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Any interest in ships?

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The thing with ships are you need to play on the islands map to really see any benefit to using them.

Spells which grant land units the ability to walk on water really hit the need for having them... though I always tend to build one or two ships early game to get treasures and find where the monster spawn points are.

I to, would like to see naval warfare enhanced. The first step would be to introduce a limited number of perk upgrades and a few ship specific perks.

Perhaps using them as transports instead of the current method.... but I really like the current implementation of switch land units for cogs when the first harbor is built.
 
I find the Cog system far superior to games where a dedicated "transport" ship was needed. It just wasn't that much fun to micro in reality. What strikes me as odd is that a purpose built naval ship is a poor choice for beating a decent land unit with a single spell (water-walking). I would expect the tier 2 naval ships to dominate ocean combat, and they don't.
 
Ships need a major buff to fire power and hit points, especially the Galleons. Galleons have x2 the cost and x2.5 the upkeep of a Caravel but 2 Caravels have better damage and hit points plus the ability to distribute damage better, there is no tough terrain at sea so having a large navy doesn't cause issues with them getting in each others way like it would on land. The Galleons also require a shipyard, which has an upkeep of 4 gold, whilst you can build Caravels from the harbour which actually gives you gold.

Ships should be the best unit at sea, or at least on par with a water walking squad of elite land units
 
Ships are fun on islands maps and can help support an attack when you have limited tiles to work from. One or two of them can help take down a city. They can level up quite fast if you find some dumb ogres to plink away at for 10 turns. Anything that's not a shooter or a big regenerator is fair game :D.

They need more HP to be competative with shooter land units that cost the same or less when bombarding shore targets. An archer costing 30 and 1g1f to maintain should not be able to outshoot a caravel costing 100 and 2g2f. Either increase their HP and perhaps damage or reduce their costs to be the same as a basic archer. Transports units should not be able to outshoot caravel on a cost effective basis either, but an important thing to note is that units in transport mode do not gain experience either per turn or from shooting or being shot at. So ships do have that small advantage and a level 4 caravel will sink a transport with a single shot.

I do use my caravels to explore the edge of the oceans and pick up the shipwreckage bonuses. The trick I use to explore in deep water where the kraken and sea serpents are is to never move more than 3 hexes, 1 hex at a time, then if a danger appears after 3 hexes you can retreat 1 hex. That doesn't always work if something else has drawn the monster off its normal resting place but it usually works in the early game.

I really like the air galleon, it is a lot easier to use than catapults or regular ships and perform both roles and more. Being able to fly means it can move over water or mountain hexes. The haste spell is well worth using on an expensive unit like this and once they have a few perks I add a damage enchantment or two. It can also be useful tactically against big dumb melee types, in conjuction with bats as you can block ogres or trolls from attacking your archers or weakened other troops. That's another great way to level up your troops fast without too much risk.

JJ
 
The fun part about this is, that in Master of Magic Warships buffed with flying and invisibility was one of best units you could build. Warships were already by nature very tough and once they gained some exp also had a strong ranged attack. Thanks to invisibility they could attack most of the time with impunity. But then again the stock flying line galleus has already all that minus the invisibility of course. :)
 
I definitely think they should be stronger. Just doesn't seem right that archers can kill them so easy. It would also be cool to have different types of ships in game. That would be great for island maps. If not ships then maybe some fish units. :)
 
I would have liked a way to buff them after my experience today. I must have made 5 Galleus (undead flying ship) and lost them all by being unlucky. 4/5 of them died by serpents and demons appearing from out of sight, sometimes one-shotting my ship with a crit, other times leaving them so weak no matter what they wandered into (archers, cogs, whatever) meant their demise. Considering that half the point of these is to explore the seas and clouds, it would be nice if they could survive meeting anything that fights back. :)
 
Papaman said:
You can always win back the cost of the ship with the floating loot.
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Agreed, but none denies that couple caravels for initial loot are useful, the problem is ships are useless for anything else.
camelotcrusade said:
I would have liked a way to buff them after my experience today. I must have made 5 Galleus (undead flying ship) and lost them all by being unlucky. 4/5 of them died by serpents and demons appearing from out of sight, sometimes one-shotting my ship with a crit, other times leaving them so weak no matter what they wandered into (archers, cogs, whatever) meant their demise. Considering that half the point of these is to explore the seas and clouds, it would be nice if they could survive meeting anything that fights back. :)
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Flying ships are not for exploration I believe, bats serve this purpose way better. Meanwhile, ordinary ships get sight upgrade pretty early, and afterwards it becomes pretty easy to avoid sea creatures, as they all have sight of 2.
 
camelotcrusade said:
I would have liked a way to buff them after my experience today. I must have made 5 Galleus (undead flying ship) and lost them all by being unlucky. 4/5 of them died by serpents and demons appearing from out of sight, sometimes one-shotting my ship with a crit, other times leaving them so weak no matter what they wandered into (archers, cogs, whatever) meant their demise. Considering that half the point of these is to explore the seas and clouds, it would be nice if they could survive meeting anything that fights back. :)
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I use bats to explore and the galleus to support my main army or an expeditionary force working through rough terrain. Bats are cheap and expendable and move 4 tiles, while flying ships are expensive and move only 3 normally. When taking out the sea serpents I use a group of galleus (two at least) that have built up a few perks and have a bat or two to scout out the area before moving them near. A damage spell on the serpent makes the job easier and then move all the galleus into range and take it out in one hit or do so much damage to it that it can't hurt my units
 
camelotcrusade said:
I would have liked a way to buff them after my experience today. I must have made 5 Galleus (undead flying ship) and lost them all by being unlucky. 4/5 of them died by serpents and demons appearing from out of sight, sometimes one-shotting my ship with a crit, other times leaving them so weak no matter what they wandered into (archers, cogs, whatever) meant their demise. Considering that half the point of these is to explore the seas and clouds, it would be nice if they could survive meeting anything that fights back. :)
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You should have coupled them with green bats. Since they have only 2 food upkeep they don't cost you anything, which I consider an exploit. Anyway, bats have 3 sight and 4 movement while both types of flying ships have 2 sight, 3 movement and 2 attack range. You use the bats to scout ahead and follow up with the ships to get the first shot.
As with every strategy game the rule is scout, scout and scout so that you may only fight at your terms. :)
 
I must have made 5 Galleus (undead flying ship) and lost them all by being unlucky.
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The Galleus is just a regular ship. The Flying Galleus is tougher, hits harder (especially against cities), costs more, flies, has a different perk progression, and qualifies for a lot of upgrades that the Galleus does not.
 
I think most people agree that ships need work but there is one thing to remember. If the units are cool and fun to play then it isn't always important if the unit is the most effective use of resources. After all, we are playing the game for the fun factor. For example, I don't care if the flying ship is the most efficient use of resources. If I am winning the game then I will build one because they are cool and it is a symbol of my empire's might.
 
gliomarto said:
Agreed, but none denies that couple caravels for initial loot are useful, the problem is ships are useless for anything else.
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I would deny that. Build a harbor, summon a rat or skeleton or something, deploy it. Much cheaper than a ship, all the same advantages, and it can head onto land to loot treasure when it spots some unguarded just off the shore (it can even kill non-ranged guardians from the water, then go ashore to loot). Other than pure desire to use a ship, there is no reason to ever build one on any map in this game ATM. Cheap summons in cogs make much better early water scouts (if you don't have bats or serpents), waterwalking land units make much better naval units in the mid game and beyond.
 
Astasia said:
I would deny that. Build a harbor, summon a rat or skeleton or something, deploy it. Much cheaper than a ship, all the same advantages, and it can head onto land to loot treasure when it spots some unguarded just off the shore (it can even kill non-ranged guardians from the water, then go ashore to loot). Other than pure desire to use a ship, there is no reason to ever build one on any map in this game ATM. Cheap summons in cogs make much better early water scouts (if you don't have bats or serpents), waterwalking land units make much better naval units in the mid game and beyond.
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No, there is still a reason to use a ship instead of a transport. Ship will get xp and thus, perks for sight, which makes exploration neutrals-safe, and movement, which is nice as well. Transport gets none and will often fall prey to serpents or krakens, so to get most of water explored you need few rats, and due to new transports starting often from the same place you lose some turns on explorations compared to caravel and miss out more floating loot, which goes to your enemy.
 
Since I often play huge islands maps, ships have a high priority for me in the early-mid game. I usually skip caravels altogether due to their fragility and go directly for Galleons once the economy has stabilized enough to support 3-4 of them (one of which takes the extended sight perk). They then sail around as a dispersed group concentrating forces for wiping out sea monsters and taking their loot and, in case of war, quickly returning to do some very rewarding shore bombardment of cities or exposed troops and one-shotting enemy cogs.

Enchanted high-quality land units eventually end up superseding them for these tasks, but Galleons are available earlier in the game (two buildings in any city with coast) and can kickstart your progress. Those Sea Serpent and Kraken lairs are nice. Unless you start with nearby high-cost resources to exploit and an AI enemy you want to rush, why not produce a few Galleons and get a headstart on the mid and end-game spells as well as regular huge cash and mana rewards?

I find going for a handful of galleons in the early midgame quite valuable on continents maps too for the same reasons, though to a lesser degree, as I'll more often end up pouring all my resources into early land wars. Even then, mostly it pays off to go scouring the seas with galleons as early as possible.
 
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