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marek1978
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Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:31 pm
Location: Warsaw, Poland

Naval Warfare

Mon Apr 19, 2021 12:17 am

I wanted to share few points about how is nawal war portiated in ageod games.

When it comes to land warfare – this system is great in representing early modern conflicts. Supply, movement, terrain. All that stuff is done in a great way. Yet naval operations are not always that great. What was a really good solution in BOA is not anymore when copy-pasted to WOS or WON.



It struck my after i won PBEM game of Spanish Succesion War in WOS. I managed to land Marblorough army in Roen and move to Paris in a fast move. In previous game – my Bourbon opponent managed to land 20 k in London by sailing up the Thames. I captured Sevilla with 20 K British soldiers.

And such moves are nonsense. What was working in BOA – like embarking couple of hundreds of foot soldiers on Batoux in Montreal and landing them fast somewhere in lakes should not work with great armiers with horses and artilery.

Process of putting huge armies on ships was long and painfull. It required big ports and took time. In current WON or WOS settings a player can put 20 k men on ships in some obsure Channal port and move them to City of London, Paris doors, or Amserdam in 5 days. It was basicly not possible. And it drives naval Warfaere in to Hide and Seek game instead of struggle for domination.



Loading people, horses, artillery on ships was long proces. It was even harder to land them on the ground. I think that very idea of sailing ships of line up the rivers is ahistorical. The same goes with galleons ( cause now, swedish galleons can get to warsaw in 10 days, passing Gdansk and Thorn unopposed. Moreover, Spanish galleons can saill up to vienna in 40 days....



I believe that there are some things that could make games more historical.



Artilery, horses, supply wagons should be landed only in friendly port. As they needed facilities to be taken out of ship. Maybe one special feature of marine infratry could be that each marine infratry can “help” to land one artilery/suppy/cavalery unit. It would make easier to land bigger force and it would make marines even more valueble.

Mostly infratry landing on enemy shore –would be more realistic .

To make succesfeul invasion it would be necesarry to land and then get port and then to sail other units needed to conquer the country. There would not be a situating when magically 20 thousned man with horses and artillery are on land in the heart of big city to storm it right on.

And tt would represent the reall strugle to get control of part of the sea for some times.

Moreover – i think that time needed to embark troops on ships should be longer. Right now – they are magicly on shipes in 0 days. In reality it was taking some time.

Such a mecanism is nicely represetend in GG War in The West . There are “preparation points “ that are need to launch invasions. And in takes few turns before they are gathers.



I belive that in ageod games it should be easier and faster to embark a lot of troops on ships in big ports. So it would not be possible to just put 20 k men on ships in 0 days in some obscure port. And it would make importat ports even more importat – as there were.

I think as well that perhaps it should not be possible to do embarking, sailing and landing in one turn. \i think that at least one of those actions should be separated.

It would be possible to move troops from port to port fast. Then there would be a real benefit in getting port on enemy soil cause it would be the only way to secure invasions spring board.



Perhaps limitations on embarking should be applied only to big forces – for example over 5000 soldiers. So it would be still possible to make fast landing on some remoted areas to harass enemy. Or to get foot hold in Ireland, Scotland or Brettany. Cause there would be areas heavily defended and such that would be easier to access. And it would push side defending from invasion to keep strong garrisons on shores in important places. Just as it was in history.





Other big thing outside of the landing /invasion thing is the real nature of the early modern naval struglle. More important than landing was securing supply lines, sea trade routes and to defend merchants.

Right now there are trade zones that are plying minor role. I think income from them should be bigger to make them wort fighting and simmliary like in WWI EAW there should be some benefit in keeping extra war ships in thoses zones. Or, maybe a player should get bonus from gaining naval domination in some area. So it would be beneficial for British to send fleet to Baltics and Mediterranean. And would push sides to fight for ports in areas so they could supply fleets operating there. It would make distant bases more important and fighting for them would be a struggle. And it would make sense to divided fleets and struggle to have strong presence in many places.

Perhaps such deciding who is dominating in some sea zone ( like baltics) would depend on how long and how many, and how big ships were present in that area? And side that managed to keep its presence in some area would be benefited with extra money and the end of the year.

It would push player to make real life choices – like whether to keep more ships close to home to defend against invasion treat or send them them to Mediterranean or Carabeean to secure trade. ( as it really happened during Wars of Napoleon)



Sorry for long post, just some ideas. If you ever gonna make new early moder warfare game, maybe they could be usefull.


cheers

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