Topic: Commerce raiding in Naval Warfare

mxb2001 wrote:

Apologies if already suggested (not been following the naval warf posts that closely) but after finally trying NW out properly I was crestfallen to observe I can't attack enemy transport ships!

Just like you can't attack the land economy of other players. So IMO this is the right thing.

Perhaps more than 1 class of ship? I suppose eventually WL can have ships of the lines (first to third rate), frigates and cannons/catapults (for the amazons and sumatrans) on all of them.

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Naval warfare was needed to make win conditions like Autocrat work when the map has separate islands. But it shouldn't be overdone, because that would turn Widelands into a completely different game.

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Same. In my original idea for the implementation I planned on a third class of ship that would attack hostile transport ships and confiscate their wares. And any type of ship would be able to fight, and there would be an economy to produce and distribute cannonballs to ships (instead of the costless fighting we have now)… at one point I had a semi-functional branch for it, but I could not think of a way to implement this feature that didn't force the player to think a lot about military tactics and strategy or added real value to the economic side of the gameplay. So I scrapped this direction of coding.

I still think that if someone can design a way to implement this feature that focuses on the economy and does not emphasise fighting, it would be really cool to have, but unfortunately I doubt this is possible at all.

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Would "piracy" be a good key skill for another tribe? Maybe something like somalian or caribbean pirates kind of, but 1000 years ago?

Can't imagine piracy would be too effective materialwise, as transport ships usually carry very little, but it would be a good little nuissance. But only, if there would be some kind of automation. A pirate ship patrolling in one line for example and returning the bounty to the next harbor. Hm, but even if it would be a underpowered skill, what about making gimmicky tribes? Not everyone has to be good.

Anyways, back to ships... the micromanagement (having to click a lot to navigate a ship) feels a bit out of place for Widelands. I'd like to see more automation options for ships. What about giving explorer ships the command options:

• Sailing on command (button controls, like it is now)

• Sailing randomly (maybe with the minimal direction to find unexplored, black patches on the map, kind of like the scout, but with infinite range)

• Option "When harbour found": Notify and halt // Do nothing

• Option "When land found": Halt and notify // Turn clockwise // Turn counterclockwise

• Option "When having full-circled a land piece" Notify and halt // Continue circling // Return to harbour

• (For warships) Option "When enemy ship spotted": Notify // Do not notify // Attack it immediately.

Widelands is a bit kind of a mail-spam-simulator, argumented through using ships (oh, and diplomacy as well).

The naval warfare is certainly fun! How does the battle take place acutally? Are two battling ships ramming each other? Thinking of the movie Ben Hur... there is some old-school naval warfare shown there. Maybe it's not that difficult to implement on the graphical side, just letting two ships drive into each other and give them the random damage on impact. Two ships dancing around each other must look somewhat funny I imagine.

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