Naval combat at the moment mostly feels like a slightly wetter version of land combat, with few justifications for engaging in it beyond the necessity of traversing continents. I don't know what the silver bullet is for making naval gameplay as engaging as land gameplay, but I've come up with some ideas that I think would at least make it different.

Ships

The core of this proposed rework is the paradigm that ships do not behave like living units: they're ships. They require no population to build and are quite expensive, in line with an infrastructure of its time. Disbanded ships provide money instead of population. When produced, a ship will have the Unmanned status, meaning it bears a neutral gray flag and is unable to move, fight, or retaliate, though it can be attacked and destroyed. Unmanned ships do not cost Upkeep because they technically do not belong to any player. Ships do not take up a unit slot in the army; rather, they are a container for an army. Therefore they cannot be merged, so each ship takes up its own tile. 

Crew

Regular land units cannot man a military ship. This necessitates a new unit line: Crew. Crew can be produced from a City Center or Garrison like regular land units, or if there is a ship with available crew space docked on a Harbor, then they can be produced directly into that ship. There are at least three variations of this unit over the eras, with cultural variants. 

Oarsmen, unlocked with Sailing in the Ancient Era

Sailors, unlocked with Seafaring Mastery in the Medieval Era

Mariners, unlocked with Propeller in the Industrial Era

Crew are relatively cheap units that require 1 Population to train. With each upgrade of the crew line comes an increase in Combat Strength. Each ship type has a target Manpower value calculated by the combined Combat Strength of all Crew on board. If this value is not met, the ship will be seaworthy but will suffer a harsh penalty to Movement Speed and Combat Strength. Additional Crew beyond the Manpower value will not affect the ship's function. The amount of crew space on a ship is equal to the army unit slot cap.

Crew units would be quite weak, not much stronger than Militia units of their time, but of course their main purpose would be to man ships. However, they can still provide utility on land. Namely, they can embark and disembark from their ships at will, as long as there is a coastal tile to disembark to, even in combat. They can be used to raid and ransack poorly protected sites, and they can found Outposts in distant lands. It would be wise to leave at least one Crew onboard however, as if all Crew disembark then their ship will be Unmanned, giving the opportunity for a sneaky player or Pirates to commandeer it with their own Crew. For this reason, it would also be wise to take extra Crew beyond the Manpower limit for land excursions.

Pirates

Obviously everybody wants Pirates in the game. Violent Independent People would produce their own ships and Crew and harass seafarers, but these are not Pirates. Pirates spawn from coastal Harbor-like camps called Hideouts. Since they are on water, they can only be ransacked by ships. Like Independent People camps, these tend to spawn in unsettled territories, but can spawn in regions with an Outpost too. Occasionally they will spawn an era-appropriate ship with at least one Crew. The ship will remain docked for several turns to generate plenty of Crew before it sets sail.

Pirates would then seek to harass nearby players. They will pillage Harbors, Trade Ports, and offshore resources, disembark to pillage districts near the coast, or even commence Sieges on coastal cities. If left unchecked for too long, pirate ships will found additional Hideouts in other territories, even those already occupied by Independents or Players. As mentioned, they will also gladly shed spare Crew to commandeer unmanned ships along the coast. If their Crew are attacked on land, their ship will try to join the battle to lend the support of the rest of their Crew, fire on enemies, or even pick up injured Crew out of harm's way.

Combat

Since ships are costly to produce and need to protect their crew, they will generally be hard to sink and have high Combat Strength relative to land units of the Era. Unlike regular units, they have an Integrity value similar to Fortification on districts, meaning a Combat Strength value coupled with a health value. Like Fortifications, Integrity isn't scratched by arrows and small arms, but can be battered by cannon ships, artillery, air strikes, missiles, and the like - anything that can destroy Fortifications. Crew still have health however, and will receive damage from any attacks upon the ship, albeit with a large Combat Strength bonus from the ship's Integrity, again like Fortification. Attacks that damage Integrity also damage Crew.

Destroying the hull Integrity is a sure path to victory, but taking out Crew can be even better. An Unmanned ship can be commandeered by one's own crew even in battle, so destroying opposing Crew can be an opportunity to strengthen your own fleet. Even if you don't kill all the Crew on an enemy ship, bringing it below the Manpower threshold can cripple it. Spreading out your damage against the opponent's whole fleet can be a good choice for this reason. Hopping Crew from one ship to another adjacent ship in battle may be necessary to maintain the fleet's fighting potential. Unmanned ships can remain indefinitely in Coastal Water, but will take Integrity damage every turn and eventually sink in the Ocean.

 Here are some additional and reworked ship classes:

• Boarding Vessel: A melee ship which does no damage to the opposing ship's Integrity, but pits the ship's Manpower directly against the targeted ship's Manpower. The targeted ship is Anchored - Like being Suppressed, it cannot move next turn and suffers a Combat Strength penalty.
• Naval Ram: A melee ship that deals damage to the opposing ship's Integrity. Deals damage to the Ramming ship's Integrity as well, depending on the other ship's Combat Strength.
• Gun Platform: Same for the most part, but can damage ship Integrity as well as Fortifications.
• Armored Vessel: Same for the most part, but is not immune to the Anchored effect of Boarding Vessels. High Integrity.
• Torpedo Vessel: Same for the most part. Deals damage to Integrity. Does not require Line of Sight. Cannot attack land units.
• Arrow Ship: A ranged attack ship class of the Ancient, Classical, and Medieval Eras. It can fire arrows with a range of 3 and deals damage to enemy Crew. It is not a strong ship for naval combat unless in large numbers, but it is an excellent support ship for land combat.
• Fire Ship: A ship class of the Medieval Era, this ship shoots fire at enemy ships with a short range of 1. The initial connection deals a small amount of damage to the enemy ship's Integrity and Crew, but both will continue to receive damage for the next 3 rounds from the Ablaze status. Attacking a ship which is already Ablaze deals the initial damage and renews the duration of the effect. Melee ships (Boarding Vessels and Naval Rams) which are Ablaze will set any targeted ships Ablaze for 3 rounds as well, so use this ability carefully.
• Petard Ship: Early Modern Era ship with a melee attack which, if it connects, completely destroys the ship and any Crew on it and deals massive damage to the Integrity and Crew of all adjacent ships, including friendly ones. Deals damage to adjacent Fortifications.

When a ship is destroyed, in its position on the world map a deposit of Flotsam spawns. This would visually be a bunch of boards, barrels, and refuse from the ship. If ransacked, a hefty sum of money can be gained as Booty. If there is available crew space on the ransacking army, Survivors can be found yielding additional Crew. If Flotsam is not claimed in a number of turns, it disappears.

Naval Transports

Naval transports are basically the same as currently, except that they are Boarding Vessel class ships instead of ranged ones. Crew can man these ships, but they can also be manned by regular land units. They have a very low Manpower requirement, so any unit of its Era can use it to its full effect. Naval transports are not automatically created when a land unit tries to embark on a coastal tile; they must be explicitly created. A single naval transport can hold an entire army.

Fishing ships

Another new line of units could be Fishing Ships. These are weak, slow ships incapable of dealing damage or retaliation with a very low Manpower value. Unlocked by the Fishing technology in the Ancient Era, their utility is to collect Fishing Spot spawns in coastal waters. Fishing Spots behave like a camp and must be "ransacked" over a few turns to provide a yield. Fishing ships are not able to ransack normally however, and this action is replaced with the "Fish" action that can only be used on Fishing Spots.

Fishing Ships are essentially Nomad units. On successfully collecting a Fishing Spot, a Fishing Ship will gain a small, medium, or large amount of Food proportional to the current Era. On reaching the growth limit, the Fishing Ship gains an additional Crew if army space allows. Having more Manpower will make the Fishing action faster, and excess Crew can be disbanded in friendly territory to provide population. Fishing therefore is an important part of the economy of coastal cities, and can even be used to generate Crew to supply distant naval endeavors.

There ought to be some upgraded Fishing Ships in the unit line, but I'm not sure of what they would be called. If nothing else, they can upgrade visually in the Medieval and Industrial eras. With the Propeller technology, deep sea fishing becomes a possibility and Fishing Spots will spawn in Ocean territory. Fishing Ships, or whatever their Industrial version would be, could remain in Ocean waters without sinking at this point.

Fishing rights could also be a new source of diplomacy and conflict. Fishing in other Empire's territories is a possibility if they do not protect their shores, and is a sneaky way to abuse Open Borders. Fishing in another Empire's culturally controlled territory will generate a grievance for that Empire and a demand for money reparations. Perhaps Ocean territories could be culturally controlled somehow, either with something like an Outpost or through passive assimilation, so that deep sea fishing spots can be controlled. This could recreate conflicts in fishing rights not unlike what is seen between PRC and the Philippines today.

Other possibilities

This is the extent of the core of this rework, but many more possibilities are opened up by this system. Some cultures now have emblematic Naval Transports, but what about emblematic Crew? Weather effects like in EL could add a whole other layer to naval combat. Changes to the mechanics of naval trade could make playing with these systems even more compelling.

Diplomacy with Pirates like in ES2 to strengthen them and call in coastal raids could make them terrors of the high seas. Unique Narrative Events with Pirates referencing the Sea Peoples of the Bronze Age, or the Medieval Barbary Corsairs, or even some Pirates of the Carribean shenanigans in the Early Modern period are a possibility. Or even gaining unique named ships with special abilities through competitive events - you could be the proud owner of the Mayflower, the Santa Maria, the Gloire, or even the Titanic if the current NE is adapted to it. Maybe repairing a highly damaged ship in the Classical Era could net the Ship of Theseus?

Speaking of the Titanic, Cruise Ships are a possibility in the Industrial Era. Maybe playing into a Civ V-esque Tourism system, or gaining huge yields of Influence and Money by visiting certain territories, natural and artificial wonders, or the like. Or scientific submarines like the Nautilus with the advent of marine biology could explore a new world of curiosities in the depths and advance research. If ships drop Flotsam that dissipates, perhaps they could drop Derelict which does not - waiting the entirety of the game to be claimed by the first deep sea explorers.

Anyways, that's all I can think of for now. Hopefully some of these ideas can inspire even better ones in the eventual case of an expansion of naval gameplay.

Hey Shasho,
Super thanks for the thread, a lot of nice ideas. Some of them are more feasible than others but in general I agree in some of the ideas.

very good idea

Daarkarrow wrote:

Hey Shasho,
Super thanks for the thread, a lot of nice ideas. Some of them are more feasible than others but in general I agree in some of the ideas.

Very glad to hear it. If your team can be bothered, I would be interested to hear any particulars of what seems in or out of scope from a technical or design standpoint.

xuzheqi wrote:

very good idea

Thanks!

This is an amazing thread and compliments some ideas I have when it comes to overhauling the navy, the military in general, and much of the game for a much more rich, grounded Human(kind) experience.

Wald

Interesting read, with some nice suggestions.

I do like the "Integrity", "Pirates" and reworked "Ship classes" suggestions, though I'm less convinced by the "Crew", "Naval Transport" and "Fishing ships" proposals, as I feel this would lead to a lot of micromanagement which wouldn't bring much to the game, in my opinion.

shasho wrote:
Weather effects like in EL could add a whole other layer 

This would be, for me, almost a given as a Naval gameplay rework, since Amplitude has the skills and knowledge to do so.

I've made such suggestion a few years ago, I'd really like they expand on the idea in Humankind. One of your idea could really fit well with this mechanic : flotsam.

In fact, simply reworking sea/ocean curiosities to look like flotsams, wracks or wrecks, would much better fit, graphically speaking, on the map.

Having more varieties of features on sea/ocean tiles, including moving ones across seas/oceans, is something I'm really interested in :

- Stormy, rough, strong swell tiles : incurring a movement penalty (e.g : -2 movement points) and/or an integrity penalty (based on your idea)

- Trade winds : increasing movement points (e.g : +2 MP)

- Dead calm/No wind tiles : incurring a movement penalty (e.g : -2 movement points)  

- Iceberg : a drifting piece of ice, unpassable. Ships would have to sail around it -- Unless you'd like to roleplay the Titanic ;)

- Strong currents : incurring a movement penalty (e.g : -1MP)

Hopefully, Maritime Gameplay rework will bring some cool and interesting gameplay mechanics !

Walderschmidt wrote:

This is an amazing thread and compliments some ideas I have when it comes to overhauling the navy, the military in general, and much of the game for a much more rich, grounded Human(kind) experience.

Wald

Much thanks. You're very welcome to post supplementary ideas in this thread, unless you would prefer to make your own.

Waykot wrote:

Interesting read, with some nice suggestions.

I do like the "Integrity", "Pirates" and reworked "Ship classes" suggestions, though I'm less convinced by the "Crew", "Naval Transport" and "Fishing ships" proposals, as I feel this would lead to a lot of micromanagement which wouldn't bring much to the game, in my opinion.

Thank you, I appreciate the critique! I agree that these proposals do create some problems, and I can try to resolve some of them. As for others, I think it's a question of whether or not the benefits of the system as a whole will outweigh some of the possible detriments.

As for Fishing Ships; frankly, I could do with or without them as they aren't a core part of the rework idea. I came up with them (or rather aped the success of the Age of Empires games) mainly as a way to justify players engaging with the naval system at all. Currently the game lacks an economic, rather than purely military, reason to establish a naval presence (other than curiosities of course, but they really aren't that fun on their own). Having some economic ships on the water, coupled with the threat of other players or Pirates, I think is a great way to encourage that initial investment into military ships that will lead to the actual fun of naval battles. Plus they fit pretty well with the Crew idea. However, if other gameplay systems such as Pirates, treasure hunting (salvage, curiosities etc.), trade or anything else can provide this justification, then this mechanic would certainly not have to exist.

That being said, I had an idea to address the micromanagement problem that I forgot to put in the OP - having an "Auto Fish" button. Would work like Auto Explore, except maybe restricted to friendly territory so your boats don't go into contested territory to fish. It could either automatically disable and give the "Unit needs Orders" mandatory once the army is full of Crew, or automatically disband the penultimate Crew slot once filled to avoid wasting food. A little awkward either way, but it would significantly cut down on the annoyance. I would love to hear any alternative implementations of Fishing Ships because I can't think of a better system.

As for Crew, I agree that there are a number of headaches with the idea that I can't seem to work around - even coming up with the idea as is required a lot of compromise and working out edge case scenarios. However, I see them as a necessary component of the Ship Integrity system. I can't find a way around the difficulty of Crew while still keeping the fun stuff implicated in treating a ship like an object of its own, allowing for boarding and stealing ships, distinguishing between attacks like arrows and cannons, and giving Curiosities a unique place to spawn when ships are destroyed.

As for Naval Transports, I assume you mean having to micromanage building them and not being able to embark freely. Yeah, this is another problem I just can't see a simple alternative to. Embarking freely just doesn't fit into the Integrity system - it would mean having to frequently spawn and despawn ships where armies embark/disembark, and would allow for cheesy strats like disembarking and re-embarking to repair Integrity. Personally I could live with having to be very intentional about naval transport, but I understand if there are players that couldn't.

I did have an idea to partially address this, though it would be a whole new game system of its own and would be another pain to implement on top of the existing pain. But, perhaps armies can store up Siege Works outside of battle by chopping forests outside of friendly territory, which can be used to spawn pre-modern Siege Units outside of sieges (or count towards Siege Works in a siege), or spawn Naval Transports in or out of battle. This would be nice as there's currently no way to siege down Garrisons outside of a siege before getting mortars.

Waykot wrote:

This would be, for me, almost a given as a Naval gameplay rework, since Amplitude has the skills and knowledge to do so.

I've made such suggestion a few years ago, I'd really like they expand on the idea in Humankind. One of your idea could really fit well with this mechanic : flotsam.

In fact, simply reworking sea/ocean curiosities to look like flotsams, wracks or wrecks, would much better fit, graphically speaking, on the map.

Having more varieties of features on sea/ocean tiles, including moving ones across seas/oceans, is something I'm really interested in :

- Stormy, rough, strong swell tiles : incurring a movement penalty (e.g : -2 movement points) and/or an integrity penalty (based on your idea)

- Trade winds : increasing movement points (e.g : +2 MP)

- Dead calm/No wind tiles : incurring a movement penalty (e.g : -2 movement points)  

- Iceberg : a drifting piece of ice, unpassable. Ships would have to sail around it -- Unless you'd like to roleplay the Titanic ;)

- Strong currents : incurring a movement penalty (e.g : -1MP)

Hopefully, Maritime Gameplay rework will bring some cool and interesting gameplay mechanics !

Yeah, I really didn't spend time thinking about weather since I figured it would be a given. I don't have any new or better ideas about weather effects than what was already in EL. I really like the Iceberg idea though, as even EL didn't have impassable ocean tiles! Another thing I didn't consider is that weather could really distinguish the different eras. In the Ancient/Classical it wouldn't matter too much since I assume coastal tiles wouldn't get weather as was the case in EL, plus I don't know how much winds effect oar boats. Once you're playing with sailboats the weather would matter a lot, and then once you have propeller ships I assume terrain movement bonuses/maluses could be ignored.

benblond wrote:

Hey there! 

I would like again to thank you all for all those great ideas! As we are currently working on what we would like to do for the maritime rework, I think it's really helpfull both to inspire us and to have a better idea of what you guys would expect!

Thanks again, and have an amazing week!

Ben

Thank you for listening to the community! I hope it's not as generally demoralizing as I would imagine.

sapsling wrote:

Personally I am not looking for Maritime Gameplay to become its own paradigm as the OP proposes with unique gameplay, but moreso to have the navy become relevant. Right now naval gameplay is really undecisive. I would love to see it tie in with trade, and have a market share system like in EU4 with trade lanes that have to be protected by a navy to increase market share.

I would love for naval gameplay to become a well integrated part of a succesful empire, especially the maritime "merchant" ones. I understand this is a lot more work and possible only in a true expansion.

So as for the improvements now, I am hoping for more interesting and rewarding exploration, possibly through weather effects, "pirates", and a more impactful role for the navy in city sieges. I would also love for a navy ship class to be able to pick up coastal curiosities. This would be a privateer like ship.   

That is a fair assessment. Naval gameplay isn't broken or anything at the moment, it just feels like it doesn't exist until the EM era, and it doesn't matter how fun a mechanic is if there's no reason to use it. At the end of the day, none of the business about Crew or Integrity is necessary as long as naval gameplay is fun and interesting in its own right, and there is some compelling force to get players to engage with it.

I agree that trade alone, or coupled with Pirates and the threat of other players on the sea, could be enough of a reason to get players on the sea. I think that an expansion comprising updated naval gameplay plus updated trade would be perfect in theme. I will probably make a thread on ideas for trade in the future but I don't have a complete enough picture of how that would work yet.

Narcisse wrote:
By the nature of 4X and for the sake of diversity, I don't think than weather/turbulent tiles and new passives on ships are enough to make them interesting, so they need totally new features as u suggested.

By the nature of 4X : I mean than diverse water tiles are not enough, and would try too much to emulate land battles but on water battles, which would be redundant
And would never reach its degree of complexity (because no constructions, garrisons, walls, cliffs, height, mountains, etc). And than the number of water units in 4X are always way less numerous than lands units, another factor to consider

SO naval gameplay need to find its complexity elsewhere.
Endless Legends solved that in a way which don't fit Humankind IMO, u could custom the weaponry they were carrying in different slot

What I personally hope ? than ships being less numerous than land units, they have more abilities / types of attack (a bireme and a quadrireme ? they can ram, boarding, throw arrow) and maybe formations of ships shouuld matter (management of retaliation lines in EM ? some "overwatch" ability like in tactical games ala xcom).
Basically lands battles would be tiles based, when ships battle would be skill/abilitty based.
So even if u only have ONE ship in an era (like cog in medieval) u have 3 possibilities or speciliazations on it.

Personally I really liked the weather system in EL, to the point that the terrain of naval battles was almost just as interesting as on land. Of course you will never have the complexity of height variations, rivers, districts etc. on water, but there was enough there to make it compelling, and importantly, distinct from land. I like how the features spanned huge swathes of tiles, which gave a clear picture of which direction of the battle was strong/weak to play on, almost like elevation. I also like how the weather moved, adding an element of time to the landscape: you could wait for bad weather to blow over, or move with the fog/winds, etc.

That's actually one of the things I find so exciting about the Integrity idea: if ships are treated more like a "district" with fortification than a unit, they almost act like a kind of terrain on the water. A naval siege would be that much scarier since it's basically like rolling a Garrison up to the city from the sea. And naval transports, rather than being pitifully weak and easily downed by Archers, would become moving strongholds that units can deploy from or retreat to amphibiously. All of this, of course, assuming that the other player has not prepared accordingly with heavy weapons or ships of their own. I think that alone would make for a very attractive prospect to build navy.

The abilities idea is awesome, but would require a complete rework to how combat works in general, and if they were to go that far then I would want the same treatment for land as well. Having abilities or battle configurations on land units to build emplacements or field hospitals, pontoons, dig trenches, use grenades/AT weapons, would be incredible. Maybe it could happen, but that would be like a whole expansion on its own and wouldn't solve the problems with navy specifically.

Unit equipment in EL was a huge pain to manage but it would have been perfect for something like this where you want to distinguish ship "type" (like a Cog) from the kind of battle it's equipped for (arrows, boarding, etc.) As it is, I can't easily think of how new different ships types would be named and distinguished from current ones. For example, I can't seem to find a specific name or type of ship that would have been used as an archer emplacement vs. a boarding vessel. I'm not too sharp on history so it's not immediately apparent to me.

Narcisse wrote:
I like ur reworked ship classes, apart ... fire ships.
The game want to be historically accurate, and the fire ship is famous in history of battles for being a ship full of combustibles, than u send to burn/explode on the enemy armada.
Age of Empires II create this confusion of calling Dromon = Firethrower Galley, a fire ship.
And the Dromon should absolutly not being a generic unit, too emblematic and rare in History, and highly related to byzantines (even if chinese or timur used firethrowers in other instance for exemple, on ships it's stay emblematic of byzantine).

I would be happy with the Dromon being a EU for the Byzantines, as I think the Varangian Guard are pretty boring atm, but it's hard to see a whole unit getting scrapped for that purpose. As a counterpoint, you can also build Chariots as the Olmecs despite them having had neither the wheel nor horses. If the Chinese could have possibly employed the same technology around the same time, I think it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to fit it into the weird alt-history world of Humankind, as long as it would be fun.

The wiki page on Greek Fire mentions earlier uses of incendiaries in naval warfare, even by the Assyrians, so another possibility is that "Fire Ship" could be a generic unit class available even earlier in the Ancient or early Classical era, and would employ flaming arrows or fire pots for most civs, while the Byzantines could just have a unique visual effect with Greek Fire.

The other type of "Fire Ship" you mentioned is basically what I was going for with the "Petard Ship" - I just made up the name because I wasn't really sure what they were called, but these are basically whatever was used in the Siege of Antwerp. It seems like these were also called "Fire Ships", or "Hellburners", but then I wouldn't know what to call the other type of fire ship. Incendiary ship? I'm really not sure.

Narcisse wrote:
Pirates definitely need to be highlight ! Endless Space II made a good job with them, could be a unique sort of IP with new/different options

100%, ES2 nailed pirates.

I ran into this Twitter thread a couple days ago that I thought would very interesting to share. Obv not the greatest place to source historical info, but nothing about it in particular comes across as unconvincing or biased. If anything, it has convinced me even further of the importance of boarding ships and archer ships in the Medieval era. I didn't realize that entire castles were built onto ships as archer emplacements, to the extent that "forecastle" and "aftcastle" are nautical terms still used today. It also mentions that bombards were occasionally used on late Medieval ships, albeit to questionable effect. The Medieval era really seems like the time when creativity and options for naval combat should peak!

This wiki page also claims that ballistae or catapults were placed on warships as early as the Hellenistic period under Alexander the Great, which would provide another great option for Classical era naval combat and the first potential for naval sieges. With that, I'd like to add a couple more ship class ideas:

Siege Platform: Basically an early version of the Gun Platform in the Classical/Medieval era. Can damage Fortifications/Integrity with a range of 2. (For balance reasons, if necessary: Cannot move and fire on the same turn.)

Ballistic Submarine: I've seen this in other threads more or less so it's probably already on the radar. Acts as a Missile Silo.

Naval Mines: Unlocked with either Radar or Naval Air strategy in the Contemporary Era, whichever makes more sense. Can be built in controlled water a bit like planting a forest. Will detonate on any ship entering the tile in or out of combat, friendly or hostile. Stealth. Cannot be targeted by normal ships.

Minesweeper: Unlocked with Radar in the Contemporary Era. Has a Detection Range of 2. Can target and destroy Naval Mines.

shasho wrote:
I assume you mean having to micromanage building them

Indeed, personally, I'm not a fan of that much micromanagement. Having to build these units (Crew, Fishing ships, Naval Transport) would hamper the construction queue even more, which is already quite busy by the time those features would be available to use/build. That's just my personal opinion of course, but I like how Humankind mainly uses a combination of districts and tiers/levels of infrastructures to deal with the unit micromanagement aspect you can find in other similar games (namely, Civ 6 for instance).

shasho wrote:
Another thing I didn't consider is that weather could really distinguish the different eras. In the Ancient/Classical it wouldn't matter too much since I assume coastal tiles wouldn't get weather as was the case in EL, plus I don't know how much winds effect oar boats. Once you're playing with sailboats the weather would matter a lot, and then once you have propeller ships I assume terrain movement bonuses/maluses could be ignored.

Exactly, adding more sea/ocean features would allow such gameplay variations between eras.

In real life, and to keep it simple, you can basically split ships into 3 main categories : 

- Oar boats/rowboats (human propelled)

- Sailing ships (wind propelled)

- Engine propelled boats/ships

All 3 categories are penalized by swell/current when going against it (or benefitting from it when going with it). On the other hand, sailing ships are both penalized/benefitting from swell/current and wind directions.

So you can sail with the wind, but against swell/current, sail with the wind and with swell/current, sail against the wind and against swell/current (good luck !), or sail against the wind but with swell/current.

Mechanically speaking in game, it doesn't have to be that detailled of course, but having a few more sea/ocean tiles modifiers emulating those weather conditions should work well.

Those would additionally play a role in battle as well, as it is already the case now (Reefs, Turbulent Waters costing Combat Strength points, as seen here : https://humankind.fandom.com/wiki/Terrain).

sapsling wrote:
I would love to see it tie in with trade, and have a market share system like in EU4 with trade lanes that have to be protected by a navy to increase market share.

shasho wrote:
I agree that trade alone, or coupled with Pirates and the threat of other players on the sea, could be enough of a reason to get players on the sea. I think that an expansion comprising updated naval gameplay plus updated trade would be perfect in theme.

I also agree that naval units should play a bigger role with the trading mechanic. Currently, they can only protect or pillage/ransack maritime trading infrastructures (harbours, trading ports and trading posts in neutral territory).I think there's one layer in between that would make a good use of navy : blocking trade ports/harbours, by stationing around those infrastructures. This would incentivize players to build navy to protect and defend their infrastructures and trade routes.

This could also potentially play well with the upcoming expansion on Diplomacy, with the Leverage resource : blocking an opponent's trade route could pressurize the opponent to cancel Demands for instance. This would then allows more granularity in diplomatic pressure against your opponent.

I think that there should be a bigger kind of stimulus or incentive to having a navy in general. Having ships now has not a real benefit besides being able to take part in maritime battles and sieges. Also, at the moment  there is no possibility to claim maritime territories (that consist only of water tiles). So a perpetual presence of ships in a maritime territory could mark a temporary claim (a virtual outpost) which could e.g. count towards the number of controlled territories, increase your influence and so on. Same thing with naval trade routes wich could show pins on the map (like virtual trading posts) that could be pillaged if not protected. So a strong navy could be essential to protect a great naval trade empire.

SaiH wrote:

I think that there should be a bigger kind of stimulus or incentive to having a navy in general. 

Especially in the early game where its almost completely useless having one. Having a navy for defending or attacking trade routes should be more useful