migkillertwo
Prince
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2010
- Messages
- 404
I know this is my second thread in a day but I wanted to share two ideas that I feel have sound historical and gameplay motivations.
The first idea regards embarkment. If you ask me, embarkment in Civ 5 was kind of lame: it's hard to abstract the idea that your civ just happens to have enough ships waiting to embark as many land units as you want. I thought it was a lot more tolerable than in Civ 3 and 4 where you had to actually build a transport ship just to move guys from one continent to another, but there has to be some kind of limit.
My suggestion is this: [with the exception of marine units and others whose explicit purpose is to launch amphibious invasions] require units to be on a coastal city or a harbor district in order to embark.
In Civ 5 this would have been a major hurdle because it was very easy to have a massive 8+ city civilization with only one or two coastal cities. In Civ 6 however this is no longer as onerous since harbor districts allow the construction of ships for non-coastal cities.
The historical motivation seems obvious enough: amphibious landings are really, really difficult, and cargo ships can only be unloaded in a port. If the real world were similar to Civ 5, China's amphibious power would be on par with ours. In reality, they only have enough landing craft to invade a small island. If you want to conduct a foreign war, you need to control a port.
Further, I would also allow the embarkment and disembarkment on enemy ports as long as they are not occupied by an enemy unit.
This sort of brings me to my next idea: foreign military bases. So much foreign policy decisions by the "great powers" (USA, Russia, UK, France, etc.) is motivated by the establishment and protection of foreign military bases. The obvious reason is that this allows rapid deployment of conventional forces and allows for power projection abroad. Many small wars throughout America's history from the 1800s until the present were started in order to build "Coaling Stations" (refueling stops) for ships on patrol.
Russia also recently launched two wars in the Crimea and Syria to protect its own naval bases in Sevestopol and Tartus respectively.
Foreign military bases in our age are the mark of a great empire.
So here's how the mechanic would work: starting in the industrial era when negotiating with city states and other civilizations, you may ask to build one of two kinds of military bases: airports and naval bases. These bases will take up one tile and be constructed sort of like a district. When asking for a military base, you pick a hexagon and haggle over that particular hex.
Naval bases would allow the embarkment and disembarkment of units from the sea. Airports would allow civs to airlift up to one unit per turn from another airport district.
The first idea regards embarkment. If you ask me, embarkment in Civ 5 was kind of lame: it's hard to abstract the idea that your civ just happens to have enough ships waiting to embark as many land units as you want. I thought it was a lot more tolerable than in Civ 3 and 4 where you had to actually build a transport ship just to move guys from one continent to another, but there has to be some kind of limit.
My suggestion is this: [with the exception of marine units and others whose explicit purpose is to launch amphibious invasions] require units to be on a coastal city or a harbor district in order to embark.
In Civ 5 this would have been a major hurdle because it was very easy to have a massive 8+ city civilization with only one or two coastal cities. In Civ 6 however this is no longer as onerous since harbor districts allow the construction of ships for non-coastal cities.
The historical motivation seems obvious enough: amphibious landings are really, really difficult, and cargo ships can only be unloaded in a port. If the real world were similar to Civ 5, China's amphibious power would be on par with ours. In reality, they only have enough landing craft to invade a small island. If you want to conduct a foreign war, you need to control a port.
Further, I would also allow the embarkment and disembarkment on enemy ports as long as they are not occupied by an enemy unit.
This sort of brings me to my next idea: foreign military bases. So much foreign policy decisions by the "great powers" (USA, Russia, UK, France, etc.) is motivated by the establishment and protection of foreign military bases. The obvious reason is that this allows rapid deployment of conventional forces and allows for power projection abroad. Many small wars throughout America's history from the 1800s until the present were started in order to build "Coaling Stations" (refueling stops) for ships on patrol.
Russia also recently launched two wars in the Crimea and Syria to protect its own naval bases in Sevestopol and Tartus respectively.
Foreign military bases in our age are the mark of a great empire.
So here's how the mechanic would work: starting in the industrial era when negotiating with city states and other civilizations, you may ask to build one of two kinds of military bases: airports and naval bases. These bases will take up one tile and be constructed sort of like a district. When asking for a military base, you pick a hexagon and haggle over that particular hex.
Naval bases would allow the embarkment and disembarkment of units from the sea. Airports would allow civs to airlift up to one unit per turn from another airport district.
