80 replies to this topic

[Pureon]

Mythos_Ruler, on 22 February 2012 - 01:51 AM, said:

Nice work on the smoke and fire!

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

But also, if you wanted a more superior ship, could you make diplomatic agreements with another player in order to control 'X' amount of units for 'Y' amount of resources? Likewise, it would be good if you could actually use garrisoned archers and such to defend your economic vessels.

[Shield Bearer]

I thought ships were gonna be capturable? If they are then we just have to give the Iberians an ability to capture ships from land

[L'ethu]

The main concern of the topic was how to give the Iberian player an option to build an indigenous naval fleet or a naval fleet supplied by its protector or mercenaries. The first option grants the player to convert civilian vessels into war vessels with the ability to attack and transport soldiers from an island to another island either for expansion purpose or military purpose(raiding, amphibious assault). The second option was a more historical based option, since the Iberian naval combat experience was a blank and most of them are under Carthage protection then it is possible that Carthage would protect the Iberian's interest by sending naval fleet to protect the Carthage maritime interest in Iberia. As in the game it could become an option that looks like some kind of "technology" that player could choose to research or not based on player's judgment which i have previously suggested. The third was a common sense based option, hiring mercenaries (historical regions and time frame as the limit) most likely to be Celts or maybe the Greeks who have colonies in the Iberian peninsula.

As for capturing ship is not really achievable because ships (warships) tend to fire missiles and boulder where they could attack in a very long range. To make the situation worst all the warships are heavily guarded by marines and it is impossible for soldiers to capture the ship without any risk unless it was harmless and close enough to the shore where soldiers could capture it.

Edited by L'ethu, 23 February 2012 - 01:39 PM.

[oshron]

Mythos_Ruler, on 21 February 2012 - 09:20 PM, said:

Why shouldn't ships be counted? I'm not following. You realize your reasoning could apply to heroes and champion units and siege units? So, even if I have 50 ships, a Hero, and 20 Champion units, I should lose the game if my opponent has managed to destroy my buildings and still has 1 citizen-soldier left?

The conceptual problem everyone is having with this is that the Iberians would be screwed if the enemy took over the sea. You have to realize, on an island map, no matter what faction you are, you are screwed if the enemy takes control of the sea. Naval superiority is just not possible for the Iberians, so you just wouldn't choose them in a 1v1 islands match up... unless you developed some kind of amphibious assault strategy. I really don't think the Huns in Part II are going to have a a good time on island maps either, and neither should they. Same for Iberians in Part 1.

Although... I may be open to giving them the Celtic warship. I don't feel a particular need to do that though. I'm certainly okay with some factions having stark weaknesses in some areas, making them underdogs on certain maps or under certain conditions. Part of the fun could be learning how to overcome these weaknesses and achieve victory despite them.

i mean more like the ships themselves, not the additional units garrisonned inside that are manning them. the idea is that, if the iberians cant get their own warships, then there's conceivably no way for them to win in a given setting if a human player sends their only remaining ships away from a battle to basically just troll the iberians (that's assuming that the iberians in this situation are also controlled by a human player). heroes, champions, and siege units cant rebuild the civilization either, but the difference is that the iberians would still be able to get at them, and those units are the ones that would most likely be killed off in a battle that would leave the enemy player with just their warships

i get what's been proposed, that you simply wouldn't use the iberians on a water map like that, but what if someone wanted to because of a strategy they wanted to employ with their ally (the aforementioned scenario of the iberians fighting on land while their hellenic allies harass the enemy navy), or if they simply wanted to undertake the challenge of playing as a civ with no warships for the fun of it? (they become so good at the game that they decide to intentionally handicap themselves for the thrill of it)

like i said, i get what youre saying. maybe the strictly terrestrial civs could have the ability to capture enemy warships like how they can already capture buildings? though that still leaves something of a balance/trolling problem...

Mythos_Ruler, on 21 February 2012 - 09:32 PM, said:

Hmm... Then let's think of something other than giving them a warship. Perhaps some kind of fire ship? A ship that's on fire (slowly loses health) that damages enemy ships it encounters.

I just can't see exempting ships from ConquestCritical. They are units with an attack who can affect the outcome of the game. If they were essentially "dead" objects that had to be occupied by other units in order to function (like the original idea from 2003), then yeah. But as they are now, I can't see exempting them just to make island maps winnable for the Iberians.

Interesting discussion.

giving them a (fictional?) fireship sounds like a good idea to me. perhaps they could have an additional unique technology at the end that allows them to build just one type of warship?


personally, i really like and would support the idea of giving them warships based on what the vandals used

[SypheDMar]

I'm all for the Pop-Ups or Notes being included on Random and Faction Descriptions. This won't require unnecessary balancing, be non-intrusive, and still keep the same play-style for the Iberians. It also won't infringe on historical evidence. If fire ships really are needed, they can be modded in by people that want to even the playing field.

Edited by SypheDMar, 23 February 2012 - 05:09 PM.

[L'ethu]

Well, i think its quite okay if the Iberians have fire ships because its quite natural for them to come out with this idea because the enemy have true navy not a partisan navy. 

[CarsontheSage]

I think that the Iberians need some kind a transport vessel at the very least. If we put in fire ships, I think that you should get to choose when to light it. After all, how many people build a boat and promptly set it on fire with no enemies around?

[Mythos_Ruler]

CarsontheSage, on 25 February 2012 - 10:55 PM, said:

I think that the Iberians need some kind a transport vessel at the very least. If we put in fire ships, I think that you should get to choose when to light it. After all, how many people build a boat and promptly set it on fire with no enemies around?

Merchant ships are transports. They can garrison 15 units inside.

[AuroN2]

I dont think many people have done their homework, as mythos has said, merchant ships are transports.
And i think i posted (a while back now) a similar concern, but my statement was along the lines of garrisoning troops into ships and ship-to-ship combat.
Boarding, so to speak.
So iberians wont have "war ships", they will do the barbarian thing and.. well.. TROOPSTACK TROOPSTACK!
They could get merchant ships and pack them up with javelins and slingers (they have those right? im not so sure about arrows)
And use them to fight, and also do the same but iwth infantry, and use them for boarding actions.
Though, they werent exactly naval so their boarding actions should be slower than even the gauls/celts. Cos they at least had a semi-fleet, (methinks?)
And im not sure if it is historicly accurate to have fire ships in this time, prove me wrong by finding a link to THIS TIME PERIOD (not IMPERIAL ROME PERIOD) of a battle where such tactics were used.
Nuff sed.
Also, the post i speak of was about marine type units, where they come with the ships and they get it running, but have a combat bonus in boarding actions etc.

Edited by AuroN2, 26 February 2012 - 12:50 AM.

[Argantonius]

Well, I have to say, if the reason the Iberians don't have warships is because it wouldn't be historically accurate then giving them equally historically inaccurate fireships as an alternative doesn't make much sense, right?

I agree with those that suggested giving Iberian buildings an extra attack versus ships, and making trade ships able to fire arrows when garrisoned by ranged units (not just for Iberians, but all civilizations - and not fishing ships, that would be silly). These "armed merchants" would be the crappiest of the crappiest of "warships" but they could help you buy time while you build a proper fleet or if you are momentarily out of gold and all your warships have been sunk.

And lo, if the player is stup... I mean brave enough to choose Iberians and an islands map, then he could still win by spawning merchants and slingers/javelineers, and fortifying every little island with resources or strategic value. It would be slow and expensive but possible nonetheless.

Edited by Argantonius, 26 February 2012 - 02:45 AM.

[hhyloc]

We could have a research that adds a fire arrow attack to merchant ships like that of ranged infantry, or just garrison ranged infantries with fire attack in the ship. Maybe both.

[L'ethu]

Instead of building a rag-tag war ship from the scratch, why don't just gave the civilian ships (fishing ship, merchant ship) an option to convert themselves into war ships or fire ships in case an Iberian player needs to compete in the high seas.

[Pedro Falcão]

L, on 26 February 2012 - 06:02 AM, said:

Instead of building a rag-tag war ship from the scratch, why don't just gave the civilian ships (fishing ship, merchant ship) an option to convert themselves into war ships or fire ships in case an Iberian player needs to compete in the high seas.

Because they didn't have properly ships to war. They won't compete at high seas because of their lack of naval warships, Iberians aren't fit for naval battles, but they can board into great warships and kidnap the ship to use against their attackers, they just can't build them. The iberians also have stronger buildings (though not yet), so their buildings will stand a little more while their soldiers board into the waterborne (if it is right to call ships like this) attacker.

[L'ethu]

My intention was to give the Iberians a chance to defend the coast by granting them an option to convert civilian vessels into partisan navy against four other civilization who have war vessels. I know they have no chance to wage a high seas battle but perhaps by applying such ability the Iberians may have the option cripple or eliminate an enemy in the early period of the game.

I was thinking about if the Iberian warriors could hijack a war vessel, how to hijack a ship when a war ship was heavily guarded by marines and sailors? How do you bring the warriors to the intended target and how do you execute your plan against a huge naval fleet? Have you ever consider the percentage of success and the consequences of a failed hijack attempt? This is not Command and Conquer : Generals or Zero Hour where you can assign one hijacker to capture a tank or vehicle (in reality some of these actions was quite impossible). That's why i suggest that an option of converting Iberian civilian vessel in to partisan ship as a response against other five civilization who have a proper navy.

Edited by L'ethu, 26 February 2012 - 03:01 PM.

[Pedro Falcão]

L, on 26 February 2012 - 03:00 PM, said:

I was thinking about if the Iberian warriors could hijack a war vessel, how to hijack a ship when a war ship was heavily guarded by marines and sailors? How do you bring the warriors to the intended target and how do you execute your plan against a huge naval fleet? Have you ever consider the percentage of success and the consequences of a failed hijack attempt? This is not Command and Conquer : Generals or Zero Hour where you can assign one hijacker to capture a tank or vehicle (in reality some of these actions was quite impossible). That's why i suggest that an option of converting Iberian civilian vessel in to partisan ship as a response against other five civilization who have a proper navy.

But remember that the iberians will use light ships against those heavy war vessels. Remember light ships are quite faster and that the war vessels can't fire catapults at a ship that's too close and much less one tied to it. Remember also that, although not always successful, hijacking ships a profitable practice. The romans even figured out how to build a galley (a ship stronger than the triremes) by hijacking a cathaginian galley.

[L'ethu]

Maybe the game should provide neutral coastal colonies which provide mercenary warship for players who lacks navy like Warcraft III: Frozen Throne where player could hire mercenary warship on the map.

[Pedro Falcão]

L, on 28 February 2012 - 06:13 AM, said:

Maybe the game should provide neutral coastal colonies which provide mercenary warship for players who lacks navy like Warcraft III: Frozen Throne where player could hire mercenary warship on the map.

That's a good idea, but depends on the map. Not saying it to not be implemented, though, just to watch out for real world iberian maps, it would be strange to see ship mercenaries in iberian lands...

Edited by Pedro Falcão, 28 February 2012 - 11:19 AM.

[L'ethu]

Since these are the improvements that help those civilization who have no navy (Huns, Iberians) and historically possible, why not?

Implement on random map is possible but historical map is not possible for me and my primary concern was about random map not historical map.

Well if there's a demand for mercenary galleys, why don't make all naval random map with neutral (Gaia) coastal colonies? 

Edited by L'ethu, 28 February 2012 - 12:33 PM.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

This is my say. The Iberians should be able to merely stock up their merchant vessels and such with soldiers. As their javelin throwers would be able to hurl flaming spears, enemy ships actually could be destroyed. The thing that should be understood though, is the kind of strategy the Iberians would be made for. As they have only a bad navy in the last few ages, they need to rush their opponents on a sea map. Likewise, instead of going to the unnecessary trouble of making weaker cultures, it could be possible to perhaps merely make trade agreements with your rivals for units.