Naval improvements: ship ordering, decommissioning, and cleanup after player defeat

[DonBellozi]

Hi!

I’d like to propose a small set of related feature ideas regarding naval units and ports.

1. Ship / boat ordering
   Similar to how tool orders work, it could be interesting to have an explicit “ship / boat order” mechanism.
   This would allow players to request or queue the construction of ships and boats in advance, giving more direct control over naval logistics, especially on island-heavy maps or in games with multiple ports.

2. Decommissioning unused ships
   It might also be useful to have an option to deliberately decommission or destroy ships that are no longer needed, similar to demolishing buildings. This could help reduce unnecessary units and free up resources.

3. Handling naval units of defeated players
   I’ve noticed that the AI often builds a large number of ships. When an enemy player is defeated, their remaining naval fleet usually stays on the map for the rest of the game as “dead weight”.
   Maybe it would make sense to automatically remove, decommission, or otherwise handle ships and boats belonging to defeated players, to keep the map and game state cleaner in long-running games.

These ideas are meant as a coherent set of improvements around naval gameplay.
Just some thoughts — happy to hear your feedback 🙂

By the way (slightly off-topic): do you have any plans to work on a similar revival/reimplementation of the game “M.A.X.: Mechanized Assault & Exploration” in the future? 🙂

[Spikeone]

Hey,

1. is the same as [addon] Target goods for warehouses #51 isn't it? As this seems more like a settlers 2ish option
2. I don't know what you mean exactly? Like dismantling a ship?
3. is the same as [Addon] Destroy inactive enemy ships #183 isn't it?

[DonBellozi]

Thanks for the clarification questions — I see where the confusion comes from. Let me explain more precisely what I meant.

1. Ship / boat ordering (not warehouse targeting)
   I don’t mean warehouse target goods ([addon] Target goods for warehouses #51). I imagine this more like the existing “tool order” UI, but tied specifically to a shipyard.

For example, a shipyard could have an “Change shipyard behavior on zero” mode with options like:

• Produce ships
• Produce boats
• Produce nothing

On top of that, similar to tool orders, there could be counters, e.g.:

• Produce X ships
• Produce Y boats

Ideally this would be configured per shipyard (where the ships are produced matters), but the exact UI is of course open for discussion.

2. Decommissioning / destroying own ships
   Yes, I literally mean dismantling/destroying ships that are no longer needed.

For example, if my shipyards produced far more ships than I actually need (e.g. 100s of ships), I’d like to be able to remove the excess ships.
Whether this returns some materials or none at all is not important to me — the main point is having a way to clean up unnecessary naval units.

3. Removing ships of defeated players
   Here I agree that issue [Addon] Destroy inactive enemy ships #183 is very close to what I’m suggesting.

My main idea is: when a player is completely defeated, all of their ships — and everything currently on those ships — should be removed from the map.

In practice, I’ve seen cases where a player sends soldiers on a ship to attack, but the player gets eliminated while the ship is still in transit. The units then remain “on the ship” indefinitely and can no longer interact with the game.

So as a general cleanup rule, I’d suggest removing all ships and their cargo belonging to a defeated player.

[Spikeone]

Missunderstood your first idea.

The only thing that should be problematic is having two shipyards next to each other, where both workers work on the same ship. What should happen then?

As for the second idea, I don't really see a use except the visual improvement. I still think a global ship limit would be great as well.

Other than that, I think both issues should be splitted into two issues. The 3rd idea is already in development by @Flamefire l

[DonBellozi]

Thanks for the clarification.

Regarding the first idea: I actually never considered the case where two shipyards could work on the same ship. In my mental model, two shipyards placed next to each other would simply operate independently, each building its own ship.

Regarding the second idea: I agree that it’s not strictly necessary from a pure gameplay mechanics perspective and is partly a visual/cleanup improvement.
However, there is also a practical late-game issue I’ve encountered. When many ships exist, after landing troops on an enemy shore those ships often remain there as “dead weight”. As long as even a single ship of a player is present near a port, scouts won’t approach that port.

Because of this, situations can occur where the game cannot be properly finished from a player’s perspective, simply because leftover ships are blocking further interactions. That was the main reason I was thinking about the possibility to destroy or decommission ships — not only for visual cleanup, but also to allow the game state to be cleaned up in late-game scenarios.

That said, I agree that a global ship limit could address this problem more effectively as well.

[Spikeone]

Well in RttR they do. Question for me is, what is the main goal of the idea really, what problem does it solve? I guess, at least for ships, you want to set a maximum count yourself, don't you? I don't see me wanting 20% boat and 80% ship, or trying to get 10 boats and 2 ships. I'd rather set a limit for ships - at least thats my experience.

The second idea, is it necessary if we have #1151 and #102 ? both should mitigate the initial problem.

[DonBellozi]

I think I didn’t describe the core problem clearly enough, so let me try to restate it more precisely.

The main issue I’m trying to address with the first idea is the excess number of ships on the map.

In my games I’ve repeatedly encountered situations where ship production was left running for too long and I ended up with 100+ ships. At the same time, even on the largest maps with multiple islands, only a fraction of them are actually used in parallel (for example ~30 ships actively circulating between 5 islands). The rest just stand idle as dead weight, despite ongoing logistics and military activity. I’ll try to make a more exact count, but this pattern repeats regularly.

I did not mean percentage-based production (like 20% boats / 80% ships). My original thought was closer to the tool production model: simply being able to say “I still need X ships”, without ratios.

However, if a global ship limit achieves the same goal in a simpler and cleaner way, I agree that this would likely be the better solution.

Regarding #102: personally, I don’t find the idea of tying ship count directly to the number of shipyards very convincing from a logical standpoint. Unless ships require maintenance, upgrades, or servicing, the shipyard–ship count relationship feels artificial.

If such a connection were desirable, one possible way to justify it could be ship maintenance:

• for example, a ship can perform ~N voyages and then requires maintenance at any shipyard (consuming some wood),
• or ships could have a limited “lifetime” (e.g. after N trips they disappear), which would keep shipyards meaningfully busy throughout the game.

Regarding #1151: I remember this mechanic from the original game and it was fun when only a few ships were involved. However, on modern, larger maps with many ships (e.g. 40–45 visible at once), it quickly becomes visually overwhelming.

Finally, about destroying ships (including enemy ships): I still think this can be useful, not just visually but also gameplay-wise. For example, if player #1 produces many ships and attacks player #2’s port, those ships can remain near the port indefinitely. As long as they are present, they act as permanent scouts and enable constant pressure on that port, unless the defender forcibly destroys ports or military infrastructure. This can lead to situations where excess ships have an outsized and somewhat unintended strategic impact.

None of these ideas are meant negatively — I’m just trying to describe recurring late-game situations I run into and explore possible ways to handle them more cleanly.