Johan twitter poll: remove sailors?

[Koramei]

https://twitter.com/producerjohan/status/806468067421253632

Remove is winning by a mile right now.

I'd hoped they'd rebalance them instead of just outright removing them like this. Yeah, sailors are totally worthless right now, but there's no reason they have to be. Some adjustments and I think they could be saved, and from my understanding (at least the British are famous for forcing people into becoming sailors through impressment, and I can't imagine they're the only ones) sailors were actually a limited and valuable thing during the period. I dunno if they ever warranted a spot right next to the manpower, but even so.

If the choice is only between keeping them as they are now (where make a whole bunch of ideas and one of the building chains totally worthless) and just removing them, I'd say remove them, and that's what I voted for. But if there's a possibility of actually making them worthwhile, I'd far rather have that.

I'm no game designer but if we're throwing out ideas for simple rebalances- slow but constant drain for every ship out at sea, much slower gain, and higher requirements for most ships, or maybe as you tech up (could go along with the increased naval maintenance cost). A first rate ship of the line during the Napoleonic Wars took a whole lot more than 200 sailors to crew, for instance.

 

[Orange1861]

What needs to happen with sailors is that they should recover much slower but have a much higher cap so if your navy suffers a catastrophic loss, you will have to wait for it to replenish.

 

[Bouchart]

Sailors are so pointless. If you are too small to have enough sailors you are too small to afford a navy anyway.

Also, isn't there a Steam achievement that involves sailors?

 

[CheesySnake]

Sailors are so pointless. If you are too small to have enough sailors you are too small to afford a navy anyway.

Also, isn't there a Steam achievement that involves sailors?

Yep. Sailor Mon which involves getting 100,000 sailors as Pegu.

 

[MiniaAr]

Thery should keep the concept but change the implementation:
- Ships could cost much more sailors to be built, so that you worry about the number a bit more.
- Provinces should give much less sailors, so that you're encouraged to build docks.

Sure, small nations will be hit by that, but they historically didn't have that much of a navy really. And bigger countries would have to care about their sailor numbers much more. This also gives more value to sailors ideas.

 

[Llyw olaf]

Why no third choice? Keep but improve. Isn't the main complaint that sailors currently have no impact? you almost always have way too many and never have the need to worry and invest in any ideas, policies and buildings to improve the situation. Call me crazy but having to make investments in coin and men If I want to improve my naval power makes sense, currently sailor balance is way off, I would definitely prefer better balance than simply pressing the delete button.

Looks like I'll be disappointed and Johan will just erase sailors with the next patch, I feel that sailors have their place in the game and the expression "Throwing the baby out with the bathwater " comes to mind.

 

[Ziggy187]

It's just another game mechanic that offers no depth into the experience currently. Ships are pretty under powered in the game as a whole anyway and I don't believe sailors did much to improve this. Given the resource drain on computing power and the fact that this will simply muck up the works of more critical computations, I'd day let it die.

 

[Grubnessul]

Maybe replace the ship force limit with the ships consuming sailors? So, if a three decker needs 300 sailors and you have a total of 600 sailors, you will be able to build 2 three deckers until you somehow raise your sailor limit.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

I doubt anyone would say Sailors are perfect but they are something. The current state of the Naval side of the game is significantly lacking, sailors need fixing not removing. The current mechanic is bizarre, taking OPs example of a ship of the line from the Napoleonic period you are looking at between 650 (3rd rate) and over 1000 men (late first rates). The game needs to take a leaf out of the naval gameplay of HOI4 with different types of ships, the current 4 type system is horrible.

Having done the sailors for VeF I am quite proud of the numbers I have used, it brings some nice tactical choices to the navy and actually goes somewhat to making naval battles somehow important.

There are loads of things that PDX can do to make the naval gameplay more interesting and worthwhile but removing sailors is a poor idea. People are complaining about them being a fairly meaningless mechanic, so make them worthwhile, and make navies worthwhile. In a game about colonialism the lack of impact or usefulness for navies is shocking.

I am more than happy to discuss further suggestions with anyone, I have a lot of material on maritime history, Paradox need someone more interested in naval history as a whole, I can't think of a game where they have a system that represents any real importance of superiority at sea, but HOI4 goes a step in the right direction.

 

[Metz]

In the game it seems that the ship cap is too small. They should raise the base cap by 1.5x or 2.0x.

Also have sailor casualties on board ships. If ship loses too many sailors then it gets captured. If ship gets to be too damaged it sinks (as is currently). You can have ships stations in port waiting for sailors to fill its ranks before sailing it out again.

 

[ecrurudesby]

I broadly agree with OP and others on Twitter and here.

Naval warfare should be an important part of the game and sailors are a logical concept, but the current implementation isn't ideal. I think something involing manpower could work.

 

[Van der Gent]

Also have sailor casualties on board ships. If ship loses too many sailors then it gets captured. If ship gets to be too damaged it sinks (as is currently).

That would simulate boarding of ships well, but would however not represent ships that are too damaged to fight and then surrender themselves to the enemy rather than just sink and die.

 

[Issac1709]

I doubt anyone would say Sailors are perfect but they are something. The current state of the Naval side of the game is significantly lacking, sailors need fixing not removing. The current mechanic is bizarre, taking OPs example of a ship of the line from the Napoleonic period you are looking at between 650 (3rd rate) and over 1000 men (late first rates). The game needs to take a leaf out of the naval gameplay of HOI4 with different types of ships, the current 4 type system is horrible.

Having done the sailors for VeF I am quite proud of the numbers I have used, it brings some nice tactical choices to the navy and actually goes somewhat to making naval battles somehow important.

There are loads of things that PDX can do to make the naval gameplay more interesting and worthwhile but removing sailors is a poor idea. People are complaining about them being a fairly meaningless mechanic, so make them worthwhile, and make navies worthwhile. In a game about colonialism the lack of impact or usefulness for navies is shocking.

I am more than happy to discuss further suggestions with anyone, I have a lot of material on maritime history, Paradox need someone more interested in naval history as a whole, I can't think of a game where they have a system that represents any real importance of superiority at sea, but HOI4 goes a step in the right direction.

Can you discuss how its implemented in VeF? and why its better ( I mean currently vanilla is pretty bad so its kinda a given)

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

I broadly agree with OP and others on Twitter and here.

Naval warfare should be an important part of the game and sailors are a logical concept, but the current implementation isn't ideal. I think something involing manpower could work.

Why would anyone waste much manpower on their navies though, there isn't much reason to invest in ships a shared pool will just mean more neglecting of navies, it could work if navies actually become useful in comparison for investing in armies.

 

[earlofbrigand]

Keep them, but make them a more valuable resource. Sailors were often 'pressed' into service (so if you need them, it causes unrest) or were virtual mercenaries who owed their allegiance to the Captain, their crew and the ship.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

Can you discuss how its implemented in VeF? and why its better ( I mean currently vanilla is pretty bad so its kinda a given)

Its not a very complex system because we are limited to what we can do with modding. I have made the numbers much more realistic and simulated the size inflation involved with historic navies. It means you have to think more about how you apply your navies and whether to invest in the idea sets have involved with navies. Ships have individual crew assignments that grow with the size of the ships as they did historically.

Taking western ships as a standard the first ships for each:

Heavies start at 500 Sailors
Lights Start at 150 Sailors
Galleys start at 200 Sailors
Trade ships start at 20 Sailors

They then progress with each new type of ship gradually inflating in size and power as was historical at the end of the game you have ships with much larger crews late games you see

Heavies at 850
Lights at 300
Galleys at 400 Sailors
Trade ships at 50 Sailors

The system seems to work quite well, the AI reacts nicely to it and it doesn't stunt their naval investment much but makes it valuable enough to force you to conserve your sailors. I have tried to make it a system that makes naval battles more about naval prep rather than sudden investment because lets not forget sailors were an attempt to move away from the greater evil where the only thing you needed to win at sea was a bigger pile of gold to throw at another nation.

Again this is far from a perfect system but it works much more nicely than the one given by Vanilla, I also feel like I have created a nicer outcome than my counterpart at M&T, who themselves make some improvements on the vanilla system too.

Hope this helps

 

[RedSpectre]

Honestly I think sailors should be removed but re-tooled into a slavery mechanic. Muslim and African countries can get them in war You can get slaves through raiding coasts and priviteering but also through colonialism and through the slave trade europe can get its massive advantage through the slave trade and can be stranggled off from the rest of the world by cutting off their slaves

 

[fred.erick]

Its not a very complex system because we are limited to what we can do with modding. I have made the numbers much more realistic and simulated the size inflation involved with historic navies. It means you have to think more about how you apply your navies and whether to invest in the idea sets have involved with navies. Ships have individual crew assignments that grow with the size of the ships as they did historically.

Taking western ships as a standard the first ships for each:

Heavies start at 500 Sailors
Lights Start at 150 Sailors
Galleys start at 200 Sailors
Trade ships start at 20 Sailors

They then progress with each new type of ship gradually inflating in size and power as was historical at the end of the game you have ships with much larger crews late games you see

Heavies at 850
Lights at 300
Galleys at 400 Sailors
Trade ships at 50 Sailors

The system seems to work quite well, the AI reacts nicely to it and it doesn't stunt their naval investment much but makes it valuable enough to force you to conserve your sailors. I have tried to make it a system that makes naval battles more about naval prep rather than sudden investment because lets not forget sailors were an attempt to move away from the greater evil where the only thing you needed to win at sea was a bigger pile of gold to throw at another nation.

Again this is far from a perfect system but it works much more nicely than the one given by Vanilla, I also feel like I have created a nicer outcome than my counterpart at M&T, who themselves make some improvements on the vanilla system too.

Hope this helps

Would you be so kind as to share with a less experienced modder how you've increase the sailor count with later ship models?
I wanted to do the same thing in my mod, but couldn't find a way. In fact I also wanted to experiment with increasing the cost of construction for later models. Late-game empires usually have the money to spare, so the 50 ducats of 1444 become a trivial thing at 1760. I believe a three decker should represent more of an investment, and not something you casually order fifty of.

 

[yerm]

Manpower works because it is depleted and reinforced and offset by mercenaries. Sailors are just a fixed number I see as largely just there to stop you from mass construction a fleet all at once for no good effect. If naval battles had sailor casualties with crew-depleted ships returning home and needing replacement instead of just mostly mass sinking after a single engagement, maybe they might matter.

 

[Metz]

That would simulate boarding of ships well, but would however not represent ships that are too damaged to fight and then surrender themselves to the enemy rather than just sink and die.

Ships low on sailors get captured and the rest of the crew "disappears". Damaged ships with low amount of sailors also get captured but may most likely be sunk. There could also be a small % of damaged ships with a high amount of sailors that surrenders but that could be directly linked to the fleet's morale.