The need for meaning when batteling at sea

[Gustav II Adolf]

In previous tw games like rtw and m2tw you could play the almost without needing to build a single ship. If you wanted you could spend lots of time chasing minifleets around attacking many times before they got sunk. I didnt mean much though since a blockaded port didnt do much damage and often it stoped after a couple of turns. Now when we get to fight spectacular seabattles i hope they will have a greater importance on a strategic level. In imperial glory i got tired of the seabattles when there was little need for them.

Some ideas to counter this:

-fewer but bigger fleets around.
-a blockade should have greater impact on the city and country
-a blockade would require several ships and perhaps take a turn to come into effect.
-sea superiority could give extra benefits.
-sea landings not possible when patrolling ships around


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[Rhyfelwyr]

I agree. If I want to make a naval landing in M2TW, I just hire a merc cog or galley and dart across to land before I get caught. Its just not worth the upkeep to maintain navies in the TW series right now.

Navies probably will be a lot more important in ETW than previous TW titles, simply because factions will rely mostly on sea ports for their income, and so will really suffer if they are blockaded. The income gained from sea trade should easily cover a few ships to guard each port and still give the player a good profit.

[Belgolas]

I hope blockades will do a lot more damage. Like starve a settlement if there isn't enough farming in that area.

[Vuk]

I think what would make them of the greatest importance is if they have two commodities that settlements would turn out: Materials and Goods.

Materials would be things like produce, minerals, etc., while goods would be manufactored goods. :P

You could build up your settlements to either produce materials or manufacture goods. (It wouldn't need to be a black and white choice like the castle/city choice in M2TW, but certain settlements could be good at a certain thing, and it could be made hard to develop one for both. For instance, if you have a heavily agricultural area, you would not have enough room to put manufacturing centers (without cutting down on the agriculture) because most of the land is farm land. Also, certain resources could only be available in certain settlements which would make the need even clearer.)
Different settlements would then have too trade with others for the things they need. Then cutting off trade routes by land or sea would be a good way to make sure that the people in certain settlements starve/are not equipped. Imagine how important cutting you enemies trade routes to Africa or the Indies would be? Also, since much of the war would be on different continents, you would need to transport you men via ship.


Vuk

[lancelot]

I cant say I particularly agree that navies were useless in MTW2. You need them to brake enemy blockades of your ports; have a few ports blockaded and watch your income shrink. The big city on the top left hand corner of France (i forget the name now) lost nearly 3000 of its 4000 income to a blockade...

And similarly you can do the same to the enemy.

Of course, ships in MTW2 on the other hand are quite poorly represented- especially in the terms of how long it takes to actually get to places.

Any game that can acurately model the power of 'gunboat diplomacy' for example will make a fan here...

[Gustav II Adolf]

I cant say I particularly agree that navies were useless in MTW2. You need them to brake enemy blockades of your ports; have a few ports blockaded and watch your income shrink. The big city on the top left hand corner of France (i forget the name now) lost nearly 3000 of its 4000 income to a blockade...

And similarly you can do the same to the enemy.

Of course, ships in MTW2 on the other hand are quite poorly represented- especially in the terms of how long it takes to actually get to places.

Any game that can acurately model the power of 'gunboat diplomacy' for example will make a fan here...


There was an effect from blockades, but not hard enough in my opinion. I just hope that seabattles are made more important and will give you some sort of accomplishment and not just a repetitive one boat chase for those interested.


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[lancelot]

There was an effect from blockades, but not hard enough in my opinion. I just hope that seabattles are made more important and will give you some sort of accomplishment and not just a repetitive one boat chase for those interested.


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Well, I dont think a 75% loss of income is a bad start but yes I suppose for the period in question the loss should come with other effects...

That said, I cant really imagine what other effects could come into play- perhaps a small increase in population unhappiness but I doubt a blockaded port is going to get people to revolt or anything that severe.

Perhaps if goods/imports were tied to construction eg- you need cannons, cloth, timber for ship building then obviously blockades could become a serious problem. Although given that CA tends to abstract building things, I cant see this happening...

[Gustav II Adolf]

You could have other effects from blockades like delayed production, increased unhappines and a tradebonus when having sea superiority.




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[Kurulham]

I dunno, maybe I've been playing Europa Barbarorum so long I forget what playing vanilla is like, but I find sea power to be absolutely vital... making the transition from fighting Carthage (where you can easily transport wounded stacks back to Italy for retraining, and fresh reinforcements to Africa, by sea) to fighting in Gaul (no SLOCs) is always difficult because movement on land is so much slower, and those pirates have a nasty habit of sinking me if I don't sink them first.

The economic effects can be just as devastating. Of course if you have a land-based empire (in Gaul, Germany, or Persia/India) it's not an issue, but in and around the Mediterranean most of your income comes from sea trade.

That's in EB, though, and if I recall rightly in RTR as well; like I said, I haven't played vanilla in a loooong time so I forget.

[Daveybaby]

Of course, ships in MTW2 on the other hand are quite poorly represented- especially in the terms of how long it takes to actually get to places.
Trouble is if youre modelling a game over a several hundred years and several hundred turns then you have to make compromises in order to make the game playable. If movement rates were accurate you'd never get a chance to see the enemy coming and prepare, stuff would just turn up out of nowhere and siege you.

Thankfully its a game and not a simulation.