Naval Strength

[George Garrett]

Hi War4ever and Sieve Too,

Gentlemen, it may be that the difference in our experiences lies in the fact that you two probably, habitually, battle in the upper echelons of Civ, while chicken -hearted I, mostly play Chieftain (can't win there, either!)

I dunno how it was in the long -gone days (1400 B.C. ?)since you played at that lowly level, but I tell you that weird things are happening there, today. I KNOW that riflemen, and ironclads are supposed to out-perform musketeers, and heartily wish that they would, in my games, me, being the by-the-book
tactician that I am (I should sign myself under the truly unique monniker of "He-Who-Reads-Manuals"!), but, in view of your remarks about your experiences - and I look forward to sharing them, when I graduate to Warlord, and upward, and onward ( 2700 A.D.?) - I felt that I had to let fellow - Chieftain players know that there were other possibilities inherent in the Chietain game, in which, it seems to me, that anything zany can happen...e.g. a caravan besting a naval unit - and being awarded veteran status for it! This really happened to me, at the Chieftain level.
[This message has been edited by George Garrett (edited March 22, 2000).]

[klesh]

A large Navy isn't neccisary for SP, but it sure is fun to have. I like to name my fleets, that's right fleets (plural)

Generally my battlegroups consist of:
1 Battleship, 4 AEGIS, 2 Regulation Cruisers, 4-5 Destroyers, and a few subs.

Because of their poor movement points I send out subs in packs of 4 or so...These roam by themselves looking for easy targets. I put 5 cruise missles in 1 sub only, the rear one. The cruise missles are perfect to scope out the waters ahead. 2 for recon, 3 for damage. Subs should have better movement points so they can keep up better with the main battlegroups.
I usually have at least 2 of these battlegroups going at any one time, preferably 3 or 4. I know that it is overkill, but like I said it's hella fun!
Magellan's it a MUST HAVE for an overpowering late game Navy. It never expires....even better!

BTW, wouldn't it be great if the game allowed you to attach a name to your capital ships.
USS Klesh comes to mind!

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I am the Ukrainian Anti-Pope!

[poppawoppa]

Do you really consider this an honest win? I'm amazed that you would do this but even more amazed you would so proudly admit to it.
As War4Ever said, it's my game to play, so what difference does it make? The cities I was attacking were defended with 6 or 7 Mech, Riflemen, Alpines, plus a Cruise Missile or two. The support shield indicator said the city was supporting 15 units. Now, when I kill off AI units, it shows up in the Defense Casualty report for my civ and the other AI civs, but units disbanded due to the city being taken over do not show as "destroyed" by my forces. So, I was curious how many of the other (15 - 7 = 8) units were Navy ships or maybe just troops that were temporarily in other cities or off on another island, or maybe they had just stepped outside the city walls to have a smoke break. ("Light 'em if you got 'em.") So, this way, I was able to see how much the 'enemy' was losing by having their city reduced to rubble in my campaign to unite the world. Sorry if I offended your sense of fair play, justice and fatherhood, but if you know of another way to find out that information without triggering the cheat switch, I would be glad to hear from you. As THAT information did absolutely nothing to win the game, or even win it one turn sooner, and was useful just to satisfy my curiosity... big deal.

[poppawoppa]

Previous is in reply to Sparrowhawk's scathing rebuke of my other posting in this topic.

[mindseye]

I'm sure what happened was that Sparrowhawk did not realize that Poppawoppa's investigatory work was all in the name of SCIENCE and improving the gaming experience for us all!

Poppawoppa, thank you for your tireless research, and Sparrowhawk, thank you for your moral vigilance!


Now then...

Does anybody have any alternate naval units they routinely add to their unit mix? I gather some players have favorite default land units such as Mobile SAMs, but I haven't come across the equivalent for the high seas. Speak up now, and I will try to include your unit in my on-the-verge-of-release graphics patch!

- mindseye aka Tim Smith


[This message has been edited by mindseye (edited March 23, 2000).]

[My Wife Hates CIV]

A better sub. In my units.gif I have a sub with better defense and slighty faster.

I also have a shield unit. The shield is classed as a air unit so carriers take them. The graphic is cool, when two types. One for cities and one for ships. They both have movement 0. The ship attacked (ship or city) it becomes visible, like any unit, but looks like a big defense screen protecting the defender. kinda like a furture energy shield. Of course I also have some other more advance weapons to counter it. I love all the extra slots in CIV II MP rules.txt/units.gif.
[This message has been edited by My Wife Hates CIV (edited March 23, 2000).]

[Scouse Gits]

Bohlen 50% ?? where did you get this figure - I was, until this thread, under the impression (fostered by these boards) that sub carried cruise were invisible and sub borne nukes carried large warning stickers - can anyone formally verify or deny this?

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[My Wife Hates CIV]

maybe in cheat mode you could see what the AI *sees* if you switch which civ the human controls??

[Bohlen]

SG(2): Knocking out all of one enemy's ports and moving to the next civ sounds like a very good strategy. No ports=no navy. An obvious and true statement, yet my semi-tactical mind sometimes does not think in that way. I tend to just pound and strike the enemy whenever the chance arises (sometimes not very effectively), which is completely different from your strategic initiatives. Please keep sharing your strategies...I'm learning something from them.

I too love shore bombardments and agree that the inability of a sub to participate in this is its biggest drawback. However, when attempting to control the sees, subs are great because they come earlier than the bigger ships and completely shred those ironclads and rickety wooden ships.

SG(1): I picked 50% arbitrarily. The % is probably much higher and what I attempted to point out is that most sea vessels cannot spot subs until they are one space away. I believe AEGIS, Cruisers, and Subs are the only ships that can spot subs 2 spaces away. Is this correct?

This discussion just might turn me into a naval junkie!

[The Mad Monk]

Actually, subs cannot see other subs, according to the original RULES.TXT. This annoyed me so much that I had to change it to 'can see subs' on the spot. I also reduced the subs' sight from two spaces to one beacuse that didn't make much sense, either. By the way, has anybody here read "Run Silent, Run Deep?"

[mindseye]

MyWifeHatesCiv -

I can definitely include alternate sub graphics, but the energy shield.... my graphics style is to carefully scale down photographs. Photos of subs are easy to find, photos of energy shields.... sounds like you already have a nice graphic any way. I like the idea of the shield appearing when under attack!

Anyone else want any particuliar alternate naval (or other) units? Caveat - should be something I have a chance of finding a photo of.

- mindseye aka Tim Smith

[Sten Sture]

I rarely build a fleet of naval vessels. Maybe because I don't swim very well...

Tim -

A sub graphic that was slightly modified to look like most of it was below the water would be pretty cool!

I like some of the Supercarrier graphics I have seen on mods (including hiRes?)

The transport ship could use a make-over, maybe make it more of a freighter rather than a military landing ship.

(Speaking of freight - how about one of those annoying WebVan's instead of the 1940s pick-up truck?)

[mindseye]

Sten Sture -

Are you not using my HiRes modpack? Jeez, what did I do all that hard work for? The Sub is mostly submerged, and the Transport is vastly improved, its actually a freighter instead of that bizarre Microprose thing with the catwalks hanging on the sides. The next version of HiRes (1.5 weeks or so) has an improved Carrier over v1, & a better Freight as well ('33 Studebaker 2-axle truck). I'll see what I can do about a WebVan...

- Tim
(where do you live in SF? I just moved from down the street from SF General to the Richmond near the Four Star)

[Scouse Gits]

mindseye - I love the HiRes pack, but as I am playing (and creating) a lot of comparison games at the moment I can't live with the modified rules.txt - and I'm far too busy (read lazy) to make the units.gif changes to bring them into line with the standard rules - have I missed an unmodified version somewhere?

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[Sten Sture]

Now that sounds like good reason for concern!

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Back to naval tactics for a minute:

I have used a series of transports with a dip for a moble picket. I am sure others do this as well. What other active defense pickets do you guys use?

(love the screen shots MWHC; on #4 I was initially thinking that I would split the Aegis to the east and subs to the west, but if the blue wagon chased the green aegis back toward port, the subs would be left by themselves.)

[Steve Clark]

Let me ask a few dumb questions here for Tim and Sten. I know about ModPaks for custom scenarios, but can HiRes be used for regular games? Are they just updated unit graphics or do they require a revised rules.txt?

[mindseye]

Sten, Steve, Scouse Gits, et al -

Thanks for the comments on HiRes!

With a bit of modification (as little as cut-n-pasting one unit) the HiRes graphics will work with the default Microprose RULES.TXT. There is a "spare" Explorer graphic for just this purpose.

However, it should have occurred to me that altering my UNITS.GIF to create a straight replacement of the original might be a hassle. In the next release, I will include an additional version of UNITS.GIF that will be 100% compatible with the original RULES.TXT.

Excellent suggestion! It shall be so!


For the record -

As I created it, the graphics and accompanying RULES.TXT for HiRes flesh out the development of armor and flight as follows:

- "Armor" becomes available with Combustion. The unit is slower and weaker than the original, and represents early AFVs. It also gets the Pikeman bonus against mounted attackers (although someone wrote me that this doesn't work against Dragoons or Cavalry - ???)

- "Heavy Armor" (the original Armor) still becomes available with Mobile Warfare

- "Bomber" (representing early bombers) and "Zeppelin" become available with Flight (Zeppelin uses the Explorer graphic slot)

- "Jet Fighter" and "Jet Bomber" become available with Advanced Flight

- "Stealth Fighter" and "Stealth Bomber" remain unchanged (becoming available with Stealth)

- Tim aka mindseye

(Sten: I will be using binoculars to scan Twin Peaks for signs of Fortress construction. What will Willie Brown do if Aureilus uses a settler to start a CITY up there? )
[This message has been edited by mindseye (edited March 24, 2000).]

[Sten Sture]

Ooops! Of course I am using HiRes!

Uh, actually, it is in a scenario folder, with a perpetually modified rules.txt that I have been messing around with, but not playing that much. I should have known that I had seen a submerged sub... damn subconscious memory.

The teaser gif that DanQ posted on the Civ2 home page looks great!

I live in Cole Valley just a stumble from Finnegan's pub, thank goodness. Aurelius is up on Twin Peaks somewhere; I think it is dangerous for him to have the high ground - I am sure he is building a fortress up there.

[Steve Clark]

My SF brother recently answered my question about his hangouts. He lives in the Richmond area and his hangouts include Yancy's and Last Day Saloon, plus Noc Noc and Toranado on Lower Haight. He likes those better than Mad Dog, even though he thinks the pub quiz at Mad Dog is the best. His favorite area overall is North Beach with its good mix of sports bars, jazz bars and dance bars. Of course there's SF Brew Co. with its happy hour from 12 to 2am.

The kid is 15 yrs. younger than me at 25 and I think he knows way too much about the pub scene in SF.

[Sten Sture]

mindseye - thanks for the custom WebVan.com unit! - if that company survives long enough to go global, then everyone else will want to use it too! (still laughing)

And slick dressing Willie would think Aurelius is a barbarian and bribe him!

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I voted for Tom!
[This message has been edited by Sten Sture (edited March 27, 2000).]

[George Garrett]

But Klesh, the game does enable one to identify one's ships....sort of.
In the bottom right-hand corner of a screen depicting a given vessel, you'll see a description of that vessel, plus the city where it was built, viz: "Destroyer- Science
City".

Thus, for me that vessel would assume an identity...in dispatches I'd say "Albion getting all Perfidious, again?...right, send a gunboat!...what about the doughty ol' H.M.S.Science City? ...mainly 'cos she's the only vessel we HAVE so far (I did warn you about building all them spies for the ranks to frat with)"

You may argue, Klesh, that you could wind up with several vessels of the same name, built in the same "yard". True, but I get around this by having the particular city after having built its first battleship, say, make its next project, a carrier, perhaps, followed. by an Aggy, cruiser, destroyer, sub, transport, whatever...that way, you could have an identity for an entire Battle Fleet, namely the "Science City Task Force"
- the scourge of Southend-on-Sea!

Up the coast, another of your cities ("Muddymouth Delta" say is also building vessels to be named after it...I assume you spread the load amongst your cities, as I do?
(my general policy, unless in a dire war situation, is to have each city build an alternate domestic/military unit, e.g. a sequence of harbor/battleship/granary/musketeer this seems to work for me, in my games)

I agree that the names "Science City" and "Muddymouth Delta" are not very salty for fighting ships, I get round that by renaming each city after it has built its first vessel, hence such unique names of cities on my maps as "H.M.S. Trireme", "H.M.S. Rollercoaster" - this city built a destroyer - "H.M.S. Irresolute", "H.M.S.Colander", "H.M.S. BritBasher"etc.
Even if you build ships to the extent, that I do, Klesh, you need not fear a boomlet of battleships sailing around the civ world, all bearing the same name...if you FIGHT 'em like I do, soon, the surplus ceases!

[klesh]

George, Agreed

I do that exact thing regarding the home/support city. Also, you are correct with the fact that they will be replaced as they fight, leading to different ships with the same name.

I'll build a ship in one city, send it to another and then support it fron there. This allows you to have ships representing many of your costal cities.

What I want is simmilar to when you choose "Rename City" and get the pop-up window. Therefore you could use things other than city names. I use my imagination alot whilst playing (as I see you do as well),
and I tend to name things like rivers, lakes oceans, mtn ranges and sprawling plains. It's things like this(national pride, past leaders etc) that I want to use for names. A few examples:
USS Cape Cod( in massachusetts)
USS McKinnley
USS Lincoln
USS Constitution (Old Ironsides, still docked in Boston Harbor!)
USS Atlantic
HMS Thames
HMS Churchill
HMS Lady Di...LOL

Just a few (poor) examples of what I'm talking about. But alas, we must do with what we have, so the technique you spoke of is what I employ.

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I am the Ukrainian Anti-Pope!
[This message has been edited by Field Marshal Klesh (edited March 28, 2000).]

[Neon Deon]

I like the old british names for ships. Warspite, Renown, Repulse, Ajax, Achillees, Hood, Victory, Ark Royal, Royal Oak, Rodney, Nelson and King George V.

[SandMonkey]

so Klesh, what you are looking for is something like what was in the old version of Railroad Tycoon? (I don't know if it's in the newer version). When a train would set a new speed record you were given the option to name it. Perhaps when a ship would sink like 5 other ships or something it would gain this new status.

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SandMonkey

"Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a qtip"
-Homer Simpson

"Ecky ecky ecky!"
"It's just a flesh wound!"
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

[inca911]

Sounds like you want a "View Unit" screen. A nice picture of the unit, it's name, confirmed kills (maybe tiny flags for each kill, or little itsy bitsy silhouettes painted on the hull--except for the subs, of course). Perhaps even a minor tale of what major event happened in what year:
800 AD, first ship to circumnavigate the globe (maybe get some bonus for doing so--+1 movement all ships?, that'd be a nice incentive for the first civ to achieve that goal). Even just kills and years would be nice. Of course, you will have to turn that option ON in the game and will have to buy a much bigger hard drive, but hey, a 40 GB hard drive is nothing now adays! That's a lot of civ files!!!