I like the idea of making them functionally different so they can also fight ships more efficiently.
It still was a thing. I also think this wouldn’t be too hard to balance since we already have a 1 time charging ship that causes a lot of AoE damage.
Maybe just give the ability to transport ships. I’m not sure if it’s possible to let villagers work from within a transport ship.
Basically all European ships from the Middle Ages had towers on them that were ment to be used by Archers.
That would only really work if ships were more expensive.
Same size just more expensive and more powerful. There for easier to micro.
Ships are already bigger than an Elephant but they cost less than a cavalry. That feels wrong. Their strength should fir to their size.
Fire Ships were historically a unique Byzantine unit. Changing the game that much to make them unique units would be a bit to much so my idea is that it becomes a unit for strong navel civilisations.
Fishing ships should definitely not be affected by that.
One potential idea would be that being able to access Deep Water with Fishing boots requires technology but Deep Water Fish give gold.
But how you choose what military ships can pass on water? If fires can for example and demos can’t, how do you kill fires?
Fishing ships are already inefficient when fishing far from the coastline, because they need to travel a lot, and then farms or fish traps becomes more efficient. So a futher nerf that it doesn’t seem necessary in my opinion.
Again, some small small change may be fine, like the equivalent of cracked teerain on land maps.
The idea of pressuring buildings from a safe distance already in castle age sounds ridicously OP, unless it’s something like the equivalent of the manganel for water.
Exactly, the demo is a one time use, people need to be careful with them. Having a demo that can be used multiple times sounds OP, even with a small AoD.
And with the more and more use of the sails, the rams gradually stopped being used, so it doesn’t fit the period.
There is no need, if you are careful, as soon as the vill is in danger, you garrison it in the ship.
I know that they used platform for archer, not towers, I may be wrong, so I’ll look up to.
If all ships were more expensive, people would still spam them, they would just have to stockpile more wood and stone.
What should mean “feeld wrong” the cost isn’t proportionate to the size, the cost is just a mean to balance units in the game. And their strength fit their size, in fact, the more you upgrade your ships, the bigger they get.
Also, how do you compare a WE with a galleon? Both perform completely different roles, and they need different cost because they are used in different meta.
That’s not true at all, ships that spray fire to enemy ships have been documented to be used by venetians and other italians cities, and by ottomans later on. Byzantines had greek fire, which was a particular substance that burned better on water, but they were far from being the only ones that tried to burn enemy ships.
For new naval civs, I suggest they add in the Chams (Champa) and the Tamils (Chola), both had been quite influential in the maritime trade of Asia in the Middle Ages, and both were formidable naval powers.
As for a new ship for general tech tree, I suggest they either add a catapult ship / trebuchet ship or a ramming ship.
The Castle Age version can’t out range an upgraded Castle or Tower.
The Castle Age version would have a range of like 9-10 while the Imperial version has 12 (+1 for siege engineers).
If you build them early you can out range a tower but not when it’s upgraded.
They are also weak against ships and units until ballistics is researched.
It isn’t really multiple use because it can’t disengage from the battle unlike the Cuustillier because they don’t have higher speed than other ships. They also don’t do AoE.
That was after the AoE2 timeframe.
The last usage of rams in a big naval battle was in Lepanto which takes part after the First Act of the AoE3 campaign. Also ships like the turtle ship had them.
They where not as dominant as in ancient times but very much still there.
Small towers on ships where very common, more common that having a Ballista/Scorpion.
Water feels like it’s balanced completely independently from land. Ships are very big but their attack is basically just that or an archers.
All of the suggested changes at once would be too much but some of them could be considered.
Water changes could be implemented easier than land changes because they wouldn’t change the gameplay on land at all. There is 0 change to the gameplay on Arabia.
Not many people like the water gameplay in the game right now. Changing it wouldn’t ruin a beloved part of the game but would have to potential to make Water maps actually playable.
9 range is more than enough to kill docks from a safe distance, and they wouldn’t be affected by ballistics, since they would be categorized as a siege units, and ballistics doesn’t affect siege units.
But still they can retreat no? Or they become immobile after ramming? So if they can retreat they can be used multiple times.
Yeah ok I get what you meant now, I wouldn’t call them tower ships but ok. The problem is, that that is already the model of the galley and galleon, only that they decided to have such units attack with a ballista instead that with archers, probably because they wanted to leave the “volley of arrows” effect unique for the longboat.
Because water is different than land, it has a tons of different meccanics. Units have the same attack of archers, but more HP and bonus damage vs buildings. You can’t garrison fishing ships like vills, they raids are more effective, you can’t wall, and so on…
You can’t directly compare land units with water units. Also, try to counter ships with archers, and see how hard it is to kill even one of them.
It was heavily in decline the usage of rams, what was common was boarding, and those 2 aren’t the same thing. The latter was what happened at Lepanto, even if probably, among the mess of the battle, some ships rammed another, either by error or for desperation, or to cripple a particular ships, but it wasn’t the practice.
And why should you? There aren’t building to be built on pure water.
That’s 1 more range than War Galleys with upgrades. If it doesn’t work out than they should be limited to Imperial Age.
Either make them affected by ballistics or make a new technology that increases the travel speed of their projectile so it can be used against other ships.
They can retreat but they aren’t faster than other ships so they can be chased easily. Custillers are faster than most units.
While moving away from the enemy they would get enough damage by them that it’s not worth if.
Against land units their attack is basically like an Archer. They have a bonus damage against other ships.
Ships where still equipped with rams. They noticed that it’s not the best strategy anymore so they stopped doing it but it was still a thing.
The Ramming Ship that I think of would be weak in Imperial Age.
To repair ships. Villagers in a transport can’t repair other ships in the middle of the ocean so it would be nice if there was a ship that can do that.
Nice idea, but it should be a free update, because with DE they adopted the DLC logic which means that new content is already in the game, but it has to be unlocked buying it. If it were a DLC, only people who bought it could use the new features, so it would be unfair for those who didn’t acquired it.
But most likely will have melee or bonus damage vs buildings, otherwise it’s just a fancy skin for the galeon. And no siege units are affected by ballistics, so I don’t know why this should be the exception.
But at that point what reason they have to ram? Either you outnumber your opponent and kill all or most of its fleet, or you retreat/fight and have your ship die while retreating/fight. It’s difficult to see the difference with a demo.
Yes, they had rams, but ramming wasn’t a viable strategy anymore, also because with ships less and less relying on rows (the primary target of ramming) it wasn’t effective.
Water maps arent popular by most players. So they never learn the meta for water maps. Adding more ships will increase the difficulty to learn the water meta. As result they will never try to learn this new meta.
In the end a great water expension wont attrack many players, in my opinion.
Things water fights don’t have compared to land fights:
conversion
healing
fortification
trash units
My suggestion:
Make the Transport Ship a “Support Ship”, able to build sea walls in shallow water, transport units and repair.
Add new fast high Pierce Armor “Boarding Ship” in Castle Age that can convert a ship in close distance.
Add a somewhat weak Ram Boat, that only costs 100 Wood, but does Melee damage without range (maybe charged attack).
make the Catapult Boat the Water Siege of the Castle Age and after Chemistry in Imperial Age it can be upgraded to a Cannon Galleon (with the stats of the Elite version).
Maybe add a most powerful and costly (Heavy) War Ship in Castle Age (Upgrade after Chemistry in Imperial Age possible) with really high HP, a “Water Paladin”, countering Galleons, but worthy to convert and repair.
I would change the Arrow (Range) upgrades for ships, because they make no sense for me. There should be some Range upgrades for it in the docks not in the blacksmith which would help on land aswell.
If you go ships in nomand and do the range upgrades you are kinda forced into going archers on land.
