Geordie
Mariner
posted 05-09-09 06:45 AM
EDT (US)
2 / 37
I would like the ability to recruit and post small units of Marines aboard the ship, and actually be able to deploy them as you want - i.e. in the rigging as sharpshooters maybe, or along either of the sides or maybe in ranks at the stern.
Maybe we could even arm them with Sgt. Harper's multi-barrelled Nock gun - great for repelling boarders.
Oh well - guess we can always dream.
derfuchs
Mariner
posted 05-11-09 04:47 PM
EDT (US)
8 / 37
Islands, coasts and fortress bombardment
Geordie
Mariner
posted 05-11-09 06:51 PM
EDT (US)
9 / 37
Can I change my mind and go for the laser-equipped sharks?
nerdydodge
Mariner
posted 05-12-09 06:46 PM
EDT (US)
12 / 37
I'd like some form of limited AI assistance, representing the captain of each ship. He would make minor tweaks like angling the ship to fire off a broadside each time the cannons are loaded, rather than waiting to be ordered to.
Quincy9219
Mariner
posted 05-12-09 11:40 PM
EDT (US)
13 / 37
Large naval battles are hard to manage. Adding stronger AI for your ships to allow them to move with some personal latitude. Or the ability to issue orders before battles so that the AI could make moves on a preset battle plan. Aside from that dedicated Marines for boarding/defense would be great, but impossible to manage unless the ships were given independent AIs to take some pressure off you
Zakkeh
Mariner
posted 05-14-09 04:26 AM
EDT (US)
15 / 37
I'd like to see ships ABLE to ram each other. At the moment, they kind of...slide off each other. When i ram a ship, it's because I made mistake. When i park my ship in front of an enemy ship, i don't expect them to all of a sudden slide and blow my poor sloop to pieces.
Mastah
Mariner
posted 05-18-09 10:40 AM
EDT (US)
17 / 37
I'd like to see ships fighting with land troops. Artillery and ship cannons exchanging fire. Ship barrages towards coastal towns and ports. Actuall landing operations and troops trying to prevent it.
TwistedWrister
Mariner
posted 05-20-09 07:22 PM
EDT (US)
20 / 37
definitely some scenery. I have never once seen a spot of land, even while fighting in a narrow channel.
While the land battles have some variety to them, it doesn't seem to matter where one fights at sea, it's all the same blank ocean for miles around...even when right against a coast!
At least some shoreline as scenery in the distance would greatly improve the realism.
taccovert4
Mariner
posted 06-01-09 11:11 AM
EDT (US)
22 / 37
Landing ops would be difficult to code, but having unit cards in the left side of the screen on land battles right by the coast wouldn't. These cards would represent ships capable of bombardment, such as bomb ketches, rocket ships, and your ships of the line with their heavy guns. Clicking on a card would bring up a firing arc representing the anchored location of that particular vessel. Seeing as some of these ships have ranges that are pretty extreme (your heavy battleships are mounting up to 64 pounder guns) you should be able to have the captain fire broadsides in support of your own forces. Add in a corresponding inaccuracy due to the lack of modern fire control, but let your battleships turn those 30-50 gun broadsides loose on the enemy field army. 30 rounds of roundshot sweeping across the battlefield would exterminate a unit of line infantry in 1 hit, and naval gunners have always been well known for their precision.
Allow blockading fleets to attack enemy ships in port. Why do your ketches, battleships, and rocket ships sit off the port and wait for the enemy to emerge. The ships should be able to engage the enemy and force them to either be destroyed in place, or come out and fight. You could even add barbette batteries of 32 pounder long guns to the shipyards to make the fight more even.
Allow percussion shells on warships. Once researched, percussion shells should be allowed as an ammo type. After all, explosive rounds were heavily used by battleships once they were suitably developped (though they weren't developped at all in the 18th Century, but since you're allowed to change history a little, why is your navy artificially handicapped?).
Have "Engage with guns" button beside the 'board' button. Simply activate the button then click on an enemy ship. This allows the Captain to bring his ship alongside (your ship will always seek the weather gauge) and open up with guns, firing and loading at will until the enemy vessel sinks or has struck her colors (surrendered). This really shouldn't be hard (your infantry and cavalry already have this function), and would allow you to quickly detail your frigates to hunt down enemy brigs and sloops, and run down routing vessels, allowing you to keep a more exacting control of your line of battle.
While I'm sure Marines are already modelled in 'boarding' actions, having a researchable 'Marine Sharpshooters' ability would be realistic. Once you get rifling, your ships of frigate size and above should be equipped with 125-130 range sharpshooters on each mast, who will target enemy gunnery abovedecks, as well as the enemy admiral. This would give you the ability to take out the enemy admiral early on in an engagement, without having to sink his ship, and reduce the gunnery effectiveness of the enemy's carronades and other topside guns as well as morale. Also, when the grapnels are thrown in a boarding command, the Marines would throw a volley of grenades onto the enemy vessel. Sharpshooters would be killed slowly by either other sharpshooters or by chain shot. Losing a mast would kill off the sharpshooters stationed on it wholesale.
I'm not sure about this, but I'd also like to see infantry being transported by a ship involved in the boarding action. If you've got a 3rd rate carrying say, a unit of grenadiers, I want the grenadiers to be added to the crew for purposes of boarding, as their firepower, melee, and grenades would provide a huge bolster to your crew. There would be no separate commands, all units on board a ship would participate in the boarding action firing and melee at will with no assistance or control from the human player.
Zakkeh
Mariner
posted 06-01-09 05:51 PM
EDT (US)
25 / 37
Hehe, I can see the tornadoes and whirlpools now...
finian1712
Mariner
posted 06-18-09 02:33 PM
EDT (US)
27 / 37
I would love to be able to post marines in specific places like order them into the rigging or on the quarterdeck to help board. But my firts choice would be that when you are transporting an armt that the best shots in each unit say 15 men would help out you're marines and pick of the men, that would be awesome. So if I had 5 regiments of line infanrty on 5 different ships each ship would recieve 10 extra men who would stay on the ship when it boards and when not boarding would fire at the enemy.
Quentillius
Mariner
posted 09-28-09 12:18 PM
EDT (US)
32 / 37
The ability to bombard land. It happened a lot around the period.
rferrier
Mariner
posted 09-28-09 03:42 PM
EDT (US)
34 / 37
I'd like to see boarding become a bigger part of things. Seriously, I don't think I've tried to board a ship since maybe the first engagement I tried some months ago. It would just be fun I think.