Eh, I dunno, maybe because I wasn't far enough into tech tree, but naval gameplay felt blend, especially compared to Enldess Legend: Tempest.

Also, "retreat" is stupidly OP on water. You literally can't attack anyone or ever be attacked by endlessly retreating.

•  We were supposed to have more chances to test naval combat in Victor, but frankly there wasn’t much of a point, or any opportunities  whenever I did build naval units. The AI certainly didn’t build many fleets. There are some changes to naval units that I think could be made to incentivize their play and make them more interesting, but one of the big ones are that I think we need more naval units per era prior to the early modern, like even a light and heavy cruiser type would add more options. We could have Pentekonters (light) and Triremes (heavy) in the Ancient, then Lembos (light) and Quadriremes (heavy) in the Classical Era, and so on for the Medieval. It might be a slightly arbitrary distinction, historically speaking, but light vessels could be faster, weaker and have ranged attacks, while the larger vessels would be slower,  stronger, and be boarding vessels that engage in close-combat like         melee units on land. There just isn’t a lot of depth to the unit types currently. The short ranges of ranged naval units also feels quite arbitrary right now, as I’m not sure why bows on land have a range of 3 but at sea have a range of 1. Naval units should be able to fire at units on the coast, even during the Ancient Era.

• Another problem with naval units right now is that they are slow and have no ability to interact with the land. I hate using naval units, especially transports, without getting the Lighthouse of Alexandria (it’s the only Wonder I get every time). It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that ships, especially transports are so slow. If the purpose is to make it more difficult to cross high seas during early eras, perhaps coastal ships and navigators could just treat open sea as rough terrain? It would also be great if naval units could establish outposts on the coast or have some other use even when there is nobody else to fight on the open seas.

Here's my shortnened opinion about navy:
I posted my full opinion here if you're interested

MAP

First of all, I found the map to be a strange pick for naval focus.
You can exclusively use land unit to explore/conquer the main continent. And most of the seas are made out of ocean tile, making sea exploration irrelevant for 2/3 of the game.

But anyway, back to navy.

USES

The main problem for me is the fact that there is no real use of navy in the game.

Comparing them to land units, navy is stronger, have more vision and movements on sea. But they cannot create outposts, do not have any impact on land battles (or very little at best), cannot ransack much.

Moreover, the fact that number outclass quality very quickly on water makes it so you are better off by having lots of embarqued units than having navy.

The only meaningfull use of navy as such is exploration. But even then, they cannot create outposts to expand.

RANGE

One of my main suggestion about navy would be to change the range of warships and embarqued units.

For Warships it would be more relevant to give them something similar to ranged unit in the same era. And maybe even bombardement ability in industrial, or the ability to crush fortification.

As for embarqued units, they should have melee attack instead. This alone would nullify the fact that lots of embarqued can fight easily against less navy. Which is coherent regarding the fact that land units are not meant for sea battles.

EMBARQUED UNITS

UI: I find the fact that you shows the land unit instead of the vessel quite strange.

Land Bonus: This should not be relevant in water.

TERRAIN

The lack of terrain in water (appart for coastal/ocean) is sad and makes water battle this much unexiting.

I mean, you could have wind, currents, reefs and lots more!

Even some current tiles could have changes, like when navy attack a land units standing on a beach vs reefs. When navy stands on pearls/harbours/oil/etc.

OUTPOST

In my opinion, navy should be able to plant outposts.

MERGING LAND & SEA

This should provide additional movement and would alone greatly incentivise the use of navy, to grant movement boost. (From 3 movement to 4 or 5 for example)

PHOENICIANS

This culture makes no sense to me. Because they would be really strong on water, but cannot make any use of it.

They would really be nice if they could embark before others (with the Bireme?), because as they are, they cannot shine as they are meant to.

And what is the point of having a Bireme, when other cannot embark yet or have any meaningful impact with navy?

This was my current opinion about navy.

But I also saw a couple of things here that I would like to mention

Limited to 1 harbour? I must differ with some of you, I find the fact that Harbours are limited to 1 per region to be really nice.
At the moment, those quarter are very powerfull, they really are a must in your cities. And since you can only make one in each territories, it makes them that much more valuable.
Also, it makes Naval Cultures that much relevant as well, because they can use navy in more effective ways due to them having more harbours.

Build more on coast: However, I must agree for the fact that players lacks any incentive to build on coast tiles (for possible ransack uses on coasts).

This could be resolved by giving adjacency bonuses on harbours or by enabling construction next to harbours.

Quicker navy: This would be really nice indeed. It would be an incentive to have more embarqued unit on sea and would feel more natural.

I also think all suggestions of @PotatoesAreBland (here) are very interesting and worth a shot. (1. navy ranskack inland / 2. movement / 3. Vision / 4. Colonizing / 5. Embarqued units / 6. Damaged ship / 7.8. Elephants on water?)

Canal? I also like the idea to build canals to makes navy more mobile.

But in this regard, you could also makes it so that navy could use rivers?

tomatopp1 wrote:

OUTPOST

In my opinion, navy should be able to plant outposts.

Agree: This would instantly make navy extremely valauble right from the start

They would only be able to place outpost on coastal tiles so to get a better position it would need to be moved inland anyhow so its not like they would be OP by establishing them

Zolobolo wrote:

Agree: This would instantly make navy extremely valauble right from the start

They would only be able to place outpost on coastal tiles so to get a better position it would need to be moved inland anyhow so its not like they would be OP by establishing them

Yeah, and if navy could ransack coast tiles this could create interesting navy wars over who own the land

Because until the outpost are not relocated, it would be very easy to ransack it for navy

(And we would also have a real use for relocating outpost)

PotatoesAreBland wrote:

[...] I'll point out that re: terrain & weather they have implemented this in Endless Legend so I imagine there are plans. If not on release to have it.

Oh! I didn't know since it has been a while I played EL

But this is really promising and reassuring to hear. At least it means they already tried things with sea, so they have experience regarding this

It may be in a future DLC as well

Suggestion that popped in the Discord: Double base movement of all naval units (both Embarked units and Ship units) and make ocean tiles cost 2 movement points. This would make coastal movement much faster and increase the relevance of naval actions while keeping ocean exploration exactly as it is now. As a side effect, this would make naval movement increases (such as the Alexandria Lighthouse and the Norse LT) less effective in ocean tiles, while keeping them as effective in coastal areas. In victor, the Lighthouse made it too easy to reach the new world and this change would level the naval playground  

I noticed a problem with how AI used embarked units in my playthrough. I was resolving a fight with an enemy army on land. I was barely holding on against the enemy forces and it seemed like I would lose as the enemy brought several embarked units over. What surprised me was that the enemy never landed the units but patiently waited for my archers to kill the embarked units one by one.

I've been thinking about this more and more and I think unfortunately you've got more work cut out for you then just balancing some 'cs' numbers. I just finished a series of books which actually had over the course of them advancements in naval development from effectively byzantine to early modern ... including the introduction and implementation of gunpower (grenadier units) and the differences in the way ships were powered. I am on my way to bed but I strongly recommend the following wikipedia or any related reading...Because right now this whole 4 range hex - every boat is suddenly crewed by excellent archers might seem fun but uh, no. No it's bollocks. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galley_tactics 

Transport vessels should, for the most part, I think function like triremes in ship combat. The one difference is that the melee involved gets a lot harrier if it's a transport ship with infantry on it following up on a disable vessel the infantry might be quite able to slaughter the crew of the other ship if it's transporting crossbow men their effectiveness is some what more limited - but they *might *be able to organize a firing line and harry an enemy vessel. As it now these 'ships' are almost an abstraction. 

Aha! Okay. I'm sure there's been a pile of reading recommended already but for the vastness of oceans I recall now on a road trip that I listened to most of the book, Atlantic - Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories, By: Simon Winchester as an audio book Narrated by: Simon Winchester. I intend to see if I still have it and I'll give it a listen because I've been made curious again. Thank you by inviting us to participate in the open dev's you've helped to rekindle a bit more interest in internalizing history. 

Note: AI still does not constuct many naval units yet :)

From 5 playrthroughs with 10 competitors I ahve seen one AI empire boosting actual naval unit stacks and using them

Have seen a couple of other cases where the AI has had around a dozen anceint type ships in Industrial age at one of its ports but not using them for anything

Trade routes also do not show yet on the seas: no traffic

The trade pins seem to be there though now