Patch 1.4: Naval changes. Yes or NO. Poll and Discussion.

I decided I would start a thread as this naval 'enhancement' seems to be a topic of hot debate right now. Also, vote on whether you approve of this or not in hopes that CA will listen to us. I have also made a compromise option where accuracy for small ships is heightened but not the range.

From Jack Lusted, CA Developer...

The Naval Gameplay Enhancement

So for update 1.4 there has been a rebalancing of ships to create greater diversity between different ship types along with improving the overall game play of the battles.

The balance that now exists for naval battles is like this:

Ships of the Line beat Frigates who beat Small Ships who beat Ships of the Line who beat Ships of the Line

Now of course this is not the complete extent of it. Ships of the Line are still the best at taking on other Ships of the Line. Special ships such as rocket ships, bomb ketches and galleys fill special niches on the battlefield.

This new balance has been achieved by adjusting the hull strength, marksmanship (accuracy), reload rate, ranges, morale and damage of various ships.

The ship types now work like this:

Ships of the Line
Pros:
- Best morale
- Strongest hulls
- Best firepower

Cons:
- Slow speed
- Large turning circle
- Low accuracy and slow reload time
- Shorter range guns

Frigates
Pros:
- Good accuracy and reload speed
- Long range guns
- Good speed and turning rate

Cons
- Relatively weak hulls
- Not much firepower

Small Ships (sloops and brings)
Pros:
- Fastest ships
- Very manoeuvrable
- Best accuracy and reload time
- Long range guns like frigates

Cons:
- Very weak hulls
- Lowest amount of firepower

Now of course there is variance within each ship type, and especially within Ships of the Line there are now more noticeable differences in firepower and other stats between ships such as 4th rates and 3rd rates.

And with the above changes, you can see how the new balance dynamic works. Ships of the Line are very strong and have large amounts of firepower, but low accuracy, slow turn speed and lower range compared to frigates and small ships makes them vulnerable to fast small ships like sloops. Frigates are also a threat, but being bigger targets than small ships means they are vulnerable if they wander into the Ships of the Line range.

Small ships, being very fast and manoeuvrable can keep at range of Ships of the Line and hit them with their longer guns whilst out-turning them. As chain shot has received a boost in damage, even with their low amount of fire power ships such as sloops can be a threat to even the biggest Ships of the Line. It may take a few of them or a long time, but they can wear them down.

Frigates sit in between the other two types. Still fast and nimble, they have long range guns like the small ships. But because they are bigger in size, they are more vulnerable against Ships of the Line if they wander into their gun range. They have good accuracy and quite quick reload rate, and this combined with their nimble nature allows them to take on the even fast sloops and brigs.

All ships have been adjusted to have overall more accurate gun types, and the sterns of all ships have been weakened a lot in order to make raking shots more damaging. Various modifiers have tweaked to reduce the amount of random ship sinking whilst the health bars only showed little damage. Now it is pretty much always clear when a ship is likely to sink.

The turn rate whilst stopped has also been reduced for most ships to prevent them from turning quickly on the spot and acting like turrets.

Rocket ships have also had some changes made to their rockets to make them less powerful.

----


All these changes combined add a new dynamic to naval battles. The best fleet will still be mostly Ships of the Line with a few frigates in support, but now there is the possibility of a wider range of tactics.

So with 1.4 you will be getting a new gameplay experience for naval battles which adds a new dynamic and rock, paper, scissors element to them.

I for one am NOT in favour with these changes.

Cannon range: Sloops should not have longer range than SOL. This would give them a much higher chance to kill SOL. Since SOL will have less maneuverability and range it would be hard for them to kill these sloops. The reason they are changing this is due to gameplay reasons but sloops were rarely used in battles so why change it?

Personally I also think that the naval part of the game is fine as it is now. Focus should be elsewhere in this game.

Voice your thoughts and vote!

P.S. opinions for naval battle improvement is also welcome (jam, that's your queue)

You don't use SOTLs to chase sloops, you use frigates or other sloops for that. I like the sound of these changes, as long as it's not too drastic eg. laser sloops killing everything.

Heck no, I'm OK with ships balance - JaM has great idea about how to fix naval combat. He would probably write 3 page documentation about that period for CA for free. And it would be more in depth and accurate then web research CA did and someone got paid for it.

ETW needs more realism, not simplification.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

by JaM
First thing - Sloops, Brigs and other small ships should not have long 18pdrs... those guns were even heavier than 32pdr guns used on Ships of the line, there is no way there would be enough of space on such a small ships. Instead, small ships should be armed with 6-9pdrs. (in late 18.century those ships started to use 18pdr carronades but those guns were much lighter, had shorter range and most importantly were not available in early 1700...)

Fluyt should only have 6-9pdr guns only, again, Fluyt was 300-400t ship, it was just too small to be able to have heavier guns on board. Same is true for Galleon and Race Galleon - those ships used demicannons or demiculverins, so again nothing heavier than 12 pdr. From construction point of view - it was just not possible to place heavy guns to those high hull superstructures.

Race Galleon model is not a Race galleon at all. Its model looks more like standard 17.century galleon (it has 4 masts for example...) My suggestion is to rename it to Galleon. (it could be also a strongest pirate ship - pirates only used small vessels, even blackbeard's Queen Anne Revenge was just 300t ship armed with small 6-9pdr guns)

Current Galleon model looks more like early ship of the line used in late 17.century - I suggest to rename it to Ship of the line (unrated) and give it to all major naval countries as a strongest early game vessel (and remove it from Pirates...) ofcourse trading ability should be removed.


regarding ships of the line and Frigates - only UK used rating system. Other countries differentiated their ships by the number of guns. So instead of the French First rate ship of the line name should be 100 gun Ship of the line... etc

Another thing are Frigates. Current 6-rate Frigate is just too big for a 6-rate. It is more comparable to 5-rate Frigate - another thing is it is a ship available at the begining of the game - at that time, there were only single decker frigates. Double deckers like current 5-rate appeared in the end of 18.century.
Current carronade Frigate coud be rearmed with 9dprs and renamed to 6-rate instead (it has the proper number of guns for 6-rate)
Therefore i would suggest to rename current 5-rate to 4-rate ship of the line (50/48 gun Ship of the line for other nations) - it would really nicelly simulate the most used class of ships of the line in the early 18.century. Current 4-rate could stay as it is.
3-rate ships should be the the strongest buildable ship for minor nation - no small nation buildt any larger vessels than 74.gun 3rate (For example Denmark and Netherlands buildt only 60 gun ships, because larger vessels would have problems in shallow waters - Also England used its 4-rates primarilly for service in Baltic)

1-2 rates should be limited in numbers. No nation buildt more than few.


And finally, ship design and armament - British Line ships used combination of 32/18/9 pdrs for 2nd and 3rates. later upgraded to 32/18/12pdrs. French used heavier combination of 38/24/9pdrs.
Spain at the other side used lighter guns, in the begining - 24/18/9, but later they started also using 38/18/9pdrs or 38/24/9. ( to simulate 38 gun i suggest use current 42pdr and reduce its values to match 38 pdr. or create new 38pdr...)

24/18/9 combination was also used on American those few buildt 3-rates.

4-rate 60gun ships used combination of 24/9/6, later upgraded to 24/12/9.
50gun ships used 18/9/6 or 24/9/6pdr combination.

So, we could give normal variant ship first gun option (let say 24/9/6) and Admiral variant later option (24/12/9)

Frigates were mostly armed with one type of guns - for example France rated their frigates by cannon type to 9pdr Frigate, 12 pdr Frigate, 18 pdr Frigate and 24pdr Frigate.

Real Carronade Frigates were heavy double decker Frigates with lower gun deck armed with heavy 18 or 24 pdrs and upper gundeck armed with 18-32pdr carronades. my suggestion is to use current 5 -rate model and create a new carronade Frigate instead. Another option would be to rearm current 4-rate Frigate with carronades on upper deck and make it available only after carronades are researcehd.


Last thing is durability of ships - Overally Brittish ships were structurally very strong, capable of recieving heavy beating, their resistance should be highest. French ships at the other side, were often overarmed, and structurally weak - most of captured French ships therefore had to be undergunned.. Therefore French ships should have lowest structural strenght in the class.
Spanish ships were considered one of the best designs buildt. They were undergunned, but structurally very strong (comparable to British), very stable and fast. (they should be fastest in the class)

Originally Posted by F@32

ETW needs more realism, not simplification.

I would agree with that.

Seems they are trying to R/P/S naval battles more, giving different ships different niches in any battle. Not sure how I feel about that. Maybe this is their answer to the AI not really building top-tier ships: make it so the ones they are building are a viable tactic and force the player to adapt to that.

Who knows. I'd need to play a battle or two the find out how it runs. Good thing we're going to be testing this stuff though for patch number five eh?

Originally Posted by F@32

Heck no, I'm OK with ships balance - JaM has great idea about how to fix naval combat. He would probably write 3 page documentation about that period for CA for free. And it would be more in depth and accurate then web research CA did and someone got paid for it.

ETW needs more realism, not simplification.

Jams write up is quite extensive and seems very knowledgeable. I have to do some research on it. I was perusing actual ship lists for the Royal Navy from 1710 time and it seems they were building about 4-5 1st rates a year for a while but I will have to double-check that information for actual guns etc. We are throwing around ship classes but I beleive that a first rate according to the British Admiralty in 1710 was probably quite different to that of the Admiralty in 1810. Jam would you be so kind as to list some sources for your info?

Awesome write up.

Oh and I really don't think the changes are really good and there are many more important things to work on. Personally I would like to see less micro management of the fleets I find that I often have to manage every ship in the line to get better results than the AI.

Admittedly I think I suck at the fleet combats and am meh at the land battles, still have alot to learn. So perhaps my current view is a bit premature?

wtf?! why change reload rate and accuracy? those two things should stay pretty much the same! Agree with the other changes though.

AI and diplomacy are more important now. In the long run fine but there are more pressing matters

This change sounds like a disaster. A sloop or galley is simply not a threat to a SOL. Instead of turning this into an a-historical paper/rock/scissors, why don't they try to capture the real dynamic? Trade ships, sloops, and brigs, etc. can run and do so effectively from SOLs, but not Frigates. So if you want to chase down that annoying sloop raiding your trade lines, or catch that merchant ship you use a frigate. But if you want to battle for control of the seas you need to bring the big guns. In the other thread someone posted about reversing the movement points per turn so that the smaller ships move more than the bigger ships. I think this would be the way to go to make the smaller ships useful without completely butchering the realism of the game.

Originally Posted by happycynic

This change sounds like a disaster. A sloop or galley is simply not a threat to a SOL. Instead of turning this into an a-historical paper/rock/scissors, why don't they try to capture the real dynamic? Trade ships, sloops, and brigs, etc. can run and do so effectively from SOLs, but not Frigates. So if you want to chase down that annoying sloop raiding your trade lines, or catch that merchant ship you use a frigate. But if you want to battle for control of the seas you need to bring the big guns. In the other thread someone posted about reversing the movement points per turn so that the smaller ships move more than the bigger ships. I think this would be the way to go to make the smaller ships useful without completely butchering the realism of the game.

Amen.

I've reluctantly managed to get used to the idea of ships sailing into the wind and am trying to cope with bomb ketches being so overpowered, but other than those, naval battles are just about the only part of the game that works pretty well. Why mess about with it?

Sloops and brigs tearing up SOL from long distance, sigh. Next we'll have artillery being able to outrun cavalry once they are limbered. For gameplay reasons.

Originally Posted by happycynic

This change sounds like a disaster. A sloop or galley is simply not a threat to a SOL. Instead of turning this into an a-historical paper/rock/scissors, why don't they try to capture the real dynamic? Trade ships, sloops, and brigs, etc. can run and do so effectively from SOLs, but not Frigates. So if you want to chase down that annoying sloop raiding your trade lines, or catch that merchant ship you use a frigate. But if you want to battle for control of the seas you need to bring the big guns. In the other thread someone posted about reversing the movement points per turn so that the smaller ships move more than the bigger ships. I think this would be the way to go to make the smaller ships useful without completely butchering the realism of the game.

I totally agree... bigger ships like SOL's were built to carry larger guns that could shoot farther and destroy stuff. There was no "lowered accuracy". It all depended on the quality of the trooper firing...

I think this change is ridiculous.

Originally Posted by happycynic

This change sounds like a disaster. A sloop or galley is simply not a threat to a SOL. Instead of turning this into an a-historical paper/rock/scissors, why don't they try to capture the real dynamic? Trade ships, sloops, and brigs, etc. can run and do so effectively from SOLs, but not Frigates. So if you want to chase down that annoying sloop raiding your trade lines, or catch that merchant ship you use a frigate. But if you want to battle for control of the seas you need to bring the big guns. In the other thread someone posted about reversing the movement points per turn so that the smaller ships move more than the bigger ships. I think this would be the way to go to make the smaller ships useful without completely butchering the realism of the game.

I would first like to see the effect of the changes. If it doesn't work they can always change it patch in patch 1.5.

i already gave several ideas how to actually improve naval aspect of the game, but it looks like historical gameplay is not a CA priority...

I personally like the ideas mentioned above. While I think that sloops and other small ships shouldn't be able to take down a SOTL easily, at least it will stop people buildings all 2nd and 3rd fleets. However, I do not know nearly enough about naval warfare in the 18th century to say how realistic it is, and I also really want a realistic game, rather than a completely simplified game, so if these fixes deviate too much from reality, I don't think I would be up for them.

Also, I think the thing to remember (and just looking at the multiplayer threads, you will see Jack Lusted saying it a lot) is that he doesn't work on AI and diplomacy and that, he works on balance changes - so diplomacy and AI work is probably going on behind the scenes.

here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...the_Royal_Navy

even wiki has very extensive database of ships of the line in RN... (same can be found for France, Spain and US)


Irmo: look at it this way - SOLs should have let say 70 movement points, indiamans 80, Frigates 90 and small ships like Brigs and Sloops 90-95. So if you will want to engage tradeships with your SOL fleet, they will be able to evade and escape. So, instead of building huge fleets composed of SOL's, you will actually need fast ships to do some harm to enemy trade. only thing for what SOL's would be good will be battling other SOL's and blocade ports to force a battle to your opponent.... from strategical point of view, lots of small ships will be much more effective than same number of SOLs - SOLs will cost you tons of money, small ships will earn you money by capturing enemy trade vessels or blocading trade routes....


Look at what USA did during their wars with Great Britain - they didnt had any SOL's and were still able to make terible looses to british naval power and pride...


oh, and regarding naval gunnery accuracy - there is one simple rule for it - more stable ship is, more accurate it could be... small ships were anything but stable at sea... even frigates had problems sometimes...

For reference, here is the composition of the British Fleet in 1793, at the start of the Napoleonic Wars.

1st Rates - 5
2nd Rates - 16
3rd Rates - 92
4th Rates - 12
5th Rates - 79
6th Rates - 35
Sloops - 40
Bombs - 2
Fireships - 5
Brigs, cutters, etc. - 18

And here is the British Fleet at the height of the war in 1802

1st Rates - 6
2nd Rates - 16
3rd Rates - 104
4th Rates - 13
5th Rates - 120
6th Rates - 28
Sloops - 98
Bombs - 14
Fireships - 2
Brigs, cutters, etc. - 104

Yes, it's a good idea.

Awful idea. The intention is to give sloops, brigs and frigates a role in a battle featuring SOL - but they shouldn't have a role. SOL would often forego firing on a frigate as it was considered unfair. As someone pointed out on another thread, this is like giving militia longer range than line infantry in order to give them a role on the battlefield. Complete nonsense.

... this is so messed up

SOL's using shorter range guns... SOL's carried the biggest guns and the bigger the gun the longer the range - if anything the Sloops/Brigs should have the shortest range guns (but quickest reload)

Sloops/brigs trumping SOL's.... oh yes history is repleat of SOL's been taken down by sloops and brigs...

all in all its a mostly terrible set of ideas

One has to marvel at CAs train of thought, and the thorough derailment that made them think they should completely overhaul the gameplay of the one aspect of the game that actually works pretty well.

I'd be in favour of giving smaller ship more uses other then combat. A greater ability to intercept trade, extra spotting range for every small vessel in a fleet. Whatever. Navies used small ships because they were useful in other roles. They DID NOT take on frigates or bigger unless they couldn't help it. Because that tended to end badly. Like it does now in ETW.

Look, I don't demand full realism. Already sloops etc are overpowered but I'm fine with it. It may surprise people, but the big naval ships tended to be faster. Sloops may sail closer to the wind, but otherwise most frigates or a 74s would run them down with ease. Certainly they would do so against Empires hideously overgunned ships. Too many guns, with too great a punch. But I'm fine with the way it is, because it works reasonably well.

CA, if you want to fix the naval game make the AI build bigger and better ships. That will increase my enjoyment of the game. These changes on the books for 1.4 most certainly will not.