Is there any reason to make sea units with armor?

[Question]

But if the attacker wins all the time with the massive 2:1 combat strength advantage, doesnt that just promote having both sides hide just out of range trying to get each other to move close enough so he can attack on his turn?

E.G. If both players have cruisers that move 6, they hide 8 tiles away and just wait for each other to move closer. Whoever moves closer first will be in range of artillery attacks and will lose. (Assuming both players have a way of spotting each other at 8 tiles away).

[Yitzi]

Well yes but what about naval combat in the oceans?

It's still no more attacker-favored than many cases of land combat out in the field...

[gwillybj]

Assuming you do not have a massive tech advantage? Or need AAA cruisers to escort a carrier or something.

Sea units are much more expensive with armor but they get no terrain bonuses and since cruisers can move 6 (or 8 with the maritime project) it is very easy to rush over and take out even silksteel cruisers with missles cruisers.

But if you dont use any armor units at all isnt it just a matter of whoever has the fastest units win because they can attack first?

That has the side effect of making everyone spam the fully armored rovers and air units though...

Yea the problem is that out in the sea, you can have cruisers rush 6 hexes to hit you and all the enemy needs is a cheap spotter which can be a 1/1 foil or cruiser with deep radar or an air unit. Even a super expensive photon wall cruiser will lose to cheap missle cruisers and there are no terrain defence bonuses out on the sea.

Well yes but what about naval combat in the oceans?

But if the attacker wins all the time with the massive 2:1 combat strength advantage, doesnt that just promote having both sides hide just out of range trying to get each other to move close enough so he can attack on his turn?

E.G. If both players have cruisers that move 6, they hide 8 tiles away and just wait for each other to move closer. Whoever moves closer first will be in range of artillery attacks and will lose. (Assuming both players have a way of spotting each other at 8 tiles away).

I suspect all these things kept Admirals Yamamoto and Nimitz awake many a long night.

[Nexii]

I suspect all these things kept Admirals Yamamoto and Nimitz awake many a long night.

LOL well actually many WW2 naval battles did play out like this.  Scouting and air cover were big factors. 

[JarlWolf]

I've actually found armour is be very useful if you use it properly and adjust your tactics with it- if you take hold of fortified positions you can deny them movement and even kill their units if you couple it with defences.. and I typically make armoured rovers regardless so I get a heavy mobile force that I can both attack and defend with. The fact rovers can pull out if too heavily damaged helps with this further.

As for naval units, I typically armour them regardless, because until you get with larger cruiser and very advanced weaponry, having even a small advantage in combat and defence is crucial as sea units are typically expensive or difficult to produce, more so then land units. Once Cruisers come about, its hit and miss I find.

[Question]

Well yes but what about naval combat in the oceans?

It's still no more attacker-favored than many cases of land combat out in the field...

Well with land, you still get terrain defence bonuses and only air units can move really far. You can still see enemy rovers coming and even hit them with your own artillery before they get next to you.

[gwillybj]

Well yes but what about naval combat in the oceans?

It's still no more attacker-favored than many cases of land combat out in the field...

Well with land, you still get terrain defence bonuses and only air units can move really far. You can still see enemy rovers coming and even hit them with your own artillery before they get next to you.

Again, something Rommel and Montgomery fretted over in North Africa.

You're learning well how to be a careful General/Admiral/CiC.

[Question]

I noticed some interesting things about how naval combat wroks.

I never really noticed before but when a naval combat unit bombards another naval combat unit, they both use weapon values even though the combat screen shows the defender using armor. So a 6-3 foil  that gets bombarded will fight back at combat strength 6 even though the screen says Plasma steel armor : 3. In other wrods, theres even less of a reason to put armor on ships now since if they get bombarded by enemy naval, they will fight back with their weapons. The AI doesnt use naval units to bombard enemy naval though...

For naval units without a weapon (transports, formers, etc), they get bombarded like land units. Depending on weapon vs armor values, this may mean that a non-combat naval unit may take tons of turns to reduce to 0 via naval bombardment. This is made complicated by the fact that weaponless naval units get a 50% open grounds defence bonus on sea tiles but any armor removes the -50% non combat penalty.

Whats especially surprising is naval bombardment vs psi sea units is resolved as weapon strength vs psi defence 1, making it very easy to instagib psi sea units.

Lots of other bugs too...

But what do people do in MP, do they just ignore armor on most units and try to get the first hit in? How does that work when you have two players just camping right out of each other's range and refusing to attack, since whoever moves first is at a disadvantage?

[Yitzi]

I noticed some interesting things about how naval combat wroks.

I never really noticed before but when a naval combat unit bombards another naval combat unit, they both use weapon values even though the combat screen shows the defender using armor. So a 6-3 foil  that gets bombarded will fight back at combat strength 6 even though the screen says Plasma steel armor : 3. In other wrods, theres even less of a reason to put armor on ships now since if they get bombarded by enemy naval, they will fight back with their weapons. The AI doesnt use naval units to bombard enemy naval though...

Yes, that's probably due to it technically being an artillery duel, and the messed-up display is a bug.

For naval units without a weapon (transports, formers, etc), they get bombarded like land units.

So do isles of the deep, I think.

Whats especially surprising is naval bombardment vs psi sea units is resolved as weapon strength vs psi defence 1, making it very easy to instagib psi sea units.

Yeah, I think it was decided it's not a bug, but I've still got it on the list to make it changeable.

[Nexii]

Elite or +Move can give the first strike in MP.  It's not always stalemates, if you can sneak a copter close you can wipe out large stacks with ease.  With default costing model you wouldn't even make sea units in most cases though.  Air just does everything better for less.  Whether you win or lose a war will pretty much come down to what chassis you have available though (rover, needle, then copter).  The weapon, armor, and unit ability techs tend to be mostly irrelevant.  Reactor can be somewhat helpful for the cost reduction.

I recommend trying what I've been playing with: a flat combat costing model where unit costs depend solely on the chassis.  I've found it to be more strategic in terms of having to pick a variety of units, and easier to balance around.  Yitzi put in unit cost modes that can cover about anything you want to try though. 

Armor shouldn't remove the non combat penalty, I think this is an oversight.  Similar things with PSI/artillery, I think Yitzi brought these up for discussion.  Most of them make artillery a bit too strong and were also oversights.  There's also similar imbalances with native life cost which I've brought up - native life can also be re-costed to be more viable.  Only probe probably remains as largely ineffective in war, though very useful for infiltrate and tech steal.  Probe gets more important with unit re-costing however as base facilities giving defense become more crucial.