Shipyard/Warship Costs

[HolisticGod]

All,

The third in a series of collaboritive naval reform proposals Bocaj and I are making. This one addresses the problem of fleet sizes, realism, and longterm maritime strategy.

I suggest you take a look at these threads first:

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=168866
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=168867

Particularly the second. Battles would have to be made less destructive in the mid-late game for this to be viable.

-Warship cost will be dramatically increased. To the tune of hundreds of ducats at the lowest level.
-Warship effectivity will be dramatically increased, particularly versus galleys.
-Shipyard cost will be dramatically increased-they were the single largest expenditure, including all factors, a country could make in this period. They should cost a fortune.
-The minimum tech level for warships will be raised.
-Construnction time for warships will be dramatically increased.

The idea here is that galleys were far easier and less expensive to build than SoLs. They also stood no chance in open combat with them. Transports were necessary to run armies from place to place. Warships were never used for this purpose, because they simply weren't plentiful enough.

SoLs, on the other hand, were very time-consuming and their construction required the absolute focus of a country's resources, manpower and expertise. They should never cost as much as cannon.

A navy was a longterm investment. Its loss a national disaster. A single ship meant hundreds of sailors (far harder to train than infantry), cannon and, perhaps most importantly, officers. When the 300 gun flagship L'Orient exploded at the Battle of the Nile, France's navy suffered a more disasterous loss than its army did with any of its casualties before or after, up to the retreat from Russia.

This should be reflected. And it isn't simply a question of scale ("imagine 10 warships = 1"). It's a matter of policy, strategy, game mechanics... In the end game, you can replace hundreds of losses. Indefinitely. This is grossly ahistorical, eliminates all real strategy from maritime conflict and takes what could easily be one of the most complex, engaging, important aspects of the game and turns it into a kind of deranged Stalingrad at sea.

Fortunately, we have the ability to change. Or, at least, the God of Rock n' Roll does.

The materials are there. Just need to fix them.

 

[unmerged(10894)]

Yeah well said. Navies should be more expensive, and warships should be more of a rich man's luxury. Shipyards should really be the pinnacle of naval prowess as well, and as long as their benefits are increased in comparison. As Byak suggested, it would be perfect if only warships would be able to be built there, and another good thing would be if they could make up the largest part of support limit if there is one.

IMHO, Shipyards should cost no less than 5k, with 1k increases for each successive one. Just a little working number to start from.

 

[admiral drake]

i'd have to disagree with 5k for first shipyard ect , increasing the prize alot is good thing but right now nearly all colonials get a free shipyard while nations like france ect don't and if a shipyard cost 5k for first thats quite a nice "gift"

 

[unmerged(10894)]

It's unfortunate that there's not able to be levels of shipyards (I'm really starting to want EU3 more and more lately ), as this would be perfect for the situation and to distinguish earlier shipyards with the later, more expensive ones.

Another option is to change their costs to coincide with different levels of tech. Earlier and more primitive techs (probably should have something to do with naval techs) would mean it would cost less (2-3k), while later techs should make it more expensive.

 

[Kaigon]

You could have a lower start price but a higher increasement.
Which means that most majors will afford one Shipyard, but most won't afford 3 or 4.

 

[Fredrik82]

Maybe some kind of option to upgrade the shipyards like you do when you upgrade fortress.

I agree with HoG here, just those tiny tweaks that HG suggested in some other posts would create a whole different naval system, which i think would be great for this game, especially for the historical area.

 

[unmerged(21937)]

Events can be easily edited and if Shipyards would be expensive, then it would be great benefit for historically naval nations to get one free. Not just "free 1k ducats" like it is now.

I guess it's rather difficult to have Shipyard cost vary by tech, not to mention that as there is just Shipyard, which needs no improvements later on, it would imo be more fair if the Shipyard cost would be same to all, both early Naval nations and later Naval nations.

I guess we would need Johan to say whether or not it's possible to have warship building capablity linked to having a Shipyard.

 

[unmerged(26888)]

This is intended for multiplayer? Because the boring thing in my SP games is that the AI doesn't build much ships at all. I hate modifying the save file, but on occasions I have given AI countries fleets this way just to make the game more interesting. For example I sometimes see Genoa mustering a 50k army in Corsica while they have no fleet at all, and Venice doing the same in Corfu

 

[unmerged(24512)]

Agree on all points, though i think it's important not to make shipyards cost TOO much, as the increased speed in building warships, especially with the increased cost, might not be worth it.

As i wrote in the other thread you made(about ports..), i think the time it takes to build a shipyard should be vastly increased. This is both realistic and good for gameplay, because, if the time is increased enough, it could make provinces with a shipyard strategically important.

 

[unmerged(1047)]

Here's something else to consider:
These changes seem designed to represent ships of the line. But what about smaller vessels, such as frigates? Some countries never even built ships of the line, or went significant periods of time without them, yet had semi-competitive navies via frigates, etcetera. (The USA, for example, fought the War of 1812 with no ships of the line, and yet they had naval victories over the British.... also, to my knowledge ships of the line were rarely if ever used in the Pacific.)

I suggest this be taken into account, considering that there is NOT a seperate type of ships to represent those...

 

[HolisticGod]

Sheridan,

I tend to put all vessels of that category under the heading "galley." It's not at all accurate, but there really aren't any other options. It's more important to represent SoLs, which were fundamental to the navies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, than it is to represent lesser ships like frigates or far less expensive 28-gun SoLs.

Frigates were primarily useful for their speed. I suppose, if costs can be linked to tech, we could have galleys "become" frigates around 1700. They'd be faster and cheaper than warships, easier to build and half as powerful. That could be fairly interesting...

Leiv,

I agree. Shipyards should take years to build and cost thousands upon thousands of ducats.

A warship should also require significantly longer build time and cost hundreds of ducats. Especially if we can manage something like the galley-to-frigate system.

 

[ForzaA]

Frigates were primarily useful for their speed. I suppose, if costs can be linked to tech, we could have galleys "become" frigates around 1700. They'd be faster and cheaper than warships, easier to build and half as powerful. That could be fairly interesting...

A warship should also require significantly longer build time and cost hundreds of ducats. Especially if we can manage something like the galley-to-frigate system.

Shock and Fire strength of galleys are modifyable certainly- that leaves us with their speed and the troublesome "galleys sink in open water" - Given that warships and transports get faster with technology, I would assume that ship speed isn't defined in all that many places (as opposed to, for example, # of provs. ) which probably means that if a well balanced well argumented proposal for change has a good chance of being implemented.

"Galleys sink" could probably be circumvented by declaring all seazones part of the med. but then galleys themselves won't sink either...

 

[HolisticGod]

Forza,

I was thinking the rules for galleys would change at a certain tech level. They'd behave as regular galleys up to that point, then their price would go up significantly (but less than warships), they'd before roughly a quarter as powerful and take less time to build. From there on, their efficacy would increase at the same rate as warships.

What I don't know-and it'll probably take Johan telling us-is whether this can be easily done. Tied to tech. Particularly when it comes to "galleys sink."

 

[billiard]

Higher profile of naval strategy is a good thing - I loved the "Stalingrad at Sea" categorization of the current naval warfare model.

As for Shipyards, there should be some ongoing benefit from having one - that's what doomed the Prussian efforts at colonialization, namely that they didn't have a naval tradition to draw upon. A shipyard, by its existence, should mean that your country has the advantage of knowing about recent developments and techniques which then build upon themselves - in the current game, this is represented by a "Naval Equipment Manufactory", but in reality a Shipyard would be a better place from which to derive automatic naval research. It would be nice if the level of "automatic" investment was actually improved over time; 5d a month when you initially complete the Shipyard, improving by 1d per month per year (for example) over time IF you keep improving the shipyard over time - see "stepwise improvement" below. This would give a big advantage to those countries that started early in sponsoring naval exploration, an advantage that would likely not be overtaken no matter how many forests and fisheries (the current best spots for Naval Equipment Manufactories) a country might have.

As mentioned, I also liked the idea of "stepwise" improvements in shipyards - it would be wonderful to have obsolence modeled in the game. Spain in the 1600's - naval powerhouse. Spain in the late 1700's - they still have a shipyard, but as it's not state of the art late 1700's shipyard. Maybe shipyards that aren't retooled every so often would no longer give the automatic naval investment over time. So just as you can improve the level of fortifications when reaching certain land tech levels, you can improve your level of shipyard when reaching certain naval tech levels. But unlike fortifications on land, the shipyards no longer give benefits if you don't keep them up by these improvements. Two tech levels behind in your improvements and the economic benefits cease. Three techs behind, and the shipyard disappears altogether and you have to start over.

That leads to the third benefit of a shipyard - if you start out early and improve them over time as your naval tech level increases, they aren't as costly as if you try to simply become a naval powerhouse in 1800 because you've reach land tech 60 and decide to build a shipyard. It would take a lot of money to build something from the ground up, not to mention that you wouldn't have the expertise on hand but would have to buy in experts from elsewhere.

EU3 ideas?

 

[TheLoneTaco]

eu3 ideas, probably, but maybe we can squeak this in :^)

i was going to respond about the inability of some nations to cross the atlantic with holistic's changes, but that was discussed with making galley's turn into frigates. this would be a VERY good idea. who build's gallery's after 1700? 1650? they may be cheap but they are entirely worthless, in my opinion.

-Matt

 

[unmerged(25696)]

The USA, for example, fought the War of 1812 with no ships of the line, and yet they had naval victories over the British....

AFAIK, US "frigates" were nearly as large as other countries' SoL. Only their denomination changed.

I agree with ForzaA, that galleys, with their low speed and high sinking-potential in high seas, are not viable to represent frigates (non-US frigates). I may be wrong, but I don't think that these rules can be changed (except by Johan, but I suppose it'd be a heavy work).
Warships actually represent not only SoL, but also all the other type of high-seas-sailing, battle-oriented vessels. Naval tech already depicts the technological advantage of sea-oriented nations : between England and normal Prussia, who's gonna win most naval battles ? England, IRL because of their SoL, in-game because of their naval tech advantage.

hundreds of sailors (far harder to train than infantry),

I formally disagree. Do you know about "press gangs" ? Ordinary sailors needed really few training, certainly not more than infantry, and they received it on-board (hence the numerous "accidental casualties" ). A few specialists needed more training, but they generally received it in the civil fleet already, or were ordinary sailors having "aged and learned", and they were much more scarce in numbers.

 

[unmerged(25696)]

who build's gallery's after 1700? 1650? they may be cheap but they are entirely worthless, in my opinion.

France, Italians, Ottomans, etc. Quite a big bunch, AFAIK.

 

[HolisticGod]

lawkeeper,

In games. And the answer is nobody, at least in MP.

This is why we need Johan to chime in. It should, concievably, be possible to extend Galley-range/speed/etc. at a certain tech level. Within a gap, they'd just be more or less obsolete. But around 1700, they can represent frigates.

If this is impossible, then I say we switch to a firm SoL model and drastically increase costs. There's too much money in the game as it is.

And, er... Press gangs were generally used for low-skilled work unrelated to seafaring. A real sailor needed to know every inch of his ship, the fundamentals of navigation, multiple aspets of ship-to-ship combat (particularly handling the cannon, putting out shipboard fires, etc) and the procedures and rituals of naval tradition. Failing that, he wasn't a sailor. He was a soldier with a head scarf.

Napoleon's greatest difficulty in facing the British was his deficit of well-trained sailors and officers. Sailors and officers. Not just officers. Not just Admirals. Not just Captains.

 

[unmerged(25696)]

Napoleon's greatest difficulty in facing the British was his deficit of well-trained sailors and officers. Sailors and officers. Not just officers. Not just Admirals. Not just Captains.

And why ? Maybe because sailors came from Britanny, and Britanny was rather unsupportive of the Revolution...

In games. And the answer is nobody, at least in MP.

That's weird, I really often see people claiming they still use, and sometimes build until 1800s, galleys. At least for pirate-preventing missions, but not only.
Besides, this part of the Forum is general, so if what you propose is for MP, maybe you should have written it in the title.

And, er... Press gangs were generally used for low-skilled work unrelated to seafaring. A real sailor needed to know every inch of his ship, the fundamentals of navigation, multiple aspets of ship-to-ship combat (particularly handling the cannon, putting out shipboard fires, etc) and the procedures and rituals of naval tradition. Failing that, he wasn't a sailor. He was a soldier with a head scarf.

That's really not putting down my point. Press gangs were roaming port cities, so many able sailors being in the taverns and all around. I even remember some bit of a law or decree allowing civilian captains to get some money in case some of their enlisted sailors were press-ganged (tough I'm not sure it was ever used widespread, but that's another matter ).

 

[HolisticGod]

lawkeeper,

And also because the Terror had claimed a huge number of officers, Captains and Admirals. You're not disputing my point at all. Hell's bells, you now appear to be arguing for it.

If any man who could be a foot soldier could be a sailor, he wouldn't have had this problem.

And galleys are used for grunt work now and then, but in combat? Bah. This is being posted in GD because it's a general game change.