Naval Promotion

[tchristensen]

Curious if you have ever thought of adding a promotion line that adds +1 cargo per rank.

Trying to commit to a naval invasion with a boat of 1 cargo capacity is fruitless against cities with 5-9 guys hunkered down.

 

[Simon_Jester]

The Reinforced Hull promotion chain does exactly that at the endpoint- +1 cargo capacity. But you have to get three promotions to get it.

The problem is that it's very easy to get double-promoted units in this game, and mass use of transports with two extra cargo holds really interferes with maritime transport for normal civilizations, because the amount of sealift required to carry out a classical/medieval invasion drops by about a factor of two.

The Polynesians have a unique problem with their Waka only carrying one unit, one which in my opinion is largely offset by the Waka's intercontinental range.

Also, why isn't this in the Units thread?

 

[Xyth]

Adding cargo slots by promotion is actually very powerful because it also applies to warships. Especially since warships tend to get much more xp than cargo ships. If you had a line of cargo promotions you could have transport-frigates or such which creates pretty unstoppable invasion fleets.

At the moment Reinforced Hull III gives +1 cargo and I think anymore than that will unbalance things.

As for the Polynesians, they have a significant naval advantage due to their early ocean-going capabilities. This gives them a decent headstart on finding unclaimed resources, contacting other civilizations and settling newly discovered territory. To allow them to conduct naval invasions early as well would just be too powerful and thus the reduced cargo space.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. That's worth remembering- if Wakas carried two units each, there wouldn't be much stopping the Polynesians from invading someone on another continent in the Iron Age, when the other civilization has no chance of fighting back meaningfully.

 

[tchristensen]

this is History Rewrittten, not Recreating History right? the whole idea of the mod is to say, "what if..."

I am unsure how much play time you get, but with 1 or even 2 holds trying to invade another larger landmass requires 5 to 10 boats -- the production is not there to build that and to build 8 to 15 units (of any quality).

Limited holds basically says to the player, "don't invade until the Industrial Age."

 

[Simon_Jester]

Basically true- although I'd modify that to the Renaissance, since galleons can provide nearly as much sealift as transports.

The problem, though, is that only the Polynesians have oceangoing 'galleys.' That gives them what amounts to a unique, special, and potentially valuable bonus early in the game. On the other hand, it also makes them potentially very, very overpowered if they can use those oceangoing wakas to launch naval invasions of people who can't even put a single ship off their coastline. It's a difficult balance decision.

I'm not saying Xyth shouldn't change it, but it's not an easy or one-sided division.

 

[Xyth]

I think early cargo ships have 2 cargo slots because then they can hold 1 settler and 1 escort. Upping that limit makes colonization too quick and doing so via promotions is problematic as I described above.

It's not a historical issue, it's a game balance issue. If everything is allowed early in the game then the later game becomes redundant and dull once (or if) you reach it. A better way to approach the issue I think would be to make ships easier to build. This could possibly tie into a wood resource (see the other thread).