Fire at cities from a ship?

[TheImp]

Do u think it'll be possible to fire at buildings from the sea like the black pearl does in Pirates of the Carribbean 1 ?

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

My educated guess would be: no.

It doesn't fit in the TW mechanics. Sure you can make port blockades, and surely you can be attacked by and enemy navy while blockading, and surely you'll be able to see the port in the dust or something, but I don't think you will be able to shoot at them on the battle map.

But I concur with you that canon-battles between harbour fortresses and enemy ships would be a great addition.

[Monarch]

My educated guess would be: no.

It doesn't fit in the TW mechanics. Sure you can make port blockades, and surely you can be attacked by and enemy navy while blockading, and surely you'll be able to see the port in the dust or something, but I don't think you will be able to shoot at them on the battle map.

But I concur with you that canon-battles between harbour fortresses and enemy ships would be a great addition.

Maybe not on battlemap but why not just allow navies to move up next top coastal downs and have some kind of bombard mechanic where just like if city was under siege buildings begin to brake, order drops and maybe some civilians die.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I think there are a couple of catches involved:
1) To bombard the city would be interpreted as a siege/assault -> objective: to capture the place.
2) Most ships don't really come with canons powerful enough to clear a hole in a wall or some such thing. Not until later ages.
3) The proverbial hit in the face your PC would experience because of having to render two demanding situations at a time (city + naval battle).
4) The fact that the engine now has to be able not only to embark/disembark but also to do so with a significant heigt distance. Also, this would require a yet another embarking/disembarking anime to be added. (Besides from one ship to another.)
5) It would require to have both city and port at one location on the stratmap. I think there was a reason why this hasn't been the case yet. Perhaps the extra amount of sophistication the program would require? (As in you need to have cities landlocked; cities with a seafront; and ports for the cities who are landlocked when the province isn't.) Plus of course the fact that a port needs to be detected in a different, more complex way. (I.e the pixel method of RTW's map_regions (or equivalents thereof in other TW games) would not suffice.)

[ninjahboy]

my guess is its a cool concept but sadly no. Cannons would in no way be accurate enough to fire or even have to the range without being in danger of the MUCH MUCH higher number of cannons on the shore

[hoom]

Well, historically there were plenty of battles between ships & shore batteries in this period & as far as I know, the ships managed to win reasonably often, though fairly often the ships got seriously mangled too.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I think Historical Relevance plays less a part than Engine Limitations / Coding Difficulties, though. And I also think that the Coolness would outweigh any Historical Objections if CA considered adding this feature - after all such a feature could be a major selling point.

[Bijo]

It is a game, therefore historical accuracy is not required. If one wants history then one should read a history book, communicate with historians, or invent a time machine to visit the past, or do another thing to quench one's hunger for history.

A reasonable amount of historical (or general reality) accuracy can be in a game but deviation is necessary for the gameplay factor. I still wonder when the first game featuring ultimate historical accuracy and good fun gameplay will arrive... or has it already?

[Fisherking]

Yes!
Also you should all know that attacking a stone fort with a wooden ship is not usually a really good idea.
For that to work the ship has to be able to knock out the guns of the fort. The fort only has to hit the ship enough to sink it…forts don’t sink.

It is just my guess but I would have to say I think it is easier to hit a moving target from a stationary position than to hit a small stationary target from a moving platform.

To attack a fort you usually need bomb catches(sp?) and rockets to allow your ships to stand off enough not to be sunk. Also attacking on a dark night can work to your advantage a bit as a fort is bigger than a ship…

We will just have to wait and see what ship types and weapons we get…then see what we can do with them.

[pevergreen]

If they can fire at forts, there will be no gameplay of it.

[Csargo]

I think this would be a good addition. If CA can pull it off.

[pevergreen]

I think it can be auto put in with blockading. They are much the same thing.

[s_tabikha]

ok oko k all this nonsense about "wooden ships" cant beat "stone forts"
is nonsense!
my facts
1.the black pearl did it

2.ships of the line have upward of a hundred guns
thats more then a usual fort last time i checked

3. commander norrington said somthing about long nines
as in 9 foot long cannons
thats big and mostlikly will go through stone

everything in PoTC has been proven true by me
there prob going to change the name to potc now....

[Fisherking]

something that forts have that ships have loads of trouble with is the ability to fire hotshot... red hot shot meant to start fires.

Ships of the line had about 74 guns for the most part. The true giants went up to 120 main guns but this includes both sides, bow chasers and stern chasers if these were full size guns. So only half or less can fire at the same time at the same general target area.

It would be foolish for a single ship to try and take on a fort alone but a fleet might manage it. Another practice was to put Marines ashore to assault the fort from another side while the ships kept them busy but in the end most harbor defences were eliminated from shore. That doesn't mean that they didn't shoot up towns to damage infrastructure etc.

All of this is pretty complicated and it will be interesting to see how much and how well CA can pull it off.

Even the ship types will be interesting to see as there were so many and each country had different ways of putting it all together. The English and later the Americans had the best crews while the Spanish and French often had larger ships and thus more guns and larger crews.

It will be fun just to see what they come up with and no matter how good it is we will still complain about what got left out! ROFLOL

[pevergreen]

As stated elsewhere, constructive critisim is ok, complaining and CA bashing isnt.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

To do it right would require an awful lot of work, for relatively little added value.

[pevergreen]

Nicely summed up.

[Darkarbiter]

my guess is its a cool concept but sadly no. Cannons would in no way be accurate enough to fire or even have to the range without being in danger of the MUCH MUCH higher number of cannons on the shore

Not necassarily. Perhaps you could sabotage them earlier? Or maybe you have just lost the city and they haven't installed canons there yet.

Well, historically there were plenty of battles between ships & shore batteries in this period & as far as I know, the ships managed to win reasonably often, though fairly often the ships got seriously mangled too.

Not too read up on this particuler subject but I'm pretty sure this guys right. At the very least it worked some of the time... and it isn't exactly less historically correct then canon elephants.

something that forts have that ships have loads of trouble with is the ability to fire hotshot... red hot shot meant to start fires.

Ships of the line had about 74 guns for the most part. The true giants went up to 120 main guns but this includes both sides, bow chasers and stern chasers if these were full size guns. So only half or less can fire at the same time at the same general target area.

It would be foolish for a single ship to try and take on a fort alone but a fleet might manage it. Another practice was to put Marines ashore to assault the fort from another side while the ships kept them busy but in the end most harbor defences were eliminated from shore. That doesn't mean that they didn't shoot up towns to damage infrastructure etc.

All of this is pretty complicated and it will be interesting to see how much and how well CA can pull it off.

Even the ship types will be interesting to see as there were so many and each country had different ways of putting it all together. The English and later the Americans had the best crews while the Spanish and French often had larger ships and thus more guns and larger crews.

It will be fun just to see what they come up with and no matter how good it is we will still complain about what got left out! ROFLOL

It would be good if we could have a battle where it's like "Quickly defend the canons" so that the ships were not able to get in range and fire. From what's been said it's obviously a situation where the ships are at a defenite disadvantage however I'm sure theres going to be at least one port thats poorly defended or you can take care of the guns.

Some cities would be built around the port and some would be inland (like in RTW/M2tw) I don't see why this would be a problem. I also don't see how this is much harder to code? It'd just be a
-Select troops
-Attack town where the enemy is
-Select to have the nearby ships appear on the battlemap on the reinforcements screen.
-Destroy the crews of the enemy canons so your ships can come closer.

Or possibly even more cool is a situation where the port is the best position to land the troops so it's a matter of the ships coming to shore and landing the troops before the canons can take out the ships.

Why would this be hard to code? I'm not going to act like I know much but in theory....

[Zenicetus]

Why would this be hard to code? I'm not going to act like I know much but in theory....

Sure, there's a lot that could be added to a game like this in theory... that is, if programmer and playtester resources were unlimited. Since they're not, it becomes a question of "what else do you want to give up, to get this?"

In an ideal game I'd like to see this stuff. But on the other hand, I don't want to spend the next two years complaining (and reading complaints) about how the Marines can't pathfind their way from one ship to another in a boarding action. Or some other let-down. This thing will be complicated enough to program and test if they get the new tactical 3D naval combat even remotely realistic, so I'm hoping they're not dealing with too many other distractions from the core game.

Just my $.02 opinion...

[ratbarf]

Oh man, if they could pull that off that would be soo cool.

One thing that I think will happen this game is the ability to capture ports without having to capture the capital of the province. That is historically acurate where they had to capture a port so they could land supplies and rienforcements. Also this way if you just went around capturing all of the prts you could boost your trade economy. It would act similar to how the forts act in kingdoms. Especially now that buildings will be outside the castle. I wonder wether that means out side the settlement or outside the walls?

Also, Toronto, the capital of Canada in the war of 1812 was captured by the americans after the guns on the ships took out the cities shore defenses. They then landed a beaching party which captured the cityproper. The ships guns were actually superior to the cities guns becase they were of langer range and the cites guns were mostly field peices not seige, also they were a bit old. T_T Damn we are a cheap nation.

[Darkarbiter]

My educated guess would be: no.

It doesn't fit in the TW mechanics. Sure you can make port blockades, and surely you can be attacked by and enemy navy while blockading, and surely you'll be able to see the port in the dust or something, but I don't think you will be able to shoot at them on the battle map.

But I concur with you that canon-battles between harbour fortresses and enemy ships would be a great addition.

New game engine, new possibilites. Don't forget that.

[Bijo]

It should be included just for the reason that it is a cool addition. Historical accuracy or not, it would make for a fun game (and it will be a "game" to be played, not some product that looks like a game and is designed to show historical accuracy).

Historical accuracy is fine, but gameplay comes first.

[lancelot]

It is a game, therefore historical accuracy is not required. If one wants history then one should read a history book, communicate with historians, or invent a time machine to visit the past, or do another thing to quench one's hunger for history.

That makes no sense.

my facts
1.the black pearl did it

Thats hardly a 'fact' ( actually I dont recall Port Royal having very much at all in the way of naval defences in that movie- let alone a whopping great fort) but-

Given the timeframe for this game, coastal forts should most certainly be in the game. A lot of the combat in colonial america/canada between ships & forts and Nelson's attack on Denmark are good examples of such combat.

They were key defensive points for many nations- the U.S National Anthem was wrote while a coastal fort was being bombarded for crying out loud!

Wooden ships could and did silence stone forts, if anything gets hit on the gunpowder magazine its gonna have a bad day, as well as the traditional just knock out the guns approach.

Can I see CA implementing this- hell no? Why? No particular reason, I just believe they wont bother...I hope Im wrong.

[Bijo]

That makes no sense.

Explain.

[Incongruous]

Explain.

Oh Jesus...

[Bijo]

Oh Jesus...

What he showed was that he stated something and not explain the reasons behind it. Whenever someone makes a statement the least he is to do is explain his reasoning to support it. So a simple phrase like "it makes no sense" is worthless. Can you still follow or is it too difficult?

And instead of addressing my fresh post just before his reply (as this one gives another good reason why 'firing at cities or batteries from a ship' would be nice to include) he replied to an old one. Maybe.... "that makes no sense?" He even rips apart my post in his quote instead of addressing the second part.

Anyway, I thought I had you set to ignore before, but apparantly I hadn't. I guess I will attend to it now then :)

[Caius]

It should be included just for the reason that it is a cool addition. Historical accuracy or not, it would make for a fun game (and it will be a "game" to be played, not some product that looks like a game and is designed to show historical accuracy).

Historical accuracy is fine, but gameplay comes first.

Bijo, then why not play with the nuclear bomber in ancient Rome?

I think the gameplay and historical accuracy are a must be.

[lancelot]

What he showed was that he stated something and not explain the reasons behind it. Whenever someone makes a statement the least he is to do is explain his reasoning to support it. So a simple phrase like "it makes no sense" is worthless. Can you still follow or is it too difficult?

I would have thought a post that contains such wonderful suggestions as 'invent a time machine to visit the past' did not really need any further explanation...guess I was wrong...

And Garcilaso de la Vega el Inca got the subtle point I was trying to raise...so there- is that enough explanation?

[Divinus Arma]

Seems possible and it would historically accurate.

[Lord Winter]

It would be nice to expand it so that you could force enemy held strarights in the game. Costly but effective.