Navies?

[Darkgrave]

Sorry if this is in the wrong place feel free to move it. I have looked high and low on the wiki for any evidence of this ever being discussed and have found none so will post it here and see what the reaction is.
The idea of a navy for BM came to me this morning in the shower, oddly enough. I play in Madina on Dwilight, great realm for the record, and much of the roleplaying done as well as the theme behind the realm is based around the idea of pirates. Now I did some thinking about the idea of a navy as an idea and I believe it has some merit. Idea as follows:

1.   It would allow realms based off of islands, such as Madina and D’hara on Dwilight and the Obsidian Islands on the East Continent, to play a bigger part in the conflicts that occur across the continent from them.
2.   It would add a new dimension to conflicts and to trade.  The ability to transport food right across a continent or to embargo said trade of food would allow for different trade routes to develop and this could affect diplomacy as having a powerful ally provide you with food would mean that your realm no longer has to support the closer realms which provided you with food.
3.   Would allow for amphibious landings on enemy shores which would change the way campaigns would be planned and could affect wars by offering smaller nations a way to strike larger nations right where it hurts.

As far as the ship unit itself would work I based the rough idea I had off the existing units used in combat. Follows a rough outline of how I think it could work:

Crew – The number of men serving on a ship. Could have an upper limit depending on the size of a ship and a minimum needed to crew it. This could be expanded upon so that the crew could be made up to have all the normal characteristics of a fairly weak unit (infantry?) who could then be used as a landing party and act as a normal unit but only land in regions attached to the “sea” where their ship was based. Would allow looting and the like.
Hull strength – The level of damage that the ship has sustained. Similar to weapon damage but with a handful of obvious differences, like the fact if it was at 100% the ship would sink. Would suffer each turn from attrition and from battles.
Offensive weapon power (name?) – Like the number of cannons (or equivalent) on a ship or something? Would affect the damage it could cause to other ships. Could be, for cannons, the number and the calibre.
Sails – Would affect the speed the ship could move or something. Also would have a strength, like the hull strength, which would increase over time and could be damaged in battle. 100% damage could lead to being “dead in the water”

These are just some ideas I came up with off the top of my head and expanded on a bit while writing this. No idea as too classes of ship or how easy/hard this would be to code. Splitting the islands surrounding waters into “regions” or “seas” would also have to happen. No idea if this would work but thought I’d throw it out there anyway. Feel free to comment/criticise ect. 

[Bedwyr]

Sea combat and navies are Frequently Asked, Frequently Rejected features, if for no other reason than coding it would be an absolute nightmare.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Dlist had something about this, I believe even in 2010 or 2011. I could check it...but I'd rather someone who actually posted in that topic provide the links.

[Chenier]

2.   It would add a new dimension to conflicts and to trade.  The ability to transport food right across a continent or to embargo said trade of food would allow for different trade routes to develop and this could affect diplomacy as having a powerful ally provide you with food would mean that your realm no longer has to support the closer realms which provided you with food.

Less spots to cover makes it easier to place embargoes. Current sea routes means D'Hara basically has monopoly on the north/south and southern west/east travels, unless one wants to take the very long and risky land routes. It's the very reason why I picked Shadovar (D'Hara's predecessor) in the first place.

[Shizzle]

So what would happen with your noble if the ship sinks at sea? And if he's a hero? What about storms? Or food and water onboard?

I like the idea as in: it should definately be part if BM in a ideal future.
But the whole concept would create an entire new layer to BM. So many new factors ...

Instead of creating a whole new layer, perhaps just adding 'travel by sea' would be an option. In any given region on the coast (with a constructible harbour), units can (dis)embark. You can travel straight to another controlled region along the coast, at a reduced travel time. Disadvantage would be that storms, pirates and the like make the travel estimation unpredictable.

Let's say it's faster 2/3 times, but that 1/3 can cause a major delay.

+ coordination in a storm is non-existant, so large armies would still have to go by land
+ only travel within a realm, or to an allied realm is possible.

How about that?

[vonGenf]

In any given region on the coast (with a constructible harbour), units can (dis)embark.

This already exists: there are sea routes. I assume that those regions with sea routes have a constructible harbour, and others don't. Travelling to another coastal regions without a harbour would be useless, which is why you can only travel by established sea routes.

[Shizzle]

This already exists: there are sea routes. I assume that those regions with sea routes have a constructible harbour, and others don't. Travelling to another coastal regions without a harbour would be useless, which is why you can only travel by established sea routes.

But there's no reason why you couldn't hop off your boat along the way, right? (as long as the route follows the coast)

[vonGenf]

Have you ever tried to make a horse swim?

[Shizzle]

Have you ever tried to make a horse swim?

Ever tried to sail a boat to the coast, and having your horse walk out? Looking at the map, I see a (beachlike?) irregular coast with many coves. Enough to disembark in any given region... Even with just one rowing boat one could 'unload' a unit, it would just take the whole day

I mean, the Spaniards got horses across the Atlantic, into an uncivilised region (though idk if the first expedition had horses with them). Why couldn't we in BM transport horses or any other unit for just a few hundred miles?

I'm not saying ships should be able to simply cross the sea though, they would only be able to follow the coast.

[vonGenf]

The Spaniards had galleons, and they needed a natural harbour. You can't just disembark on any piece of coast. If you have a beach, the ship needs to anchor far from the coast; depending on weather this may be simply impossible.

A row boat would allow to disembark a few people, but not horses, armoured knights, siege engines, food carts, etc....

You could make an argument that boats should be able to scout coastal regions, although I doubt the coding trouble is worth it, but disembarking an army is not realistic.

[Shizzle]

The Spaniards had galleons, and they needed a natural harbour. You can't just disembark on any piece of coast. If you have a beach, the ship needs to anchor far from the coast; depending on weather this may be simply impossible.

A row boat would allow to disembark a few people, but not horses, armoured knights, siege engines, food carts, etc....

You could make an argument that boats should be able to scout coastal regions, although I doubt the coding trouble is worth it, but disembarking an army is not realistic.

Well, not a whole army. A single unit... the feature I proposed would prevent moving large amounts of troops, of course.

At least you cannot say it's unrealistic for a noble to hire a ship and crew, and ask them to drop him off anywhere along the coast, possibly taking along an infantry unit.

[Darkgrave]

Sea combat and navies are Frequently Asked, Frequently Rejected features, if for no other reason than coding it would be an absolute nightmare.

It might be worth putting this on the relivent pages on the wiki and such like then as there was no evidence of it ever having been suggested before when I checked.

[vonGenf]

You mean, the noble would be walking, not just the soldiers? Eww... walking is for peasants.

More seriously, it would probably be possible to make something like that realistic with enough restrictions, but I doubt it would become extremely useful at this point. I'll let actual coders discuss about the difficulty of coding this.

[Shizzle]

I don't know anything about coding, but some small modifications to travel routes might suffice?

As a noble (with a non-cavalry unit smaller than XX people -- 40 perhaps?) when in a city, you could choose to "Hire a ship and crew" for XX gold (depending on the distance). The captain promises you he'll drop you off in that coastal region within X hours. (However, seeing you're at sea you won't be able to receive messages for the duration of the trip, nor will you be able to get off anywhere else or return halfway = optional)

Events:
*The wind and current worked along great, you have arrived X hours sooner than expected (= a lot faster than land-travel)
*The weather could have been better, but the captain kept his promise: you made it to X on time. (= still a faster than travel by land)
*The ship got lost in the current, and you have arrived after a delay of X hours (= similar travel time as land-travel)
*Pirates! Your captain skillfully managed to avoid them, hiding in a small cove. Just to be safe though, you agreed to take refuge there for the rest of the day (=arrival X turns later than land travel)
*Suddenly a storm broke out (? idk the proper expression). The sails ripped apart and one mast badly damaged, the ship is adrift for several days. When the sky finally clears up, your men help the crew rowing ashore (=resulting in a morale loss + equipment damage). Checking your surroundings, you conclude you have stranded in region X

Every event would have a certain chance of occuring, also depending on the weather. In winter, for instance, storms might be more frequent (so it's a bad idea to take to the sea) and in summer, the chance of pirates would increase.

Overall, though, transport at sea would be faster than over land, assuming you're prepared to take the risk. Massive amphibious invasions would be out of the question, as the army would get split up along the way. Furthermore, seaborne expeditions can only depart from a city (with a harbour?) and end in allied or neutral lands.

Thoughts?

[Anaris]

Just to give one quick and simple reason why what you propose is far more difficult than you think, Shizzle:

Right now, all travel routes have just 2 points to them: the endpoints.  The game knows absolutely nothing about regions that might be "along the way".

So we'd have to add that capability first, which includes quite a lot of tedious addition of data to tables in the database which do not currently exist.