The were warned...

[WiseMan999]

I was looking through the CIV Creation and Customisation section and read the first post here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=173061

I was very surprised when I read this gem:

There was an RTS game (I don’t recall which one) that marketed the fact that if you moved your land units through water tiles they automatically turned into boats and crossed. You no longer had to worry about making transports and moving the units across yourself. Although it sounded like a good idea the end result was that water didn’t matter anymore. It was just land you couldn’t put cities on. The cost that water travel imposed was gone, and with it the function of the water itself.

Wow. That post was last modified in 2007. Why didn't they listen?

 

[Pisskop]

Steam eats the lunch money of little gamers...

 

[WiseMan999]

Steam eats the lunch money of little gamers...

I agree but... what?

 

[Pisskop]

Clearly, this game was about mainstreaming the Civ series... It has always (to me) appealed to the greatest common denominator, and not its present fanbase so much. It flagerently ignored its (then) current fanbase. Whatever they did, it got them their paychecks, so I suppose...

 

[renkenbd]

That "RTS" game sounds like Rise of Nations (the Thrones and Patriots expansion). It happens to be the only other game I play regularly; yes, even though it is that old.

And the "units changing to boats to cross water" thing is actually nice in a way as it eliminates what some would call "micromanagement". We do still get the dimension of actual naval battle and using the navy for protecting coastlines and water-based resources. And, of course, bombarding the !@#$ our of coastal cities.

 

[Lyoncet]

Steam eats the lunch money of little gamers...

...OK...


On topic, funny you should say that, since automatic embarcation is probably one of the best-received major changes from the rest of the franchise. Not universally, of course, but most of the community sees the necessity of building transports as adding a ton of tedium without really much payoff. Plus, one person's opinion on a single mechanic of a single game doesn't really constitute a warning that anyone on development would consider a warning.

The real reason the naval side of the game sucks right now is because there's no naval side of the game. In the maps where navy is relevant, the AI does such a horrid job of exploiting it that it's laughable. Even more laughable than the terrible land combat AI. They bungle naval assaults, don't know how to use combat ships, sit in range of your cities without pillaging anything or actually firing back, etc. That, IMO, is why naval operations are dull in CiV, not because they took out a boring, tedious, and near-universally disliked aspect.

 

[Camikaze]

Eh, I wouldn't say it's one of the best received changes, but the arguments in the OP quote certainly don't hold for it. Water doesn't just function as land. There is a clear difference, and the two and demarcated by embarkation/disembarkation movement costs. You can't just move from one to the other as if they were the same domain. Moreover, your land units are highly vulnerable on water (and this is in fact why a lot of people don't like embarkation), and you cannot use roads to hasten your movement.

Water does clearly have a distinct function, particularly when it comes to unit movement. The problems people seem to have with the current system are not that there's no difference between land and water, but that the difference is so stark as to be troublesome when you have to use water.

 

[Atlas627]

The RTS game is Rise of Nations, and it was an EXCELLENT game. And the naval embarkation was a good element, not a bad one.

The reason why water was land with no cities is for the same reason in multiple other games: rock-paper-scissors. It is especially prevalent in RTSs. In Rise of Nations they presented this so well that it was obvious that they were both RPS mechanics. This is why it was obvious that water was the same as land without buildings.

Heavy ships destroyed light ships, explosive/mortar ships destroyed light ships, and light ships wrecked embarked units and explosive ships.

This is similar to how melee units destroyed cavalry, cavalry destroyed ranged/siege, and ranged destroyed melee (and siege destroyed buildings).

In fact, embarkation in CiV totally changes how the units work (they become civilians), hexes have different costs for movement (no rough terrain), and everything is ranged combat. This means that water is in fact NOT the same as land.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Moreover, your land units are highly vulnerable on water (and this is in fact why a lot of people don't like embarkation)

I'll be interested to see how true this still is after G&K comes out. But more generally, I do suspect that things will not go the way of the RTS game.

 

[gozpel]

Only Songhai in the original version can take a bit of damage from a barb galley, other civs can see their commuting soldiers going down as sharkfood.

 

[Gatsby]

I was looking through the CIV Creation and Customisation section and read the first post here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=173061

I was very surprised when I read this gem:



Wow. That post was last modified in 2007. Why didn't they listen?

Because they were so attached to their precious 1upt, and being able to move land units freely in and out of water tiles without the need for a naval transport can help counter the tedium and traffic jams that 1upt is inclined to produce. That's my guess anyway...

 

[Gatsby]

Not universally, of course, but most of the community sees the necessity of building transports as adding a ton of tedium without really much payoff.

A ton of tedium?! Because it requires a bit of patience, sustained attention, and planning?? Transports have been the preferred approach in most Civ games for two main reasons:

1) It is much more realistic for land units to require naval transports to cross water. Considering that we are talking about a history-based game and not a comic book fantasy, this is a good thing.

2) The necessity of building transports adds strategic depth to the game, because (a) it compels players to think about logistics, and (b) there is an opportunity cost involved in building and maintaining each transport, e.g. you can spend your time and effort facilitating that trans-oceanic colonisation/invasion if you want, but if you choose do to so you must also manage the risks of being attacked on your home continent while you are preoccupied with that endeavour.

When it comes to a strategy game, the strategically successful execution of a complex logistical exercise is a satisfying payoff in its own right.

PS As an aside, I often see people talk about how some game feature is good because it reduces micromanagement, which gives me the impression that alot of people around here think that micromanagement = bad. This is not true: different people prefer micromanagement to different degrees, but that's fine and I'm all for greater management flexibility (in the directions of both macro- and micro-management). But if you don't like micromanagement just because it's micromanagement, then I think you might be in the wrong gaming genre.

 

[AljayBoy]

Whole-heartedly agree Gatsby.

I agree with you Ricci, taking away a unit for transport and having units able to transform into sailing ship is a definate simplification, and one of the main reasons I gave away Rise of Nations.

The naval aspect is something that has never been developed well in civ, and think this is a step in wrong direction, although hope I'm proven wrong.

Instead of making naval warfare more exciting or relevant, I'd be inclined to disregard a defensive navy altogether, and instead invest the hammers on small groups of defenders placed near the coast to wait on any invaders. Then use these to attack them while they are in Aussies's "utterly defenceless state". Previously, a civ with a large standing army but small navy, didn't have power projection, but could defend their nation with their large army. Now, all you need is a large army, which can be deployed anywhere due to the fact every offensive unit is also a transport.

You are also removing the tactical advantage in destroying a retreating navy (after a suprise attack were they declare and attack on the same turn a la Pearl Harbour) and having the invasion force stranded with no reinforcements. This then allows the defenders able to break them down over a period of time, because once they disembark, their transports dissapear!

As i said, I hope I'm proven wrong, but from the, admittedly little, info we have at this point, this change more than any other worries me.

My worries from this thread , almost two years ago, prior to relase of ciV:

 

[WiseMan999]

Because they were so attached to their precious 1upt, and being able to move land units freely in and out of water tiles without the need for a naval transport can help counter the tedium and traffic jams that 1upt is inclined to produce. That's my guess anyway...

I have to agree with you there - as long as 1UPT is in CiV then transports don't make sense. There's no real benefit to upgrading them as they can all only carry one unit anyway so the only thing that would change would be its speed and graphics. The other problem would of course be as you mentioned the transports clogging up the sea lanes, once the unit has gotten off the transport is still there and so other ships can't move there. Of course I never liked 1UPT anyway...

Also, I accept your point Lyoncet that 1 person's opinion in one thread doesn't really constitute a warning or at least not one the devs would pay attention to. I was just so shocked at seeing it in a thread from 3 years before CiV came out, and I was so disappointed in the naval side of CiV. As an example, the sea is such a non-factor in my games that I sometimes forget I don't need transports and spend several turns looking for them before remembering . It just makes no sense to me that you can field infinite transports to move your units without even having to build them.... Oh well, I suppose I'll have to wait until Civ 6 to see if it gets any better.

 

[headcase]

Personally i would like a medium between Civ 4 and Civ 5:

You build\pop transports in cities, but they don't appear on the map. At the top bar next to the strategic resources, it shows how many transports you have left.

Every time you embark a unit, the available transport count goes down by one. When you disembark, it goes back up by one. If there are no transports available, you can't embark.

This takes away from a bit of the strategy, but it associates a cost to transports; the more exploration\invading you want to do overseas, the more hammers and gold you need to put into building transports.

Adding maintenance for embarkment might be worth looking into as well.

 

[smallfish]

Personally i would like a medium between Civ 4 and Civ 5:

You build\pop transports in cities, but they don't appear on the map. At the top bar next to the strategic resources, it shows how many transports you have left.

Yeah, this works for games like Making History 2. Production in cities would also need to be quadrupled for them - say producing 1 transport in a city is equivalent to pumping out 5-10, and with hammer overflow, you can absolutely churn out 20-30 per turn.

 

[DeathGOD1235]

I think that this "embarkation system" works well in Civ V because of the 1upt, trying to use transport boats would slower everything. The system used in Civ IV (and other games, like AoE) is much more interesting and strategic, but wouldn't work on V, but since IV and V are very different games, it's no big deal for me.
About micromanagement: I think it is nowhere near a bad thing, it adds complexity and depth to the game in a good way.

 

[lepruk86]

Personally i would like a medium between Civ 4 and Civ 5:

You build\pop transports in cities, but they don't appear on the map. At the top bar next to the strategic resources, it shows how many transports you have left.

Every time you embark a unit, the available transport count goes down by one. When you disembark, it goes back up by one. If there are no transports available, you can't embark.

This takes away from a bit of the strategy, but it associates a cost to transports; the more exploration\invading you want to do overseas, the more hammers and gold you need to put into building transports.

Adding maintenance for embarkment might be worth looking into as well.

Would be really interesting to try something like this. Sounds like a really great idea on paper.

It would also stop the A.I from randomly embarking if they don't have the hammers or w/e for it meaning they might stay and fight more.

 

[binhthuy71]

I'm not altogether thrilled with embarkation although my main reason for disliking it, instakill by any naval unit, is supposedly fixed in G&K. I will certainly take embarkation over having to load a substantial invasion force into landing craft and then unload them on arrival.

 

[binhthuy71]

Personally i would like a medium between Civ 4 and Civ 5...

Adding maintenance for embarkment might be worth looking into as well.

Next thing we know you'll be asking that Trade will require actual ships and/or wagons to move the goods and that the farther from home you have a military unit the more its maintenance cost. The Civ developers don't want us to even have to think about such complexities.