Does the Navy skill allow an officer to produce ships? Given the production of armaments in Chapter 7 (KTs), it appears to be the case.
From Ch 7, Kingdom Turns wrote:Ships wrote:Arrowship
Cost: 1200 x (1-(INT/400) - Building Bonus - Skill Bonus) gold
Capacity: 1
Requires: Invent or Navy (10% bonus with both), Smithy
Skirmisher
Cost: 1500 x (1-(INT/400) - Building Bonus - Skill Bonus) gold
Capacity: 1
Requires: Invent or Navy (10% bonus with both), Smithy
Warship
Cost: 2000 x (1-(INT/400) - Building Bonus - Skill Bonus) gold
Capacity: 1
Requires: Invent or Navy (10% bonus with both), Smithy
Transport
Cost: 1000 x (1-(INT/400) - Building Bonus - Skill Bonus) gold
Capacity: 1
Requires: Invent or Navy (10% bonus with both), Smithy
However, this is not reflected in the entry for the
Navy skill as it appears in this Skills section of the rules, the entry only referring to the avoidance of a combat malus on water and the opportunity to use the Ram command.
Skills wrote:Navy (1sp)
May use the Ram command in battle. More effective fighting on water (Commanders without Navy take -20 to Melee/Defense/Ranged stats).
(e) -- +5 additional attack and defense while on water.
Is it intentional that the Navy skill allows for the building of ships? If so, it should perhaps be recorded in its Skill entry. If not, the ship production section of chapter 7 needs to better reflect the true nature of Navy's bonus to shipbuilding.
I ask because, as has been discussed earlier in this very thread, Navy is already a very powerful skill to be picked up for 1sp just when the bonuses in the text on the skill are brought into account. With the addition of being able to
build these ships on top of that, it seems to be entering 2sp territory, given the nature of many other 1sp and 2sp skills. I understand that the Navy skill and the use of these ships would go hand-in-hand, and that battles will likely still be predominantly fought on land, but archery skills don't allow for the production of arbalests, the Military Engineer and Siegecraft skills for example don't allow for the building of siege weapons. Why then allow for officers with Navy to build their own ships at a cost of 1sp? If you think naval warfare will be more common than previously and therefore ships need to be able to be more readily produced, that's fine. The Navy skill is therefore a more useful skill in general and therefore giving it the ability to produce the very thing that
even further cements naval dominance than simply removing combat maluses in my mind ranks it as far and away the best valued 1sp skill on the list.
I am happy for anyone to weigh in and explain how this balances (I guess it's hard to say for sure until the new system undergoes a full play scenario). I must say though that by and large the rules to the game seem to be pretty finely balanced and commend any and all involved in their creation. I only bring this up in the hopes of improvement (either to the game itself or my own understanding of it). Whatever comes of it, I won't be too unhappy either way.