Please no naval units

[Nick B II]

Yes, I'm sorry Cassel wasn't some pure Platonic battle that was decided entirely by tactical superiority, where only the unwashed masses died. In the real world, battles are often decisive because important people are killed in them. I don't know why you take this to mean that the battle itself is unimportant, since it was the means through which the important people were killed.

You know, if you'd actually responded to my entire post that would be one thing. But you picked a small bit, and probably the least on-topic bit, so I'm going to declare this debate over. Everything worth saying has clearly been said.

Nick

EDIT: Note that I was careful to not declare a winner.

 

[Hertog Jan]

I think anything else but the CK 1 naval system is an improvement. There is a reason why the Kings of Denmark and Sweden had to content themselves with converting pagans, whilst the wealthy and relatively well suited Kings of England and France (and the Holy Roman Emperor) went after the main trophy (Jerusalem!). Naval combat in the Mediterranean had become way too expansive to the Danes and Swedes.

As for naval battles not being decisive. I would say that the Battle of Sluys was pretty decisive, because it had long term repercussions for France. The English victory dashed all French hopes of securing an early victory in the Hundred Years' War and opened the way to an English invasion of Picardy (which bore fruit in one of the most decisive land battles of the Hundred Years' War, Crecy 1346). As for the English not being a naval power in the Middle Ages, I would respectfully disagree. A modern sense of naval power didn't exist (and yes, the Royal Navy didn't exist). But the Kings of England had given considerable freedom to the Cinque Ports (Hastings, Dover, New Romney, Hythe and Sandwich), a group of ports along England's Channel coast. They were given charters with extensive rights in exchange for providing ships for the King. Apart from the leidangr in the Viking Age and the navies of Venice, Genoa and the Hansa, I know of no other organised naval defence in the Middle Ages.

 

[TempestDK]

The only things that were really wrong with the CK1 model was the way the costs were calculated, and the fact that once the journey was begun, there was no refund, even if your troops hadn't even set foot on a boat yet. If you wanted to change course in the middle of the journey, you would have to pay new fees from that point on, which makes little sense.

A minor annoyance was the ability of the muslim powers to sail merrily to Iceland whenever they wanted, introducing sheikdoms in Ireland and Finland.

 

[Ccbasin]

The only things that were really wrong with the CK1 model was the way the costs were calculated, and the fact that once the journey was begun, there was no refund, even if your troops hadn't even set foot on a boat yet. If you wanted to change course in the middle of the journey, you would have to pay new fees from that point on, which makes little sense.

A minor annoyance was the ability of the muslim powers to sail merrily to Iceland whenever they wanted, introducing sheikdoms in Ireland and Finland.

You do know that later in Deus Vult that was no longer happening. No merrily walking through religious enemies and no muslim sailing out of the Med weer allowed.

 

[Nis Baggesen]

I think anything else but the CK 1 naval system is an improvement. There is a reason why the Kings of Denmark and Sweden had to content themselves with converting pagans, whilst the wealthy and relatively well suited Kings of England and France (and the Holy Roman Emperor) went after the main trophy (Jerusalem!). Naval combat in the Mediterranean had become way too expansive to the Danes and Swedes.

I haven't really seen any evidence that it was naval _combat_ concerns that kept the Danes and Swedes out of major participation the Crusades in the Levant. The main was probably cost. Even without naval battles it would have been costly to project force that far away. This is quite well simulated by the CK 1 system. Secondly they had other pagans much closer - converting the Baltics was not exactly a stupid move. Thirdly the Baltics was an area they could conquer and hold (at least for a while).

And AFAIK the lething (leidangr) was a medieval (12-13th century) institution, not a Viking age one.

EDIT: This wasn't meant to imply that the CK 1 system was good or anything. Just that I still don't see the need for a fully fledged naval combat system, with ship units being moved around etc.

 

[TempestDK]

You do know that later in Deus Vult that was no longer happening. No merrily walking through religious enemies and no muslim sailing out of the Med weer allowed.

Sailing outside the Med was very much allowed in DV ... DVIP introduced events to keep the muslims from sialing too far into the Atlantic. And walking across neutral territory of religious enemies didn't prevent the muslims from landing in Finland if they were at war with someone there.

 

[Ccbasin]

Well, I am 300 years into a game of DV and I have not seen any Muslims outside the Med. Now, that could be a abnormality. However, I was under the impression, according to the latest DV beta, that Muslims could not do the things you said.

 

[RedRooster81]

Well, I am 300 years into a game of DV and I have not seen any Muslims outside the Med. Now, that could be a abnormality. However, I was under the impression, according to the latest DV beta, that Muslims could not do the things you said.

It does seem to have lessened with the last patch. In my last few games, I mostly got Muslim invaders in odd places during drawn-out wars, when the Emir of Badajoz for instance followed the Scots back home again and decided to stay.

 

[Nick B II]

Well, I am 300 years into a game of DV and I have not seen any Muslims outside the Med. Now, that could be a abnormality. However, I was under the impression, according to the latest DV beta, that Muslims could not do the things you said.

There is no way for the CK1 engine to keep Moslems out of the North Sea without major coding. It's just not possible, and not important enough for the devs to fix. The "fix" is that events make it very hard for them to keep ahold of such territories.

I don't know why your game doesn't have any. I'd guess that a) they appeared and got taken out before you noticed because you're playing somewhere else, b) the Moslems are getting murdered in the Crusades, or c) you got lucky.

Nick

 

[TempestDK]

My last game with both DV and an older version of DBIP without Jordarkelf's event to disband muslim fleets in the Atlantic, I have seen sheikdoms in Scotland, England and several in the baltics. So it definitely happens still.

What they did in the last of the beta patches, was limit the Shiekdom of Praha syndrome. Where the muslims would walk right across Europe to take territory in the middle of the continent.

 

[6354201]

Considering the fact that without naval power the Crusades would have never had the initial success they enjoyed, I find the idea of having no naval units a bit odd. It's also a big reason why the Crusaders were unable to make any significant progress away from the coast, such as taking Damascus.

 

[King of Men]

I think you could keep the existing naval system if, and only if, there was a workable logistics system. In principle there was nothing stopping the Moslems from invading Norway except that they would have starved to death when they got there. (Or rather, somewhere during the transit, because they couldn't have put in at friendly naval bases along the Christian coast of Europe. Spending more than a week out at sea was unusual.) The Crusaders lost battles because they ran out of food or water, not usually because they were outfought; and the problem in organising a Crusade didn't lie so much in getting an army on board ships and setting sail, but in finding the beans and grain to feed them (and especially the cavalry horses) along the way. Something so simple as making attrition proportional to the distance from the nearest friendly province could solve the whole naval issue; sure, the Moslems can invade Norway, and they can all starve to death in the first month, too. Of course this means extra AI code to ensure that nothing so silly actually happens, so it may not be possible.

I note in passing that besieging the likes of Venice and Byzantium was impossible without a navy to blockade their harbours.

 

[Nick B II]

I think you could keep the existing naval system if, and only if, there was a workable logistics system. In principle there was nothing stopping the Moslems from invading Norway except that they would have starved to death when they got there. (Or rather, somewhere during the transit, because they couldn't have put in at friendly naval bases along the Christian coast of Europe. Spending more than a week out at sea was unusual.)

I disagree.

Even assuming that their galleys could survive the North Sea (and conventional wisdom is pretty divided on this point), they had no captians or crew who knew the waters. It's not like you have to deal with icebergs or 20-ft swells on a regular basis in the Mediterranean.

Nick

 

[RickInVA]

Because my claim is that those battles are irrelevant.

Well then, what in your opinion IS important?

 

[Melichai]

Reflection of naval elements (trade/piracy/coastal raiding/troop transport/supply...and yes, maybe the odd battle) is required to explain why Moslem nations didnt get into the Atlantic, or why Venice was important, or why the Hundred Years War was fought almost entirely in France without extremely awkward and jarring artifical "No - You cant do that!" style events which break immersion.

 

[Nick B II]

Well then, what in your opinion IS important?

I'm looking for battles where the tactical crap we all love directly affected the outcome of the war. Battles like the one that stopped the Turks, kept the Persians out of Greece, or allowed the Nazis to over-run France. I refuse to count battles where the tactical crap was made irrelevant by the death of one claimant to the throne because they don't show battle per se was important, but rather show that allegiance was primarily to an individual, not a political cause.

And I swear this will be my last post in this thread on the issue. You wanna discuss it further start a new thread.

Nick

 

[1alexey]

I do not see a problem with naval units.
Why not to argue that we do not need fleet in EU/Vicky than?

Navy WAS importaint it times of Greese sity states and importaint up to today.
The thing that kingdoms in general did not own navies doesn`t mean this must be fobriten. Because big enough kingdom will eventually face the need to have one.

The much better way is to make ships importaint for merchant republicks, and not so importaint for kingdoms, but as kingdom gets large enought(say English king unites british island) the navy should get more of the kings conserns.

It will simulate history in much better way.

 

[RedRooster81]

I do not see a problem with naval units.
Why not to argue that we do not need fleet in EU/Vicky than?

Navy WAS importaint it times of Greese sity states and importaint up to today.
The thing that kingdoms in general did not own navies doesn`t mean this must be fobriten. Because big enough kingdom will eventually face the need to have one.

The much better way is to make ships importaint for merchant republicks, and not so importaint for kingdoms, but as kingdom gets large enought(say English king unites british island) the navy should get more of the kings conserns.

It will simulate history in much better way.

I tend to agree. Maritime kingdoms like Sicily did keep navies, though they were not typical, but faced the reality of in this case competing with the Arab states and Byzantium, and trying to govern southern Italy, the islands of Sicily and Malta, and extend power south into North Africa. And then in time intervene in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

 

[telesien]

No medieval game can add acurate naval combat for one simple reason. We don't know how exactly they were fought. There were naval battles in that time, like the battle of Sluys between England and France in 1340, but all we got are some paintings and vague descriptions given by people who obviously never saw an actual naval battle. And this thing is important for the outcomes. Battles in Atlantic could have been fought mainly by boarding, which would lead to a lot of ships captures, or by shooting, which would lead to a lot of ships sunk. The same goes for types of ships. How can you determine which ones were better, when you don't know what they did?

For these reasons it's better to keep naval battles out of the game. Transporting troops is on the other hand inevitable, so navies should represent it.

 

[King of Men]

I disagree.

Even assuming that their galleys could survive the North Sea (and conventional wisdom is pretty divided on this point), they had no captains or crew who knew the waters. It's not like you have to deal with icebergs or 20-ft swells on a regular basis in the Mediterranean.

Nick

The difference between a Med galley and a Viking longship is not that significant. As for captains and crews, I suggest that the reason they didn't have any was because they never conquered (at least for very long) what is now Portugal, where they could have learned these skills; not because Islam forbids acquiring such knowledge.

However, I suggest that the exact causes are not that important, compared to finding an abstraction that will reproduce the historical problems. Whether you're right, I'm right, or we're both right, on the subject of why the Moslems never sailed to Norway, is not important, because in either case the game can reflect it with my distance-attrition suggestion. The way for the Moslems to get out into the Atlantic, under this model, is to conquer Atlantic ports so that their attrition won't be in the tens of percent. And this nicely reflects both the supply problem that I suggest, and the captains-and-crews problem that you suggest: The way to get supplies is to have naval bases, and the way to get crews is also to have naval bases in the relevant waters. So the abstraction I suggest covers both causes without requiring much additional code.