Embarked units can't defend city

J

jordiflor

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 19, 2010
Messages
84
Hi all,
After years playing civ, yesterday I came across a weird situation I can't believe I didn't realize before.
I was invading Stalin's 5-city Russia with my Infantry. I kept three fully loaded galleons in recently conquered Yaroslav, while another SoD was heading to attack in-land Novgorod. Next turn, suddenly, Yaroslav was re-conquered by Stalin, without any fighting, and my 9 garrisoned infantry vanished.
So I guessed that embarked units in a city are unable to defend it. Is this true?
 
Is this not obvious? They are sitting on a boat out inf the harbor. They aren't in the city. Think about it in a real life situation.
 
Zx Zero Zx said:
Is this not obvious? They are sitting on a boat out inf the harbor. They aren't in the city.
Click to expand...

Obvious or not, I didn't know. I surely did the same hundreds of times, i.e. to have embarked troops ready to set sail after city conquest, but there would had been at least one unloaded unit that discouraged AI to attack. This time they all were onboard. :cry:
Well.... I confess I reloaded a saved game... :blush:

Think about it in a real life situation.
Click to expand...
I can't deduce civ behavior comparing with real life situations, or do you actually think Suez canal is a fort?
 
It's fine by me that they don't defend, though it would be good for the game to make that clear. I got caught by surprise by it once, too.

It's a little odd that they get destroyed - the boats could sail.

mainly, the problem is that the game isn't clear about it. and, I believe in Civ III, the units in a boat did defend.
 
Ah. This. I got screwed once with this and set me back a lot.
Even the greatest players (e.g. Duckweed in BOTM40) make mistake when it comes to the boats filled with units.

Personally I would have preferred the boats being kicked out the city in a desesperate attempt to flee the invasion, perhaps with a small random chance of losses.
 
It's particularly bad (or good, depending on your perspective) when the AI has its navy, along with all its loaded transports, just sitting in a city defended by a couple of land units and you can destroy hundreds of units from winning a couple of battles.
 
AutomatedTeller said:
It's fine by me that they don't defend, though it would be good for the game to make that clear. I got caught by surprise by it once, too.
Click to expand...
It's fine as far as you are aware of the risk. Now, I am ;)

azzaman333 said:
It's particularly bad (or good, depending on your perspective) when the AI has its navy, along with all its loaded transports, just sitting in a city defended by a couple of land units and you can destroy hundreds of units from winning a couple of battles.
Click to expand...
Indeed, I have never paid attention on whether AI units in a city are onboard of transports. What it is sure is that the AI did pay attention on my units, otherwise he wouldn't have dared to attack me.
 
In vanilla civ 4 - they could and did defend. At some point, it was changed so that you couldn't see the units on a boat ... and they couldn't defend. I got burnt by that too.
 
Zx Zero Zx said:
Wow am I the only one that saw it as logical. @.@
Click to expand...

Sure it is logical and I agree with that. However, if you move to BTS from vanilla or Civ III, you are used to it being the other way, so you get burned. I was lucky, I saw someone long ago discussing this when BTS was new and I was still using vanilla. Otherwise, I suppose I would have found out the hard way too.
 
Ick... I had no idea that changed from Vanilla. I thought units on boats automatically defended when the boats were in port in BTS. Glad I read this thread!
 
Lol when I played Vanilla I expected them to not defend so if I had units that would be in boats in a city I would have them be in the city before I put them on the boat the next turn when they would move out. I never just left units in boats when they were in cities.
 
I don't bother loading units on boats in cities at all. When I am ready to load the boats, I move the boats onto the first coast tile adjacent to the city and just move the entire stack from the city to the boats. That way they all load at once. Otherwise, you have to choose a boat and only one boatful loads. Then you have to give the load command again and repeat and repeat ….. until they are all loaded. There may be a way to autoload in the city but I have not figured it out!
 
What is logical about a boat filled with men vanishing into the sea, after troops enter on land? The ship might not even be moored in the harbor.

I think it's just so we humans get another way to exploit the AI and kill its mega stacks!
 
Loading a unit from a boat into a city, when the boat is in the city costs 0:move:. So there is actually no difference, just clicking the 'unload unit' button once.
 
Akbarthegreat said:
Loading a unit from a boat into a city, when the boat is in the city costs 0:move:. So there is actually no difference, just clicking the 'unload unit' button once.
Click to expand...

If you are referring to my message above, I was talking about the opposite, loading the units onto boats not unloading them.
 
s.bernbaum said:
If you are referring to my message above, I was talking about the opposite, loading the units onto boats not unloading them.
Click to expand...

No, I was addressing the OP and meant to say that whenever he moved a boat into a city, he could just unload them without using up their movement.
 
Akbarthegreat said:
No, I was addressing the OP and meant to say that whenever he moved a boat into a city, he could just unload them without using up their movement.
Click to expand...
Quite the opposite, I just loaded the troops (most of them with amphibious promotion) to be ready to sail and attack on next turn
 
Mother of god. I wish I had googled earlier. Just tossed a years worth of PBEM game down the toilet.

Entire army poised on transports in a canal city ready to strike at my enemies capital and put final victory in sight... now no army or navy.

Losses (including unembarked but marginally insufficient garrison): 8 galleons, 3 frigates, 2 destroyers (upgraded that turn for a pretty penny), 3 cannons, 5 machine guns, 6 grenadiers and 16 riflemen. Poof. Gone.
 
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