The problem isn't that you can hide your privateers in your cities, the problem is that you can blockade with your privateers there. Imagine an pirate blockading trade without ever leaving his home port?
(CONFIRMED - game balance) Privateer blockade (Game weakness)
- Thread starter vodlaian
- Start date
The problem isn't that you can hide your privateers in your cities, the problem is that you can blockade with your privateers there. Imagine an pirate blockading trade without ever leaving his home port?
Roland Johansen
Deity
I guess the game mechanic problem is that the unit can enjoy safety of its own borders while harming another civilizations trade. In real life, the unit would have to leave its own borders to harm the other civilizations trade.
However you look at it, civilization will of course never accurately simulate the age in which pirates ruled. It's just one of the many things that the game tries to simulate roughly. Therefore, I would settle for a game mechanic that somewhat simulates the act of pirating without being overpowered or needing extreme micromanagement.
However you look at it, civilization will of course never accurately simulate the age in which pirates ruled. It's just one of the many things that the game tries to simulate roughly. Therefore, I would settle for a game mechanic that somewhat simulates the act of pirating without being overpowered or needing extreme micromanagement.
I guess a voluntary act (like pressing a button to blockade the neighbouring port) leading to odds of being "intercepted" (depending on the navy available in the blockaded port or surroundings, this leading to a loss of the privateer or a large amount of damage) and odds to actually blockade would be near to reality.
It's a bit like what happened to planes in vanilla, except that you hurt no enemy unit
.
I think it's a perfectly legit act of piracy
crazyeye to reamin mostly in friendly waters, and only strike vulnerable targets.
It's a bit like what happened to planes in vanilla, except that you hurt no enemy unit
.I think it's a perfectly legit act of piracy
crazyeye to reamin mostly in friendly waters, and only strike vulnerable targets.The best answer to this bug has already been posted by Pyrion, but people seem to be ignoring it. Leave the system as it is, and teach the AI to send it's own privateers to attack privateers blockading it's cities if it can't get to them with more powerful ships.
Roland Johansen
Deity
I guess a voluntary act (like pressing a button to blockade the neighbouring port) leading to odds of being "intercepted" (depending on the navy available in the blockaded port or surroundings, this leading to a loss of the privateer or a large amount of damage) and odds to actually blockade would be near to reality.
It's a bit like what happened to planes in vanilla, except that you hurt no enemy unit
I think it's a perfectly legit act of piracy
Of course, this could work, but I doubt they will do this. The game mechanics would be a bit confusing for people encountering it the first time and it would need some new code to have some kind of interception for ships.
It sounds fun for a mod though.
Mods don't have the problem that all of the features have to be transparent and mods don't have to create a printed manual that contains all of the new features.
That's not necessarily the best solution though... That is overly complicating things. To me, the best solution would just be to keep it simple and make it so that blockading from within your own borders does nothing. If not, at least make a percent chance you will lose your privateer during the raids.
Part of the problem here is that each square in civ doesn't represent just a few feet, or even a few meters, it represents many KM. The blockade range is so large that it would be the equivalent of blockading 70% of western America with just a single ship located in Southern Canada or Northern Mexico. I see no reason to have the range bigger than 2 sq.
Using Privateers for "hit and run" blockades where they strike out from your borders, then return to safety seems like a perfectly legitimate tactic to me, as long as the AI knows to send it's own privateers after them.
Changing the rules for blockading depending on unit location, or adding chances for privateer loss will overly complicate things. The game mechanics as they stand are fine, the only problem is the AI not being smart enough to send in it's own privateers to break a blockade without declaring war.
If the scale thing really bothers you that much, just imagine that it's a fleet of privateers, the same way you imagine that the 3 archers displayed in a unit are not meant to be literally interpreted as 3 guys with bows, but rather as a representation of a larger group.
Also, in the example you give, there's only room for about 4 cities in North america
Using Privateers for "hit and run" blockades where they strike out from your borders, then return to safety seems like a perfectly legitimate tactic to me, as long as the AI knows to send it's own privateers after them.
Changing the rules for blockading depending on unit location, or adding chances for privateer loss will overly complicate things. The game mechanics as they stand are fine, the only problem is the AI not being smart enough to send in it's own privateers to break a blockade without declaring war.
If the scale thing really bothers you that much, just imagine that it's a fleet of privateers, the same way you imagine that the 3 archers displayed in a unit are not meant to be literally interpreted as 3 guys with bows, but rather as a representation of a larger group.
Also, in the example you give, there's only room for about 4 cities in North america
If it's as you imply and that it's simulating a group of ships going back and forth, then there should at least be a chance that you will fail. Something like this just seems out of the ordinary for civ, civ has always been known for balance. That's why I find it hard to believe that this was intentional and not just overlooked.
I don't agree that that's the best solution. In particular, the defender has no way of retaliating if he cannot build privateers. I don't know about you, but in games where I've used privateers against AIs, I've done so while they're still using caravels as their defense. That's why I think the suggestion you support is unfair.
Having said that, I'm stumped to what the best solution is.
I think I agree with vodlaian's idea tbh.I don't agree that that's the best solution. In particular, the defender has no way of retaliating if he cannot build privateers. I don't know about you, but in games where I've used privateers against AIs, I've done so while they're still using caravels as their defense. That's why I think the suggestion you support is unfair.
Having said that, I'm stumped to what the best solution is.
In that situation, the AI is just screwed, as would be any player. Their most powerful naval unit is a caravel, which has half the strength of your privateer but ignores borders. It IS allowed to come into your border to attack the privateer, because of it's special ability, but it doesn't have much of a shot at surviving
Being behind technologically will put you in a lot of situations where you can't effectively counter what your opponents are doing to you, that said, a large enough stack of caravels should be able to take out a single privateer, the only question is if breaking the blockade is worth the cost.vodlaian said:
What do you mean by fail? Like a variable (possibly zero) return on the gold taken in by the blockade, or like destruction of the unit? I could support the idea of variable return on the gold, but I dislike the idea of any action other than combat destroying a unit. Even bombarding by siege units, which i would argue is much closer to combat than blockading, puts the siege units at no risk.
I really think the only change that needs to be made is to let the AI know how to handle the situation. It should set up it's own blockades and try to attack your blockading ships with it's own privateers.
The main reason i feel this way is because even if you can't set up the blockade from within your own cultural borders, you can do it from within the cultural borders of a different civ that doesn't have open-borders with your blockade-target, causing the same effect. For example, You are enemies with Rome, and have an open border agreement with Greece, Rome and Greece hate each other and share a close water border. You can set up a blockade within the Greek borders to effect the Roman cities, and the Romans won't be able to do anything about it. Granted, the Greeks may attack your privateer, but they may also do that within your own borders. It's just more likely since you're blockading within their borders, possibly effecting their cities. The only way your privateers are even safe within your own borders is if you have no open border agreements with anyone. remember, that that privateer shows no nationality, so your friends are just as likely to attack it as your enemies.
The only thing that I don't like about the current situation is that privateers are eventually made obsolete, when they have no modern counterpart to take their place. Caravels never go obsolete (or do they with submarines? I can't remember now..) because they have no modern counterpart that doesn't require a resource to build. Privateers should never go obsolete for the same reason, as they have no modern counterpart at all.
Blockade-breaking: when in the open sea, your units doing a blockade allow your units to use the water within 3 path steps for trade.
So you could cancel the privateer blockade by simply counter-blockading. The privateer owning player will then have to attack your boat to reestablish the blockade...
So you could cancel the privateer blockade by simply counter-blockading. The privateer owning player will then have to attack your boat to reestablish the blockade...
You'd have to prevent this ability from being used inside cities or forts, otherwise everyone would just set up a caravel or other cheap naval unit inside a city where they can't be attacked to prevent any threat of a blockade.
also, does two privateers blockading the same tile overcome one blocKade-breaker? or is it based upon unit strength? or can a caravel break the blockade of a battleship?
Yes -- hence "open sea".
Blockade-breaking could be evaluated at the start of your next turn.
Blockade-breaking overrides Blockades -- a caravel can break the blockade of a battleship. The battle ship does, however, have the choice to sink the caravel and break the blockade break!
This does let you pull off a "stick a ship in territory that your opponent has closed borders on, yet you have open borders, and activate blockade break, in order to get a trade route".
As a complete alternative, hitting blockade in the open sea in an area within another ships blockade radius could cause a fight between the blockading ships (the existing blockade ship is considered the attacker, the new one the defender, and units stay where they are after the fight ends).
That's much tighter!
bugmenot18
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2007
- Messages
- 11
To blockade all those tiles the ship obviously needs to sail to each of the blocked squares (in real life). So why is it at the end of each turn always at the same position in civ? Make it just sail randomly around in the blocked area. That way everybody gets a chance at destroying it within a reasonable amount of turns.
