Much has been said about naval combat, naval trade routes, etc. within the past few hours since EUIII has been announced. So I thought a thread dedicated to just that would be in order.
First I'll mention the idea I had (mooching of MJK's idea of irregular armies) for merchant navies. Basically the idea is this:
When a nation is at war they can choose to summon a portion of their civilian merchant navy and make them active combatants (not without a price though, but I'll get to that in a moment). This is historical that in the early years proffesional navies were small and nation/city states relied on this merchant navy for the bulk of their naval needs (when not hiring other nations, like the Italian city-states like Venice or Genoa, to do this if they didn't have either a navy of their own or a large enough merchant fleet--more on this later).
This would work like this, your nation is now at war and in the 'war' screen/box whatever a button once unhighlited is now clickable. By doing so a fleet is generated in your largest port (this could be the one with a shipyard, the wealthiest, or a combination of factors) or capital if it has a port. Doing so would have drawbacks: It should cost a small bit of money, and it should hurt all your naval trade routes (more on that later) by a significant amount (don't want this to be free afterall) that slowly regenerates to full value once the fleet is returned (or destroyed).
In the early tech years these fleets should only be marginally weaker than fulltime naval vessels. Mid game they should only be of use as a emergency transport fleet and should have roughly the same defense values as purpose built transports. Late game they should be almost worthless (except to those powers who cannot afford a large fulltime navy) except as cannon fodder unless one is desperate for ships. They should have moderate to low morale based on DP sliders (or whatever replaces them if they don't exist in EUIII).
- Hirable fleets: (3 types)
1) Pirates they should work like EUII, you click on a sea province and 'hire' them (they should be relatively cheap but not always available...no trade routes no pirates). They should attack all trade routes within that sea zone even your own so it is not wise to do it in a zone where you do a lot of trade. They also should have a high chance to move to zones that do have a high ratio of trade routes (so hiring them in a zone that has only a few routes but are your enemies main routes could be a good tactic unless the next zone over has a higher number of routes that just so happen to be yours...plan accordingly). You get no cut of their profits, it is more of an annoyance factor to unleash upon your enemies as a diversion for their navy. THEY MUST SUFFER ATTRITION, they need to die off to no more pirates that last centuries, but the wealthier a trade route they hit the greater the number of pirates.
2) Privateers: Privateers should be expensive versions of pirates, costing more but with a bit of insurance. Unlike pirates you get a cut of their 'profits', say a random influx of cash once per month. Privateers unlike pirates will only attack nations that are at war with you or have bad relations with you (say -100 or lower). They should have a percentage to turn into pirates after so many turns. They should also suffer attrition rates until destroyed.
3) Hireable fleets: Like mercenaries on land but of the sea. They should be expensive as several times a normal ship would cost (say they come in groups of five warships or ten transports) but cost double the amount. However you get them now and not have to wait the years to build a fleet. They will act just as normal naval units and not like pirates or privateers. When disbanded they have a certain chance they become pirates.
1 & 3) These fleets should be okay to use until late game when more larger professional navies dominated the seas and the time of pirates and mercenary ships would be long gone (with some exceptions of course).
2) Privateers should be somewhat relavent even in the late game (look at commerce raiders during the US Civil War and later wars of the early twentieth century) but still crumple in the face of true naval vessels.
---------------------
Sea/Ocean Provinces
They need to be bigger (More like HOI 2) with a smaller coastal strip(s) around islands and continents. This should make things a bit easier with things like trade routes, pirates, privateers, etc. The only thing that would need to be added would be two things (the difficulty rating off the sea province to ships being found, i.e. the larger the zone the greater the bonus to ships to be able to go undetected) and a 'spotter' rating for ships that increases as technology increases (longer range, better telescopes, etc.).
---------------------
Well that is all I've got.
(Now we see how fast it falls to the bottom of the page and gets ignored in favor of more interesting threads.)
First I'll mention the idea I had (mooching of MJK's idea of irregular armies) for merchant navies. Basically the idea is this:
When a nation is at war they can choose to summon a portion of their civilian merchant navy and make them active combatants (not without a price though, but I'll get to that in a moment). This is historical that in the early years proffesional navies were small and nation/city states relied on this merchant navy for the bulk of their naval needs (when not hiring other nations, like the Italian city-states like Venice or Genoa, to do this if they didn't have either a navy of their own or a large enough merchant fleet--more on this later).
This would work like this, your nation is now at war and in the 'war' screen/box whatever a button once unhighlited is now clickable. By doing so a fleet is generated in your largest port (this could be the one with a shipyard, the wealthiest, or a combination of factors) or capital if it has a port. Doing so would have drawbacks: It should cost a small bit of money, and it should hurt all your naval trade routes (more on that later) by a significant amount (don't want this to be free afterall) that slowly regenerates to full value once the fleet is returned (or destroyed).
In the early tech years these fleets should only be marginally weaker than fulltime naval vessels. Mid game they should only be of use as a emergency transport fleet and should have roughly the same defense values as purpose built transports. Late game they should be almost worthless (except to those powers who cannot afford a large fulltime navy) except as cannon fodder unless one is desperate for ships. They should have moderate to low morale based on DP sliders (or whatever replaces them if they don't exist in EUIII).
- Hirable fleets: (3 types)
1) Pirates they should work like EUII, you click on a sea province and 'hire' them (they should be relatively cheap but not always available...no trade routes no pirates). They should attack all trade routes within that sea zone even your own so it is not wise to do it in a zone where you do a lot of trade. They also should have a high chance to move to zones that do have a high ratio of trade routes (so hiring them in a zone that has only a few routes but are your enemies main routes could be a good tactic unless the next zone over has a higher number of routes that just so happen to be yours...plan accordingly). You get no cut of their profits, it is more of an annoyance factor to unleash upon your enemies as a diversion for their navy. THEY MUST SUFFER ATTRITION, they need to die off to no more pirates that last centuries, but the wealthier a trade route they hit the greater the number of pirates.
2) Privateers: Privateers should be expensive versions of pirates, costing more but with a bit of insurance. Unlike pirates you get a cut of their 'profits', say a random influx of cash once per month. Privateers unlike pirates will only attack nations that are at war with you or have bad relations with you (say -100 or lower). They should have a percentage to turn into pirates after so many turns. They should also suffer attrition rates until destroyed.
3) Hireable fleets: Like mercenaries on land but of the sea. They should be expensive as several times a normal ship would cost (say they come in groups of five warships or ten transports) but cost double the amount. However you get them now and not have to wait the years to build a fleet. They will act just as normal naval units and not like pirates or privateers. When disbanded they have a certain chance they become pirates.
1 & 3) These fleets should be okay to use until late game when more larger professional navies dominated the seas and the time of pirates and mercenary ships would be long gone (with some exceptions of course).
2) Privateers should be somewhat relavent even in the late game (look at commerce raiders during the US Civil War and later wars of the early twentieth century) but still crumple in the face of true naval vessels.
---------------------
Sea/Ocean Provinces
They need to be bigger (More like HOI 2) with a smaller coastal strip(s) around islands and continents. This should make things a bit easier with things like trade routes, pirates, privateers, etc. The only thing that would need to be added would be two things (the difficulty rating off the sea province to ships being found, i.e. the larger the zone the greater the bonus to ships to be able to go undetected) and a 'spotter' rating for ships that increases as technology increases (longer range, better telescopes, etc.).
---------------------
Well that is all I've got.
(Now we see how fast it falls to the bottom of the page and gets ignored in favor of more interesting threads.)
