More than one Flagship

[Canute VII]

In the DD is said, that only one flagship can be build for obvious game balance reasons.

Although historically of course there had been more than one flagships in a navy.

I thought it was sufficiently established that hard locks/caps are in general an inferior design to soft caps.

So why not introduce a soft cap?

Say, if in a sea tile / in a battle more than one flagships of the same nation are present, then that side will receive a -1 dice roll penalty for every additional flagship. So if e.g. I come to the battle with 3 flagships, be they in one fleet or in three different fleets each, then I will get a -2 combat penalty.

Sounds balanced to me and would at least allow us to have a flagship in the atlantic and one in the pacific for example.

What would be the justification beyond game balance? Naval coordination is difficult enough, having two or more centres of command present in one battle won't be helpful.

Why am I proposing this? Flagships looks nice, but being restricted to only one seems just the worst solution for a game design problem one can come up with. No offense intended, only honest feedback.

 

[Darth.]

In addition, 100 ducats is a bit cheap for a one of kind or even two-three-or-four of a kind flagship. Flagahips were meant to show off wealth and power. Maybe buff them a bit more and allow multiple flagships (the exact number you can have without penalty would be proportionate to your force limit) but make them really expensive. 500-1000 ducats for one flagship seems reasonable.

 

[Canute VII]

In addition, 100 ducats is a bit cheap for a one of kind or even two-three-or-four of a kind flagship. Flagahips were meant to show off wealth and power. Maybe buff them a bit more and allow multiple flagships (the exact number you can have without penalty would be proportionate to your force limit) but make them really expensive. 500-1000 ducats for one flagship seems reasonable.

Yeah, I totally forgot to suggest as addition: only 1 flagship per 50 or 100 naval forcelimit allowed! (to further restrict spamming)

 

[FantasticFwoosh]

I hope flagships have a high/adjustible level of sailor required maintenance, that'd help fixate flagships a lot to be used sparsely without really pounding home naval military ideas + highly developed coasts with docks.

EI with (lategame upgrades) 1 flagship may take 10 or more sailors a month individually, compared to the rest of your fleet as well as consume more sailors in repairs until pulled back and put into mothballing to release something like 300 sailors required to build the ship which will slow down the repair of the fleets after battle.

 

[Afonso de Albuquerque]

I would scale the number of 'active' flagships to the number of Admirals/Explorers, since that is what a flagship is, the ship where the commander of the fleet is. You could build as many flagships you want, but their bonuses would only activate if there is an Admiral in the fleet, and there can only be one active flagship per fleet. In practice, I think this would mean that you would rarely see more than one or two 'active' flagships per country (so I doubt it would be imbalanced), and activating their powers would require a bigger commitment to the navy than the 100 ducats (which seems too cheap), since it would also mean sacrificing a general slot.

 

[Van Kasten]

From the developers’ replies I think the Flagships are a Death Star-like concept. A super weapon, of which there can be only one at a time.

 

[Canute VII]

From the developers’ replies I think the Flagships are a Death Star-like concept. A super weapon, of which there can be only one at a time.

Yes, that's the problem.

 

[Canute VII]

@Groogy to be sure

 

[Van Kasten]

Yes, that's the problem.

Agreed, but with those bonuses more than a Flagship could mean a Space Marine Fleet.

Speaking of the bonuses, it seems most of the community is feeling mocked by the Swedish ability of +100 cannons. The Spanish fanbase really want to see this bonus and the Spanish bonus of +30% cannons swapped. What do you think of this?

 

[FantasticFwoosh]

Agreed, but with those bonuses more than a Flagship could mean a Space Marine Fleet.

Speaking of the bonuses, it seems most of the community is feeling mocked by the Swedish ability of +100 cannons. The Spanish fanbase really want to see this bonus and the Spanish bonus of +30% cannons swapped. What do you think of this?

I mean if you put it this way, spain earns more than enough of a income to be a naval power from its colonies & intense religious gameplay to which each colony eventually if you expand aggressively enough will be able to afford its own flagship to help the spanish navy in general.

The ongoing arguement is that the Spanish Navy should be good for good's sake and i don't think this is true, as others on the original devlog thread have said that this would be a historical innacuracy at the time and currently Spain doesn't have any particular disadvantages to naval combat nor buffs in that regard. Looking at the facts -

• Spain has high development European provinces covering both the Atlantic and the Mediterreanean, covering expenditure on sailors & ducats
• The AI is not perfect but usually recognises the worth of a strong navy hence Spain usually has high amounts of heavies, a player on the other hand may have more sophisticated fleets like seperate galley, trade ship and heavy 'blobs'
  
• Spanish Minors often have more boat related NI's (catalonia/galicia not sure on leon) to encourage alternative more difficult formations.

Stiil we need to see what Paradox pulls out of the bag in regards to the CONTENT for modifying flagships because spain might have a few country specific aces up its sleeve regarding the flagship buffs we've not been shown yet, like a light trading ship with 100% fleet movement speed which in itself doesn't sound a lot but when paired with would mean that you get a extra 10 or more percentage efficiency on trade power when they're working (and probably faster automated/manual exploration too)

Or for instance a removal of the crossing penalty when engaging ships, thats a big one i can think of that'd really throw naval battles and not make you want to fight Spain over the water.

 

[Canute VII]

Agreed, but with those bonuses more than a Flagship could mean a Space Marine Fleet.

That why This Thread proposes a soft cap:
- Combat penalty when more than one flagship participates in battle
- number of allowed flagships scaling with naval force limit
- increased sailor maintenance per flagship

Speaking of the bonuses, it seems most of the community is feeling mocked by the Swedish ability of +100 cannons. The Spanish fanbase really want to see this bonus and the Spanish bonus of +30% cannons swapped. What do you think of this?

I don't like those nation specific bonuses. I can understand culture or religion specific ones if that makes sense. But nation specific boni should evolve in game through decisions that come with upsides and downsides. Hence I also don't like national ideas, save the national traditions that predate game-time. These national ideas should emanate by being in similar situations and taking similar decisions as in reality. Maybe they should be made into missions.

 

[Van Kasten]

That why This Thread proposes a soft cap:
- Combat penalty when more than one flagship participates in battle
- number of allowed flagships scaling with naval force limit
- increased sailor maintenance per flagship

The fact is:
- the first disadvantage you propose can be difficult to justify apart from gameplay balance
- the second one should be not scaling with naval force limit, but actual ships you have
- the third one should be not only increased sailor maintenance but also sailor cost (it’s a bigger ship so it should need more crew)

The other thing is the bonuses you can have. They are too powerful, making it useless to have a choice since 3 or 4 of them all will be picked 99% of the time. The “Spanish Armada” bonus is useless for the AI (they do not have attrition of fleets) and for the player (no combat bonuses).

The last thing is the Flagship types: a Heavy ship is more powerful than a light ship or a galley, but they cost the same and have access to the same bonuses. This is absurd imho.

The ongoing arguement is that the Spanish Navy should be good for good's sake

The Spanish community looks at the example of the British Navy. In the first half of the game it was nowhere near the “invincible navy” stereotype of later ages, but they have 20% more morale from the start and heavy ship combat ability in one of the first ideas. The Spanish fan base wants equality. If you want to know their specific motivations, ask one of them. They know better than me.

 

[rho]

Looking at the flagship bonuses, I think that one of the interesting choices will be between combat bonuses and non-combat bonuses. Is it better to use a flagship that will grant bonuses to trade power and siege impact, or one that will give increased engagement width and morale? If multiple flagships were allowed, then this would stop being a choice. Giving a penalty to bttles with multiple flagships present would be meaningless, because I would never want my trade-power siege-impact flagship to get into battle in the first place.

 

[Canute VII]

Looking at the flagship bonuses, I think that one of the interesting choices will be between combat bonuses and non-combat bonuses. Is it better to use a flagship that will grant bonuses to trade power and siege impact, or one that will give increased engagement width and morale? If multiple flagships were allowed, then this would stop being a choice.

Then flagships essentially are a variant of naval doctrines, which would be... absurd?

Giving a penalty to bttles with multiple flagships present would be meaningless, because I would never want my trade-power siege-impact flagship to get into battle in the first place.

That might not always be entirely of your choice, though.

 

[Canute VII]

The fact is:
- the first disadvantage you propose can be difficult to justify apart from gameplay balance

I think it's more justifiable than being allowed to have only one flagship.

- the second one should be not scaling with naval force limit, but actual ships you have

Naval force limit is less variable, though, thus making it a mord stable and transparent measure.

- the third one should be not only increased sailor maintenance but also sailor cost (it’s a bigger ship so it should need more crew)

Yes, I agree. I actually ment this.

The other thing is the bonuses you can have. They are too powerful, making it useless to have a choice since 3 or 4 of them all will be picked 99% of the time. The “Spanish Armada” bonus is useless for the AI (they do not have attrition of fleets) and for the player (no combat bonuses).

The last thing is the Flagship types: a Heavy ship is more powerful than a light ship or a galley, but they cost the same and have access to the same bonuses. This is absurd imho.

All true

 

[Kane_hun]

I think giving Maritime and Naval idea groups an idea that would allow +1 flagship (or perhaps just naval) would be a little bit more balanced (Tying it to naval FL sounds reasonable, but the FL quickly skyrockets with many CNs and Trade companies so a logarithmic scale should be used like this: 10 FL - 1 flagship, 100- 2, 1000 -3)

 

[Valentin Vattista]

Maybe there should be a mod that increases the number of flagships.

 

[gougluinn]

in one game i had 3 (2 are captured) flagships

 

[ImperatorRoman]

in one game i had 3 (2 are captured) flagships

That is possible, yes, but the boni of the two captured flagships are inactive.

 

[Valentin Vattista]

And that is my problem. I feel that flagships should be more like Titans in Stellaris: Having only one per nation is somewhat odd, especially if that nations has 600 ships in total.