Suggestion: If the terrain for a battle picked is "coastline," ships should help.

[Pellucid]

Having ships in an adjacent sea zone to a battle on the coast should give at least a +1 modifier to the side who has the ships present.

Note I'm not talking about all coastal province battles, ONLY battles where the randomly-selected terrain in which the battle is taking place is "coastline."

 

[aitaituo]

What kind of ships? How many? Any tech level restrictions?

 

[quoms]

Two thoughts: 1) this would make it easier to assault islands with evenly matched troops (more or less) which may or may not be desirable, and 2) I would almost make it 'coastal province' instead of 'randomly picked coastline' because that encourages people to spend ships following their troops around for maybe a reward, maybe not. If I'm going to use a fleet I'd like to get a bonus.

With those things in mind, I think this same thing every time I'm fighting on a coast and have ships nearby. It would be nice to see something implemented.

 

[Rubidium]

To what extent was naval bombardment a major thing during the EU time period?

I'm no expert, but my understanding was that it really wasn't until the Dreadnought era that shore bombardment in coordination with troops became useful. Naval guns weren't accurate enough or powerful enough to play a meaningful role in the battle (especially since coordinating between a ship at sea and forces on land was extremely difficult).

Ships could bombard fortifications just fine (e.g. "the rockets' red glare, etc." from the Battle of Baltimore), but that's more siege warfare (where ships do provide a bonus).

 

[smellymummy]

This kind of battle modifier seems to be more fit for HOI time period than EU, despite being on the terrain type of coastal province. There's a base % battle is done in coastal, then shouldn't there also be a % that the navy is capable of assisting in the battle? Ends up with low odds I think.

 

[BpestZ1]

Cannons from shore were more effective because of elevation and level ground. It's a fine idea but perhaps a bit too rough on a defender in some situations? Maybe only remove an attackers malus for crossing a straight or river but no bonus otherwise while giving a defender a +1 in a coastline battle? Seems hard to balance as some situations where ships could fire on troops would have been open to the same from shore. Restricting it to coastline is fine for a defender getting a +1 but it is hard for me to justify a defender fighting on the coast but away from any battery emplacements and getting a -1.

 

[Thund91]

I agree that this is more suited towards Vic/HoI then the EU time period.

 

[jdavis86]

I think the siege bonus from blockade is a fine enough representation.