I think everyone here can agree that water is way too monotonous as it is. For this reason, we should add more buildings that are built by Fishing ships. This would make water more strategical and resource intensive to fight for. Another reason to split dock into multiple buildings is because there are 2 tabs of units there, which is very annoying to deal with or queue wrong units with hotkeys.
For example following setup would be possible: Standard dock (Villager built) would train:
Fishing Ship
Transport Ship
Water scout: Fast unit that can deal little bit of damage (Feudal age onwards)
Economy/Transport techs. Water Wheelbarrow
Military Dock (Fishing Ship built) would train:
Demolition Ships
Galleys
Fire Ships
Civ specific ships
Military techs to upgrade these ships
Siege Dock (Fishing Ship built) would train:
Ram Ships (Castle age)
Cannon Galleons/Dromons (Imperial Age)
Scorpion Ships
Upgrades to these ships
In addition to this, to water following would be interesting to add:
Gold Sources to fight for on specific maps
Lighthouses (water outposts) built on shoreline
Now of course you could also add anything that exists on land, such as thrash counter units, towers, monasteries, bamboo forests or even reefs that slow enemy ships significantly, to make water more and more complex, but just splitting existing docks into 3 should suffice to implement some complexity. After all, water is just side mode which you can choose to fight for from land, but not the other way around.
I am not saying this is perfect implementation, and I would be happy with just with some attemps to spice the water up. Everyone here is favoriting and playing land maps, so it just seems perfect spot to work on.
If you’re going to try to do a full overhaul on water I like the way the Romae ad Bellum mod did it (though modified/reskinned for the AOE 2 time period of course) SotL did a review on it if you’re interested (minus an equivalent for the mega-transport ship in the bottom right of the thumbnail, it’s a civ-unique ship even in the mod.)
Having re-watched the video, there would be some major changes, and a couple things left off, but basically additions would be splitting docks to a Port (eco dock) and Shipyard (military dock). To the port would be added a construction ship to build water defenses (sea towers, sea walls, sea gates) and to the Shipyard would be added a boarding ship (sorta a monk equivalent) a scout ship (does what it says, but is also the boarding ship counter, kinda like the scout cav on land) and another ranged ship similar to a longboat, that gives a counter to fire ships without having to blow it up (this one could maybe be scratched, we’ll see) There is a late game, more expensive just all around good ship, but i’m not sure if i’d want to see that in the game; could make late game water on the pro scene even more stale because people would just revert to the one ship at the end.
So like I said a lot of tinkering, but I like a lot of the basic concepts this mod brings to the table.
2 buildings are enough.
One civil and one military. Doesn’t need 2 military ones.
We don’t need 4 siege ships.
Basically no one likes playing AoE2 on water.
It’s just snowbally and boring.
Even if water would be completely reworked it wouldn’t practically change the way the majority of people play AoE2 atm.
Reworking all the single player content would be the bigger challenge though.
They are not talking about Deathmatch stuff though.
Their other thread was about moving technologies, something you wouldn’t care about in Deathmatch.
Also the idea is not new. The original developers originally planned 2 buildings and the dock is currently the one 2 page building.
Really the only “bad” thing about splitting the dock is now you’d have to make two buildings instead of one, and I think that could be a small hindrance in early feudal on a tight build order. that extra 150W has got to come from somewhere. Other than that tho I don’t see any issue splitting the dock.
IDK exactly how many more ship units we need. I don’t think I want water to rival the number of land (depending on if you count HC, BBC, and camel as generic units, there are between 12 and 15 generic units available in the average game (then add uus and regional units and there’s a lot of variety)), but three main ships and a siege ship just isn’t cutting it. From a X counters Y, Y counters Z, Z counters X, standpoint, water RN is like if on land all you had access to was pike, skirm, and scout, and then getting bombard cannon in Imp.
tbh the main reason why I want 2 docks is the Trade Cog AI.
I hate it when I build a forward dock and then suddenly all my Trade is going through the combat zone because the path is longer then the secure trade route close to the base.
The second reason is that it’s kinda too easy to spam docks.
They cost less then normal military buildings but provide more value.
It would also be nice to have a costal defence building.
What if the military dock was also a mini castle, which also costs a little stone.
It would only unlock in Castle Age.
Feudal Age would only have the normal Dock.
But that would require redoing all the unit lines.
Feudal Age used to only have one naval unit but that was changed.
The main point of the whole water discussion is that water is unpopular.
Minor changes won’t change that.
Only a big rework can make water fun and it has a lot potential to ruin the game for many people since there aren’t many that currently enjoy water.
Good point. Imagine if your stable was your market.
I know the romae ad bellum mod contains water walls, water gates, and water towers. I also know ornlu in his malay civ reviews has mentioned he’d prefer that the harbor cost stone. Definitely community interest along these lines.
Agreed.
Also, unrelated to any of these comments, but I think another thing that makes land interesting that water lacks is terrain. Some elevation or chokepoints can really add a lot of depth to land combat, that usually isn’t present on water. Land can sometimes create chokepoints but there’s definitely no elevation. Imagine fighting on land that was flat empty, and the most interesting part was where land met water. IDK how you address that tho.
Water scout is unnecessary since the water has less terrain differences than the land. Usually, there are no high places on the water, nor are there cliffs, forests, etc. On the water you don’t need to know if the opponent’s resources are forward or backward.
You won’t spend and train a so-called water scout to scout where are fish points and the opponents’ docks. You’ll just send a fishing ship or a regular military ship to scout.
On the other hand, Water Wheelbarrow is unnecessary too.
The only reason fishing ships having to move far is that the natual fish points are too far from the docks. At the time, the natual fish will soon be given up and the traps will be used. You just need to build a new dock at the closest shore and prepare to switch to traps. When you use traps, there are just too close to the docks so the research of water wheelbarrowis may be unworthy for just a few far fish points before using traps.
The rock-paper-scissors mechanism needs to be retuned.
Boarding ships:
Melee unit with a range of 1 and a good pierce armor.
The attack can be impacted by Forging-line.
Visually, a boarding board extends from the deck of the ship, and a soldier will stand on the boarding board to attack the opponent’s ship.
Archer ships:
Ranged unit with a range of 4/5/5 in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial age.
The attack and the range can be impacted from Fletching-line.
Having a lower HP, but they fire multiple arrows at a time and fire fast so they can cause good damage on Boarding ships.
Springald ships:
Trained from the Castle age.
Ranged unit with a range of 7 or 8. The attack and the range can be impacted from Siege Engineers.
Having a high pierce attack with the bolt, therfore they counter Archer ships well but may be hard to deal with a number of Boarding ships.
Demolition ships:
Trainable from the Castle age.
Once there are too many Boarding ships and Archer ships alone cannot handle it well, then it can be better solved by adding some Demo ships. Use these Demo ships to prevent the opponent’s Boarding ships from approaching easily, allowing the Archer ships to fire safely from a distance.
Bombard ships / Dromon.
Unique ships:
Longships (Vikings): After having a Castle, now able to slowly train Berserks when at a shore.
Turtle ships (Koreans): Now they are expensive, slow, strong ranged ships with a range equivalent to Springald ships and a super high melee armor, trainable from the Imperial age. Good against Boarding ships.
Caravels (Portuguese): Now fire cannonballs, at least in visual.
Thirisadai (Dravidians): Maybe fire bolts pretty fast rather than multiple bolts at a time to play the role of advanced version of Springald ships.
