Longboats able to attack other ships?

[wieder]

Maybe giving them a defense of 2 and attack of 1 so that travelling on the deep ocean wouldn't be completely risk free, as the might say in Chicago

Now the HP would make them inferior to triremes when a longboat would attack a trireme. The question is how low can we go with the HP? Is 5 low enough so that the longboat would usually lose against a trireme? Using HP 2 would be most likely too low?

[Wahazar]

I have differrent proposal common for both topics (this and marine) : make warriors able to attack from/at nonnative and add them to longboat cargo (small land unit). Of course trireme/longboat defence shold be 2.

[wieder]

Warriors attacking from the ships would be powerful. Really powerful. The longboat is limited to carrying only non military units for balancing the game. It's a ship you can explore with and even use to build colonies but at the same time very limiting since military units can't be loaded onto it. If it could move military units, it would kind of make magnetism not that important from military point of view. The longboat was added to make the game more interesting in multiplayer but at the same time just a little too weak for military operations.

With a warrior able to take a city the players could find empty cities, take it with the warrior just before the tc and then disband the warrior and the ship for a better unit. One should never leave cities empty but this would definitely be a big change when you now can keep some coastal cities empty, if there are no rivers, for a short time, without that big risk.

Then again I've been trying to figure out what kind of unit could attack from the ships... Maybe some cannon? But that would be for LT46 if we so stuff like that.

[Wahazar]

Any empty town deserve to be conquered...
And longboat, vikings warship, deserve to be used also for raids, not only to discovery of Greenland.

Other idea: UNIQUE corsair unit (seafaring req.) which can attack from sea and at sea.
It is better idea than warriors, because there can be only one unit on trireme, thus trireme firepower is limited.

Idea with cannons need separate thread.

[Hans_Lemurson]

Can't we make Triremes A2/D2?

[wieder]

The caravel is A1 D2 and it's superior when defending against a trireme with A1 D1. Making triremes A2 D2 would require changing the AD values for most of the ships. That's why it might be easier to change the HP for longboat if it's allowed to attack.

Yeah the raid point is good but from gameplay point of view we already have caravels for that. Then again maybe some warrior level unit might work?

[Wahazar]

Yeah the raid point is good but from gameplay point of view we already have caravels for that. Then again maybe some warrior level unit might work?

But there can be unlimited numbers of caravels, which can transport most of the military units, and one player can make simultaneous raids.
Thus unique corsair on unique longboat doesn't equal to caravel.
Corsair on longboat or other unit would also add some fun with uncertainty: you never know if there is boat with innocent settlers or deadly corsairs.

Such corsair should have A1, D2, hp 5.
Why such low hp? To keep low probability of ship destroyed only thanks to corsair attack.

Some scenarios examples:
1. longboat vs longboat: probably you will loose your corsair, but enemy ship will be heavily damaged, therefore, if it is near your coast, you have chance to pick new unit and chase wounded infiltrator. In case of team game, things go easier, but need good cooperation. But if attacked longboat also have corsair, better for you if your safe port is nearby.
2. trireme vs trireme: again your corsair would be lost during attack, but there is huge chance that your trireme will ram successfully onto enemy one, and loose about 2..3 hp.
3. trireme vs longboat: trireme can't attack longboat on deep ocean, even if longboat is adjacent to shell. But corsair can. Thus "comfort zone" for longboats is one more tile away from coast. No more lurking
4. caravel vs caravel: no chance of fully successful corsair attack, but 25% of probability of win against wounded enemy caravel.
5. Corsairs can also be used to protect galleons against frigates- they can attack interceptor, thus galleon have chance to run away. I made assumption that wounded marine units are slow.

BTW. can marines attack other ships from aboard?

[jwrober]

i like the concept of the longboat having some attack - follows some historical precedent, but it should not be greater than a trireme. I would personally like to see another attacking sea unit at magnetism besides the transport caravel. We can call it a Carrack and have it be an upgraded Trieme with an A: 3, D: 2, M: 9, HP: 10. Lastly I would like to see an up-gradable swordsmen that we can call Legion when you get Republic (like we get pikeman at Feudalism). Its stats would be A: 5, D: 2, M: 3, HP: 10.

[Sketlux]

I would personally like to see another attacking sea unit at magnetism besides the transport caravel. We can call it a Carrack and have it be an upgraded Trieme with an A: 3, D: 2, M: 9, HP: 10.

Maybe I can patch up something really quickly, otherwise we just use the cog or the junk graphics. Using something asian would spice things up.

[Sketlux]

Made you a Carrack for trident: http://forum.freeciv.org/f/viewtopic.ph ... 212#p99212

[jwrober]

Made you a Carrack for trident: http://forum.freeciv.org/f/viewtopic.ph ... 212#p99212

Looks great! Thanks. An asian Junk in place of Carrack would be fine too. Just think it would add a nice element on the high seas to the game to get more attacking boats. Right now the game/ruleset is mostly terrestrial.

[Lord_P]

Had another crazy, not very relevant idea... but Ill add it anyway.

How about adding dangerous weather at sea?
Im thinking an AI (Barbarians) and give them a bunch of 'Storm' units. These are essentially 'ships', which cant be killed and look like clouds, that can only move slowly on deep ocean and do bombard damage to whatever they run into.
Damage level could be set to be severe for early ships but not much problem for later units.

[Sketlux]

How about adding dangerous weather at sea?

There are storm sheets available. But the cloud should die once it attacked so it doesnt follow you like a shadow but reemerges after a while.

Graphics:

http://forum.freeciv.org/f/viewtopic.ph ... 221#p99221

[wieder]

Not sure about how dangerous wather could be implemented. In the old commercial game there was a possibility that the trireme would be lost at sea. As far as I know there is no such chance with Freeciv 2.5. Idea is interesting.

[Hans_Lemurson]

I just realized that you can only built one longboat per nation. Given this, what's wrong with giving them combat ability? Let them be like flagships.

[Wahazar]

Making lonboat hp 5 would give them very vulnerable to triremes.
Making longboat hp 10 would make too big threat for triremes, which cannot run on the deep sea.
Therefore I insist, that unique unit which can be used for ship vs ship combat is better idea.

for example viking, A1, D1, hp5, available when Seafaring,
and successor, corsair, also unique, A2, D2, hp10, available when gunpowder.

BTW, longship should be availabe from Seafaring. Lets explore seaside first.

[Wahazar]

Here is code for vikings and corsairs, checked in single player mode, works as intended:
longboat carrying vikings can't kill other longboat, but can hurt it - standing near coast and lurking is not deadly threat but is not completely safe anymore.
Corsairs are improved version of sea raiders. They can't kill frigate, but can hurt it.
Both units are unique.
In my opinion, such units help to remove boring predictability of battle expected value.

Code: Select all

[unit_vikings]
name          = _("Vikings")
class         = "Small Land"
tech_req      = "Seafaring"
obsolete_by   = "Corsairs"
graphic       = "u.vikings"
graphic_alt   = "u.warriors"
sound_move    = "m_warriors"
sound_move_alt = "m_generic"
sound_fight   = "f_warriors"
sound_fight_alt = "f_generic"
build_cost    = 20
pop_cost      = 0
attack        = 1
defense       = 1
hitpoints     = 5
firepower     = 1
move_rate     = 3
vision_radius_sq = 18
transport_cap = 0
fuel          = 0
uk_happy      = 1
uk_shield     = 1
uk_food       = 1
uk_gold       = 1
flags         = "Marines", "Capturer", "Unique"
roles         = "BarbarianSeaTech"
helptext      = _("\
Vikings can attack directly from aboard, fight against other ships or capture workers.\
")

[unit_corsairs]
name          = _("Corsairs")
class         = "Small Land"
tech_req      = "Navigation"
obsolete_by   = "Marines"
graphic       = "u.corsairs"
graphic_alt   = "u.barbarian_leader"
sound_move    = "m_barbarian_leader"
sound_move_alt = "m_generic"
sound_fight   = "f_barbarian_leader"
sound_fight_alt = "f_generic"
build_cost    = 30
pop_cost      = 0
attack        = 2
defense       = 1
hitpoints     = 10
firepower     = 1
move_rate     = 3
vision_radius_sq = 18
transport_cap = 0
fuel          = 0
uk_happy      = 1
uk_shield     = 1
uk_food       = 1
uk_gold       = 1
flags         = "Marines", "Capturer", "Unique"
roles         = "BarbarianSeaTech"
helptext      = _("\
Corsairs can attack directly from aboard, fight against other ships or capture workers.\
")

[wieder]

After lots of thinking we'll probably use some of the ideas for LT46 but with LT45 we'll keep it relatively simple. No vikings or similar units but this should do:

attack = 1
defense = 2
hitpoints = 4

A longboat can't easily kill another longboat but should be vulnerable enough to triremes if it remains on ocean tiles outside deep ocean. It also can't travel on rivers.

The vikings could be used with LT46 but we would need a solid upgrade path. Some medieval unit and then they could maybe merge with marines or something like that.

[Momo]

Can't we make it so that a longboat needs to get to an ocean tile after x turns, like planes in civ2?

[Wahazar]

Can't we make it so that a longboat needs to get to an ocean tile after x turns, like planes in civ2?

It can be done by refuelling (not to ocean, only to city AFAIK), but ability to attacking them seems to be better idea.