Naval Mechanics

[Heinrikr]

I wrote a thread about ports a while ago that unfortunately was not saved due to the forum upgrade, and which I posted in the wrong section anyways, but here it is again, together with other suggestions about naval mechanics. Perhaps they are already planning to do something along these lines in the next expansion, but I'll share it anyways.

The problem with current naval mechanics is that it requires way to much micromanagement. My suggestion thus aims to greatly reduce micromanagement. Paradox has already made some great steps in the right direction in this regard, such as when they remade exploration. Taking that, and the upcomming changes to forts, as inspiration, here's what I suggest.

• All coastal provinces no longer have ports automatically. Instead, ports need to be built by the player, and they require gold in maintainence, like forts will. Ports have a maximum capacity for how many ships can be based there, with higher level ports having a higher capacity, and higher maintainence.
  
• All fleets must be have a port as their base of operations, and they can only operate within range of it. For those who have played Civ5, I want fleets to function kind of like airplanes do in civ.
  
• Fleets can no longer be controlled directly, but can be given missions, which I will describe below. After the mission is completed, canceled, or non-valid (like a war mission after you've made peace), the fleet will return to their port. A fleet will never simply sit in the ocean and wait for you to give orders, like it can do currently. They ONLY rest in port, and they're only ouside of port when on missions.
  
• Interception mission: The fleet will be set to guard particular sea provinces that the player (or AI) chooses, and will intercept any hostile fleet that passes through. E.g. as England I set one fleet to defend "straits of dover, the english channel, and land's end". An option can be set if it should avoid engaging superior forces.
  
• Interception is not guaranteed. How effectively a fleet can protect certain sea provinces depends on how many provinces there are in relation to number of ships. Light ships are important as scouts, and to catch enemy ships. If an enemy fleet with only light ships passes through an area protect by only heavy ships, the light ships should likely avoid being intercepted. It would thus be important to have both light and heavy ships in a fleet.
• Examples of other missions: Send your fleet to blockade certain sea provinces; send your fleet to privateer; have your fleet change their home port..

It's a rough sketch I know, but if something along these lines were done, it would do wonders to reduce micromanagement. What I aim for is so that we don't have to manage particular ships, but fleets. I want to get rid of all those tiny fleets that you have to keep track of. With this, I could just tell my fleet to protect my coasts, and don't have to babysit them.

And the suggestion about ports really does add another interesting layer of strategic planning. A strong naval presence in a region requires a developed port infrastructure to be present. This naturally limits the naval power of europeans outside of europe, simply because they don't have advanced ports there. And I just find it silly that you can have an armada of a thousand galleons port in some god-forgotten fishing village in iceland.

I probably missed something..

 

[Vlad123]

I'd like! This idea is great!

 

[Heinrikr]

Furthermore, I think that protecting trade could just be abstracted with some kind of slider, in which you basically spend money in order to increase trade power somwhere. That is basically what sending light ships there amounts to anyways. Using some kind of slider would just get rid of the needless hassle. I don't think a "spend money, get trade power" kind of system -either by a slider or as it works currently- is the right way to go though either, and I think the trade system needs to be reworked. I think that the role of light ships ought to be to serve as scouts for heavier ships, and that trade ships and non-combat stuff shouldn't be represented as real naval units at all in the game, but be abstracted instead. Which of course brings me to...

Get rid of transports, entirely. The current system is SUCH A PAIN to manage! Quite frankly, anything would be better than the current way of doing things. One could replace this with a very simple mechanic. Let land units be able to be abstractedly transported by invisible transport ships, but be completely defenseless against naval units and thus require the protection of a fleet. Basically, this would mean that you could transport land units over sea anywhere, as long as it is not blocked by hostile units. It would of course take time depending on the distance, and they would suffer attrition. No more transport-management hell!

 

[lolada]

I'd like Paradox to build on this concept more, it sounds promising.There are 100s of small thing to look after (like you send two fleets to blockade on a missions and they are in adjacent provinces and one get attacked, the other won't do anything...)

All coastal provinces no longer have ports automatically.

- cool and logical, goes well with development system

All fleets must be have a port as their base of operations, and they can only operate within range of it. For those who have played Civ5, I want fleets to function kind of like airplanes do in civ.

- makes sense, would restrict things nicely

Fleets can no longer be controlled directly, but can be given missions, which I will describe below

- Missions might be problematic to implement, not sure about that. But i would not mind partialy restricted movement, ie. the player cannot move the fleet X units / provinces far of the home port. Travel range concept, something like coring range. Fleet from Crimea for example can't go straight to Cape early on, it would have to rebase to some other port (like in civ5) and do the travelling in a few steps. Sending it that far would end up as one-way trip to bottom of the ocean. Maybe add extra high attrition when going out of range.

Get rid of transports, entirely.

- this is also idea worth considering

 

[Heinrikr]

I'd like Paradox to build on this concept more, it sounds promising.There are 100s of small thing to look after (like you send two fleets to blockade on a missions and they are in adjacent provinces and one get attacked, the other won't do anything...)

The best thing would be if one fleet could blockade several sea provinces whilst still being just one fleet, not splitting up.

- Missions might be problematic to implement, not sure about that. But i would not mind partialy restricted movement, ie. the player cannot move the fleet X units / provinces far of the home port. Travel range concept, something like coring range. Fleet from Crimea for example can't go straight to Cape early on, it would have to rebase to some other port (like in civ5) and do the travelling in a few steps. Sending it that far would end up as one-way trip to bottom of the ocean. Maybe add extra high attrition when going out of range.

it's mostly meant to get rid of the annoyance that you forget about one of your thousand fleets and it sank due to attrition somewhere. As I've said, the only time a fleet would be outside of port is when it actually does something. Fleets just don't hang out in the ocean, and rest there or whatever. When they're at sea, they do something. Resting is done at ports. That's what I'm talking about. And it gives you more control over your fleets, because you know they're either on some mission or safe in port.

 

[Itchel]

I think i'd like to retain control of my fleet

 

[johnleeyx]

You could use the same logic for your armies and assign it missions?

 

[Heinrikr]

You could use the same logic for your armies and assign it missions?

There are obviously big differences between naval and land warfare, and what roles they have in war. But moving in the same direction with armies as well would be great.

 

[Heinrikr]

I think i'd like to retain control of my fleet

But you are. It's just that your main battle fleet won't anchor in the middle of the atlantic and eventually sink just because you forgot about them. You can control them, it's just that you can do so with less micromanagement, and without having to worry about them being lost out at sea. They'll either be on mission or in port.

 

[Titanius Puffin]

Some 'home port' dynamic would be interesting to see. After all the British has Porstmouth, the French had Toulon, The Danish Copenhagen, ... and the Dutch pretty much any land that wasn't already behind a dam.

 

[Shaunur]

All coastal provinces no longer have ports automatically. Instead, ports need to be built by the player, and they require gold in maintainence, like forts will. Ports have a maximum capacity for how many ships can be based there, with higher level ports having a higher capacity, and higher maintainence.

You could go further with trade port and war port. Trade port would help you to extend your trade and as supply point for fleet in mission, but would not be able to serve as home port for a real war fleet.

Furthermore, I think that protecting trade could just be abstracted with some kind of slider, in which you basically spend money in order to increase trade power somwhere. That is basically what sending light ships there amounts to anyways. Using some kind of slider would just get rid of the needless hassle. I don't think a "spend money, get trade power" kind of system -either by a slider or as it works currently- is the right way to go though either, and I think the trade system needs to be reworked. I think that the role of light ships ought to be to serve as scouts for heavier ships, and that trade ships and non-combat stuff shouldn't be represented as real naval units at all in the game, but be abstracted instead. Which of course brings me to...

If you want ot protect your trade, you have to invest warships. Just throwing money at your merchants won't protect them against pirates and enemy ships. We could have something quite interesting with the mission system. If you send a fleet to protect sea provinces along a trade route, your trade ships would be protected, therefore preventing them from being sunk or looted. In the same time your fleet will try to intercept all trade ship of nations on which you have an embargo, or with whom you are at war.
With this system, trade would not be measured with trade power but with trade ships. The number of trade ships could be determined by the number (and size) of trade ports, plus a bonus for each coastal province (so nations without trade port could still be able to trade, but would not be able to compete with nation with real trade fleets). You would have to attribute a number of ship to each trade node, within the range of your trade ports. You could not send trade ship in the caribbean without a trade port there.

Get rid of transports, entirely. The current system is SUCH A PAIN to manage! Quite frankly, anything would be better than the current way of doing things. One could replace this with a very simple mechanic. Let land units be able to be abstractedly transported by invisible transport ships, but be completely defenseless against naval units and thus require the protection of a fleet. Basically, this would mean that you could transport land units over sea anywhere, as long as it is not blocked by hostile units. It would of course take time depending on the distance, and they would suffer attrition. No more transport-management hell!

I think it would make things too easy. If you want to invade England from France, you would just have to attract their fleet to the end of the world (and the AI is dumb enough to follow you there), and cross the english channel quickly with the almighty french army. I do not have any idea to submit but we agree that the actual management of transport fleet is a real pain in the ass.

 

[Mailosz]

Great suggestions!

I'd also like to get rid of ocean provinces, and leave only these next to land (like straits) to allow blocking adjacent provinces.

 

[Titanius Puffin]

Weren't many 'transport fleets' really merchant vessels being used by the state?
In some cases there might have been dedicated ships for transport, but I don't actually know of them. One book I've read on the Spanish Armada describes the Spanish plan as using light merchant ships, and barges, to ferry Spanish soldiers from the low countries to England (they didn't actually get that far in the end).

On the opposing side, the English were using refitted merchant ships for war... so it's just all confusing.

 

[Heinrikr]

If you want ot protect your trade, you have to invest warships. Just throwing money at your merchants won't protect them against pirates and enemy ships. We could have something quite interesting with the mission system. If you send a fleet to protect sea provinces along a trade route, your trade ships would be protected, therefore preventing them from being sunk or looted. In the same time your fleet will try to intercept all trade ship of nations on which you have an embargo, or with whom you are at war.
With this system, trade would not be measured with trade power but with trade ships. The number of trade ships could be determined by the number (and size) of trade ports, plus a bonus for each coastal province (so nations without trade port could still be able to trade, but would not be able to compete with nation with real trade fleets). You would have to attribute a number of ship to each trade node, within the range of your trade ports. You could not send trade ship in the caribbean without a trade port there.

I am no fan of the "send ships to increase trade power" mechanic at all, and I think that non-military naval units shoulds be abstracted. So rather than have "real" fleets protect trade, I'd rather see it abstracted somehow, and same with transports. I just think it's quite ridiculous when one has a thousand light ships protecting trade, and also, it's messy and bothersome to keep track of it all. I'd rather keep track of fewer but more important fleets. I think that decisions that are bothersome and doesn't add any value to gameplay should be abstracted or made automatic or something like that, and I see "protect trade" as such a thing.

I think it would make things too easy. If you want to invade England from France, you would just have to attract their fleet to the end of the world (and the AI is dumb enough to follow you there), and cross the english channel quickly with the almighty french army. I do not have any idea to submit but we agree that the actual management of transport fleet is a real pain in the ass.

Obviously, the AI would have to get smarter. Can't be too hard can it? Just give the naval AI a set of priorities, in whicn protecing their vunreable homeland is always the first priority.

Great suggestions!

I'd also like to get rid of ocean provinces, and leave only these next to land (like straits) to allow blocking adjacent provinces.

hmm, interesting.. care to elaborate on how that would work?

 

[Deum De Igne]

Get rid of transports, entirely. The current system is SUCH A PAIN to manage! Quite frankly, anything would be better than the current way of doing things. One could replace this with a very simple mechanic. Let land units be able to be abstractedly transported by invisible transport ships, but be completely defenseless against naval units and thus require the protection of a fleet. Basically, this would mean that you could transport land units over sea anywhere, as long as it is not blocked by hostile units. It would of course take time depending on the distance, and they would suffer attrition. No more transport-management hell!

Rather than getting rid of transports entirely. I would recommend, that the transports had the potential to increase in their personal carrying ability. Most likely from new ideas in the naval, maritime, or expansion idea group, which could each double the number of carried troops. e.g. 1>2>4>8. Game play wise a single ship carrying 8000 men, but from a role play perspective, naval management advances have resulted in the resource allocation from one ship to several, and additionally improvements to the carrying capacity of a single ship.

Additionally a naval improvement that i have been giving thought to and would fit well with Heinrikr's port suggestion would be to dramatically reduce the number of ships that a nation can field, down from the multiple thousand that can easily be maintained at the moment. Britain the greatest naval power during this period fielded less then 300 permanent naval vessels during even the latter periods covered by the game. In exchange for the reduced number of fielded ships, all non transport vessels should be given a proportion trade protection value when sent on a protection mission. Also heavy and light shipping should be given military buffs. However during times of war a similar decision to CKII's conscript merchant shipping should be avaliable, to augment the main fleet, in exchange for the merchants momentary reparations.

A more radical suggestion would be to introduce a naval manpower reserve when constructing and repairing naval vessels, which would run parallel to army reserves. This man power would be based on the number of coastal provinces. after all a Permian most likely would be unlearned in the art of seamanship. Later on this restriction could be removed with a pressed ganged decision which would reduce any new ships max morale for a period of time.

As this is a discussion on naval mechanics, it would be great if light ships, galleys, and transports could navigate up major rivers.

 

[Mailosz]

hmm, interesting.. care to elaborate on how that would work?

Well, it is rather visual change, the engine would still use those "sea provinces" because of terra incognita etc.

But since your fleet will be managed by clicking on ports, or enemy fleets, there is no need to display borders of this provinces any more.

It may be matter of taste, but i think it would look much better.

 

[InFerroVeritas]

I really, really do not like the idea of giving my fleet tasks. I don't know if you've noticed, because this can be a really subtle thing and difficult to notice if you're not paying attention, but the naval AI is absolutely dreadful. I was recently sending my transports from Bohuslan to Norfolk and they decided to cross the North Sea, taking entirely unnecessary attrition in the process and requiring a month in port to repair. Nor is this the only such example. The Canton trade node is notorious for having ships that randomly and inexplicably sail through the Paracel Islands, incurring attrition and requiring time in port (which of course, costs you money... because they're not trading).

I have no faith in the naval AI not screwing this up and screwing it up badly. And since the AI doesn't deal with naval attrition, this is something that can only possibly punish the player. I have no interest in that. Historic fleets may have been lost due to storms or what-have-you, but I'd really, really rather not lose 30 heavies because the naval AI derped all over the North Sea.

 

[Mailosz]

I really, really do not like the idea of giving my fleet tasks. I don't know if you've noticed, because this can be a really subtle thing and difficult to notice if you're not paying attention, but the naval AI is absolutely dreadful. I was recently sending my transports from Bohuslan to Norfolk and they decided to cross the North Sea, taking entirely unnecessary attrition in the process and requiring a month in port to repair. Nor is this the only such example. The Canton trade node is notorious for having ships that randomly and inexplicably sail through the Paracel Islands, incurring attrition and requiring time in port (which of course, costs you money... because they're not trading).

I have no faith in the naval AI not screwing this up and screwing it up badly. And since the AI doesn't deal with naval attrition, this is something that can only possibly punish the player. I have no interest in that. Historic fleets may have been lost due to storms or what-have-you, but I'd really, really rather not lose 30 heavies because the naval AI derped all over the North Sea.

So you do not want the game to be upgraded because it is not working correctly?

I think that with this system we can get rid of naval attrition or simplify it to only a modifier limiting time on sea.

 

[theJalden]

The best thing would be if one fleet could blockade several sea provinces whilst still being just one fleet, not splitting up

I think it would be neat if each province had a blockade effectiveness instead of an all or nothing blockade. Maybe you could have a chance for small fleets of ships to escape the blockade.

 

[Heinrikr]

I really, really do not like the idea of giving my fleet tasks. I don't know if you've noticed, because this can be a really subtle thing and difficult to notice if you're not paying attention, but the naval AI is absolutely dreadful. I was recently sending my transports from Bohuslan to Norfolk and they decided to cross the North Sea, taking entirely unnecessary attrition in the process and requiring a month in port to repair. Nor is this the only such example. The Canton trade node is notorious for having ships that randomly and inexplicably sail through the Paracel Islands, incurring attrition and requiring time in port (which of course, costs you money... because they're not trading).

I have no faith in the naval AI not screwing this up and screwing it up badly. And since the AI doesn't deal with naval attrition, this is something that can only possibly punish the player. I have no interest in that. Historic fleets may have been lost due to storms or what-have-you, but I'd really, really rather not lose 30 heavies because the naval AI derped all over the North Sea.

As a solution for that, we could just remove attrition for fleets on missions, like it currently is for exploratory missions. But I of course agree: the AI is, here as everywhere, retarded.