Possible tweaks to Naval Warfare IMPLEMENTED

[phoenixffyrnig]

In the main, Naval Warfare suffers a little from being a bit repetitious / spamming (in particular, early days, ballista ship spam, later on, cannon ship spam). Some units seem OP, some seem totally underused. The following ideas are more intended to be starting points for discussion rather than suggestions per se

1 Nerf ballista ship slightly. These are monsters in the early game, cheap to build and very destructive. Thanks to double action they can also destroy an enemy ballista ship in one turn. Possibly remove the second action but increase base attack?

2 Turtle Ship seems way OP for it's early availability (even without it's cannon shot). It is actually more robust than a Heavy Quadrireme - seems a bit too tanky to be so readily available. Maybe increase cost to 7?

3 Catapult ship is underused, largely due to the small window of utility between having researched ballistics and having researched gunpowder. Perhaps buff this one somehow - I like the idea of giving it an ability of burning shot, unaffected by area damage but with a bonus Vs Anti Ship Ships

4 Cannon ship spam, and boy are these spammed! Due to a discrepancy between hp and construction bonus in cannon ship line, first 2 tiers take 16 turns to build, double cannon ship is an 18 turn build. How about rejigging it so they all cost 18 turns to build?

Opinions welcome. I been rolling these points around in my head for a few days, but I cannot shake the slight suspicion that all of us, myself included, are not as good Admirals as we are Generals. Perhaps the main problem is how we are using the tools at our disposal...

And lastly, not part of this list but related,
BALANCING ISSUE - it seems ballista ships, Corsair ships and Carracks are missing the *No attack if garrisoned* tag

[L4cus]

AGREE!
1. Ballista ship is op. too op. it should be only 1 shot per turn, and maybe a sligh higher damage so itsnot useless.
2. i think trireme are too expensive...or at least, they shouldnt be that expensive...maybe 5-6 turns and balanced around it (another option is adding another melee ship, but cheaper than this)
3. gunpowder should take longer, in a mp map i just made money coureir and researched ballistic+gunpowder and now i am just destroying my enemy... (i think this tactic can be used only on large land maps or water maps so ur enemy cant raid u early)
4. never tried but thanks for the advice

[phoenixffyrnig]

5 Despite the fact that they can miss land units, I have never seen a cannon ship miss a water unit. Is this deliberate because water fighting is their thing, or is the miss chance being ignored somehow?

[makazuwr32]

Miss chance mechanic is ignored completely if enemy is in bonus list of attacker. Even 9001% miss chance is ignored if you attack enemy against whom you have at least 0.01% bonus.

[phoenixffyrnig]

Oh right - good info Mak, thank you. That explains a lot

[godOfKings]

U can spam cheap axe throwers and gunners, 3 maxed axe throwers or gunners usually r enough to down a cannon ship, axe throwers r also cheap counters to ballista ships, u just bait ballista ship with something else then axe thrower wagon ambush, also early game protect ur main harbour with ballista tower, honestly i see nothing wrong with spamming cannon ships, if u can protect urs while destroying enemy cannon ships u deserve to win,

Another thing cannon ships have low sight, i once used scout bird to destroy a cannon ship that appeared within my heavy cat death trap (ya heavy cats r also good cannon ship counters)

[Squirrel5555]

This isn't a discussion about HOW to beat certain naval strategies it's a discussion about certain naval units being obsolete and the "meta" revolving around a single unit.

[SirPat]

What I see here is that The units we were supposed to use, I mean like the ships at the bottom of the tech tree/history, arent used cause the next era ships are cheaper or easier to invest in time cause itll only cost u what? One ballistics and one gunpowder and now u have tons of cannon ships I suggest making the earlier era ships cheaper and making the upper era ships more expensive. In what way?

First lets talk about Galleys. This should honestly be our first ships used. The problem about them is that their too weak, their like an archer on a boat -_- tbh. Maybe increase its strength ny adding additional action turns, guve it 2 attacks per turn instead so atleast itll be better than a real archer on a boat. And for its upgrades, make the upgrade give 3 action turns, and the last upgrade is still 3 action turns. And this gives people a more bigger perspective of how impactful these galleys could be in a battle.

Second, Triremes need to be cheaper. Its just a galley with a ram, it should be like 5-6 turns. Idk what else to do with these units but if it does make it too easy to spam at early we could always just add an additional tech, called Ship Rams, thatll cost like 6 turns ig, so the early ship warfare would be all galleys only and then u have to research to get anti ships(Triremes).


Third, honestly, the seige weapon based ships need additional techs, like add a tech called Naval Seige tech, requires Ballistics. Which unlocks the use of ballista ship and catapult ship cause practically, using a catapult on land is different from using a catapult on a ship. Maybe Naval Seige tech would cost around 6-7 turns,


Fourth, Same with cannon ships. Add a tech called Naval Cannons. Cause naval cannons are different from cannons on land, types and the way use these, its the same principal with the naval seige tech. U still have to learn how to use a cannon on a ship and make a cannon for using on a ship. Naval cannons tech would cost u like 6-8 turns and it requires naval seige tech and Gunpowder, which both requires ballistics.
is this possible? Two Technologies learned to unlock a tech?
Oh and Naval cannons tech also unlocks galleon cannons


Fifth, Carracks and Galleons. Carracks now have 3 action turns, and Galleons will have 4. And Yes i think a 4 cannon shot galleon is balanced cause now u need 5 techs to unlock these. Ballistics, Gunpowder, Naval Seige, Naval Cannons and Galleon upgrade.

And uh idk what else



Just make the ships, more powerful and more pricy like how it really works irl. But thats just my thoughts, idk anything about balance but this would be a cool change. Hopefully these ideas help

[godOfKings]

Honestly i dont like this idea at all, galleys r meant to kill the tiny spam anti ship infantries, and their high hp allows them to tank ballista ship atks, after which u can destroy enemy ballista ship with ur own ballista ship, triremes act as deterrent early game, as long as u have a trireme infront, no one will dare to atk ur siege ships behind, cannon ships alone were never enough, in my case at least to win the war, i would at least use a tanky ship infront to protect my cannon ships while taking enemy ones down one by one. Also turtle ships have too low range and weak to cheap spam units (they cant even one shot axe thrower), catapults and towers, triremes on the other hand thanks to their physical armor cant b easily destroyed by axe throwers or gunners

U just need to use the right counter against the right opponent units

[makazuwr32]

The problem i see is in pure naval fight. On sea-based maps, where you have no land way to get to your opponent.

[phoenixffyrnig]

honestly i see nothing wrong with spamming cannon ships

Because spamming is dull, lacking in imagination, and somewhat anathema to a strategy game. Generally, if a unit is being spammed it is probably too strong.

Meanwhile, their strength and ubiquity prevents some other units from being viable. By the time you have a textbook well balanced navy, focused ballista ship spam -> cannon ship spam will have superior numbers and firepower - this is quantity over quality, an undesirable state of affairs in my opinion.

[Endru1241]

1 Nerf ballista ship slightly. These are monsters in the early game, cheap to build and very destructive. Thanks to double action they can also destroy an enemy ballista ship in one turn. Possibly remove the second action but increase base attack?

True - they were left alone, while ballista got nerfed by necessity of stand transformation.
Maybe just replicate similar behaviour?
Decrease action to 1, but add an ability "Stabilise Ballista" which gives +1 action -2 speed for 3 turns.
It would mean 1 action still left on the turn of usage and additional action for 2 turns.
Really slowed down (to just 1) for game start, but after astronomy and navigation not so bad anymore.

2 Turtle Ship seems way OP for it's early availability (even without it's cannon shot). It is actually more robust than a Heavy Quadrireme - seems a bit too tanky to be so readily available. Maybe increase cost to 7?

But also significantly weaker in offensive stats.

2. i think trireme are too expensive...or at least, they shouldnt be that expensive...maybe 5-6 turns and balanced around it (another option is adding another melee ship, but cheaper than this)

This isn't bad idea. Decreasing trireme cost to 6 could be a good move.
And it would also make turtle ships not seen OP, as they are quite balanced comparing to Quadrireme.
Gunpowder increases utility to challenge Heavy Quadrireme as equal.

3 Catapult ship is underused, largely due to the small window of utility between having researched ballistics and having researched gunpowder. Perhaps buff this one somehow - I like the idea of giving it an ability of burning shot, unaffected by area damage but with a bonus Vs Anti Ship Ships

Gunpowder is only researchable in Advancement Center. Ballistics even in TC.
So the window is not so small in regular game.
Only on maps with more TC or going all to gunpowder rush makes it much smaller.
But I get hidden hint too.
To have full power catapult ship - Area Damage is needed, which is similarly difficult to get as Gunpowder.
In that case why even bother - cannon ship can at least be upgraded further.

I am not sure how much closer would that bring Catapult Ship to Cannon Ship, but it surely would mitigate the difference:
One of the points already in my pack is giving all catapults innate 1 power range with 24% damage on area (almost half of original 44%) and increase it to 2 with 44%/21% damage on area with Area Damage research.
Although going with same logic as ballista ship - it should also be nerfed accordingly.

To really get it competitive - it should have the upgrade to increase range to 7.

4 Cannon ship spam, and boy are these spammed! Due to a discrepancy between hp and construction bonus in cannon ship line, first 2 tiers take 16 turns to build, double cannon ship is an 18 turn build. How about rejigging it so they all cost 18 turns to build?

Actually 3rd one was supposed to be 16 turns too.
Good few packs ago I made it so all buildables require exactly 2x ambidexteria worker actions than the number of turns they are produced in.
Must have skipped it somehow or forgot to change construction rate along with some HP changes.

Maybe it needs to be changed to x3 for all buildable by workers (maybe except factories).

But sticking with cannon ships unbalance - the main points of difference between catapults and cannons is range and possibility to build.
Cannonship is buildable by worker, while cannon is not, but stats comparison between them is similar to catapult -> catapult ship.
If we were to make this comparison even more strict cannon ship shouldn't have possibility to be build by worker.
Bam - that's surefire way to stop the spam.

But I don't want to go this way.
I'd rather allow regular ground cannon to be buildable by worker, than that.
In my pack it's already changed to be regular non-healable, but repairable siege machine. Only with no option to be burned.

So the question is how exactly should cannonship be balanced - simple range decrease by 1 ?
Catapult in stand mode has 7/8, but 6/7 in moving.
This is translated to catapult ship 6 range.
Cannon has 8, but it's moving normally.

And lastly, not part of this list but related,
BALANCING ISSUE - it seems ballista ships, Corsair ships and Carracks are missing the *No attack if garrisoned* tag

Good find. I corrected it in the pack.

As it seems that all siege ships are a problem actually - maybe instead of thinking a way to nerf them individually - just give them all movement takes action spec ?

[phoenixffyrnig]

Cool, sounds like a good adjustment re cats in general.

Movement takes action would work I think, if done alongside other tweaks you mentioned. And yes, I think that is the problem with the cannon ship, it has full movement, full range and effectively zero miss in Naval combat, the best of all worlds.

Decrease action to 1, but add an ability "Stabilise Ballista" which gives +1 action -2 speed for 3 turns.

Suggesting it cannot manually be changed back to sailing mode for 3 turn CD? Could this swing the balance towards too limiting for the time before Astronomy and Navigation are done...would they then become sitting ducks for too long?

[L4cus]

agree with movemente takes action!
about trireme rebalance:

cost 6
hp 50
attack 13
armour 5/3
speed 5
sight 6

i actually like the idea of adding penteconter as a previous unit for trireme, and having quadrireme as another line with quinquereme and heavy quinquereme, and birreme as the cheapest option:
penteconter=>trireme=>dromon (5 turns)
quadrireme=>quinquereme=>heavy quinquereme (7 turns)
birreme (3 turns)

[Endru1241]

For siege ships - let's go for movement takes action, along with -1 range for cannon ship for starters.
Then we'll see.


I meant to simply change trireme line cost 7->6.
Without any other changes.

I was not a very big fan of name change, that specifies type of ship originally, but somehow got used to it.
But I don't think going into too many ships that are essentially just galley subtypes is much needed.
Especially when they all represent one type of weapon, really - naval ram.
I don't have very high knowledge about Mediterranean sea battles, but I doubt ramming was still be prevalent in medieval times.

[L4cus]

it was...not that common as before, but it still was one of the main tactics...the decline started with the gunpowder guns on ships

[Endru1241]

I do know, that naval ram was even dubbed by some historians as ship's killer.
But I think it was already in decline against greek catapults (or ballista - they didn't really differentiate between those weapons much) and especially lost a lot of usage vs byzantine fire catapults.

It was great back when only archer arrows could go against ships (and it didn't do much damage), so main battles were in melee anyway.

But let's not deal with exact decline of ship ramming usage.

My point was not to concentrate too much on it to the point of having 3 lines of units.

[Aral_Yaren]

While this long, boarding ships and its tandems were left unspotted... eventhough they can tank trireme attack a few hits, they are still underrated up to now, even in early battle where no long range siege ships dominate the water, mainly because they are imho a bit costly for a single job desc: rush to the face of opponent's fleet and board (convert) it with a considerate miss chance even after 3 turns researching boarding effectiveness tech, then all the rest of opponent's fleets just blatantly sink it down in concentrated attack.

And after gunpowder era, there's almost no place for boarding ships, except galleon which has cannon ability and can garrison some units.

One thing: I really don't enjoy viking ships behavior, because eventhough they are boarding ships with +1 foot unit garrison, when in touch of shore line and no unit inside, opponent's foot unit can come in and conquer it, as if the ship itself was empty, unmanned, just happen to be there to be claimed.

Meanwhile the now fire siphon is a good improvement thanks to none other than our fully dedicated Devs (can we have applauses for both Endru and Stratego? They more than deserve it).

Assuming they (I mean the fire siphon, not our Devs) are to face trireme with such lethal attribute for naval battle under a single condition: what attacks first, in mid game their usefulness is declining as frigate definitely take it out easily, nothing to said in late game, after gunpowder era. And even with such lethal damage, fire siphons are not as versatile as ballista ships whose 5 range match the hands up.

So my suggestions are:

1. Increase the base chance for all boarding ships, around 5-15% is good imho,
2. Just like other forumers said, increase the cost for gunpowder tech so other naval units (honestly, other various units too be it infantry, cavalry, archery, siege machines and even misc units) can shine more in battle before gunpowder arrives.
3. An upgrade version of fire siphon, just to increase their defensive stats (just adding more armor and hp)

Thanks for all, awesome you are!

[L4cus]

i think we could add marine like units: vikings, illyrians, sea people, epibatai (athens marines), etc,, all of them with boarding capability and higher bonus against ships...these would be worth carrying in transport ships as support, or as main attacker. thats at least how i use viking ship, with axeman or huscarle inside, taking down enemy ships...

[Endru1241]

While this long, boarding ships and its tandems were left unspotted... eventhough they can tank trireme attack a few hits, they are still underrated up to now, even in early battle where no long range siege ships dominate the water, mainly because they are imho a bit costly for a single job desc: rush to the face of opponent's fleet and board (convert) it with a considerate miss chance even after 3 turns researching boarding effectiveness tech, then all the rest of opponent's fleets just blatantly sink it down in concentrated attack.

And after gunpowder era, there's almost no place for boarding ships, except galleon which has cannon ability and can garrison some units.

One thing: I really don't enjoy viking ships behavior, because eventhough they are boarding ships with +1 foot unit garrison, when in touch of shore line and no unit inside, opponent's foot unit can come in and conquer it, as if the ship itself was empty, unmanned, just happen to be there to be claimed.

Meanwhile the now fire siphon is a good improvement thanks to none other than our fully dedicated Devs (can we have applauses for both Endru and Stratego? They more than deserve it).

Assuming they (I mean the fire siphon, not our Devs) are to face trireme with such lethal attribute for naval battle under a single condition: what attacks first, in mid game their usefulness is declining as frigate definitely take it out easily, nothing to said in late game, after gunpowder era. And even with such lethal damage, fire siphons are not as versatile as ballista ships whose 5 range match the hands up.

So my suggestions are:

1. Increase the base chance for all boarding ships, around 5-15% is good imho,
2. Just like other forumers said, increase the cost for gunpowder tech so other naval units (honestly, other various units too be it infantry, cavalry, archery, siege machines and even misc units) can shine more in battle before gunpowder arrives.
3. An upgrade version of fire siphon, just to increase their defensive stats (just adding more armor and hp)

Thanks for all, awesome you are!

1. Thanks for noticing the imbalance.
Honestly - I totally didn't take into account, that boarding ships are nothing special compared to convincers - having lesser range (direct only), similar chance and much more limited targets is making them weak.
I'll try to deal with that at least with proposed solution.
2. That's actually pretty hard topic from the very beginning - ever since I took over design leader position.
I already made some changes (in the assets) to foot and mounted gun users, but cannons are the case I haven't touched.
It's most visible in ships, but I still have no idea how exactly should it be dealt with.
I only know, that just making the techs to get them longer to be eesearched is not a very good solution.
It would only increase turn cost very slightly (assuming heavy money courier usage), so it's only delaying the ineviible outcome of cannons coming on top.
So a nerf would probably be good direction here.
On the other hand in any historical flavoured approach cannons would by far outdate any mechanical artilerry in 15th century.
3. Sure - a new topic can be created for it.

[Aral_Yaren]

2. A new tech for allowing cannon ships? Gunpowder tech (and Galleon tech) may enable other cannon ability ships to perform, but for cannon ships they need the new tech (as they can be built and spammed by Workers). Yet I say it's just a variation of delaying the turn cost.

Perhaps making Workers to build cannon ships longer than current mend and decreasing their bonus vs other ships but raising bonus vs mega buildings (for handling castles and forts, as they are the only ones that like trebuchet in naval battle)) shall work.

[Endru1241]

2. For only cannon ships - there was few ideas here already. I am already putting:

For siege ships - let's go for movement takes action, along with -1 range for cannon ship for starters.
Then we'll see.

And still consider:

Good few packs ago I made it so all buildables require exactly 2x ambidexteria worker actions than the number of turns they are produced in.
...
Maybe it needs to be changed to x3 for all buildable by workers (maybe except factories).

But I meant, that changes to overall gunpowder line of techs.
Gunpowder is just more balanced to game end.
But when compared to difficulty of getting few lines of units to 3rd level gunpowder is quite easy to get.
While both in reality and in game it should be going vs those units as a standard (if two players invested similarly in those techs).
I feel like some sort of age tech blockage would need to be used here (maybe along with moving part of the turn costs from other techs).
Anyway - maybe I shouldn't deliberate about it in naval balance topic to avoid confusion.

[L4cus]

there was a topic about gunpowder units rebalance! it was mainly for foot though...i think move costs action is the way...gunpowder being researched in 6 turns is pretty cheap, i actually have made some test and got to rush the tech in 6 turns (using money couriers) i think 8 turns could be a good change...and adding at least 1 fast melee ship to short distances with long range ships...just like heavy and light cavalry...i think we need a cheap fast and melee ship to fill that role...

[Endru1241]

Btw.
To continue what was left before - I have made a rebalance for boarding:
Ships have higher mental resistance, so that the weakest of them have only 25% chance of being converted by Priest with persuasion. In exchange boarding ships decrease mental resistance before attack conversion attempt by 4% * attack power, and before ship conversion, which have constant 20%. It has to be noted, that melee boarding ships are affected by blacksmith sword mastery. And increased base chance for typical boarding ships.
Also boarding effectiveness tech conversion chance +20%->+30%.
Details of ship changes:
All siege ships unified to have 83% resistance, triremes and galley line unified at 64%, Transport ship and great transport back to 100%.
Also: Battleship 100->110%, Boarding and Viking ships 100->135%, Corsair ships 40->90%, Greek Fire Ships 50->73.5%, Caravels 60->145%, Mend ships 0->60%, .
Boarding ships conversion chance 40->60%, attack 4->5, Corsair ships 50->55%, attack 8->4, Viking ships 25->40%, Galleons 40->45%

Generally speaking on start chance for converting weakest in resistance (galleys and triremes) is 34% and 45% if used melee attack. Siege ships have a chance of 22/30%.
Strongest is Caravel, followed by viking and boarding ships, being the only ones with 0% chance on 1st attack/ effect.
Apart of it carracks with 6/8%, and most others with 12/16%.

Boarding effectiveness brings it to 50/62% for triremes and galleys, 33/41% for siege and 18/22 for most others.
Getting both blacksmith researches increases melee attack weapon effect chance to 70% vs triremes and galleys, 50% vs siege, 31% vs most others and 20% vs carracks.

However as I haven't removed -25% after failed attempt it is stacking over the one cast before attempt (which is only for 1 turn).
So second attempt in the same turn is guaranteed against triremes, galleys and siege ships if both were by melee attack.
But even by effect ability it goes over 50% in general and reaches 90% vs weakest, so to prevent boosting carracks too much Board Ship is getting cooldown of 1 turn.

Another thing is Fire Siphon Ships.
They are getting an upgrade, having 45 hp, 2/5 armor and 15 attack (+12hp, +2/2 amors and +3 power).
I think of cost 6.

Oh one more related - tech boost of ship hp.
+10 maybe?

[L4cus]

"ship castle", "shipbuilders guilds" or "reinforced hull" could be names for the hp buffing tech, the image could be the fixing tool of ambidextry with a hull as background, it should raise the mend bonus of the ships as well...
I like the changes! hope it works and finally balance the naval warfare

[Endru1241]

I was thinking of Advanced Hulls.
Or simply Stronger Hulls.

I meant to give benefit to only ships, that are not buildable by workers.
So, e.g. assign [Simple] category to others and make the tech affect ships without it.
In such case the bonus would be constant, not multiplicative.
No mend bonus though.
Too hard to think of a value in such case.

[L4cus]

ok, good

btw is mending ship afected by ambydextery? in the case it is not, it should have at least a tech fo buff that unit

[Endru1241]

That's right - completely forgot about mend ship.
I'll make it affected by ambidexteria.

[Endru1241]

Btw.
To continue what was left before - I have made a rebalance for boarding:
Ships have higher mental resistance, so that the weakest of them have only 25% chance of being converted by Priest with persuasion. In exchange boarding ships decrease mental resistance before attack conversion attempt by 4% * attack power, and before ship conversion, which have constant 20%. It has to be noted, that melee boarding ships are affected by blacksmith sword mastery. And increased base chance for typical boarding ships.
Also boarding effectiveness tech conversion chance +20%->+30%.
Details of ship changes:
All siege ships unified to have 83% resistance, triremes and galley line unified at 64%, Transport ship and great transport back to 100%.
Also: Battleship 100->110%, Boarding and Viking ships 100->135%, Corsair ships 40->90%, Greek Fire Ships 50->73.5%, Caravels 60->145%, Mend ships 0->60%, .
Boarding ships conversion chance 40->60%, attack 4->5, Corsair ships 50->55%, attack 8->4, Viking ships 25->40%, Galleons 40->45%

Generally speaking on start chance for converting weakest in resistance (galleys and triremes) is 34% and 45% if used melee attack. Siege ships have a chance of 22/30%.
Strongest is Caravel, followed by viking and boarding ships, being the only ones with 0% chance on 1st attack/ effect.
Apart of it carracks with 6/8%, and most others with 12/16%.

Boarding effectiveness brings it to 50/62% for triremes and galleys, 33/41% for siege and 18/22 for most others.
Getting both blacksmith researches increases melee attack weapon effect chance to 70% vs triremes and galleys, 50% vs siege, 31% vs most others and 20% vs carracks.

However as I haven't removed -25% after failed attempt it is stacking over the one cast before attempt (which is only for 1 turn).
So second attempt in the same turn is guaranteed against triremes, galleys and siege ships if both were by melee attack.
But even by effect ability it goes over 50% in general and reaches 90% vs weakest, so to prevent boosting carracks too much Board Ship is getting cooldown of 1 turn.

Another thing is Fire Siphon Ships.
They are getting an upgrade, having 45 hp, 2/5 armor and 15 attack (+12hp, +2/2 amors and +3 power).
I think of cost 6.

Oh one more related - tech boost of ship hp.
+10 maybe?

A bummer - it cannot be implemented like that.
If I try to set as related effect - the chance is only calculated for first one, so it turns into 100% always conversion.
Or decrease not happening if set as related effect, because it won't be used on friendly unit after conversion.
It also cannot be set as additional weapon effect.
While unit van have more than one weapon effect - it has to be granted from somewhere, because on game start only one weapon effect is loaded from unit json - the last one in list.

I am thinking of making it into separate ability with cooldown 1, something like "Boarding hooks".
Maybe it could also prevent movement as a bonus.

[Aral_Yaren]

These all sound great.

+10 hp tech is good, mainly for transport ship (3 carriers) who hasn't any upgrade.