Sea Battles :: Ridiculous, but easily fixed

[Sigmaritus Pucius]

Sea battles are absolutely ridiculous, and doesn't work at all ; generic boats repeatedly ramming other generic boats, positioning themselves in random direction, etc... It doesn't make sense at all.

I think the smartest solution to this nonsense would be to play sea battles on a "land" map, as TWW do ; an island map, not breaking immersion too much, and definitely making units more readable.

Another, would be to have a "two boats" map, which kinda board each other (ladders ? ramps ?). Keeping the "at sea" aspect, but rendering units as they should be.

What do you guys think about these options ?
If not featured in the main game, it could be modded with not too much effort.

[Overlord Byron]

I haven't researched the game terribly, but aren't there dedicated sea units? Like mermaids, kraken, etc?

[glythe]

Originally posted by Overlord Byron:

I haven't researched the game terribly, but aren't there dedicated sea units? Like mermaids, kraken, etc?

The third game had naval combat... not that anyone really used the boats lol.

The water spec that let you have Kraken was OP for naval combat.

[Sigmaritus Pucius]

Originally posted by Overlord Byron:

I haven't researched the game terribly, but aren't there dedicated sea units? Like mermaids, kraken, etc?

Hey.
Yeah there are, and I've never built any for now.
But it can be somehow interesting, in some cases, to build a fleet of those ; especially because embarked units have a -10% damage debuff.
But this kinda strategy would only be beneficial for islands heavy maps i guess.

And this doesn't tackle the animation and assets problems

[PeaceMaker]

Originally posted by Sigmaritus Pucius:

Sea battles are absolutely ridiculous, and doesn't work at all ; generic boats repeatedly ramming other generic boats, positioning themselves in random direction, etc... It doesn't make sense at all.

I think the smartest solution to this nonsense would be to play sea battles on a "land" map, as TWW do ; an island map, not breaking immersion too much, and definitely making units more readable.

Another, would be to have a "two boats" map, which kinda board each other (ladders ? ramps ?). Keeping the "at sea" aspect, but rendering units as they should be.

What do you guys think about these options ?
If not featured in the main game, it could be modded with not too much effort.

I haven't had a ship battle yet, but it sounds bad.

I think the boat map with ramps that drop and land forces attacking eachother would be good. That's actually very similar to how the Romans fought their ship battles. They would get alongside enemy ships, hook it, then drop platforms and board and fight the enemy that way.

[Drake]

The kraken is definitely ingame. The greater beast summon will spawn a kraken when cast on a water section.

[aclyte]

Actually, you even d't have to create anything new - AoW3 (after DLC) and Planetfall (right at start) have very good naval combats. I think devs will include same deep in naval combat in DLC's

[Terminal]

AoW 3 had ocean-exclusively Dwellings/Cities and a diversity of water units to help flesh out water combat. On their own, AoW 3 boat units were also uniquely terrible - you had generic 'ram' ships which were just as terrible as the ones we have now in 4, and then you had ballista ships, but all in all the boats were bad design-wise. They had a ton of advantages in a fight - no embarkation penalties, faster movement, longer range on their attacks, etcetera - but they were very stuff to use. Thankfully you could flesh that all out with fliers, floaters, water units, etcetera. Naval combat wasn't amazing but it wasn't terrible.

Naval combat in 4 is terrible.

[RogerMurdock]

I don't know why they stick to this weird naval sea mechanic where non-floating, non-swimming units are displayed as a 'boat' and others don't. This totally breaks the immersion.

Actually, I do know - or assume. They want to provide the same gameplay depth for naval combat as for land combat. But it already felt off in AoW3.

Please, we need a naval combat overhaul!! I would as well love to see the same approach here as HoMM does. Two boats - two huge boats maybe - attached to each other.

Maybe, all land units with 'slow'/'wet' penalty and only TWO armies could fight each other simultaneously. Naval combats should be extremly dangerous and fast.

[Isseus]

Originally posted by Sigmaritus Pucius:

Sea battles are absolutely ridiculous, and doesn't work at all ; generic boats repeatedly ramming other generic boats, positioning themselves in random direction, etc... It doesn't make sense at all.

I think the smartest solution to this nonsense would be to play sea battles on a "land" map, as TWW do ; an island map, not breaking immersion too much, and definitely making units more readable.

Another, would be to have a "two boats" map, which kinda board each other (ladders ? ramps ?). Keeping the "at sea" aspect, but rendering units as they should be.

What do you guys think about these options ?
If not featured in the main game, it could be modded with not too much effort.

There used to be buildable ships after launch, but those were removed when they reworked the coastal tiles. Back then normal units couldn't even fight in battlest, being replaced with transport ships that were made out of paper. Now all non-flying non-amphibious units turn into boats and use the stats and attack animations of the units, which is silly to say the least and makes it difficult to tell which unit is which from only the tiny portrait and unit types shown. They should go with the Planetfall option of standing on rafts or actually put some effort into the sea battles and make each army a larger ship (like they are on the map).

[TirAsleen]

I'll take the 2 boat solution when boarding ships, this works best in tactical combat, seen this in Symphony of War, too.

I have the feeling for a good tactical combat at sea, the entire game needs to be just focused on that.

[Alexander]

Sea battles are just half-baked. Devs created special maps for them, assets, water units, like krakens and and ghost ships, but regular land units indeed look bad, and it is only a half of the problem. Water battles disable a lot of abilities (like summoning or resurrection), which is no fun at all.

It is not that easy as OP describes. Water units, for instance, do not fit into this proposal. But, then, perhaps, it would be indeed better to just scrap the existing sea battles and just make them from scratch. Since they are already implemented to be similar to land battles, then let's just drop the pretense. At least it would re-enable all the spells and abilities.

[RogerMurdock]

Originally posted by Alexander:

Sea battles are just half-baked. Devs created special maps for them, assets, water units, like krakens and and ghost ships, but regular land units indeed look bad, and it is only a half of the problem. Water battles disable a lot of abilities (like summoning or resurrection), which is no fun at all.

It is not that easy as OP describes. Water units, for instance, do not fit into this proposal. But, then, perhaps, it would be indeed better to just scrap the existing sea battles and just make them from scratch. Since they are already implemented to be similar to land battles, then let's just drop the pretense. At least it would re-enable all the spells and abilities.

Correct!
Everything which is not adding value to the gameplay should be scratched. Dealing with special water units wasn't fun in AoW3 as well in AoW:Planetfall. It felt totally disconnected from the usual army management.
In Planetfall I was switching to spamming water units and clearing everything on water via auto battle. Yay.

[Midas]

Considering the limited art team, and all the water-exclusive units in the game, I don't think a solution that hinges on both throwing away a bunch of existing units, and creating entirely new maps is a realistic solution at all, never mind any kind of 'easy fix'.

I think they should just have units transform into a generic 'ship' version of each role when embarked. Like melee units become a 'boarding ship' that fights in close quarters, ranged units become a more conventional ballista ship, and spellcasters become some kind of magic artillery ship or something. They get scaled up or down depending on tier, and look visually distinct enough to be obvious which is which from a glance.

Originally posted by RogerMurdock:

Dealing with special water units wasn't fun in AoW3 as well in AoW:Planetfall. It felt totally disconnected from the usual army management.
In Planetfall I was switching to spamming water units and clearing everything on water via auto battle. Yay.

Planetfall was way better than AoW3 was because you had a lot broader a variety of units to work with. Each faction had 1-2 unique naval units, every faction had an air unit that was great on land or sea, and several factions had things like hover tanks which could be used on land and sea as well. Several factions like Shakarn, Oathbound, and Syndicate could comfortably make fully-amphibious armies (shakarn most of all, obviously), and many of the secret techs were amphibious as well.

[RogerMurdock]

Originally posted by Midas:

Planetfall was way better than AoW3 was because you had a lot broader a variety of units to work with. Each faction had 1-2 unique naval units, every faction had an air unit that was great on land or sea, and several factions had things like hover tanks which could be used on land and sea as well. Several factions like Shakarn, Oathbound, and Syndicate could comfortably make fully-amphibious armies (shakarn most of all, obviously), and many of the secret techs were amphibious as well.

I totally agree in every point you are mentioning. Planetfall has a far broader variety and they took alot of effort into extending the naval battles.

But still, it is the same mechanic as in AoW3 and it has the same problems. And AoW4 inherits these. Which are for me:
- the naval battels feel less tactical
- the scale of the units feels totally off > https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3173515283 (to mention here: Yes, Shakarn units are amphibious but they are basically just standing on water during naval battles)
- and the unique naval units are basically idle when you are not exploring the sea or fighting naval battles (which is of course realistic)

I can relate why they did what they did. And for sure, not everyone will see those things as a problem. I mean, it's not broken, it works. But for me naval battles are just not fun to play.

Of course they wouldn't change the system now after release. And maybe even during development they tryed something different here and in the end they decided to stick to the the 'old' system because the effort wasn't worth it.

[Ragnar]

Yeah, need to bump this up in 2024. Naval tree in Planetfall was great and sea units was kicking hell out of land units (as it should be on water). They need to develop similar "tech tree" in AOW4 especially now, when we have usefull sea provinces.

And then we need unique neutral factions like it was in 3 and Planetfall and... That's all, the game would be perfect. I will pre-order all the future DLCs if this happen.

Planetfall has it all and that's why is still one of the best TBS i've ever played. AoW4 is great but needs to be complete.