It's that time of the month again! Let's discuss all that is wrong with the awful naval system in EU4 and what can be done to fix it.
My Proposals in Brief:
No transports:
Boats are basically things you put in water that you can also put people in. A heavy ship can fit a ton more extra people than a cog. It doesn't make any sense to have the smallest class of ship carry the most people. Besides if a large number of troops were needed to be transported across a body of water the government would just conscript merchant vessels. This can just be simulated by saying 1 ship regardless of type is able to protect 1000 troops being transported across the water.
This would mean that there would be 3 classes of ships: Heavy, Medium, and Light. Representing the current Heavy/Light/Galley split.
Supply and Crew:
This is the big innovation that I want to throw out there. A notion of supply would be an abstraction for all the gun powder, tools, repair materials, food, and water needed to transport people across the ocean. And crew would be the people on the boats. Currently in the game boats are operated by a crew of ghosts. I propose that building ships should deplete manpower to represent actual persons in the navy.
Manpower Amounts:
500 Heavies
250 Medium ships
100 Light ships
When combined ships can share crew to represent a general balancing among fleets. The amount of crew would determine a ship's speed, more people manning the deck means the ship is more maneuverable. Also the amount of damage each ship does should depend on the amount of crew on board, more crew = more damage. But the more crew a fleet has the faster it exhausts its supply, and the more the ship will cost. The crew percentage could be a slider in the window when a fleet is selected, or could be tied to naval maintenance.
Supply would be stockpiled while the ship is at port. This would be be the bulk of what a ship costs. When a ship is at port, supplying it costs money, but once it is full on supply the cost can go down. The rate of resupply is related to the naval maintenance. While a ship is at sea it loses an amount of supply each month depending on its level of crew. When the supply runs out morale should plunge, ships should start to take damage and crew should start to die.
"But theJalden, that sounds just as bad as before, I'll probably just forget my ships somewhere in the ocean and lose them all, except now when I'm losing my ships I'll also lose manpower"
Which is why I think there should be a box selected by default to automatically return to the closest friendly port to resupply when low.
Better Privateering:
You should be able to set privateers to target specific countries. Instead of taking up trade power in a node they will reduce the power of the countries that you target, and they will also reduce the supply, or increase the rate of supply consumption of the ships they target. Representing plundering all the booty. All ships should be able to privateer, but light ships should be better at privateering near the shore and inland seas, while medium ships should be better at privateering oceans.
Naval Combat/Warfare:
I would add one more sea zone to make naval combat a bit more strategic, this seazone would be coastline. Inland sea should be renamed to shallow sea, and Ocean should be deep sea. On coastlines light ships would have the advantage because they have shallower keels and are more maneuverable, but on deep sea Heavy ships should have an advantage because they are better able with withstand choppy conditions.
Naval Combat as it stands is way too bloody and one sided. 90% of the time one side will lose all of its ships while the other side loses none. The entire battle scheme should be divided into two phases, attack and defense. During the attack some amount of supply is exhausted, representing firing cannons at the other country. During defense the ship receives hits, loses hull durability and crew and morale. Only when hull durability is 0% should a ship be destroyed. Battle continues while supply lasts. When morale breaks the ships should break to the next port.
It might also be worthwhile to have a range and accuracy system. Larger ships should be able to fire at longer range, but being rather large they are more likely to be hit by the other party, while lighter ships being smaller and faster would be less likely to be hit, and could move closer. Accuracy of a ship depends on the square of the distance away and can be improved with tech.
Other Fixes:
Naval Leaders: It costs Dip to hire them, it should cost Dip to have too many of them. Make a separate slot for naval leaders so that the default for a nation is 2 Generals/Conquistador, 1 Admiral/Explorer which can be modified by ideas and national policies.
Naval Force Limit: With the new development system, the amount of navy you maintain should be tied to development of coastal provinces. Maybe building a certain type of building like a dock or a port increases the total naval force limit by 10.
That's all I can think of for now. If you have any suggestions regarding the Naval game of EU4 post them in this thread, I would love to read them.
My Proposals in Brief:
- No transports
- Supply and Crew
- Better Privateering
- Naval Combat/Warfare
- Other Fixes: e.g. Leaders, Force Limit
No transports:
Boats are basically things you put in water that you can also put people in. A heavy ship can fit a ton more extra people than a cog. It doesn't make any sense to have the smallest class of ship carry the most people. Besides if a large number of troops were needed to be transported across a body of water the government would just conscript merchant vessels. This can just be simulated by saying 1 ship regardless of type is able to protect 1000 troops being transported across the water.
This would mean that there would be 3 classes of ships: Heavy, Medium, and Light. Representing the current Heavy/Light/Galley split.
Supply and Crew:
This is the big innovation that I want to throw out there. A notion of supply would be an abstraction for all the gun powder, tools, repair materials, food, and water needed to transport people across the ocean. And crew would be the people on the boats. Currently in the game boats are operated by a crew of ghosts. I propose that building ships should deplete manpower to represent actual persons in the navy.
Manpower Amounts:
500 Heavies
250 Medium ships
100 Light ships
When combined ships can share crew to represent a general balancing among fleets. The amount of crew would determine a ship's speed, more people manning the deck means the ship is more maneuverable. Also the amount of damage each ship does should depend on the amount of crew on board, more crew = more damage. But the more crew a fleet has the faster it exhausts its supply, and the more the ship will cost. The crew percentage could be a slider in the window when a fleet is selected, or could be tied to naval maintenance.
Supply would be stockpiled while the ship is at port. This would be be the bulk of what a ship costs. When a ship is at port, supplying it costs money, but once it is full on supply the cost can go down. The rate of resupply is related to the naval maintenance. While a ship is at sea it loses an amount of supply each month depending on its level of crew. When the supply runs out morale should plunge, ships should start to take damage and crew should start to die.
"But theJalden, that sounds just as bad as before, I'll probably just forget my ships somewhere in the ocean and lose them all, except now when I'm losing my ships I'll also lose manpower"
Which is why I think there should be a box selected by default to automatically return to the closest friendly port to resupply when low.
Better Privateering:
You should be able to set privateers to target specific countries. Instead of taking up trade power in a node they will reduce the power of the countries that you target, and they will also reduce the supply, or increase the rate of supply consumption of the ships they target. Representing plundering all the booty. All ships should be able to privateer, but light ships should be better at privateering near the shore and inland seas, while medium ships should be better at privateering oceans.
Naval Combat/Warfare:
I would add one more sea zone to make naval combat a bit more strategic, this seazone would be coastline. Inland sea should be renamed to shallow sea, and Ocean should be deep sea. On coastlines light ships would have the advantage because they have shallower keels and are more maneuverable, but on deep sea Heavy ships should have an advantage because they are better able with withstand choppy conditions.
Naval Combat as it stands is way too bloody and one sided. 90% of the time one side will lose all of its ships while the other side loses none. The entire battle scheme should be divided into two phases, attack and defense. During the attack some amount of supply is exhausted, representing firing cannons at the other country. During defense the ship receives hits, loses hull durability and crew and morale. Only when hull durability is 0% should a ship be destroyed. Battle continues while supply lasts. When morale breaks the ships should break to the next port.
It might also be worthwhile to have a range and accuracy system. Larger ships should be able to fire at longer range, but being rather large they are more likely to be hit by the other party, while lighter ships being smaller and faster would be less likely to be hit, and could move closer. Accuracy of a ship depends on the square of the distance away and can be improved with tech.
Other Fixes:
Naval Leaders: It costs Dip to hire them, it should cost Dip to have too many of them. Make a separate slot for naval leaders so that the default for a nation is 2 Generals/Conquistador, 1 Admiral/Explorer which can be modified by ideas and national policies.
Naval Force Limit: With the new development system, the amount of navy you maintain should be tied to development of coastal provinces. Maybe building a certain type of building like a dock or a port increases the total naval force limit by 10.
That's all I can think of for now. If you have any suggestions regarding the Naval game of EU4 post them in this thread, I would love to read them.
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