The absurdly low cost of warships : a small example

[Jephery]

They shouldn't be decisive in loses from a historical standpoint. The decisiveness of naval battles comes from forcing your opponent to keep their fleet in port or risk losing it completely. Which in EU means beating a fleet, forcing it back to port, and blockading the port to keep it from leaving.

It should take tons of resources to maintain naval superiority. At the moment, you sink the AI fleet once and they stop being a threat on the sea for the rest of the game.

 

[cleef]

And yet, I agree with OP... Why not simply increase the price of all ships by 50% ?

 

[Otto of england]

And yet, I agree with OP... Why not simply increase the price of all ships by 50% ?

You would then have to lower losses from naval battles as well if you were to do that. Otherwise you will never see the AI rebuild there navies basically and in multiplayer naval nations such as Portugal, Japan, GB, Venice, etc would become super weak as one naval battle loss will screw them over. As it is losing one Naval battle as GB is pretty much game over, which is absurd as I can guarantee you that GB lost at least one naval battle in the time frame and that did not result in the occupation of the UK.

 

[BaronNoir]

In my latest game, I was at war with regular intervals with Portugal and Spain, and they rebuilded their fleets every single time.

 

[Galu]

Whole naval system in EU4 is absurdity so why point out only prices ?! In Eu4 300 vs 300 ships battles are daily routine, I`m not sure if there was single naval battle at least close to this... this game is ahistorical and it was stated PDX won`t change that in near future... some thing will be arcade only for balance purposes. Ships costing fraction of it`s really cost is the same story as "I wanna be elective monarchy" mechanism for Poland/PLC. Sadly we had stuck with gamey mechanism and I would say ship prices is our least worry.

Oh btw... In terms of naval and etc absurds, I cannot recall naval invasions of hundred thousands troops in 16 or 17 c.

 

[Gaamel]

Whole naval system in EU4 is absurdity so why point out only prices ?! In Eu4 300 vs 300 ships battles are daily routine, I`m not sure if there was single naval battle at least close to this... this game is ahistorical and it was stated PDX won`t change that in near future... some thing will be arcade only for balance purposes. Ships costing fraction of it`s really cost is the same story as "I wanna be elective monarchy" mechanism for Poland/PLC. Sadly we had stuck with gamey mechanism and I would say ship prices is our least worry.

Oh btw... In terms of naval and etc absurds, I cannot recall naval invasions of hundred thousands troops in 16 or 17 c.

In Lepanto there was something like 200-250 ships on each side. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto But this kind of naval battle is quite rare, in Trafalgar there were no more than 50 ships on each side (much larger ships though)

 

[ashmizen]

The comparison isn't fair because the number of cannons on the ships in EU IV have no meaning beyond the ratio with other ships.

All ships could have x10 the guns, and x10 the hull points, and the game would play exactly the same.

In real life a 74 gun ship may have been expensive, but could win entire wars (Opium War, for example) by themselves, by blowing up forts, bombard entire cities into submission, provide cover fire for troops.
Coastal cities and forts basically fell extremely fast to these ships with so many guns, and the British took full advantage of their fleets in seizing so much coastal land. In the Opium war, for example, the British couldn't penetrate inland very far, as they wouldn't have their fleet's firepower to help.


In EU IV, all you can do with the guns (besides fight other ships with the same cheap guns) is blockade a siege, making the coastal siege happen at the SAME speed as a inland province. This can be done with transports or galleys, 74 guns doesn't really help in this, and a heavy ship with 10 guns in the beginning or 74 guns at the end have the same modifier.

If you want to make the costs realistic (apply to only heavy ships) -
- Ship costs need to scale with guns
- guns provide bonuses to coastal battles, just like artillery. At least, battles when disembarking.
- ships can cause undefended coastal provinces/islands to surrender without any troops, or at least provide massive siege bonuses to sieges.

Obviously, galleys and transports shouldn't have any of this firepower (I'm not even sure why native americans can build ships with cannons on them.....), so they should still be limited to navel battles. Light ships are debatable, but since they are already hugely buffed due to trade power, they shouldn't have this either.

This would also give some incentive to build heavy ships, as currently the AI never rebuilding their large fleets, and small fleets can easily be destroyed by a huge stack of light ships.

 

[1alexey]

It's almost the same after westernization. And competing with French/B-brugian/Swedish NI's on land is pretty hard, whereas only 3 countries (Castille, England and Pommerania) have bonus to Haevies combat ability, and 3 have it to durability (Denmark, England and Korea).

What are the odds of European Military power making it to India/China fast, compared to European naval power?
I would bet, very low. That is, unless you have to fight Russia, but would navy help in that case?

 

[ashmizen]

I think the problem is that EU IV (if it is a problem, since playability > historical accuracy), ship costs are the same, FOREVER.

Galleys are cheap, numerous, and win by swarming. Even the small greek cities with their 100k populations had navel battles between hundreds of galleys. In Lepanto, the galleys were small, filled with guys shooting muskets, and no cannons in sight. (much less then 10, 20, 30 cannons depicted in EU IV).

This can hardly be compared with a ship-of-the-line, a ship that has to be absurdly expensive, with hundreds of sailors, 74 guns, two decks, what amounts to basically a floating artillery regiment. Even rich countries like France, Spain, etc with millions in population, had battles between fleets that generally had no more than 10-25 of these monsters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_the_line
According to wiki, the fleets of hundreds of ships of various sizes evolved to becoming fleets of 10-25 ships of the line, with some messenger ships, etc. To model this in EU IV, you would need to start greatly increasing the cost of heavy ships, until countries later can spend x3 the money for a 1/10 of the size of fleet they had 100 years ago.

 

[IIWW]

What are the odds of European Military power making it to India/China fast, compared to European naval power?
I would bet, very low. That is, unless you have to fight Russia, but would navy help in that case?

The pint is it's decisive in both ways by navy: If Europeans would win on sea, they would land troops on my teritory. If I can avoid this (by winning a naval battle or making their ships flee before they manage to land troops) I won. You never seen Europeans in India/China?

 

[Denkt]

My Aztec new world diplo tech 3 navy beat Portugal and Spain, I can remove basicly all their colonies while their larger and much much better land army can't do anything, if they don't chose peace I can blockade them and they will get WE, they can't win.

 

[oblio-]

Whole naval system in EU4 is absurdity so why point out only prices ?! In Eu4 300 vs 300 ships battles are daily routine, I`m not sure if there was single naval battle at least close to this... this game is ahistorical and it was stated PDX won`t change that in near future... some thing will be arcade only for balance purposes. Ships costing fraction of it`s really cost is the same story as "I wanna be elective monarchy" mechanism for Poland/PLC. Sadly we had stuck with gamey mechanism and I would say ship prices is our least worry.

Oh btw... In terms of naval and etc absurds, I cannot recall naval invasions of hundred thousands troops in 16 or 17 c.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chilcheollyang

 

[BaronNoir]

The low costs of navies was made even more more glaring in 1.8, where a British ship you have in 1451 can very well last, fully effective, till 1821 (while IRL, even the surdiest ship lasted for 30 years). And you can even mothball them between wars .

 

[Beagá]

EU 4 naval system is stupid. As you said ships should be more expensive and become more expensive with time. Completely ridiculous a carrack is as expensive as Second-rate (I believe the threedeckers aren´t First-rate, because it would feel even more absurd).

 

[Denkt]

EU 4 naval system is stupid. As you said ships should be more expensive and become more expensive with time. Completely ridiculous a carrack is as expensive as Second-rate (I believe the threedeckers aren´t First-rate, because it would feel even more absurd).

But then a threedecker should be able to defeat like 50 early carrack or so.
One thing that should be changed are how tech effects naval battles, how can my tech 3 aztec fleet defeat the high tech europena fleets while my army get crushed.

 

[Galu]

In Lepanto there was something like 200-250 ships on each side. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto But this kind of naval battle is quite rare, in Trafalgar there were no more than 50 ships on each side (much larger ships though)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chilcheollyang

Ok, I forgot about wars with ottos and I`m not that good in "far east" history, and I should made my self more clear, I meant heavy ships/ships of the line, frigats etc. units larger than galleys. There were also two major attempts by mongols to invade japan with massive fleets involved however, that doesn`t change my main point, it wasn`t daily routine

 

[ashmizen]

If the game modeled everything historically:

You bring 11 ships, led by an explorer named Cortes to Central America. You park your boats in a native province despite not getting fleet rights, and then the crew from your 11 ships magically form into a 500 men regiment, leaving the ships empty.
Oh, and somehow, 15 horses and 15 cannons from the ship were brought along, and I'm not sure how the game can model this - maybe a new unit type that has some sort of combined arms bonus, and 15 cavalry is useless, and 15 cannons equals 1/3 of a regiment, but without any people to man it....

Anyway, your explorer Cortes magically turns into a conquistador named Cortes, and now leads your army which in EU IV terms is less than a single regiment (about half!).
You then go on and recruit from enemy territory, about 2-3 units of infantry mercenaries, boosting your force to about 3.5 regiments. Then you win a series of battles against various stacks of 20-40k units, take the king hostage (totally a button for this), and hire another 100k of local mercenaries (or make allies during war, whichever is more possible in EU IV). Finally defeating a doom stack of 300k of Aztec and their allies, taking the capital and annex all of Aztec lands.

Sounds about right!

/lol

But really, the game can't model that almost absurd (but real) history, so instead Castile ships 20k stacks and crushes the natives and takes all the land. Same result, just modeled in way the game can actually understand.

So I think, as long as results are modeled well, the exact meaning of 300 Heavy ships in the later eras can be seen as just a model, as long as all the country's varying navy sizes are to scale. I mean, if they game went all the way to today, maybe the USA has 1300 Heavy Ships...and all that really means is 13 aircraft carriers.

 

[ashmizen]

But then a threedecker should be able to defeat like 50 early carrack or so.
One thing that should be changed are how tech effects naval battles, how can my tech 3 aztec fleet defeat the high tech europena fleets while my army get crushed.

How can aztecs have fleets with cannons at all?

Forget gunpowder, forget seafairing - the aztecs haven't even discovery iron yet!

Probably, NA/SA, and much of the lower-tech Sub-sahara Africa and south east asia should not be able to build anything better than galleys and transports...and their ships should get -50% combat ability to reflect they shot arrows, not cannons like Europe/Middle East/China/Korea/Japan's ships.

 

[Denkt]

I also had the largest fleets of early carracks before the war started in ca 1525, I have had technology to build early carracks of the same quality as europeans since 1495 (before I even meet europeans) and I think I discovered India before europe by going around africa like europeans do.

 

[oblio-]

Ok, I forgot about wars with ottos and I`m not that good in "far east" history, and I should made my self more clear, I meant heavy ships/ships of the line, frigats etc. units larger than galleys. There were also two major attempts by mongols to invade japan with massive fleets involved however, that doesn`t change my main point, it wasn`t daily routine

You're obviously exaggerating then. At the start of the game there aren't 300 heavies (let alone 600) in the entire world. Some countries don't even have the tech for cogs. Even late in the game there might be 600 heavies in total in the world, but they're usually spread across the continents and many belong to CNs. A large battle rarely has more than 50 heavies in total.
Hyperbole is hyperbole, but let's try not to stray away from the game while complaining. The typical 100-200 ship battle in EU4 is usually something like 10% - 40% - 30% - 20%. So just 10-20 heavies.
The real problem is the 100% wipe of the defeated side. Casualties should range from 10-40% for the winner and 20-80% for the loser, IMO. Definitely not 100% casualties in 100% of battles.

How can aztecs have fleets with cannons at all?

Forget gunpowder, forget seafairing - the aztecs haven't even discovery iron yet!

Probably, NA/SA, and much of the lower-tech Sub-sahara Africa and south east asia should not be able to build anything better than galleys and transports...and their ships should get -50% combat ability to reflect they shot arrows, not cannons like Europe/Middle East/China/Korea/Japan's ships.

You do know that you can make cannons out of bronze, right? The materials aren't the problem, every Bronze Age civilization could somewhat craft stuff out of wood and textiles and bronze (99% of the materials in a ship). The real problem is the expertise for creating ocean faring ships stable enough to carry guns and fire them accurately. The gap between the first boats and the first successful cannon-firing ships is probably 2000-3000 years or more.

The game makes some strange compromises: everyone has the latest cannons and ships, if it can keep up in tech. However infantry and cavalry lag based on tech groups!
I say compromise because the game designers obviously thought about these topics - they're not accidental. I'd really love to hear from a dev why things are the way they are.