Petition against Trirems , trirems everywhere !

[SuperSixFour]

Just wait for the *cough* Man the Oars DLC *cough*

 

[XYN]

Navies is something that PDX had issues with in every game.

So far. Yet to see Man the Guns. But pretty much everywhere else navies boil down to glorified transport parties. At best you get trade protection like in EU4 or colonial points like in Victoria.

Before they figure out how to make naval affairs interesting and relevant and manageable by the AI, it doesn't matter whether there is 1 ship type or 100. I am not sure what kind of exciting gameplay wpuld you expect if there were a few more ship types. You will build stacks big enough to safely transport your units, and that all there is about it, really.

 

[AdAstra]

Sir! Enemies are approaching. They have tons of galleys and ready to ram us!
Right. What do we have and what is your suggestion to counter that?
We have galleys sir. Less than they have and we plan to use ramming.
I see...don't we have any other options besides galleys and ramming?
No sir.
Why not?
Well sir, you see nodoby bothered to invent any other ship types or tactics so we have to you know...build more galleys and continue ramming for next couple of hundred years.
That is outrageous. Who was that moron who's idea was this?
Carthaginians sir. We copied their galleys so we can build our own galleys and...ram them until they surrender sir.
I see...Now..where is my dice?
Dice sir?
Yes the "battle result dice". The thing that decide battles besides galleys and ramming.
Oh right sir. Here it is...
Now get back to your oar and prepare for ramming speed. Got to love naval warfare...
Yes sir.

 

[Denkt]

now please explain to me how a rome can beat a nation such as carthage that have TONS of ports and faster healing and ship maintenance and wood all over iberia and north africa and high income if you will use just their same ship types but not only in lower number but also with a weaker skills ?

Rome built more ships than Carthage during the Punic war and probably would in game have more advanced innovations and technology. Carthage could not keep up to Rome and could not replace their navy while Rome could basically throw it away in a storm and quickly rebuild it again.

If Carthage can build 100 ships Rome could build like 150 ships which completely nullify any advantages Carthage have.

it sound possible to beat egypte with macedon on land if you make a good army that include good cavalary etc , but here what can you do ?it just look like the higher number of ships > lower number from what it seems so far .

Egypt use the same traditions as all other diadochi so they have no advantages over the others.

Focusing on naval technologies may help a little bit, but until we have a full tech list who knows.

Yes there are innovations that improve the navy.​

 

[Cephei80]

Rome built more ships than Carthage during the Punic war and probably would in game have more advanced innovations and technology. Carthage could not keep up to Rome and could not replace their navy while Rome could basically throw it away in a storm and quickly rebuild it again.

If Carthage can build 100 ships Rome could build like 150 ships which completely nullify any advantages Carthage have.


Egypt use the same traditions as all other diadochi so they have no advantages over the others.

Yes there are innovations that improve the navy.​

egypte have the advantage over all others thanks to its rivers , its canal its ports .

now to history
macedon have built 500 ships during the demetrius era and 500 during the macedonian wars , they couldnt use them on both occasions , so did the seleucides but their basilius died and couldnt invade greece and egypte .
rome built more in the punic wars because it have lost more than carthage (+1000 ships ) and rome struggled a lot to do this immense job .
after loosing many fleets rome had to stop for 7 years , then they have built a new fleet then they have lost it again then they begged their elites to afford enough money to build a last fleet . this was rome last hope to win at sea and they did it , if they have failed carthage would have won especially that hamilcar was also undefeated on sicily and drepana and lilibaeum were still holding .

now carthage , carthage have lost nearly 900 to 1000 ships , each time they have built a whole new fleet over and over , then after their victory at drepana then a second medium battle they have just destroyed their own fleet because rome have no more ships left , years later when romans attacked they have built 2 fleets one followed by the second ( 400 ships in total ) so easily again . carthage never showed a single signe of struggle at building and mantaining its fleet , rome showed that over and over .

conclusion , building a giant fleet prior to a single operation is easy for everyone on the mediteranean , building many fleets over and over for 23 years wasnt easy for rome but it was easy for carthage , egypte also showed same skills at rebuilding and maintaining their fleets even after many losses without having real issue at doing that .

 

[Will Steel]

If we do get different ship types, I am hoping for navigable rivers at some point. The ability to sail up the Nile and fight river battles in the Rhine and Danube would be wonderful.

 

[Maulim]

HoI 4's Man the Guns will be PDX's first successful attempt at making naval combat interesting.

But HoI is HoI, a game solely focused on war.
Imperator focus is more spread out, with it primarily being on the Character and PC State dynamic.

So as a new PDX game, being a sequel to EU Rome, I knew from announcement that the navy would be the least developed aspect of Imp.
Of course the system presented here will suffice, and probably is a good starting point for the devs to work on.

However the suggestion that more ship types would inherently make the system, and of course the game, better is a bit silly.

Naval combat would need to be reworked for the addition of different ship types, troop interaction in naval battles, and over world affects of navies to be meaningful.

 

[Amyntas]

HoI 4's Man the Guns will be PDX's first successful attempt at making naval combat interesting.

But HoI is HoI, a game solely focused on war.
Imperator focus is more spread out, with it primarily being on the Character and PC State dynamic.

So as a new PDX game, being a sequel to EU Rome, I knew from announcement that the navy would be the least developed aspect of Imp.
Of course the system presented here will suffice, and probably is a good starting point for the devs to work on.

However the suggestion that more ship types would inherently make the system, and of course the game, better is a bit silly.

Naval combat would need to be reworked for the addition of different ship types, troop interaction in naval battles, and over world affects of navies to be meaningful.

This whole "good starting point" approach makes no sense. The game is still in development, for God's sake! They can make good changes now!

Land combat has multiple different unit types that combine into a cohesive and interesting combat system. Why on earth couldn't they do that with naval combat? They could literally copy their own system and move it onto the water.

This line of thinking just seems like a justification for them to release half-baked mechanics and then make 20 dollar dlcs six months down the line.

 

[Lord Canterbury]

I'm sorry to whine, but this is a very disappointing thread.

There are bunch of people saying "I want more than triremes, quadririems, quir... etc". There is barely any meaning full suggestions on what people what in terms of game mechanics.

And I'm 100% certain, that if you just add Tri/Quad/Quin etc without adding mechanics then there will only be more Naval Rage. You would simply end up with a situation where:
- Triremes cost 3 gold, and give 3 fleet power
- Quadreremes cost 4 gold, and give 4 fleet power
- Quinqueremes cost 5 gold, and give 5 fleet power
- Kiloremes cost 1000 gold, and give 1000 fleet power
All of which is mechanically useless noise. And mechanically useless noise is also known as bad game design, which is proven to bring about acute attacks of Gamer Rage.

So what do people actually want as a game mechanic?

The only decent suggestion in the thread is the split into 'battle ship' vs 'transport ship' vs 'antipiracy' ship. So similar to EU4 but three rather than four categories (because everything is 'inland sea ship'. Personally I would be fine with this. But importantly the tri/quad/quin are still all just 'battle ships'... so I don't see that as causing Naval Rage to subside.

A simple paper/sissors/rock trio doesn't work, becuase tri/quad/quin is just rock, bigger rock, biggest rock. No fun to be had there.

For similar reasons, a HOI4 type minibattle system is mechanically useless when all the ships are just bigger versions of previous ones. Ditto with Stellaris type minibattle.

Military traditions can work: Something like the "make bigger boats" tradition gives +10% to naval power or some such. But I'd guess that isn't the massive overhaul seemingly desired.

But for a Grand Strategy Game, where individual battles are of minimal importance, I haven't yet seen a suggestion that comes close adding to gameplay. If this were a naval tactics game then sure "give us more than triremes", but I can't see any benefit here. (Technically, I can't see any mechanical benefit. I can see flavour benefit, but that is better provided through events and artwork).

For those with actual mechanics suggestions, I would love to hear them. For those that don't, the Respectfully Disagree button is just below this text.

 

[Maulim]

This whole "good starting point" approach makes no sense. The game is still in development, for God's sake! They can make good changes now!

Land combat has multiple different unit types that combine into a cohesive and interesting combat system. Why on earth couldn't they do that with naval combat? They could literally copy their own system and move it onto the water.

This line of thinking just seems like a justification for them to release half-baked mechanics and then make 20 dollar dlcs six months down the line.

"Half-baked" implies that the mechanics do not work or are incomplete.

And of course the land combat gets more of a focus, because... well you do most of your fighting on land.
And even if they were to transplant the land combat to the sea, the devs would then be accused of being lazy.

But to the "good starting point" point; it is sufficient on a strategic level. And this being a Grand Strategy Game.... well you can connect the dots.

And after the game is out and the team has a good idea of what it is that needs more love (based on, of course, team goals and of course community feedback of a game that has been on the market for a good 2 to 3 months) I'm sure adding those extra ships types will be on the top of their list, right next to that mythical historically accurate simulist 2nd consul

To sum it up: a DLC focused on an aspect of a game is not a bad thing, it allows the devs to pour their energy into that singular focus and give said game more "depth" and make it "complex" and "interesting".

For a good example see HoI 3 or Vic 2

 

[sersors]

But for a Grand Strategy Game, where individual battles are of minimal importance, I haven't yet seen a suggestion that comes close adding to gameplay. If this were a naval tactics game then sure "give us more than triremes", but I can't see any benefit here. (Technically, I can't see any mechanical benefit. I can see flavour benefit, but that is better provided through events and artwork).

Individual battles are of minimal importance in a grand strategy game? Well i strongly disagree... The flavor benefit is really crucial to say the least. Its the era of huge naval battles and breakthrough in ship designs and we are stuck with triremes? Even changing the ship description from triremes to war galleys could be an improvement

 

[Cephei80]

I'm sorry to whine, but this is a very disappointing thread.

There are bunch of people saying "I want more than triremes, quadririems, quir... etc". There is barely any meaning full suggestions on what people what in terms of game mechanics.

And I'm 100% certain, that if you just add Tri/Quad/Quin etc without adding mechanics then there will only be more Naval Rage. You would simply end up with a situation where:
- Triremes cost 3 gold, and give 3 fleet power
- Quadreremes cost 4 gold, and give 4 fleet power
- Quinqueremes cost 5 gold, and give 5 fleet power
- Kiloremes cost 1000 gold, and give 1000 fleet power
All of which is mechanically useless noise. And mechanically useless noise is also known as bad game design, which is proven to bring about acute attacks of Gamer Rage.

So what do people actually want as a game mechanic?

The only decent suggestion in the thread is the split into 'battle ship' vs 'transport ship' vs 'antipiracy' ship. So similar to EU4 but three rather than four categories (because everything is 'inland sea ship'. Personally I would be fine with this. But importantly the tri/quad/quin are still all just 'battle ships'... so I don't see that as causing Naval Rage to subside.

A simple paper/sissors/rock trio doesn't work, becuase tri/quad/quin is just rock, bigger rock, biggest rock. No fun to be had there.

For similar reasons, a HOI4 type minibattle system is mechanically useless when all the ships are just bigger versions of previous ones. Ditto with Stellaris type minibattle.

Military traditions can work: Something like the "make bigger boats" tradition gives +10% to naval power or some such. But I'd guess that isn't the massive overhaul seemingly desired.

But for a Grand Strategy Game, where individual battles are of minimal importance, I haven't yet seen a suggestion that comes close adding to gameplay. If this were a naval tactics game then sure "give us more than triremes", but I can't see any benefit here. (Technically, I can't see any mechanical benefit. I can see flavour benefit, but that is better provided through events and artwork).

For those with actual mechanics suggestions, I would love to hear them. For those that don't, the Respectfully Disagree button is just below this text.

well this thread is about diversity of naval decisions&tactics and ships classes , we do not want every possible type of rems ships but we want something that can remove that naked corvette feeling of stellaris , it just look wrong and blank .
naval battles can be even more riche if we get more than the boarding or ramming , they can add range for exemple as a third tactic where our fleet can only stay far and shoot catapult or arrows without going full melee with the other fleet .

also adding at least a heavy class of ships will make possiblites even bigger , ideas and doctrines will not make a 100 trirem beat 300 trirem , it can only make a 30 experienced trirems beat like 50 . but the bigger the enemy fleet is the lower your chances will be to win because so far all what you got is a battle tactic to chose and few doctrines and ideas bonuses . however ifwe have a second heavy ship class and you have a majority of heavy ships in those 100 while the enemy have only a handful , here your chances to win will be even higher .

adding an extra naval tactic and an extra class of ships will make naval battles more intresting and less predictable and more fun .

i want to wage a 30 year punic war and i want to enjoy sea battles , knowing that we dont have lot of options to do make me feel desapointed .

 

[Cephei80]

HoI 4's Man the Guns will be PDX's first successful attempt at making naval combat interesting.

But HoI is HoI, a game solely focused on war.
Imperator focus is more spread out, with it primarily being on the Character and PC State dynamic.

So as a new PDX game, being a sequel to EU Rome, I knew from announcement that the navy would be the least developed aspect of Imp.
Of course the system presented here will suffice, and probably is a good starting point for the devs to work on.

However the suggestion that more ship types would inherently make the system, and of course the game, better is a bit silly.

Naval combat would need to be reworked for the addition of different ship types, troop interaction in naval battles, and over world affects of navies to be meaningful.

the largest battles of antiquity were fought on sea , we speak about 150.000 in each side in the Battle of Cape Ecnomus . many others were near this big during antiquity . in ww2 scale this is like waging battle of stalingrad on sea . they should focus on naval battles in this game same way they did with hoi 4 .

 

[Etrutian]

So i loved the last dev diary but i was disappointed by how all ships are represented under 1 class .

Here is why i think we might have an issue similar to the naked corvette issue of stellaris .

-i will start with an example : in eu4 as a greece sized byzantium i build 40 heavy ships + medium ones to beat those like +200 galleys of the ottomans or Venice on mid game , because i know they have quantity , a quantity that i can't beat with greece alone , so i go for quality and fire power (not doctrine but quality of ships i build.)

In imperator if i am Macedon and have only a 200 basic ship max but egypte have 400 or 800 trirems i will have no chance at all because they also use the same type of my ships + they are larger and have tons of ports .
If i am an italy sized rome and want to face carthage i will have no chance , because they have tons of ports too and can make tons of basic ships and already have a great naval doctrine , what can rome do against that ? Especially that the best what rome can do is making similar ships but in lower numbers .
We will need quality ships to beat their quantity and skills . We need to make good deck formation with heavy medium and light ships so we can beat our enemies.


Please @Johan make more ships so we can focus on different strategies and so we can also feel confident against a fleet larger but lighter than ours .
I won't dare to face egypte with Macedonia or carthage with rome if we both have same ships but inferior in number and ports and size and naval skill .
With 1 ships type only the one with most ports and ships will always win and our only hope will be to micromanage fleets and go hunt those smaller detachments only and hope that no other enemy reinforcement will arrive .

I thought that naval combat was essentially the same as land warfare up until cannons became a useful thing? Numbers = win; bodies = success

 

[Wavey]

I thought that naval combat was essentially the same as land warfare up until cannons became a useful thing? Numbers = win; bodies = success

Nope, naval combat in this time period was much more dynamic than just floating ships together and hand to hand fighting across the decks, at least in the Mediterranean where the use of oared galleys of various sizes all fitted with rams and sometimes with artillery gave greater manoeuvrability and options in a fight. I suspect you are thinking about the great medieval battles in northern waters like Sluys. Ships like carracks and cogs didn't have oars or rams to be used in battle so sailing up to the enemy and boarding was pretty much their only tactical option.

 

[hkrommel]

I thought that naval combat was essentially the same as land warfare up until cannons became a useful thing? Numbers = win; bodies = success

Neither land nor naval warfare was as you described. If you have two mobs of angry peasants with pitchforks and shovels then sure, or a bunch of canoes, but every single variation beyond that changes the calculation and chances of victory.

 

[Lord Canterbury]

Nope, naval combat in this time period was much more dynamic than just floating ships together and hand to hand fighting across the decks, at least in the Mediterranean where the use of oared galleys of various sizes all fitted with rams and sometimes with artillery gave greater manoeuvrability and options in a fight. I suspect you are thinking about the great medieval battles in northern waters like Sluys. Ships like carracks and cogs didn't have oars or rams to be used in battle so sailing up to the enemy and boarding was pretty much their only tactical option.

You might be correct in the eastern Mediterranean, but the Corvus was created primarily because the only thing the Roman could bother doing on the water was:
a - "just floating ships together and hand to hand fighting across the decks", or
b - Fail to do 'a', then drown.

 

[hkrommel]

You might be correct in the eastern Mediterranean, but the Corvus was created primarily because the only thing the Roman could bother doing on the water was:
a - "just floating ships together and hand to hand fighting across the decks", or
b - Fail to do 'a', then drown.

Not necessarily, it was more that the Carthaginians had an extensive and noble naval tradition, whereas the Romans did not. Thus, the Romans sought to leverage their superiority on land by using marines to the greatest extent possible. Once they developed their own navy sufficiently, the Romans used more traditional tactics (though, with the typical Roman engineering mentality, they avoided the gaudy monstrosities of the Diadochi).

 

[Denkt]

Roman marines was not superior as far as I understand. Why Rome did so well during boarding was simply because their ships carried so many marines while Carthage tried to have as few marines as possible. Athens and Sparta was similar, with Athens using few marines and Sparta using alot of marines.

Roman superiority on land warfare come down to pretty much one thing and one thing only and that is Manpower, the same can be said about naval warfare. If Carthage had similar amount of Manpower as Rome did they would have done much better and maybe won the punic wars.

 

[hkrommel]

Roman superiority on land warfare come down to pretty much one thing and one thing only and that is Manpower, the same can be said about naval warfare. If Carthage had similar amount of Manpower as Rome did they would have done much better and maybe won the punic wars.

This is 100% incorrect. We simply don't have the historical data to make these sorts of claims. This type of claim mainly arises from asking how Hannibal could have been so successful, yet Rome survived?

1. Hannibal's successes were in large part due to poor leadership of the Romans, and I would even argue that Paulus and Varro weren't necessarily bad commanders, but you don't put two supreme commanders over the same army.
2. Hannibal was not some flawless commander. He was a great tactician to be sure, who was able to capitalize on Roman failures, but he was completely unable to turn his victories into anything significant. He didn't take and hold key cities or other strategic objectives. Worse, he deprived Carthage of its best general who would probably be put to better use elsewhere, like retaking Sicily.
3. Hannibal was a horrible logistician. He lost all but a few (some sources say one) of his elephants crossing the Alps, the army he had was too small to properly besiege anything, and he was unable to reinforce once in Italy.
4. Your perception largely arises because of Hannibal's campaign in Italy. But read that sentence closely, it's in Italy. The Roman heartland. The armies that Hannibal destroyed weren't destroyed entirely, and the Romans could draw on citizen soldiers who provided their own weapons and armor. It was only later on that they needed to supply a large amount of armaments to new soldiers. The Carthaginians had to raise levies, arm them, and train them.
5. From what I've read there's no basis to claim that Carthage was any less populated with eligible soldiers than Roman territory. In fact, Carthage could probably, due to its Spanish possessions, draw on more soldiers. The problem again was that arming them and training them was more expensive and would give Carthage a less effective fighting force than mercenaries, which Carthage used commonly. There may have also been concerns about raising too many non-Phoenicians, but that's just a theory.
6. Four constants arise throughout Roman history about their military efficiencies: 1. Discipline. 2. Logistics. 3. Engineering. 4. Adaptability. These are the reasons for their success in the Second Punic War. They completely adapted their naval and land warfare to deal with the Carthaginian navy and with elephants. They were disciplined enough to not break and surrender even when Hannibal seemed unstoppable. They were able to construct fleets quite rapidly for a nation with no real naval history.