32 builders requirement, or 16 builders and some mend ships, for double cannon ships) (assuming a single galleon, this would increase to 64 or 48 builders with 2 galleons, 96 or 80 with 3, and so on)
or
-have at least 4 double cannon ships, 5 elite cannon ships or 6 normal cannon ships in position so that when the galleon attacks one of them, all the others can fire back at it and kill (assuming the galleon doesn't convert one of your ships with the units inside it, but use fire archers instead), in which case you would need the amount of builders needed to restock your cannon ship amount faster than all the enemy docks combined can make new galleons, and that is unrealistic, given that galleons are available waaay earlier than double cannon ships, and the more galleons there are, the closer they get to killing 2x the amount of double cannon ships (due to rounding, you can't kill 29/15 ships, only 15/15 = 1, and the other 14/15 damage is added to the next one, without killing it in that turn), so that 6 turn production disadvantage (2x8 - 10) is what needs to be solved by builder spam, needing 12 builders for every dock the enemy has to balance the power (assuming both players have the same amount of docks).

and all of that is ignoring another factor: space, which cannon ships require a lot more to be able to fight back on equal terms, and is not always abundant enough

[Aral_Yaren]

Cannonship main role currently is to take down buildings and secure area (after later verslog). Sure, it has good bonus vs ships but that's not the main sell. Having cannonship to fight galleon is no less that having ballistaship against frigate - same class different role.

And galleon is the most expensive unit in AoS so it is still on the line.

[Endru1241]

The answer to the potential issue of Galleons vs Cannon Ships is very simple.
Don't use them against Galleons.

My plan was to make naval balance like:
Siege Ships -> other targets - ground units, structures
Attack Ships -> Light Ships, Transport Ships, ground units
Anti-Ship Ships -> Siege Ships, Attack Ships, Great Ships
Boarding Ships -> Anti-Ships Ships, Attack Ships
Light Ships -> Boarding Ships, Supportive Ships, including Transport Ships
Great Ships - good at everything - capable of damaging and potentially dealing with anything, but worse than any other category at their respective strength cost-wise (with a little wider margin of difference between [Simple] ships - worker constructed), but can be more tanky in that regard.

So yes - there may be an imbalance if Galleons are better, than Catapult Ships and/or Cannon Ships against buildings.
Or better in conversion, than Boarding Ships.

1st one imho needs corrections in overall siege vs towers.
2nd one may be easily corrected by either decreasing base chance to 15% or making boarding effectiveness not affect great ships (my calcs about boarding were actually assuming such final value for Galleon - ~59% summaric chance to convert Trireme in one turn, while now it's 95%).

[b2198]

The answer to the potential issue of Galleons vs Cannon Ships is very simple.
Don't use them against Galleons.

I mainly compared them because of

You miss the theme that, in contrast of Galleon, cannonships can be built by A LOT of builders, so even when double cannonship arrives, one can have more than two cannonship stand by (which can be more as the builder number increase).

One thing is Dock+Mines to sustain Galleon. But that strats is harvested in late game and due to mine's valuable randomness, it is still on the line.

Which I (probably wrongly) interpreted as Aral saying that cannon ships could generally beat galleons because they can be built by workers

1st one imho needs corrections in overall siege vs towers.

Fair enough, what about catapult ships vs cannon ships then? Since catapult ships are more focused on dealing area damage, shouldn't they get the upperhand against multi-tiled buildings (specially megas)? Right now they only do in the case of attacking a monastery (which has low armor compared to castle and high castle) with an elite catapult ship with area damage vs a double cannon ship, and only by ~2.5 damage.

2nd one may be easily corrected by either decreasing base chance to 15% or making boarding effectiveness not affect great ships (my calcs about boarding were actually assuming such final value for Galleon - ~59% summaric chance to convert Trireme in one turn, while now it's 95%).

Yeah, that is one of my two main concerns with Galleons (the other being the very high siege-like damage that doesn't require prior setup), that anti-ship ships that come close to it are very likely to get converted if they fail in destroying the Galleon in 1 turn, even without priests or something like that inside them.

[Endru1241]

Fair enough, what about catapult ships vs cannon ships then? Since catapult ships are more focused on dealing area damage, shouldn't they get the upperhand against multi-tiled buildings (specially megas)? Right now they only do in the case of attacking a monastery (which has low armor compared to castle and high castle) with an elite catapult ship with area damage vs a double cannon ship, and only by ~2.5 damage.

Again - it's more about overall balance of siege.
Cannon ships are getting bonuses directly copied from Cannoneer, while Catapult Ships from Catapult.

But I don't think catapult needs to be especially more effective vs megas.
Area damage was designed to be better vs multiple units/buildings.

Yeah, that is one of my two main concerns with Galleons (the other being the very high siege-like damage that doesn't require prior setup), that anti-ship ships that come close to it are very likely to get converted if they fail in destroying the Galleon in 1 turn, even without priests or something like that inside them.

Also - priests inside.
I don't think it would be anything bad to have carry limited to non-misc units.

[Aral_Yaren]

Nope, I never said that, and absolutely will never have cannonship to do that (except maybe some ship show up in cannonship range).

And if galleon cannon vs building is to be lowered, it sounds well as the attribute is kinda great seeing how tanky galleon+stronger hulls can be (and not required to move cost action, in contrast of cannonship or catapultship a bit).

[b2198]

Nope, I never said that, and absolutely will never have cannonship to do that (except maybe some ship show up in cannonship range).

My bad then, misinterpreted what you said.

And if galleon cannon vs building is to be lowered, it sounds well as the attribute is kinda great seeing how tanky galleon+stronger hulls can be (and not required to move cost action, in contrast of cannonship or catapultship a bit).

Yeah, also agreed on this.

But I don't think catapult needs to be especially more effective vs megas.
Area damage was designed to be better vs multiple units/buildings.

Got it

Also - priests inside.
I don't think it would be anything bad to have carry limited to non-misc units.

Not sure about this one, on one side, this blocks some problematic things, like 3 bishops + inquisitor or even 4 bishops converting everything on sight or galleon + assassin (or maybe saboteur in the future) attacks on castles and such, but on the other side it removes some versatility from them, not being able to have blacksmiths to buff nearby ships, or having a spy to see what is inside the enemy's ship/castle/fort/TC on approach, or even having a drummer inside to boost the movement of units when going out. Really not sure what would be the best approach here. Perhaps it's fine, since other ships will still be able to be used for that (all light ships and viking ship, and I guess drummer and spy could also be used with transport ships too)