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Do you like the way that Paradox games handle the navy?

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VienLa

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Nov 3, 2013
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Hello. I always disliked the naval part of Paradox Great Strategies and I wondered if others felt the same. I base my judgement mostly on EU4 and Victoria 2 (although I believe that HoI3 had similar system - I just didn't get to play with it). And CK2.

To elaborate:
  1. In the games with naval combat the system usually looks like a ground combat, except simpler and less interesting than the land one. The reason being:
    • It tends to be really binary. You either have naval supremacy, and can freely transport troops, or you don't. There really isn't much of a gameplay beyond that.
    • The game forces you to have a deathball fleet. Even if you do have a supremacy, you can hardly use fleets for other purposes unless you have enemy fleet narrowed down/blockaded.
    • If you don't have a deathball fleet, have fun micromanaging everything and having to keep an eye on all that happens. You can rarely use things like straits to have your fleet staying there. Everything usually happens on a plate where you have to keep an eye on everything and micromanage to control what is going on, with no room for slight mistakes. Losing a small land combat usually isn't that much of a big deal, but losing the naval one - due to how hard it is to replace losses - is really annoying.
    • Since water doesn't have cities you can burn or rescources you can exploit, all the water tiles are just boring and unanimous. Sending fleets through them isn't too interesting and doesn't have much of a meaning. You are just moving your ships over a chessboard. Usually an empty one, because other figures are scared to enter a board.
  2. In CK2 it's way too complex for what it does.
    • Essentialy it's either just a glorified transport which requires way too many micromanagement (and if you don't control it well enough you'll lose lots of gold). It really doesn't feel satisfying.
    • When it comes to pagan raids, their role is also to cockblock opposing army from attacking. Which also doesn't feel fulfilling, as it requres keeping close attention and reaction times.


Last time I made a thread where I suggested that republics (from CK2) aren't too fun to play and have some inherent flaws, people were quick to correct me. Is it just me thinking that the mechanics related to navies are the black sheep of gameplay, or do you agree? And if you disagree, why?
 
I'd agree, particularly in EU4, but there's hope! If you check out this HoI4 DD there's a bunch of ideas that could be applied to EU4 (or EU5, depending on how easy it is to backward engineer) naval combat as well (obviously not copy-pasted, but the same kind of depth for 'death stacks' of ships vs squadrons patrolling - although unlike the HoI series, you wouldn't be able to link up, so it would make the choice even more meaningful):

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...ts-of-Iron-IV-Developer-Diary-10-Naval-Combat
 
EU4 navies are lacking simply because they don't really do much. You won the battle now here is your reward of nothing. Don't play the other games that much so can't comment there.
 
Wasn't in eu iv timeframe situation like this? U won all [ability to transport troops, goods at war] or not. End. The ships didn't do much more. But the battles are still retarded a bit [and there was Over A Thousand posts about it].
 
SknerusMck said:
Wasn't in eu iv timeframe situation like this? U won all [ability to transport troops, goods at war] or not. End. The ships didn't do much more.
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I'm not sure, I'm not that familiar with it. All the naval conflicts I recall (in that timeframe) did end up with one of the sides of conflict achieving a naval victory that allowed them to use all the benefits.

But even if, that doesn't really matter. If it's in the game, it should be fun to play, to meddle with. When I'm picking a nation I shouldn't be thinking at the mapscreen "Eeew, England? No way, too much hassle - I should better go for a Switzerlake!".
 
By winning naval battles, you're denying the enemy the option to transport troops and raiding your merchant vessels. That's the reason why navies came to be, and the reason they still exist. The Britons didn't get some flashy reward for defeating the French/Spanish fleet at Trafalgar, but they did shatter the French hope for an invasion of Great Britain. If you feel compelled to send your navies to fight for no reason, you haven't understood the essence of naval warfare. You're not supposed to get some concrete benefit to controlling an ocean tile, it's only supposed to have strategic value. And as for the annoyance of losing your navies, this is pretty accurately reflected in the games. Ships have always been expensive, and take a long time to construct. Considering the manpower and materials required to build a ship during the renaissance era, losing ships to naval battles was indeed a devastating setback to naval capacity. If you want to be a great naval power in EU, you need to invest in it. How many times did France attempt to match the British fleet? How many times did they succeed?
 
The fact that CKII considers that naval battles are impossible is quite asthonishing though. The Byzantines would like to disagree (not that the purple blob needs any help in that game, but anyway).
 
A system more like that of Victoria II might help, but the only real way to add depth would be to have some sort of terrain/weather modifiers for ocean (sailing around storms vs. pushing through, sailing through rocky waters vs. open ocean, etc.) and to have battles geared more towards skirmishes…
 
Teije said:
Can you expand on how that worked please? - it's been too long since I played V2 and I don't remember.
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Bigger ships can only be built in provinces with adequate infrastructure, naval battles are reasonably complex with weapon ranges, approach speed, designated targets, monitor ships and so on.
 
VienLa said:
Since water doesn't have cities you can burn or rescources you can exploit, all the water tiles are just boring and unanimous. Sending fleets through them isn't too interesting and doesn't have much of a meaning. You are just moving your ships over a chessboard. Usually an empty one, because other figures are scared to enter a board.
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I think you're overlooking the importance of blockades and trade income during war, OP.

1) Since blockades generate Spoils of War income, there are definite differnces to the seazones (e.g. blockading the Channel, vs Scotland when at war with England). Also, it has a major effect on War Exhaustion.
2) Depending on your trade setup, being able to keep a trade fleet active during a war can be a major concern. And this can be separate from the main "deathball" fleet.
 
CK2 navies are almost pointless. EUIV is much better since you can mothball. Now, navies are much more profitable, not just light ships. I still wish that you wouldn't loose that much ships though; rather need to pay for repairing ships, with a probably slower repair rate (so that you don't fight, win, sink one ship, both navies repair, with winning fleet repaired two months earlier than loosing fleet and everything back for another fight a couple days later, which used to be EUIII situation, where you would fight and win but never really get naval supremacy unless you REALLY had supremacy). Also, you get trade share in peace time, and WE from blockading during war, as well as the ability to transport ships anywhere, so definately worth (or not!) it depending on your situation.
 
I rather like the revamped naval combat in Victoria 2 and the planned system for HoI IV just plain sounds sexy.

In Vic 2 though while I really like the fact that you can now only build one naval base per state and that you can only build larger ships in home territory, the cost of upgrading later level bases became almost prohibitively expensive, only the few wealthiest nations could really afford level 5-6. I lowered the costs in my game and I find that I have a better late game naval experience with more countries being able to put out at least a few big ships.

EU IV has a somewhat bad naval system and as I don't own any expansions I cannot mothball or upgrade ships, so it is still REDICULOUSLY expensive to upgrade a trade fleet (I typically upgrade them every other light ship tech to help) and I have to pay full cost for my combat ships whether I'm at war or not.

CK II is a JOKE when it comes to "navy", more like glorified, ridiculously expensive transports.
 
Maarten99 said:
The fact that CKII considers that naval battles are impossible is quite asthonishing though. The Byzantines would like to disagree (not that the purple blob needs any help in that game, but anyway).
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In the time frame of CK2, naval battles didn't really exist as naval battles. They were land battles on ships. The idea was to basically attach your ship to their ship so your guys could chop their guys up. Galleys and ramming were the "concept" but in practice, especially after the Roman period (the period we're playing in) there were so few naval engagements and those that did occur were almost always just ships which grappled with each other to provide a bit of "land" for soldiers to fight each other on.
 
In terms of battles, I think Victoria II presents them pretty decently as far as the old engine can manage. Never had a large naval battle in HoI3 so I cannot speak for that, but in Victoria II naval battles feel satisfying enough, the larger the better and even if I am the one losing.

Naval battles in EU3/EU4 doesn't interest me much, because it is just change of the name, sprites and the stats between ships. To me all those naval battles seem similar to each other.

As for CK2, the navy is not even a navy. Nothing more than a sprite with a number and name that can ferry your troops across, costing nothing more than a monthly income (and vassal relations if they own the ships).

1066-1453 in Europe might've not seen major naval battles, but in the 8th and 9th centuries Roman Empire fought BITTERLY in large-scale naval battles against Abbasid Caliphate. In 769 AD, despite being almost wiped out they still possessed a powerful navy (probably the largest in Europe), while Arabs had a similarly large navy. Besides, Romans had the infamous Greek Fire.

Eastern Mediterranean was a hotspot of Romans VS Arabs naval action until decline of Abbasids, and for a short time under Fatimids.

As for the general naval system on the map, Victoria II is again I think the best, and also the worst. You can build limited number of docks, one per state, and you have a limited capacity to build ships, and that means that you cannot spam the most powerful ships like you can in EU games. Navy is like a precious tool in Victoria that can at times be more important than armies.

Meanwhile at the same time, that game suffers from UTTERLY stupid restrictions all over the place just because the devs were too lazy. You cannot rename the ships, which basically makes ships have insane names (35th Venice Commercial Raider, anyone?) and these idiotically-named ships lack all possible feel and immersion.

And another weird restriction is that you CANNOT destroy a naval base. Which is insane because the AI puts naval bases in stupid places and you cannot construct another one. So if you for example conquer Malta from Britain as Two Sicilies, you are going to be stuck with a naval base in Malta FOREVER simply because British AI spams naval base everywhere. You cannot just dismantle it and build it in a far more sensible place like Palermo or Syracuse. :(

In the end, Victoria II is more open ended in naval theater I think, because by the late game you have to engage in huge sea battles all over the globe. In EU games I stick along the coast, fighting mostly coastal battles since I have never spotted a major AI armada in the middle of the ocean. Besides, in EU games you can always spam large warships and keep winning every battle, while doing this in Vicky2 can ruin your nation entirely.
 
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The way the navy is handled in EU4 has ruined the game. They could have expanded naval gameplay infinitely more. Shipping was the lifeline in those days. Today we forget how dependent people were on shipping because we have the combustion engine.

This just makes me feel that navies in EU4 are so non-essential. The combat is just mega-flawed, but the navies should be vital in more apsects of the game. Blockading should be much much more important. And they should probably redo the entire protect trade system.

Atleast in Victoria 2 HOD the naval combat is fairly good. I like the little icons showing the phases of combat and what's going on.

I hope HOI IV has a cool system too.
 
Naval could still be expanded in EU4, but in CK2 it is just ridicolous. No combat, the ships are only transport/raiding depot. I'm not saying there needs to be combat in every war, just that it could be present. Victoria 2 is by far superior to EU4 though.
 
Why are you asking this question? PDS games usually handle their color settings perfectly well in both OpenGL and DirectX. It's quite straightforward really, doesn't need its own thread, especially for one hue (I don't even get why said shade of blue is handled any different from the rest). And why do you think its necessary to ask people about it? I think you're trolling...
 
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