Response to CWT's navy post

Sea has a nasty habit of being underdeveloped. It shows when there aren't really any lower tech units to actually do things, even though navy has been around in I believe the Roman Empire's heyday, whereas aeronautical combat has had maybe 2 centuries tops to do anything. Also, it's worth mentioning that Days of Ruin having only the Gunboat for low cost combat within the navy is why sea maps ended up degenerating into Gunboat spam, though even that half-effort is at least an attempt to mitigate excessive influence from unit count because navy's unit count is generally too low as it is.

I ended up finding this when wanting to make a case about adding amphibious units:
https://www.wideopenspaces.com/the-aav7-amphibious-assault-vehicle-is-one-of-the-coolest-pieces-of-military-hardware-ever/
I will grant that such a unit would have to be expensive enough too, but it wouldn't be so hard to justify something else from a modest workshop too, and if the Factories are what deploy the amphibious units, then land would get some pseudo-cavalry that can also move from water into land and thus be able to scare in-land enemies more easily.

Also, definitely watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z2grnACaNw

I may as well go over the navy units in AW, GBW3, and Shattered Throne. (Battalion Wars and Wargroove have basically the same naval units as AW, and Lost Frontier doesn't have any due to its setting.)

-Lander (AW1-4, GBW3) - the GBW3 Lander is slower even before that game's heightened mobility standards from mixed number Movement Costs and the availability of units like the Buggy and Humvee, but it more than makes up for it with not only the ability to load 3 land units, but also carrying around an auxiliary HMG that does decent damage to air units and rips apart Lite Land family units. (It IS worth mention that transports in the Japan-only installments of the Nintendo Wars series had auxiliary MGs in general instead of resupplying ability, which was instead relegated to Supply Trucks. However, GBW3, as basically the 4th attempt at a formula counting GBW1/2/Turbo as a singular one, still notably made the Lander's auxiliary MG an HMG to make it capable of smacking any caught air units good.) GBW3 also helps the Lander indirectly by having ALL transports' cargo units be able to move off and take normal action on the same Day, like the Aircraft Carrier's Launch command in DoR. Really, the GBW3 Lander is a show of how much the navy could benefit from fine-tuned ideas.

Oh, and yes, that definitely includes GBW3's Unit Family system having units use their own ATK and DEF values against full unit families rather than precise matchup values, especially when the Unit Family system also has the Lite Land family be expanding defensive typing for infantry to include makeshift military vehicles. And no, I don't think the Lander would become broken by getting an HMG at all, since armored units, including ships themselves, wouldn't care about the HMG.

-Battleship (AW1-4) - navy is practically defined as the Artillery branch, and the Battleship is its definition. Making sure this thing isn't polarizing becomes a tricky task. Game Boy Wars 3 has a few ideas that get underemphasized such as EXP methods by fighting as the underdog (taking range attacks, having lower base ATK), as well as subtraction defense terrain cover with mobility standardizing the expectation of having units on properties, and those sorts of ideas would allow for more leg room to make the Battleship rightfully influential without having them break pacing or design. I should also bring up DoR making the Battleship able to move and attack simultaneously, because GBW3 has that apply for EVERY range fire unit. I think for the sake of simplicity we should have a happy medium: ALL range fire being possible right after moving, but with a 1.5x ATK modifier (multiplicative with any other modifiers) when firing without moving and also a 5% ATK decrease per space between the attacker and defender (additive per space, and again multiplicative with any other modifiers), and of course, base ATK values modified accordingly. This would make sure the base shadow has a consistent purpose for the more bulky units to capitalize upon, and especially keep the Battleship from just shelling everything too safely.

If only the Battleship was in GBW3. It would have been interesting to see how it would have played out.

By the way, the Super Famicom Wars Battleship had an auxiliary MG. Although for whatever reason reason, it sucked when it dealt 25% to freaking Infantry.

-Submarine (AW1-4, GBW3) - We have here the Cavalry of the sea. This thing is supposed to be the strong choice for pure navy combat at the cost of ineffectiveness against land, but this makes it too comparable to Little Mac: either you have a monster in an arbitrary setting that somehow becomes needed and ends up discouraging center control, or you have a joke in a more flexible environment, and there's no reasonable in-between. There isn't much that can be done to avoid this without breaking theme, although at least the Dive mechanic does add gameplay.

Game Boy Wars 3 does provide a few extra points as usual. First is that the Submarine can range attack, although only against sea units. This allows the Submarine to slightly snipe any sea vessel, keeping it from having any truly unwinnable matchups, and this would even be the case if the Cruiser had been in GBW3, probably with inflated Submarine ATK AND DEF. Next, there's an Anti-Submarine Helicopter that actually uses torpedoes to deal higher damage to sea units than any other air unit and can attack Submarines (GBW3 basically has Subs immune to all other units other than other Subs--the Dive command didn't exist there and GBW3 worked with simplicity), but against land and air forces, it's a poor man's Battle Helicopter if you can even call it that. And finally, the promoted Submarine can actually launch Anti-City Missiles that damage terrain, potentially wrecking enemy properties, from a good distance, as well as chipping a cluster of enemy surface targets. So there are ideas for how to handle the Submarine so that it would not be polarizing.

-Cruiser (AW1-4) - Covering the Heavy Infantryman of water, the Cruiser ends up with intended points of interest as a way of discouraging overbuilding Submarines or air units while also having a landing pad for supporting helicopters, at the cost of payoff against transports and ineffectiveness against the Battleship. I would say that the results are surprisingly oversimplified, because its only real purpose is its role in naval RPS.

I'm going to go into the anti-air aspect, because once again, Game Boy Wars 3 is worth talking about. There, anti-air is readily available to most navy units other than Subs, but it's more dynamic instead of the general auto-win scenario involved with the Cruiser, and air units that combat navy vessels are also more varied in how they will skirmish them as well as I implied with the Anti-Submarine Helicopter's existence, since that thing is more of a Glass Cannon against the fleet compared to the Bomber. I imagine the Anti-Submarine Helicopter would want to keep finding targets to capitalize against while the Bomber can afford with a bit more frequency to get into hotzones. In terms of reworking the Cruiser in this regard, I would say that the ATK and DEF should be kept heightened, not quite to the level of auto-win, but definitely to where the Cruiser would leave the air unit still struggling to be competent even on first strike.

The helicopter docking is HORRIBLY underutilized. It would, however, be VASTLY improved by the Anti-Submarine Helicopter's existence as well as, of course, Launch unloading. The Anti-Submarine Helicopter could actually be used as an anti-armor option against the more resistant boats, allowing the Cruiser a case of matchup subversion, and Launch unloading would make it easier for the helicopters to use cover against air-covering flak. I don't think the Cruiser would even become more scary against land forces when it's still carrying only helicopters, although amphibious units would likely have worries. We could also have the Cruiser repair loaded units, since it's inevitably going to have a maintenance crew. We already have the Aircraft Carrier doing that.

Speaking of...

-Aircraft Carrier (AW3-4, GBW3) - Ah yes, AW3's Aircraft Carrier was a glorified Anti-Air Missile Launcher while having bad transport handling outside the obligatory repair jobs to loaded Air units, while AW4's ended up with the exact opposite problem in that the transport handling was great, even including the ability to build planes, but the combat was beyond God awful even before considering its superlative price tag. Game Boy Wars 3's Aircraft Carrier, while lacking any plane building, otherwise has the best of both worlds: the combat involves an auxiliary HMG that far from sucks at munching air units or Lite Land units, as well as anti-air missiles to actually snipe air units while working with GBW3's mechanics to make this actually solid; and the transporting, although it can't be done with certain planes (to be specific, the Anti-City Bombers, the Transport Plane, and the Supply Plane), still has the Launch unloading. Needless to say that there, it actually (relatively) justifies its extreme price.

I think having it be a mobile Airport complete with actual air unit building for ALL air units would actually work as well when it would be destructible by simple combat. The Aircraft Carrier is already an investment on its own, and mixing in air unit build costs would make it harder to have blind spot coverage, not to mention that air units are meant to rely on their mobility, although shorter travel distance would bring up the concept of detours, particularly when RL planes would actually use those to keep the Aircraft Carrier's location from being exposed as easily. Sure the Anti-Ship Helicopter would be a potential threat, but the Aircraft Carrier itself still wouldn't have its own attacks against other sea units. It would still have to think, but in the sense that it would still be paying off when it does.

-Aegis Warship (GBW3) - if you need to understand what the Aegis Warship involves, it has extremely high ATK and DEF values, with the weapons being Anti-Ship Missiles that work against ships, and Anti-Air Missiles to shoot down air units. Obviously, the latter could be substituted with a very good HMG since the Anti-Air Tank uses the same involved weapon. GBW3 also gave the Aegis Warship range, but since it can't attack land units outside of my PALBal patch, we could have it carry around simple direct-fire range.

In terms of going against sea, this would actively contest both the Cruiser and the Aircraft Carrier, shaking off their cargo and blowing them both to bits. It's also guaranteed that the Battleship would additionally get resisted, though still not hard-countered at all due to the Battleship's range. Submarines would be able to defeat them by Diving, so we could always give the Aegis Warship a unique mechanic of seeing hidden units within vision range via the justification of a more sophisticated detection system. Relatively (IE for navy) moderate pricing would also work because direct-fire sucks at linking land and sea together and so the Aegis Warship wouldn't be able to terrorize land forces, which would make it comparable to a Fighter, without even some synergy to back it up better.

-Tanker (GBW3) - yeah, GBW3 had a supply ship. It just resupplies surface ships. There would be really little reason to make it costly at all when oil tankers are handled by non-military anyway. It IS worth pointing out that resupplying units in GBW3 had limited supplies and could only resupply given unit types based on the supplier type, which of course made resupplying planes harder, though definitely not impossible given the Work Car was still a staple unit, even if air units would inevitably be anchored for all intents and purposes. Preventing dived Subs resupplying via Tankers, though still allowing surfaced Subs to fuel up this way, would be interesting to do something similar when their locations could be telegraphed better and supply lines would be a more involved concept. Resupplying land units as well would also work for supporting countryside attacks. Or heck, have it be able to build and transport GBW3's Supply Trucks, and it would be able to do that more indirectly.

But honestly, I may as well hear what you think anyway.

-Black Boat (AWDS) - I may as well cover this thing because it's NOT the Tanker. The distinct difference is that the Black Boat repairs units, and it does carry 2 Infantry. Honestly, the Repair Boat, as I'll be calling it, does have its player phase friendliness as we could actually witness from Doctors in Lost Frontiers also patching up ally units, since the newly healed units would also have their attack power restored. Here in Advance Wars, repair costs are around, but they're unlikely to be a concern compared to the tempo boost and ESPEICALLY the added sustainability. Of course, the Repair Boat in AWDS restores only 1 HP per heal, which is painfully weak, so that would have to be addressed.

(And I notice that the Black Boat DOES resupply units targeted for repairs. I thought that wasn't the case but clearly repair without resupply wasn't a thing until Caulder in Days of Ruin.)

I think ships in general should get 1 HP start of phase healing on their own stacking with any other healing, on the grounds of ships having maintenance crews. This would be gradual enough to avoid breaking things, but also add some player phase friendliness and actual sustain-bolstered progrssion to sea units. The Repair Boat would still be useful for also healing land units for, naturally, their own enemy territory invasion.

-Gunboat (DoR) - Finally we're back to a combat unit. The last one for the Nintendo Wars series, unless you wish to count the Mercenary Missile Frigate in Game Boy Wars 3, which is simply a defensively powerful ship with Anti-City Missiles and Anti-Air Missiles. YMMV on that idea, of course; otherwise, I'd be covering the Commando in the same game, since that unit can traverse Sea despite being an Infantry.

So the Gunboat is basically another infantry carrier but using anti-ship missiles rather than repairing stuff. And GOSH this thing would exploit active staple usage of the Tanker, because restocking Gunboats would be chased down and then the Tankers would get blown up with nothing to defend them. And of course, the leading player can easily build a Submarine when Cruisers would not be shutting down Gunboats well enough at all, or they can build a Cruiser even as a response to a Submarine. 1 Ammo barely slows down the Gunboat when it's spammable anyway. Seriously, the Cruiser should have been able to munch this headaching unit, not the other way around. At least this thing wouldn't have anti-air guns...oh right, the Cruiser tech support to Gunboat spam would STILL be unaddressed. Okay, so at least there would be justification for added existence of GBW3's Aegis Warship. But God almighty, this is why lower cost unit spam should be curbed.

Of course, there's ANOTHER problem: Gunboats can't even attack land units at all. And I don't mean because the land units would stay off coastlines; I mean Gunboats can't target land units even when they're ON the coasts. They would have been more useful if they could fire explosive shelling against tanks, basically acting as sharks or piranhas. That would be a more interesting way to have them flow than just have them be glorified pure sea Glass Cannons--we saw that makes Submarine balance messy already.

-Frigate (Shattered Throne, Holy Empire Transport, 10/2/2/1/6, 35G) - yeah, I am going to cover the Shattered Throne navies. Starting with the Frigate, this has Transport (Exactly What It Says On The Tin) and Boarding Planks (Base ATK of loaded unit added to unit's ATK value), and gets Swiftness (+50% Movement Power buff for 1 Turn when moving without attacking) on first level up and +1 DEF on second. Unfortunately, it still has the issue that melee boats run across: that they have to worry about other units in general hiding behind land tiles and are in a field where range units are going to be the workhorses. I actually proposed for Frigate to get an additional trait to have the loaded unit's traits be active for the Frigate (IE Frigate with Crusader would have Cleave and Righteousness, Frigate with Cleric would have Heal, Charity, and Silence, etc.) to improve naval combat variety, but Checkmark Games reported complications with managing the programming. It goes to show how underresourced Checkmark Games really was to make sure something could have been worked out. But yes, I am pointing this out to punctuate that melee botes do need to be looked at in particular for buffing. Good buffing, I mean, because we don't want a repeat of the Gunboat from Days of Ruin. Oh, and giving the Holy Empire some added variety wouldn't have been bias either when the other 2 factions have 2 fliers (Dark Cabal's Vampire and Wraith, and Fae Courts' Sprite and Gryphon) compared to Holy Empire's singular Seraph.

(And by the way, I don't have the HP wrong for Frigate or Galley. Valis boosts unit Max HP by 2 if you find yourself thrown off by that.)

-Galley (Shattered Throne, Holy Empire Battleship, 14/3/2/2~4/5, 65G) - basically the Battleship. This thing has Crossfire (splash hits directly diagonal from target) and Piercing (ignores DEF), gets Steady Shot (+2 Range when not moving) on first level up and melee attacking on second. There's not much I care to say, honestly, beyond how Shattered Throne actually keeps range from exceeding 4 in general without VERY committal behavior, and it does contribute to a map like Bean Island being more fast-paced, though so does subtraction DEF and healing providing sustainability that encourages surgical strikes. Galley, though, is VERY capable of sieges because of the INSANE range combat ability by that standard. Yeah.

-Ghost Ship (Shattered Throne, Dark Cabal Transport, 10/2/0/1~3/6, 40G) - now this thing has some points of interest. It has 3 Maximum Range, but low ATK. Its traits are Transport and Ethereal (halves non-Combo Point damage taken), with Resist (immunity to debuffs, including the Death Flag from Necromancer's Energy Overload) on second level up, so mix that with ho-hum stats including 0 Physical DEF and I think Ghost Ship ends up being Dark Cabal screaming inept navy. Resist does at least let Ghost Ship get safe extra turns from the Necromancer once Ghost Ship gets Gold Level, but I think Ghost Ship could have still benefitted from an added Trait. Poison (causes Poison debuff on attack) would have been good by showering enemies with plague-inducing shots, which would have particularly benefitted against Fae Courts (who doesn't have status blunting in general), and would have even made use of the first level up's Range boost AND the Necromancer milking the second level up's Resist provision. Of course, the GS would have to be leveled up in the first place, so sustaining it would still be a challenge.

-Reaver (Shattered Throne, Dark Cabal Battleship, 12/4/2/1/6, 50G) - despite the Role Type, the Reaver has only 1 Range. However, it does have some solid traits: Charge (damage dealt when initiating direct attack boosted by base ATK--Reaver has 4), Entangle (causes -50% Movement Power debuff on attack), and Plunder (steal 3G from each enemy/neutral settlement within 3 spaces at the start of each turn), and it gains Vampiric (self-healing on any attack, including counterattack, amount equivalent to damage done) on its second level up in addition to +1 Movement on its first. Well at least Shattered Throne thinks to have Dark Cabal make sure they're thinking with their navy. The Reaver is still able to be better, though, just because of the powerhouse melee. Plunder also gives some minor in-land hitting ability, although it IS risky. Vampiric would provide some sustain ability, but it just brings up how melee boats have some issues with land interaction in and of themselves, particularly when Shattered Throne has Academies providing EXP to occupying allies, and boats kind of can't move onto them in the first place.

...hey. There's a mechanic idea: properties providing EXP to occupying ally units as long as they match up, since that would encourage map control and keeping unit numbers under control.

-Ark (Shattered Throne, Fae Courts Transport, 14/4/2/1/5, 50G) - traits are Transport, Assault (unloaded unit won't have their turn used up), and Redirect (all Combo Points placed on target), with Regenerate (no action other than simple movement results in 6 HP regeneration) provided on first level up and +1 Move on second level up. As a transport, the Ark is a solid when all is said and done, particularly thanks to Assault allowing for swift transport attacks/escapes. Combat, however, is questionable. Part of me thinks in hindsight that melee attacks should have each applied a second Combo Point to promote risk assessment and flanking, but this would inevitably gimp melee Redirect in general. If Ark were to have 1~2 Range, that would be a new world of possibilities while any attacks would still be forfeiting turns that could be used on the Assault involvement.

Oh, and Regenerate is actually a solid trait. Granted, it's gimped by not working when doing a drop-off or attack, but the 6 HP healing is so good.

-Destroyer (Shattered Throne, Fae Courts Battleship 10/2/1/2~3/6, 55G) - traits are Double Shot (multiple attacks when attacking at range) and Skirmish (halves non-Combo Point damage taken when not under Combo Points), with Firing Support (ally counterattack ATK +1) given on second level up, and +1 Range being granted from the first. Yep, Destroyer is good as usual, thanks this time to Double Shot, which inevitably speaks for itself and can even get around Cheat Death. Firing Support, however, is the definition of Bonus Feature Failure, because seriously, why would Fae Courts want to rely on counterattack damage, let alone trash counterattack damage at that? Bladedancer's Double Strike doesn't even work on enemy phase so she can't make use of it either.

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PHEW! So that just about covers every navy unit in the Nintendo Wars series as well as Shattered Throne. I may as well also go into each of the Design Flaw points you mentioned:

- Units that are solely devoted to only one purpose - indeed this had been a problem in the AWs. The sad thing is that this wasn't even intended with the Cruiser, yet that's exactly what happened. Quite obviously, this would have to be fixed thoroughly.

- A 'strongest unit' that totally trumps all other situational choices - the Aegis Warship under my suggestions could fall into this trap, but I imagine the Battleship and GBW3's Anti-Submarine Helicopter would ultimately get it under control. It would also munch Cruisers, though, so that would help the Submarine usage.

- Fairly expensive to engage in warfare due to lack of tiers - I will grant this. It IS hard to come up with ideas for good low cost naval units that would keep the game active. It's even worth pointing out that Battalion Wars doesn't even have any of its infantry types be designed to combat navy units, the closest being the Bazooka and Mortar Vets, though at least the Bazooka Vets can achieve this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4j70KwM5kk&t=6m40s
Battalion Wars still uses Missile and Assault Vets for anti-air for when air is involved. Granted, anti-sea infantry is unrealistic, but this is another thing to think about.

- Aim to actually rout each other without land - well, technically this IS inevitable. Of course, when you think about it, air and sea units are basically machines driven by the pilots to get around terrain. I don't think infantry involvement is THAT unrealistic, although it still wouldn't hurt to have added purposes to sea units, or involve destruction or other map control objectives for that matter.

- Nothing to fear from movement disruption on traversed tiles - now this is something that could be handled with more care. Granted, it IS worth pointing out that Reef and Beach tiles exist, and land is meant to be used as a barricade, but there should be shallow and deep water to help dictate the mobility of the bigger boats. Wargroove had this idea to its credit, and it would help add leg room to making sea units more powerful as well when the smaller boats would be able to escape and Submarine usage would actually be more interesting.

- Restricted to sea tiles - an innate drawback of sea units. Making sure it can overcome is something that would have to be solved, that's for sure. And as to addressing air, again, improving the anti-air ability would go a LONG way in keeping air abuses under control; if they're FAR easier to zone out of the water, it would allow for an easier time with setting up land invasion.

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At the end of the day, we would want to see the navy stay afloat, and that would definitely require plenty of TLC and creativity.