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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by Krill
1) the scout can only be built by expansionist civs
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Right, so it makes sense for Scouts to be "better" than Curraghs.
quote:
2) It costs 50% more than a scout, and is no where near as useful, because any contacts you can get with a curragh you can get with a galley (IE no trade agreements)
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I think you're underestimating Curraghs. If you're not Expansionist you can use them to get early Contacts just as easily as Scouts by circling around your continent's perimeter. And once you've done that, you can send them off to discover civs on other continents as well, something Scouts cannot do. Scouts upgrade to nothing useful; Curraghs upgrade to Galleys, Caravels and Galleons.
quote:
3) No/very little land is discovered
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Who cares about land, it's Contacts that are more important! You have to pop a lot of Goody Huts (barring Settlers) to make up the advantage you get by getting early Contacts and trading all your techs around for profit.
Dominae
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ducki
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I'm with THeseus - I don't think the Privateer needs changing, but a discussion about changing the Pirvateer turned into a discussion about putting Middle Age transports at a sinking risk from the very first boat you can build, so I agreed that if the panel thinks Privateers are underpowered(I don't) and if the solution is to weaken two other units of the age instead of buffing up the Privateer then I would see curraghs, and to a lesser extent Galleys, as overpowered in a domino effect.
I do not think Curraghs should be defenseless - 1 defense is weak enough - but they also should not be able to take out middle ages ships.
But again, I don't think the Privateer has any problems. a Hidden Nationality unit at that time is, to me, worth it's weight in gold.
Edit: I sidetracked myself - I do like the idea of a 0-attack curragh in and of itself, but that may be supported by the propsed change to other units and may be due to personal playstyle. In the end, I don't think any of these units needs changing and if consistency with transports is a problem, we could buff that guy up. You can't go much lower than 1 and the C3C discussions about averaged combat showed that at the lower end, the difference between two units is magnified. Let's not change this guy. He's a good, fun, strategic tool.
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Aqualung71
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Lord Desolator of the Desolation Row, C3CDG
Oct 2002
time: 12:34
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Curraghs should definitely by 0 attack.
I'd be happy for them to have 0 defence too, even though it would p**s me off every time I sight a barb Galley (as it does now, actually!)
Last edited by Aqualung71 on 04-03-2004 at 09:24
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:34
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I strongly oppose reducing the defense of caravels and galleons. Reducing the defense of caravels would pose two serious problems.
First, it would make them too vulnerable to galleys, and especially to Dromons and Carracks. One of the biggest advantages to caravels over galleys under the normal rules is that caravels offer an opportunity to invade without much risk of being sunk by contemporary non-UU enemy ships and can defend themselves reasonably well against the UUs. Reduce their defense value and naval invasions using caravels become a lot more difficult and dangerous. I don't view that as a good thing either in terms of strategic choices for human players or in terms of helping AIs.
Second, and even worse, consider the impact on a civ (whether human or AI) that is lagging a few techs behind and still stuck using caravels when enemy frigates and privateers make their appearance. Even if the civ stays at peace, privateers could place its ships at very serious jeopardy.
Reducing the defense of galleons would be a bit less problematical since a suitable escort is available at the same time that galleons are. But the idea of giving galleons a lower defense value than caravels would be abusrd, and the change is not necessary.
There is one other important point that I don't remember having been brought up, or at least having been given adequate consideration. When privateers sink transport ships, they often cost the enemy far more than just the value of the ships they destroy. A privateer that sinks a caravel carrying a knight and two MedInfs or longbowmen sinks almost four times its own cost in enemy units. A privateer that sinks a galleon carrying four units in a combination of riflemen and cavalry sinks more than seven times its own cost.
Thus, when transport ships are loaded and traveling without an escort, privateers already average destroying far more value than they lose even before the possibility of enslaving a defeated enemy is considered. It is simply not true that the fact that caravels and galleons have a defense value as high as a privateer's attack value makes escorting them unimportant.
quote:
Just to be clear, I agree that Privateers are fairly well balanced as they are now. We will, however, have a vote |
You seem to be saying that you intend to mark something as under consideration and put something up for a vote whether there is any real support for it or not. I don't suppose doing so would cause any great harm, but it seems like a waste of time when opinion seems clearly against the proposed changes without the need for a formal vote. If the absence of a vote is a mistake, panelists can easily correct the mistake by speaking out in favor of a change and asking for a vote.
Nathan
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Risa
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quote:
Originally posted by alexman
Hey, this is not true after all! Caputred non-Worker units do require support. I just tested it.
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Huh? Which version of patch do you use?
Here is a screenshot of my latest SimuMove Multiplayer game (1.15).
 Attachment: ss.jpg
This has been downloaded 99 time(s).
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:34
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[Edit: I'm moving this message to the AI Naval Exploration thread where discussion of curraughs probably really belongs]
Last edited by nbarclay on 04-03-2004 at 18:16
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:34
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I've already made my case against reducing the defense of caravels and galleons.
Regarding the idea of reducing Privateers' cost or otherwise making them more effective, I think it is very important to understand their proper niche. Think back to the time of England's Queen Elizabeth I, when England wanted to gain power relative to Spain but did not want a direct war with Spain. Privateers allowed England to attack Spain while maintianing at least some pretext that the two nations were not truly at war.
The legitimate role of Privateers in Civ is similar: when a player wants to weaken one particular opponent without actually going to war. Privateers are not and should not be a means to gain a relative advantage over several AIs at once. In order for Privateers to provide a relative advantage even over two opponents at once, they would have to be able to destroy more than twice their cost in enemy units, which would make them far too effective when focused on one particular target.
(So far, I haven't used C3C Privateers yet because I havn't had a game where that niche was particularly valuable. To the extent that I've thought about the possibility of using Privateers at all after how useless Privateers were in earlier versions, either I've been more interested in building up my own civ than in tearing down one particular opponent or I've been inclined to fight more directly.)
The question that remains is whether Privateers can fill their legitimate role properly under the default rules if they are used correctly or whether they need to be beefed up in order to do so. If Privateers focused on one particular target can kill more shields' worth of the target's units (including both ships and carried units) than they suffer in losses (both from the target civ and from being forced to fight third-party ships), then they are good enough already. If not, it would be very hard to find a useful niche for them under the current rules.
So far, I have seen no compelling evidence or testimony indicating that the players who have the most effective tactics for using Privateers are unable to make them worthwhile in their proper niche. Further, C3C has been out a short enough time that there hasn't been a huge amount of opportunity to develop tactics for C3C Privateers (and experience from previous versions certainly does not carry over well). I think we need a stronger experience base with clearer evidence that the current version is not worthwhile before we reach the conclusion that change is needed. Even aside from the conservative nature of the AU Mod, if we make Privateers powerful enough that they are easy to gain a net advantage from using in most games, we risk making them far too powerful when players who figure out or learn the best tricks for using them effectively use them in their proper niche.
Nathan
Last edited by nbarclay on 08-03-2004 at 02:07
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04-03-2004 03:22
I think that's a very good suggestion. The AI is better of building stronger ships, not hidden ones.
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