The middle warship I mean is like galleon, fluyt, steamer, atakabune and so on.
This type of ship in game is designed to build the bridgehead, so they are tagged as siege unit, which means outpost and TC have a 0.5x multiplier to them, also they can train army to attack enemy form coastline to hinterland, finally they are weak to against other warship.
However there is no any need to do such a D-day landing in any patch of this game, instead of assaulting from the sea, commit an operation on land is always more effective, the sea is only a place to grab extra resource, and the only use of warship is fleet battle rather than landing battle, so that you can protect or raid these resource.
Due to the fact that middle type ship isnāt good at anti-ship, they are literally useless now, so is there any way to make this type of ship more viable?
I think it is because true disconnected sea maps like Caribbean, Amazon, Ceylon, etc. are not fun in matches. They are only fun for casual plays where basically every unit can be āusefulā. That actually happens in every aoe.
In that sense it would be a good idea to repurpose the tier 2 ships. Maybe enhance their status as tanks or increase their combat ability in general.
I want them to be able to train units offshore and have them automatically stay inside the ship.
Unable to train just because of a little bit distance from the coastline determined by the system is very annoying.
It would be also nice if ships could be anchored. Keep them on the water without moving.
This also helps to help them stay to the shore, without having to move away a bit on their own so that they canāt train the unit.
Theyāre not useless. A lot of maps have coastline that extends behind the enemy base so you can sneak a ship in the corner and train some units to go raiding from an unexpected direction.
These types of ships also count as siege units so they tank more building fire and are better for making landings. One problem is that disembarking in the game is pretty tedious. At the minimum, if thereās not enough room to disembark, it should drop off the amount that fits instead of just totally failing.
A wilder idea would be to increase the disembarking/training range a little bit so that you would not need to have them clogged at the shore.
In reality typically a galleon or any ship would not cling to the shore when disembarking. They could use small rowing boats. I can see such animation is difficult to handle so maybe just increase the range.
Allow galleons to receive home city shipments. Problem solved! This way itās like having a mobile fb, not unlike a daimyo, but with more limitations.
Would be worth seeing it implemented as an experiment.
this is so cursed 
imo galleons need to be useful somehow. They could gain increased transport capacity. One issue tho is that a buff to galleon-type ships is inherently a nerf to non-galleon having civs (literally just twc iirc). Not sure thats ideal either.
I think instead of having the siege trooper tag for damage reduction, we could just give it siege armour so that it can also play a tank role in ship battles and against ground artillery maybe.
the non galleon civs can get an Increased build limit to their frigate class , aztec can get more siege canoes , lakota & haud more war canoes , inca gets nothing already op enough.
now is this just a sneaky way for me to get an increased to the Fuchuan build limit? yes it is but I still think its a good idea
This makes it much more tanky against cannons and ships, not just buildings. I donāt think thatās their intended design.
yeah thats what I was going for, cause lets face it, a true killer for ships tryting to land often is culvs on the coast.
so making it a more all round tank feels more useful
They just need to be more tanky.
Their role should be to absorb the attacks whilst the rest of your fleet focus on the enemy. I like the idea that you should be able to train units offshore (auto-garrisoned within).
The AoE3 naval gameplay generally leaks a rock paper scissors system.
There isnāt much strategy involved. The only strategy is build more.
Also some civilisations have a very limited navy with basically just 1 unit or in case of the Inca actually just 1 unit.
Useless haha, U havent play as natives right?? You would feel the lack of them on Caribbean or Amazon
How about reducing costs?
They are available in age2, but they are pretty expensive and building one in age2 is akin to an allin. Shipping them isnāt a good idea either. Generally age2 card slots are pretty competitive.
Perhaps it is not useful, that is, they do their job well.
My suggestions would be for the galleon to have the ability that other warships have (multiple shot). In addition, she can create troops without the need to go to the shore.
The caravel is fine for me.
Maybe by the end of the game they should have the āimperial upgradeā, since we canāt increase the ship limit as it was before with the āadmiraltyā card.
Maybe the āadmiraltyā card should reduce the price of warships.
Would like to revive this topic.
I think the main reason is that water combat is very minimal now. Most of the time it is booming with fishing boats and/or harassing the other playerās fishing boats by sending 2 caravels or 1 frigate. Sometimes they could aid battles close to shore or across a river. On some rare and meme occasions I see privateers or battleships. There is not much need to massively transport units through water.
Also land battles happen fast. Training units close to the shore is barely useful. Sneaking a galleon into the back of your opponent like a shogun is too gimmicky.
A unique problem of AOE3ās time period is that basically most ships fight with cannons so it is impossible to assign them to different roles like in AOE2/4 (where it is also somewhat made up). I can see how they try to make them different with the forced āmobile fortressā role of the galleon but the result is still not very good.
Canāt we still have fire ships in the AoE3 timeline?
These will be good against frigates and bad against caravels.
Then will be caravels, which are bad against frigates and good against fire ships.
Monitors retain their role.
While galleons can train troops, provide safe transport, AND provide a boost to other warships siege resistance when they are nearby. Additionally, maybe rework whales so that only Galleons can gather from whales and not fishing boats sinceā¦ umā¦ did tiny fishing ships ever go whaling? I donāt know much about this.
In return, the galleon would have very poor attack and would be super weak to other warships such as caravels , frigates and fireships. Youāll have to really protect them.
Galleons when sunk will give 200 coin and not XP.
Also, add unique ships to India please! Thank you.
I actually think it makes more sense that the galleon is the main combat ship (before frigates). But in the game it is the caravel. It feels odd. Galleons have more guns and look bigger. Intuitively they should be better at combat.
Caravels (or equivalent) could be fast raiding ships with a little greater range for hit and run.
And galleons get the broadside attack and function as the main combat ship in age 2 and somewhat in age 3. They should also be made cheaper.
I mean you can rename and reskin my idea to fit yours. And to fit history.
I am mainly trying to propose a counter system into naval warfare.
Rise of Nations had a naval rock paper scissors pattern of Heavy Ship ā Light Ship ā Fireship ā Heavy Ship.
For the AoE3 time period they had the Frigate and Man Oā War as Heavy Ships, Corvette and Sloop as Light Ships, and āFireshipā and āHeavy Fireshipā as Fireships.
Naval warfare was a matter of massing Heavy Ships and screening them with Light Ships to avoid Fireship attacks. You would try to sink your opponentās Light Ships so you could send in your own Fireships (held in reserve) to quickly sink your foeās Heavy Ship navy.
Light ships were also for raiding transport boats and fishing boats.
Pretty simple and not that fun tbh. I donāt think AoE3 really needs much more emphasis on naval warfare, especially considering how thereās like 4 maps total (out of a million) that actually require a navyā¦
If I was going to change anything to make the galleon more useful, Iād undo the DE change and go further to make it so that the galleon (+ equivalents) is the ONLY ship able to transport units. This would make it have a dedicated purpose, give you a focus target when defending against naval assaults, and fits the shipās design as being bulky and tanky.