Some great points made.
I am against the cultural boarders movement penalty simply because anything effective would be unrealistic. saying that by some penalty a 4 movement transport suddenly cant make the 2 moves across cultural boarders to shore just seems a bit extreme. the land movement penalty is meant to simulate supply lines, secure movement practices and hostile locals. those issues dont really exist on the open waters except possibly in the directly beach front shallows represented in the game by 10% defensive bonus.
I think that as the game is now the most realistic and effective suggestion is the patrol zone similar to the button that allows your ship to engage ships attempting to destroy sea resources. something based on that or the blockade function would allow the defender to place fleets in defensive zones around cities or coasts specifically to engage enemy ships landing amphibious assaults. it would also allow attackers to get full benefit of the sneak attack if the defender has not bothered with naval defenses. ... in order to counter exploits the defender may even get a chance to chose weather to intercept so that units arent killed in futile attacks or tricked away in feints. (this additional option may require some tricky coding as it would mean that the defender gets to make game decisions on the attackers turn.
Oldskaald makes a great point. The game relies heavily on sneak attack. I mean... i cant imagine going to war of my own accord without an overwhelming sneak attack.
the game needs some mechanic that limits the effectiveness... or penalizes in some way.
I am going a bit off topic but the first thing that comes to mind is the war wearyness / unhappy citizen mechanic.
something that say allows you to declare 'threat of war' against an opponent. in game terms you simply declare the threat but it would represent warnings, propaganda, diplomacy and warmachine preparations. effectively it would cause you to get some kind of bonus to war weariness.
or maybe declaring war without 'threat of war' incurs a large immediate war weariness penalty which decreases the longer you have 'threat of war' in place before attacking.
or possibly a simple "world considers you a villain" penalty for declaring war which is reduced by 1 or 2 for every turn that you have 'threat of war' against your target before declaring your attack.
I actually think this would be an awesome addition... get the people motivated for war or ignore their feelings for the advantage of a sneak attack. Some of the crazy AI may have a tendency toward one extreme or the other... even certain civics may effect the effectiveness or required duration of 'threat of war' or provide bonuses to war weariness when attacked
Kochman - other than raids by vikings, pirates and pearl harbor i cant think of any time in history that any nation has launched a serious amphibious naval sneak attack outside of a declared war. The reason is this. transports cant stay on the water indefinitely so the attacking country has to build up forces in his home port which (gives plenty of warning), then load and get seabound (more warning). Even if some how, for some reason a nation loaded up a bunch of transports and appeared in the defendes waters totally unannounced the defending nation will have patrol boats and random fishermen who can warn the defending navy allowing them to engage the enemy before landing craft can wallow up to the beaches.
I am against the cultural boarders movement penalty simply because anything effective would be unrealistic. saying that by some penalty a 4 movement transport suddenly cant make the 2 moves across cultural boarders to shore just seems a bit extreme. the land movement penalty is meant to simulate supply lines, secure movement practices and hostile locals. those issues dont really exist on the open waters except possibly in the directly beach front shallows represented in the game by 10% defensive bonus.
I think that as the game is now the most realistic and effective suggestion is the patrol zone similar to the button that allows your ship to engage ships attempting to destroy sea resources. something based on that or the blockade function would allow the defender to place fleets in defensive zones around cities or coasts specifically to engage enemy ships landing amphibious assaults. it would also allow attackers to get full benefit of the sneak attack if the defender has not bothered with naval defenses. ... in order to counter exploits the defender may even get a chance to chose weather to intercept so that units arent killed in futile attacks or tricked away in feints. (this additional option may require some tricky coding as it would mean that the defender gets to make game decisions on the attackers turn.
Oldskaald makes a great point. The game relies heavily on sneak attack. I mean... i cant imagine going to war of my own accord without an overwhelming sneak attack.
the game needs some mechanic that limits the effectiveness... or penalizes in some way.
I am going a bit off topic but the first thing that comes to mind is the war wearyness / unhappy citizen mechanic.
something that say allows you to declare 'threat of war' against an opponent. in game terms you simply declare the threat but it would represent warnings, propaganda, diplomacy and warmachine preparations. effectively it would cause you to get some kind of bonus to war weariness.
or maybe declaring war without 'threat of war' incurs a large immediate war weariness penalty which decreases the longer you have 'threat of war' in place before attacking.
or possibly a simple "world considers you a villain" penalty for declaring war which is reduced by 1 or 2 for every turn that you have 'threat of war' against your target before declaring your attack.
I actually think this would be an awesome addition... get the people motivated for war or ignore their feelings for the advantage of a sneak attack. Some of the crazy AI may have a tendency toward one extreme or the other... even certain civics may effect the effectiveness or required duration of 'threat of war' or provide bonuses to war weariness when attacked
Kochman - other than raids by vikings, pirates and pearl harbor i cant think of any time in history that any nation has launched a serious amphibious naval sneak attack outside of a declared war. The reason is this. transports cant stay on the water indefinitely so the attacking country has to build up forces in his home port which (gives plenty of warning), then load and get seabound (more warning). Even if some how, for some reason a nation loaded up a bunch of transports and appeared in the defendes waters totally unannounced the defending nation will have patrol boats and random fishermen who can warn the defending navy allowing them to engage the enemy before landing craft can wallow up to the beaches.