When Ironcald was first introduced to this game in TWC, in my opinion it was designed to be a mixture of frigate and monitor which make it the most powerful warship at that time.
Then DE devs added Battleship which truely is a naval juggernaut. Thanks to its HP and attack, it can easily overwhelm Ironclad.
Somehow I just feel like a 18-century wooden sailing ship can defeat a 19-century full steam-powered iron ship is kinda weird. Or maybe I’m wrong due to my ignorance of navy history.
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Personal opinion, no, it’s not reasonable, but I guess the idea was to give the European civilizations something to counteract the revolutions at sea, where they technically don’t lose their entire economy.
Although having said the above, I think they went a little overboard, basically European civilizations have a walking maritime fortress that can be easily recovered. To match the revolutions I think the developers should increase the training limit of the Ironclad and give them the Block ability. (obviously only for revolutions)
Block Ability Description.
This is nothing new, frigates can also 1v1 ironclads.
The ironclad in this game is a river monitor from the American revolution. The model was quickly obsolete in around the early 1800and was never used for blue water operations. The game doesn’t have the true ironclad frigates of the late 1800s, although the iron plating upgrade at the docks is used to cover for that.
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Is it reasonable that an archer is stronger then a rifleman?
The game matches units from different time periods against each other.
Also the Ironclads in the game are pretty small riverboats not ships capable of sailing the ocean.
They had like a hand fill of cannons compared the the 100+ a Ship of the line could have.
The big ocean going ironclads looked very different and all still had sails since steam engines where not efficient enough to get though oceans on the amount of fuel they could carry.
I’d also argue that the ironclads are smaller than frigates, so the larger ship, even while technologically inferior, might very well be militarily superior. More cannons = more holes, even in an iron hull.
Not to mention that Ironclads fight ship vs ship better than monitors, which is the only unit they should be compared with given their design.
The “ironclad” in the game is a unique design for gunboats (ironically called monitor irl), so their ability is long range attack.
The real powerful ironclads that dominates 1850-1870s had similar designs as earlier broadside sail ships but with paddle wheels, until turret ships took over.
I do think the imperial upgrade of ships (at least for frigate and batfleship) should give them a steam engine.
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This is because the initial ironclads were wooden ships with metal armor. Then these were replaced by fully metal ships.
The paddles were obsolete on war ships by 1850. Replaced by screws long before the turret ships came along.
You’re right. Engine may be more accurate than just paddle.
Early screw battleships had sails too.
Ironically this model may make a return on commercial vessels due to lower impact on the environment.
I’m taking crazy pills…
Unless my history professor lied to me the first time true ironclads like we see in-game were used was in the American Civil War, and in their first encounter they were pretty much invulnerable. Every wood ship was either sunk or forced to leave the field leaving the ironclads to bounce some more shots off each other until they got tired and called it a draw.
Edit: I butchered the events of the actual battle: The Battle of Hampton Roads. The takeaway was the same, though.
The ones in-game are based on later Civil War ironclad designs like the USS Essex, no?
Edit: Casemate Ironclad is the style: Casemate ironclad - Wikipedia
From what digging I’ve done, I can’t see anything to suggest the guns on European battleships could have changed that outcome.
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Armor piercing shots also evolved synchronously. Wood ships can also fire these rounds. On the other hand soon afterwards everyone starts mounting their traditional sailing ships with iron plates and steam engines. Stat upgrades in the game somewhat represent this.
That’s why I think late game frigates and battleships should have visuals reflecting such advancements.
Sure, I guess we could just make every ship in the game an ironclad.
I think the ship has sailed (pun intended) in AoE3 for ages to have any real meaning.
There should be absolutely no melee infantry in Industrial Age and also absolutely no archers.
How can the US unlock Gatling Guns in Fortress Age while other civilisations get Halbediers.
Halberds mostly stopped being used at the end of the Middle Ages (in favour if Pikes), that’s like 400 years before Gatling Guns where invented.
The coexistence of Aztecs and Mexicans completely removes all meaning of time from the game. They should also add Ancient Rome or Babylonians to the game and it would kinda work.
Not saying they should. Would be funny though.
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Not kidding. “Ironclad”, “steamship” and “battleship” are all describing different aspects of the ship, armament, power or role.
Irl ironclad covers a whole wide range of different designs. The in-game unit seems to represent a very stratified design (more so after US and Mexicans) while the others are missing. Those can be reflected in the upgrades of other units.
Just like how the in-game dragoon represents only the light cavalry version of early 1700s, not the earlier mounted infantry or later all-purpose medium cavalry.
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Romans and Sumerians were maybe 2000 years apart…Rome was founded (as an insignificant settlement) almost at the same time as the last Babylonian empire…Carthage grew to become a major power long after the Phoenicia homeland was subjugated…and they are all in AOE1.
People just have the intuition of “heavier looking=stronger”. Halberds look like a enhanced version of pike and halberdiers have more armor so it is definitely a high tier unit…in almost every game.
Like elmetto is an industrial age unit…
I think that if you look at each age as having an independent time frame for each civ, things will start making more sense. The imperial age of inca is not the same as the imperial age of British but for game play purposes they are made equal. We can draw the line on where representation stops and where gameplay starts.
Therefore we can have real ironclads for the navies that had ironclads and wooden ships for navies that didn;t, we can keep stats as it is, but models get changed to better represent this.
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you can get 2 ironclads which will beat a battleship, considering the ships price I think that is fine.
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Yes, it is strange, but it is not unlikely that it happened… in the 1860s the Europeans still had line battleships, the ironclad would have to be harder, but shoot much slower than the battleship…
An ironclad is a steam-propelled warship protected by steel or iron armor constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The first ironclad battleship, Gloire, was launched by the French Navy in November 1859, narrowly preempting the British Royal Navy. However, Britain built the first completely iron-hulled warships.
They were first used in warfare in 1862 during the American Civil War, when ironclads operated against wooden ships and, in a historic confrontation, against each other at the Battle of Hampton Roads in Virginia. Their performance demonstrated that the ironclad had replaced the unarmored ship of the line as the most powerful warship afloat. Ironclad gunboats became very successful in the American Civil War.
Around the middle of the nineteenth century, warships armored with iron plates emerged as the dominant naval vessel during conflicts across the globe. In the U.S. Civil War, the Monitor class of steam-powered warships was developed.
In March 1862, the legendary first battle of true Ironclads occurred, pitting the U.S.-built Monitor against the Confederacy’s Merrimack. After a four-hour struggle, the battle ended inconclusively with the Merrimack withdrawing to deeper water. Even though neither ship emerged victorious, this day heralded the end of the age of wooden warships.
Yes, the Ironclad’s model is based on the 1856 USS Essex.
And Online too xd (although Carthage is more of an alliance headquarters)…
Yes, that’s what it means to put civs from the 16th century and the 19th century in the same game… although that always happened in the saga (Sumerian-Yamato; Huns-Spanish in TC), so it shouldn’t be a problem now…
Yes, it is reasonable.
We’re talking about a huge ship of the line (which is totally what the battleship should be called) versus a river/coastal ironclad (i.e not a more widely used ocean going ironclad). Wooden or not the Battleship is armed with way more cannon. It should win.
Complete wishlist suggestions
- The Battleship should just be called Ship-of-the-line (rename that Frigate upgrade…).
- An Imperial Age shipment only for (non-rev) Euros should be ‘Pre-Dreadnaughts’ which turns current and future Ship-of-the-lines into Battleships (the contemporary name for pre-dreadnaughts). Model changes for iron or even steel instead of wood and swaps sails for turrets.
- Imperial Age upgrade for Frigates should be ‘Armoured Frigates’ - the real ironclads. Iron hulls, steam stacks and screw propeller in addition to those old sails.
- Basically a naval incentive to keep with the mother country into Imp Age.
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