Feedback on recent Naval changes

[phoenixffyrnig]

First and foremost, excellent job on making naval warfare enjoyable again @Endru1241. Until recent changes I had been avoiding water based maps due to spam related boredom. I'm coming to the close of an MP game on Rocky Archipelago, my first water fight in a long time, and found it a much better experience - primarily because all the extra options meant there were multiple viable approaches in any given situation.

Involved in this game were two opponents who I consider to be amongst the very finest currently playing the game, so it was a good testing ground for all that has improved of late. Obviously though, with so many changes there are bound to be a few creases to iron out, so here are my thoughts. (Tentative suggestions will be marked with a ?).

Dromon Scout this is fairly irrelevant atm - for just one extra cost we can have a Barca Longa which has the same speed and sight, along with much better all round combat abilities. Increase sight to 7. Or (tentatively) increase speed to 7, reduce cost to 2, or make constructable?

Barca Longa line really good addition, interesting interplay with it's anti boarding ship capabilities, (specifically the fact it is a viable counter to Galleons) and ability to carry troops. War Caravel seems cool too, but I've not had a chance to properly use this yet.

Galley line the amount of changes and upgrades elsewhere have, by inflation, weakened these slightly even with blacksmith increase to damage... or have they more clearly defined it's role as a shoreline predator Vs land units? Maybe give a small bonus Vs Ships? Or not if that is not their purpose.

War Canoe make trainable in Primitive Hut. Would also be cool if they could carry 1 primitive unit too.

Trireme line seemingly the current ruler of the waves. I feel they need a sizeable decrease to bonus Vs Siege Ships though (currently a Quad can one shot any top tier siege ship).

Fire Ship line now it has an upgrade and is affected by area dam, these little beauties are a wonderful addition to any good admiral's arsenal. Nice work.

Demolition Boat line relatively unusable atm. Too... squishy... (thanks for that word b) to have much of a chance to reach a worthwhile target or to lay sea mines in any useful area. Slight increase to HP even bearing in mind Stronger Hulls tech. Again, not much used by myself, but how about adding fire damage to both suicide attack and the mines they lay - would give their cost a better chance of breaking even, particularly if we invest time in their upgrade.

Turtle Ships wuhoo, nice tanky units when upgraded, but generally not OP due to damage/range limitations. Maybe drop bonus to Siege Ships from 200% to 180% (or less) - the elite version can one shot an Elite Cannon Ship.
Edit - make trainable in Dojo if this is to be the catch-all factory for oriental units.

Ballista Ship line what a fall from grace! From ubiquitous to unused, even though they are the only siege ship to be able to move and attack. (See general points on Siege Ships below). Possibly reduce build cost... maybe to as low as 13?

Catapult Ship line fairly unrealistic to go for the upgrade due to the hefty cost of Heavy Cat - skip these and go straight to cannon ships would probably be more efficient. (In fact, possibly an argument to reduce the cost of the Heavy Cat upgrade in the face of hwacha and cannon - I'm guessing the cost 8 upgrade predates both of those units?)

Cannon Ship line the only siege ship that doesn't require the upgrade of it's landbased equivalent. Possibly bring that requirement in, certainly for Dbl Cannon Ship.

Carrack (as before) rather little bang for your buck for a 10 turn unit. Can it be given a feeble Cannon ability, limited in range and power? I know the upgrade is cheap, but this one seems to need the upgrade to even be usable. As for Galleon, still an absolute beast, but these days must be used more sensibly and in conjunction with other units rather than pumped out en masse with sure knowledge of victory, so again, good changes.

British Firework Ship C'mon now, give us this as a fun unit! Because unlike tanks and uruk hai, this actually looks great fun to use!


Couple of general points...
Siege Ships are obviously in a pretty bad place right now, bordering on unusable. Too easy to destroy, and/or too unwieldy to use, those issues sort of exarcebate each other. What about giving ballista and catapult ships the 40% bonus Vs Anti Ships that Cannon ships have? Is there any way of allowing siege ships to attack and then move, but not move and then attack (ie cut their utility by a third rather than a half relative to previously?) And should the Siege Ship Upgraded Hull tech be giving any armour or HP benefits, because at the moment it seems not to. And I think it ought to, particularly in face of Anti Ship Ship and Castle damage. Which leads to my next point...

Making a beach head this seems to currently be a thankless task of high cost for little gain. In the above mentioned game on Rocky Archipelago, I have recently been the attacker and the defender in this scenario, and the mortality rate is totally unsustainable. This map has little land space, (ie we're only dealing with 2 castles and one or no towers) and also has the benefit of deep water speed boost - other maps have no deep water and much more space for land based defences, making a sea assault somewhere between impossible and suicidal.

I'm afraid I don't have any suggestions to overcome this impasse at the moment, but I feel it is something that needs thinking about. I attacked one opponent with a huge numerical advantage, and it cost nearly the entirety of my western navy to destroy just one of his castles. At the same time, the other surviving opponent pushed against my base with a huge navy while most of my navy was elsewhere, and I saw first hand how easy it was for upgraded defences to soak up the attack and give it back in spades.

[b2198]

First and foremost, excellent job on making naval warfare enjoyable again @Endru1241. Until recent changes I had been avoiding water based maps due to spam related boredom. I'm coming to the close of an MP game on Rocky Archipelago, my first water fight in a long time, and found it a much better experience - primarily because all the extra options meant there were multiple viable approaches in any given situation.

Yeah, naval combat is definitely way better than it was before 1.149, I've been playing a lot more sea-based matches recently and they are way more diverse in terms of fleet compositions.

Dromon Scout this is fairly irrelevant atm - for just one extra cost we can have a Barca Longa which has the same speed and sight, along with much better all round combat abilities. Increase sight to 7. Or (tentatively) increase speed to 7, reduce cost to 2, or make constructable?

Not completely irrelevant, it's useful as a cheap scout and to carry some early skirmish focused foot unit, but yeah, it's usefulness pales in comparison to that of Barcha Longa, could use a little buff.

Barca Longa line really good addition, interesting interplay with it's anti boarding ship capabilities, (specifically the fact it is a viable counter to Galleons) and ability to carry troops. War Caravel seems cool too, but I've not had a chance to properly use this yet.

Definitely, and war caravel is gonna get way more used next patch, because if I'm not mistaken, Endru has changed them to allow carried unit to attack from inside, making it somewhat of a small carrack for those purposes.

Galley line the amount of changes and upgrades elsewhere have, by inflation, weakened these slightly even with blacksmith increase to damage... or have they more clearly defined it's role as a shoreline predator Vs land units? Maybe give a small bonus Vs Ships? Or not if that is not their purpose.

They will be more consolidated as anti-light ships next patch. The bonuses against them were unintentionally only given to galley, and not to its upgrades, but that has been fixed already for the next patch. Also I really don't think they are weak at all, they are great for sniping out protected mend ships, murdering workers and, as you said, as a predator vs land units in general. Even zerks can't get through a few frigates without being disintegrated on the spot.

War Canoe make trainable in Primitive Hut. Would also be cool if they could carry 1 primitive unit too.

I agree, war canoe is considerably weak, making it more useful for the primitive faction would be a good improvement.

Trireme line seemingly the current ruler of the waves. I feel they need a sizeable decrease to bonus Vs Siege Ships though (currently a Quad can one shot any top tier siege ship).

While trirremes (and their upgrades) are very strong, in terms of raw power per cost they are a little behind turtle ships, though they still get the lead due to being way more accessible to make. Also, they have their predators too, called assault ship and corsair ship, though assault ship falls off in strength later in the game (and not only due to loyalty, they also deal a good amount of damage to trirremes apart from converting them), so maybe an upgrade to it would help in that regard.

Fire Ship line now it has an upgrade and is affected by area dam, these little beauties are a wonderful addition to any good admiral's arsenal. Nice work.

They are truly monsters for taking out megas, though that potential might decrease next patch, but are also very good in terms of how much damage they can deal to the entire enemy fleet at once, so are a great tactical weapon under the right circumstances.

Demolition Boat line relatively unusable atm. Too... squishy... (thanks for that word b) to have much of a chance to reach a worthwhile target or to lay sea mines in any useful area. Slight increase to HP even bearing in mind Stronger Hulls tech. Again, not much used by myself, but how about adding fire damage to both suicide attack and the mines they lay - would give their cost a better chance of breaking even, particularly if we invest time in their upgrade.

Unfortunately, I got that word from playing the most stressful game in existence, League of Legends XD
Agreed, giving them and their mines fire damage would instantly make them waay more useful. But still, a bit of hp increase would help a lot too.

Turtle Ships wuhoo, nice tanky units when upgraded, but generally not OP due to damage/range limitations. Maybe drop bonus to Siege Ships from 200% to 180% (or less) - the elite version can one shot an Elite Cannon Ship.
Edit - make trainable in Dojo if this is to be the catch-all factory for oriental units.

I like the idea of them being trainable in dojos (I wonder why ). They are actually the second tankiest ship line in the game, behind only the carrack line, and are very versatile too with their cannon shot, making them less prone to dying to assault ships and more useful against defenses.

Ballista Ship line what a fall from grace! From ubiquitous to unused, even though they are the only siege ship to be able to move and attack. (See general points on Siege Ships below). Possibly reduce build cost... maybe to as low as 13?

I believe their job is more about holding choke points very well, and they do a good job at that... when they are not being instakilled by 2 fire arrows due to being too close to the enemy. Maybe the ballista buff should also affect them in terms of increasing range, so that they can also be used as field siege machines more safely?

Catapult Ship line fairly unrealistic to go for the upgrade due to the hefty cost of Heavy Cat - skip these and go straight to cannon ships would probably be more efficient. (In fact, possibly an argument to reduce the cost of the Heavy Cat upgrade in the face of hwacha and cannon - I'm guessing the cost 8 upgrade predates both of those units?)

100% agreed, I've tried many times to use them over cannon ships but in all of them i thought to myself "a cannon ship would be doing the same job, but better, and would require less research time to start being useful"

Cannon Ship line the only siege ship that doesn't require the upgrade of it's landbased equivalent. Possibly bring that requirement in, certainly for Dbl Cannon Ship.

this /\

Carrack (as before) rather little bang for your buck for a 10 turn unit. Can it be given a feeble Cannon ability, limited in range and power? I know the upgrade is cheap, but this one seems to need the upgrade to even be usable. As for Galleon, still an absolute beast, but these days must be used more sensibly and in conjunction with other units rather than pumped out en masse with sure knowledge of victory, so again, good changes.

I believe that if carracks were to become an actual unit (and not just a stepping stone for galleons), the upgrade cost should be increased a little, so that it's less mandatory to get galleons every time you want carracks.

Couple of general points...
Siege Ships are obviously in a pretty bad place right now, bordering on unusable. Too easy to destroy, and/or too unwieldy to use, those issues sort of exarcebate each other. What about giving ballista and catapult ships the 40% bonus Vs Anti Ships that Cannon ships have? Is there any way of allowing siege ships to attack and then move, but not move and then attack (ie cut their utility by a third rather than a half relative to previously?) And should the Siege Ship Upgraded Hull tech be giving any armour or HP benefits, because at the moment it seems not to. And I think it ought to, particularly in face of Anti Ship Ship and Castle damage. Which leads to my next point...

Making a beach head this seems to currently be a thankless task of high cost for little gain. In the above mentioned game on Rocky Archipelago, I have recently been the attacker and the defender in this scenario, and the mortality rate is totally unsustainable. This map has little land space, (ie we're only dealing with 2 castles and one or no towers) and also has the benefit of deep water speed boost - other maps have no deep water and much more space for land based defences, making a sea assault somewhere between impossible and suicidal.

I'm afraid I don't have any suggestions to overcome this impasse at the moment, but I feel it is something that needs thinking about. I attacked one opponent with a huge numerical advantage, and it cost nearly the entirety of my western navy to destroy just one of his castles. At the same time, the other surviving opponent pushed against my base with a huge navy while most of my navy was elsewhere, and I saw first hand how easy it was for upgraded defences to soak up the attack and give it back in spades.

I believe all of these can benefit a lot from the changes to siege warfare that are being done, and while I don't think making a beach head should be easy, since the land fortifications should have a considerable upper hand, as to not make it absolutely required to win in the water to win on land, I agree that currently, only galleons and arguably turtle ships stand any chance of even approaching land fortifications without being wiped off the map instantaneously, so that could use some changes.

[Endru1241]

Couple of general points...
Siege Ships are obviously in a pretty bad place right now, bordering on unusable. Too easy to destroy, and/or too unwieldy to use, those issues sort of exarcebate each other. What about giving ballista and catapult ships the 40% bonus Vs Anti Ships that Cannon ships have? Is there any way of allowing siege ships to attack and then move, but not move and then attack (ie cut their utility by a third rather than a half relative to previously?) And should the Siege Ship Upgraded Hull tech be giving any armour or HP benefits, because at the moment it seems not to. And I think it ought to, particularly in face of Anti Ship Ship and Castle damage. Which leads to my next point...

Making a beach head this seems to currently be a thankless task of high cost for little gain. In the above mentioned game on Rocky Archipelago, I have recently been the attacker and the defender in this scenario, and the mortality rate is totally unsustainable. This map has little land space, (ie we're only dealing with 2 castles and one or no towers) and also has the benefit of deep water speed boost - other maps have no deep water and much more space for land based defences, making a sea assault somewhere between impossible and suicidal.

I'm afraid I don't have any suggestions to overcome this impasse at the moment, but I feel it is something that needs thinking about. I attacked one opponent with a huge numerical advantage, and it cost nearly the entirety of my western navy to destroy just one of his castles. At the same time, the other surviving opponent pushed against my base with a huge navy while most of my navy was elsewhere, and I saw first hand how easy it was for upgraded defences to soak up the attack and give it back in spades.

I believe all of these can benefit a lot from the changes to siege warfare that are being done, and while I don't think making a beach head should be easy, since the land fortifications should have a considerable upper hand, as to not make it absolutely required to win in the water to win on land, I agree that currently, only galleons and arguably turtle ships stand any chance of even approaching land fortifications without being wiped off the map instantaneously, so that could use some changes.

Yeah - all siege ships are gonna get some changes along with their land counterparts.
Ballistae are getting longer range single attack with more power as default mode, while new one close to current one (with slight changes) is unlocked by Ballistics as area attacking mode.
Range 7 and 8 after upgrade should allow some more space of usage.
Area mode is the only thing capable to attack after moving (because movement only takes 1 action), but it has only 5/6 range.
Only Ballista Tower doesn't have basic version and is always locked in area damage one (plus gets nerfed attack and needs an upgrade to boost it back to 12).

Catapults are getting fire mode - it needs Area Damage and additional new tech - although flaming projectile has actually lower damage, lower range and lower area of effect for now - it does apply burning on up to 5 tiles. So 4x on megas.
And range on normal mode is equal to standing mode, so 7/8.
Catapult ship is getting -1 attack, but the same range as ground catapult.

Cannons are slightly nerfed (-1 range and -2 power), which is given back after a research requiring ballista and catapult range boosting techs first.
Plus last upgrade is having 8 range.
Cannon tower is also nerfed (-5 power, -1 range) with upgrade to bring it to 18 and 8 range.

Now the question is - how much of Cannonball damage should be moved to research (probably just 1 turn requiring the one mentioned previously - only made like that, because there is no way to grant techs with other techs and single tech can only affect single set of stats to single set of targets).

Dromon Scout this is fairly irrelevant atm - for just one extra cost we can have a Barca Longa which has the same speed and sight, along with much better all round combat abilities. Increase sight to 7. Or (tentatively) increase speed to 7, reduce cost to 2, or make constructable?

I wonder if adding it [Scout] category, which is affected by new research Spyglass to have +1 sight would be just the thing needed.
For further boost I'd go for specialization even more, so e.g. ability to decrease it's sight by 1-3, while giving itself See Stealth for a turn.

War Canoe make trainable in Primitive Hut. Would also be cool if they could carry 1 primitive unit too.

Well - it was supposed to be trainable in Primitive Hut, so I must fix.
As for carry ability - interesting idea.
Worth considering.

Trireme line seemingly the current ruler of the waves. I feel they need a sizeable decrease to bonus Vs Siege Ships though (currently a Quad can one shot any top tier siege ship).

I any damage bonuses vs siege ships should be touched - most of them would need to be changed.
If trireme line were to have damage bonuses decreased - at the very least turtle ships would need it too, but probably more units.

Demolition Boat line relatively unusable atm. Too... squishy... (thanks for that word b) to have much of a chance to reach a worthwhile target or to lay sea mines in any useful area. Slight increase to HP even bearing in mind Stronger Hulls tech. Again, not much used by myself, but how about adding fire damage to both suicide attack and the mines they lay - would give their cost a better chance of breaking even, particularly if we invest time in their upgrade.

It was not designed to be frontline though.
With addition of place mine to unupgraded one I thought it would be a mine layer.
But it's also true, that sea mine damage is much less significant now, I am not sure if explosions should leave burning.
I'd rather add some damage bonuses.

Self explosion is shared with Petardier and probably just needs general damage adjustment (apart of bug against multi-tile units).

Turtle Ships wuhoo, nice tanky units when upgraded, but generally not OP due to damage/range limitations. Maybe drop bonus to Siege Ships from 200% to 180% (or less) - the elite version can one shot an Elite Cannon Ship.
Edit - make trainable in Dojo if this is to be the catch-all factory for oriental units.

Bonus vs siege ships - just like mentioned in trireme - need wider approach probably.
I don't like the Dojo proposition though.
While it could fit with flavour - not so much in balance.
It would probably require slight nerf and I really like current Turtle ship.

Carrack (as before) rather little bang for your buck for a 10 turn unit. Can it be given a feeble Cannon ability, limited in range and power? I know the upgrade is cheap, but this one seems to need the upgrade to even be usable. As for Galleon, still an absolute beast, but these days must be used more sensibly and in conjunction with other units rather than pumped out en masse with sure knowledge of victory, so again, good changes.

Even without upgrade - it's still quite sturdy platform for up to 4 units attacking from it.
Addition is of course possible, but it would probably be limited to like 14 power, 5 range (with 18 power, 6 range on Galleon), which is only boosted by tech to 16 damage 6 range.

British Firework Ship C'mon now, give us this as a fun unit! Because unlike tanks and uruk hai, this actually looks great fun to use!

I'd have to change it's image to avoid confusion - any quick ideas (some coloring or something)?

[phoenixffyrnig]

Sweet, I imagined you would already have many things in progress. Those additional improvements to siege would certainly help. As I mention, it's not impossible atm, just rather costly. Catapult fire attack sounds lovely, a unique selling point to keep Cats relevant.

I wonder if adding it [Scout] category, which is affected by new research Spyglass to have +1 sight would be just the thing needed.
For further boost I'd go for specialization even more, so e.g. ability to decrease it's sight by 1-3, while giving itself See Stealth for a turn.

I like this, gives it a definite role, so there would be no need to compare unfavourably to a unit with a different role.

I any damage bonuses vs siege ships should be touched - most of them would need to be changed.
If trireme line were to have damage bonuses decreased - at the very least turtle ships would need it too, but probably more units.

OK, perhaps not as simple as I thought, but there's a lot of one shotting going on even with top tier siege ships. Mind you, if siege ships will be getting attack improvements then they would be easier to use from relative safety. Was there/ is there any intention to add HP for the siege ship hull tech?

don't like the Dojo proposition though.
While it could fit with flavour - not so much in balance.
It would probably require slight nerf and I really like current Turtle ship.

OK, if that's the option I'd rather leave things as they are as well.

I'd have to change it's image to avoid confusion - any quick ideas (some coloring or something)?

Would something like this work? It's called the Red Ensign and was used from 1620. Was thinking the red cross on white could be put centre top (or anywhere) on the mainsail, and the rest of the sail could be made the team colour?

https://ibb.co/djM4qKZ

[b2198]

Yeah - all siege ships are gonna get some changes along with their land counterparts.
Ballistae are getting longer range single attack with more power as default mode, while new one close to current one (with slight changes) is unlocked by Ballistics as area attacking mode.
Range 7 and 8 after upgrade should allow some more space of usage.
Area mode is the only thing capable to attack after moving (because movement only takes 1 action), but it has only 5/6 range.
Only Ballista Tower doesn't have basic version and is always locked in area damage one (plus gets nerfed attack and needs an upgrade to boost it back to 12).

Catapults are getting fire mode - it needs Area Damage and additional new tech - although flaming projectile has actually lower damage, lower range and lower area of effect for now - it does apply burning on up to 5 tiles. So 4x on megas.
And range on normal mode is equal to standing mode, so 7/8.
Catapult ship is getting -1 attack, but the same range as ground catapult.

Cannons are slightly nerfed (-1 range and -2 power), which is given back after a research requiring ballista and catapult range boosting techs first.
Plus last upgrade is having 8 range.
Cannon tower is also nerfed (-5 power, -1 range) with upgrade to bring it to 18 and 8 range.

It seems the upcoming changes are even better than I was expecting, and my hype was already high

Now the question is - how much of Cannonball damage should be moved to research (probably just 1 turn requiring the one mentioned previously - only made like that, because there is no way to grant techs with other techs and single tech can only affect single set of stats to single set of targets).

I'd say somewhere between 2 and 4, but that's just from the top of my head.

I wonder if adding it [Scout] category, which is affected by new research Spyglass to have +1 sight would be just the thing needed.
For further boost I'd go for specialization even more, so e.g. ability to decrease it's sight by 1-3, while giving itself See Stealth for a turn.

That would indeed be a very good change to differentiate them in role from the barcha longa line, by making them more focused on scouting. Also that idea of ability to decrease sight and give See Stealth could also work very well in many units, as an alternative to my vision rework suggestion

Bonus vs siege ships - just like mentioned in trireme - need wider approach probably.
I don't like the Dojo proposition though.
While it could fit with flavour - not so much in balance.
It would probably require slight nerf and I really like current Turtle ship.

Fair enough, better leave them only on docks then.

Even without upgrade - it's still quite sturdy platform for up to 4 units attacking from it.
Addition is of course possible, but it would probably be limited to like 14 power, 5 range (with 18 power, 6 range on Galleon), which is only boosted by tech to 16 damage 6 range.

I like that idea, even more so alongside the changes to gunpowder in general. Maybe nerf its carry capacity by 1 or its durability a little bit (or both) if needed for balance.

All in all, wonderful job in these changes and additions Endru, really helps in making the game even better than it already is

[Endru1241]

I any damage bonuses vs siege ships should be touched - most of them would need to be changed.
If trireme line were to have damage bonuses decreased - at the very least turtle ships would need it too, but probably more units.

OK, perhaps not as simple as I thought, but there's a lot of one shotting going on even with top tier siege ships. Mind you, if siege ships will be getting attack improvements then they would be easier to use from relative safety. Was there/ is there any intention to add HP for the siege ship hull tech?

Nope. Pure requirement for upgrade.
BTW. I add colored research icon (manually) on each tech and actually colors do matter there.
Orange is bonus tech - anything that brings player/units better parameters.
Blue is upgrade tech - those needed purely for unit upgrade.
Green is unlocking tech - those, that only work as a requirement for unit production, other techs or effects.

Would something like this work? It's called the Red Ensign and was used from 1620. Was thinking the red cross on white could be put centre top (or anywhere) on the mainsail, and the rest of the sail could be made the team colour?

https://ibb.co/djM4qKZ

Tried 1707 one.

[phoenixffyrnig]

Found a little blip - can the repair function of Barca Longa and Caravel be shown by an ability button instead of as a standard action? At the moment, double clicking to see what units are being carried uses up an action by repairing itself if damaged.

[Endru1241]

Found a little blip - can the repair function of Barca Longa and Caravel be shown by an ability button instead of as a standard action? At the moment, double clicking to see what units are being carried uses up an action by repairing itself if damaged.

I wanted to make repair as effect.

But mend action is last thing left, that doesn't have effect equivalent.
So effect hp change cannot ever be affected by mend/constr. affect.

[phoenixffyrnig]

OK, fair enough. Might we need something to show which Caravels have units inside then, like the little boat icon on a pier, perhaps some simplified, man figure on the foredeck? Would be useful if possible - it's pretty hard to remember from one turn to the next which boat has anyone in it.

[Endru1241]

OK, fair enough. Might we need something to show which Caravels have units inside then, like the little boat icon on a pier, perhaps some simplified, man figure on the foredeck? Would be useful if possible - it's pretty hard to remember from one turn to the next which boat has anyone in it.

Would be a precedent for all carriers to have graphic change.
There is also no more reason for it to be visible by enemy, than e.g. wagon or siege tower.
We'd better wait for official solution by stratego (carried indicators or something like that) - it would then be only visible on owner side.

[phoenixffyrnig]

There is also no more reason for it to be visible by enemy, than e.g. wagon or siege tower.

Fully agree. OK, thanks for explaining the reasoning - it's not exactly a huge issue, I just thought it would be a quick fix until you explained why you didn't want repair as an ability. Yeah, I can wait for a solution that doesn't give free Intel to the enemy.

[godOfKings]

Lol making turtle ship buildable in dojo is a HUGE blasphemy and insult towards history in general and Japan in particular cuz of the humiliating defeat japan suffered in the hands of turtle ship

I had a more op idea actually, first make a chinese specialised building, they will have fireworks, hwacha, and turtle ships along with chinese national units

Second, make hwacha b able to garrison and atk from turtle ships while turtle ship can have only 1 carry capacity and only carry hwacha,

but seeing the current situation and the roles hwacha and turtle ships r playing, i m afraid its out of the question, in my opinion, it is best to remove hwacha from being buildable by workers while still letting it b built in siege workshop, mega buildings, and the chinese building that will b implemented in the future

[Endru1241]

Lol making turtle ship buildable in dojo is a HUGE blasphemy and insult towards history in general and Japan in particular cuz of the humiliating defeat japan suffered in the hands of turtle ship

I had a more op idea actually, first make a chinese specialised building, they will have fireworks, hwacha, and turtle ships along with chinese national units

Second, make hwacha b able to garrison and atk from turtle ships while turtle ship can have only 1 carry capacity and only carry hwacha,

but seeing the current situation and the roles hwacha and turtle ships r playing, i m afraid its out of the question, in my opinion, it is best to remove hwacha from being buildable by workers while still letting it b built in siege workshop, mega buildings, and the chinese building that will b implemented in the future

To be historically accurate - China didn't have neither hwachas nor turtle ships.
Chinese used rocket arrows, but more individually.
Turtle ship was ingenious invention of Korea, but even similar ship wouldn't fit Chinese naval battles.
Both were too defensive and hard to deploy to be used by there.
Even if technology would allow that.

And I am pretty sure any Korean or at least anyone knowing a little more about Korean culture would find it outrageous to place Hwacha or Turtle ship as something Chinese.

So what I would really want to do here is bundle somehow all three different cultures Chinese, Korean, Japanese under one.
Not sure how could it be named though.

[DreJaDe]

We usually called the three as the eastern asia or the east asia

[godOfKings]

I think putting china and korea as one can work, as they were allies and supported each other (mainly china support korea) against outside invaders, i m pretty sure korea also paid some kinds of tribute to china to keep their independence so korea especially ancient korea can b considered subordinate to china, but japanese military is definitely different from chinese.

[DreJaDe]

I honestly quite like the fire siphon ships at it's current state.

It's more of a defensive for me though and it's quite good at being that.

What im dissatisfied is my boarding ship being easily killed by none boarding ship. It's a 4 turn ship you know?

[Endru1241]

I honestly quite like the fire siphon ships at it's current state.

It's more of a defensive for me though and it's quite good at being that.

What im dissatisfied is my boarding ship being easily killed by none boarding ship. It's a 4 turn ship you know?

Killed by what?

[godOfKings]

Well dromon scout was basically the light cav while ur boarding ship was a healer... U can check bonus, dromon scout and barcha longa mainly specialise in fighting boarding ships, they r kinda useless against any other ship, u just got unlucky that match that u had to defend the tc against a dromon scout with a boarding ship...

[DreJaDe]

But I don't think boarding ships should be like priests.

I mean, almost every ship have a bonus against it making it's stats feel useless. Boarding ship having 90%? Doesn't matter since most ships have 100% resistance and can easily shot it down.

Idk, it feels like it needs something more than it's current state but im not really sure.

[DreJaDe]

Well dromon scout was basically the light cav while ur boarding ship was a healer... U can check bonus, dromon scout and barcha longa mainly specialise in fighting boarding ships, they r kinda useless against any other ship, u just got unlucky that match that u had to defend the tc against a dromon scout with a boarding ship...

Nah, those ships are versatile.
Carry?
Speed?
Anti nonwarship?
Anti boarding?
Mental resistance better than avg?
Availability?

For cost, id say they're better than boarding ships.

[Endru1241]

I moved discussion as it was clearly offtopic there.

But I don't think boarding ships should be like priests.

I mean, almost every ship have a bonus against it making it's stats feel useless. Boarding ship having 90%? Doesn't matter since most ships have 100% resistance and can easily shot it down.

Idk, it feels like it needs something more than it's current state but im not really sure.

Galley and trireme line have 64%.
Siege ships 83%

Also correct it by -20% or -28% on endgame as that how much boarding hooks give.

There is also some weird unconfirmed observation.
Boarding attempt weapon effect may not work by given percentage, as in my tests against galley it achieved lesser success than regular board ship. Few times on probably 6-10 boarding ships.

But as you state 90% I guess you are only using board ability, so no issue.
Heavy Quadrireme has 57.6% chance to be converted on first attempt with it.
When using 2nd boarding ship each of two attempts would have 82.8% chance.
So average summaric chance is almost 97%.

And most anti-ship ships deal less damage to boarding ships.

[Endru1241]

Well dromon scout was basically the light cav while ur boarding ship was a healer... U can check bonus, dromon scout and barcha longa mainly specialise in fighting boarding ships, they r kinda useless against any other ship, u just got unlucky that match that u had to defend the tc against a dromon scout with a boarding ship...

Nah, those ships are versatile.
Carry?
Speed?
Anti nonwarship?
Anti boarding?
Mental resistance better than avg?
Availability?

For cost, id say they're better than boarding ships.

Light ships, just like Light cavalry are designed to be fast, capable of some scouting, good for sweeping unprotected supporting units, more resistant to conversion to allow dealing with converters, cheap and easily available.
Among all ships they are designated counter for boarding ships.

Boarding ships on the other hand can increase your army size until loyalty and later on can eliminate more tanky ships plus support by slowing ships to allow some siege ship, mend ships or ground units to act or change position.

[DreJaDe]

I'm definitely using the attack weapon not the ability.

That's the one with 90℅ and as you said. It's not that great compared to board ship ability.

Or more like it's, it's worse slightly.

[DreJaDe]

In my tests against galley.

Avg
3-4/12 of galley are only converted by Board weapon even with the board hooks used.

If board ability, it can quite random but in more cases. It's better used than the attacking one. It seems to yield more results which much more safety.

From what I got, it seems that trireme are more convertible for some reason.

[DreJaDe]

Well dromon scout was basically the light cav while ur boarding ship was a healer... U can check bonus, dromon scout and barcha longa mainly specialise in fighting boarding ships, they r kinda useless against any other ship, u just got unlucky that match that u had to defend the tc against a dromon scout with a boarding ship...

Nah, those ships are versatile.
Carry?
Speed?
Anti nonwarship?
Anti boarding?
Mental resistance better than avg?
Availability?

For cost, id say they're better than boarding ships.

Light ships, just like Light cavalry are designed to be fast, capable of some scouting, good for sweeping unprotected supporting units, more resistant to conversion to allow dealing with converters, cheap and easily available.
Among all ships they are designated counter for boarding ships.

Boarding ships on the other hand can increase your army size until loyalty and later on can eliminate more tanky ships plus support by slowing ships to allow some siege ship, mend ships or ground units to act or change position.

I won't go with his first when my problems might just stem from the fact that board ability might not be working as it should.

[Endru1241]

It could be possible, that it might not add unit probability, so then the probabality written in the effect itself (30%) would be used.
But that doesn't fit, as the overall chance seems to be like that and there is still conversion resistance.
If it was only 30%, then with e.g. triremes affected by single boarding hooks (36% resistance) would give final chance of 19.2%.
If it worked properly though it should be 120% * (100%- 36%) = 76.8% after boarding effectiveness research and 57.6% before it.

So something else must be happening.