Hey everyone!

While naval gameplay was not necessarily the focus of the Lucy OpenDev, it was the first chance for our fans to play with more than very early naval units. Many players explored the naval gameplay in detail and gave us some great feedback, so in the Lucy OpenDev we want to put a greater focus on naval gameplay and hear from you what you think of the changes.

We have:

• Increased number of turns ships with Navigator can survive in deep water
• Introduced Skilled Navigator for mid-game ships, allowing them to survive even longer in deep water
• Fixed gun platforms being unable to shoot at land units in combat
• Increased the range of Gun Platform ships
• Reduced cost of naval trade routes

Please note, we are aware of some issues related to naval gameplay:

• Naval trade routes do not show jetties or trade route pins to ransack
• Sometimes naval trade routes cannot be created for resources in multi-territory cities
• The AI may not construct many warships yet

I'd agree that it would be nice to have more interaction between land and sea units in battles for instance. Is that too ahistorical or only for later eras? Maybe I am primed by civ's ancient rocket boats? Also, I do think that it is still the case that you could have five kinghts, for instance, jumping on a boat, fighingt there at same strenghts as on land against anything else as if they were Horatio Nelson himself. Not the biggest problem for me, but certainly raises my eye-brows a bit. This circumstance makes me basically not really understand any of the ancient and classical ships in the game as they cannot explore too much and look a bit underpowered to me for naval battles. But perhaps that's just me. Anyway, I think the game is certainly fun to play and the improvements for me good. Thanks!   

I'm someone who enjoys a good naval game. And as others note, Civ is not a place to find it.

Here naval plays a bit like civ unfortunately - meaning your ships spend thousands of years at sea without having to return to harbor. There's also not much for ships to do except explore, and again, it's gonna take a long time. Since ships can't colonize, you still have to wait until land unit embarkation before you can start colonies (as Phoenicia, I was hoping I would be able to colonize with ships...). I haven't seen the AI build a single ship, nor were there barbarian ships, so I wasn't able to test combat.

In other words, it's what we're used to, so not much to complain about, but also nothing special.

Still I hope it gets developed further because I will definitely use it (Phoencia, the Dutch...)!

Same, went for Phoenicia, and there was just no reason to build a Bireme. In later eras was good and easy to ransack enemies harbour's, but it was only one or two, not many action you can do with naval armies, maybe if they could ransack coastal tiles... By the way ai didn't built ships so can't say anyithing about the naval combat.

Same for me. Having ships doesn't seem to do much, except for exploring. And even if you happen to find a nice place somewhere, you cannot claim it. So yes, ships should have a way to construct settlements on coastal land tiles, that would help somewhat.

As others, I was very much surprised when I attacked an embarked unit and it was super strong. What's the point of having ships, if land units seem to be the better naval units due to higher strength and more versatility? Land units should be way less powerful: Either add a -50% penalty or make all land units fight as "transport ships", meaning they get a fixed (and low) amount of combat strength, depending on which era they're from. Also, if land units were much weaker on the seas, there'd suddenly be an incentive to build ships to protect them.

And I also agree to the first post about harbours and coastal tiles, which feel underwhelming. I'd rather be able to build more but slightly less powerful harbour districts but in a way that they interact with each other and placement matters.Also, meaningful adjacency boni for certain districts/the city center being close to the harbour would help as well, to make it feel less detached from the rest of the city.

It was a bit difficult to understand what tech I needed to get my units to be able to cross oceans. Other than transports, I didn't bother with naval gameplay as it didn't seem too interesting. It would need more things to do to make meaningful. It would be good if territories could gain something from naval presence in their or adjacent territories, for example stability or food / trade income.

I didn't really do it :P
Mostly because I just didn't see a real reason to.

The only time I build naval units is to explore. They otherwise have very little impact on the game, unless I really need to siege a small island that is all quarters (but I generally just ignore these tbh). 

Very happy that gun platforms can be involved in combat, that was one of the critical things that needed to be fixed in order for navies to actually be useful. However, I think the other thing is that there needs to be a reason to build coastal cities. Right now, yields on land are much better than on water, and you can get all the benefits of ocean/lake yields from a harbor that is totally disconnected from your city. If navies are to be useful, imo, harbors need to have an adjacency requirement in order to be built, which also lends another tactical consideration to city placement.

Can naval units blockade trade routes/water tile yields? Idk cause I barely ever use them, but this would at least give a use case for navies in some situations, particularly against merchant cultures.

I think that's an important point, for me at least. This also goes beyond naval feedback. The regions remind me of endless legends, where yields are randomly distributed in a region. This forces you to build your city wherever it is most lucrative. In reality most settlements were build near rivers or the coast though. Rivers I think are adequatly reflected, but the coast is just unimportant given the harbour placing ability. Hence it renders most non-transport ships relativley worthless, unless your opponent has enough harbours to pillage for cash. I think the yield distribution on coasts or regions should be rather centered around bays (and rivers) instead of randomly placed throughout a region. This would make coastal cities, buildings and hence seafaring (as well as the threat from seafaring) a more serious game mechanic early on. Just a thought. 

I think it was a mistake to increase the time navigator ships could spend in deep water, I preferred when it was 4 turns since it meant more careful planning when attempting to sail into the new world. Now I think it's too easy, and doesn't offer that different of a gameplay experience than the deep sea ships an era later which is disappointing. I don't really get the same sense of worry that my ships won't make it or need to strategize island chaining as much. The only difference between the two is I can set one on auto explore and have it not die 6 turns later.

As brought up in a different thread, and echoing some of the comments above, encouraging more coastal development would be a step towards more engaging naval gameplay - the more districts and wealthy cities near a coast, the more likely we are to build up and use a navy to harass, pillage, or conquer those areas.

How then, do we encourage more coastal cities and districts? The only incentive right now is to build Market Quarters adjacent to harbours (for +3 Money), so founding a city closer to the coast might mean you'll get to connect those Market Quarters sooner, but that's about it.

I think (at the risk of repeating a particular suggestion) requiring that the harbour be built off an existing district would naturally encourage players to settle closer to the coast, especially if they're intent on placing a harbour sooner or closer to a good coastal spot. This would also improve the aesthetic of cities with their more organic-looking harbours between city districts, as opposed to the current Victor OpenDev harbours on isolated regions of the territory (or wherever gives the harbour the largest bonuses).

As discussed on the discord, here's the idea for making Harbours (and thus Naval gameplay) more interesting and varied

1) Split the Basic Harbour district into two separate districts, the Port and the Shipyard. The summary of their abilities is described below:

Generic Harbour Traits (applies to all harbours): May only be built on Coastal Water; -10 stab to city or outpost; Allow units to embark without penalties; Receives all bonuses from harbour infrastructures; Can allow districts to be built from it (like the Hamlet); Can't be built over the territory's Harbour cap (more on that later).

Port Traits Exploits food/science up to 2 tiles away; +3 money to adjacent Market Quarters.

Shipyard Traits Exploit no tiles; +2 production per adjacent coastal water tiles; +3 research to adjacent Research Quarters; Functions as a naval unit spawn. 

EQ Harbour Traits: Exploits food/science up to 2 tiles away; +3 money to adjacent Market Quarters; +3 research to adjacent Research Quarters; Functions as a naval unit spawn; Any extra traits based on the EQ (Money for Haven, Industry for Cothon, Food for Naust, etc).  

2) Create a "territory harbour cap". You start the game being able to build 1 harbour (either Port, shipyard or EQ harbour) per territory, then at Foreign Outposts (late classical) you would increase the limit by +1, and at either Naval Artillery (early E. Modern) or Seafaring Mastery (late Medieval) you would increase the limit by +1 again, making you be able to field at maximum 3 harbours (between Ports, Shipyards and EQ harbours) per territory. 

3) Allow ships (not embarked units) to ransack districts adjacent to the coast, and give the Early Modern Carrack and Man'o'War the bombardment ability (or a weaker version of it).

4) Add the following ability to Propeller (early Industrial Tech): "Canals: allow you to move ships between two different harbours in the same territory in the same way a shed moves troops", preferably with a little canal visual built between your harbours in the same territory like the railroad is built between sheds.
 

I think that the main problem with naval gameplay is the lack of goals for it. To encourage players to build and actively use ships, I would suggest the following:

1) Let ships ransack coastal tiles and give them targets for that.  I would say even range of 1 for ransack would be enough if you allowed to build districts starting from the harbor, which makes sense both for gameplay (due to the adjacency bonuses) and historically / authentically. I understand why devs removed the ability to build districts starting near extractors and holy sites, since it removed the need for hamlets and broke the pacing of the early game, but they should allow extanding from harbors. It would even reflect real history, look at Rome / Ostia and Athens / athenian harbor.

2) Make it so that ships can build outposts. Again, it makes sense from both the gameplay and the historical perspective. I think at least biremes should be able to do this. Now biremes are a unit that can only be useful for reconnaissance, but you cannot use knowledge you get from it for at least an era, making it borderline useless. It would also better represent expansionism of real Phoenicians and further differentiate them from Nubians in game.

3) Also, I would propose to make so that the purchase of resources requires money per turn, even a small amount. This will increase the need for both ransacking and guarding trade outposts, increasing the need for active fleet.

I think the last two comments summed up the issue really well: Navies lack both utility and mobility.