[UI] (5-NS) Apply navigation-style flat-cost for disembark (but not embark) to all canals, no tech-unlock required

[Tekamthi]

Forts and citadels are nice to have as canals in VP, and its great to see the AI making (sometimes) good use of them, but they are annoying when moving land unit with naval escort. See screenshot below, naval unit can cross canal in 1/2 a turn while the land unit its escorting requires almost 3 turns to rendez-vous. Problem gets even worse with open borders scenarios, where AI jams up every available land tile with units.

Screenshot example:

Spoiler :

Context: Currently, VP provides flat-cost disembark/embark bonus into/out-of canal plots at navigation (note: in-game text reads "cities", not canals, but it applies to forts/citadels too). The embark/disembark bonus is increased at rocketry, however this latter bonus need not be considered here -- the navigation bonus effectively mitigates most of the issues that arise similar to the screenshot above; specifically, the disembark flat-cost allows a unit to transit through the canal and re-embark on the other side in one turn -- good enough!

Proposal: Apply a disembark-only flat-cost of 1.9 to all canals, no further tech-unlock required. Keep the current disembark/embark flat-cost unlocks at navigation (1/1) and rocketry (0.1/0.1) as-is.

Related discussion:
if in favor of this idea, should foreign cities w/ OB be passable to naval/embarked?

edit: proposal adjusted/refocused/simplified per feedback
edit2: adjusted value of proposed disembark flat-cost to 1.9; this value solves OP screenshot issue without infringing entirely on navigation unlock

 

[azum4roll]

On the other hand, after you unlock Navigation/Rocketry, embarking/disembarking on canals only costs 1/0.1 move instead of up to 3 moves. This change makes it cost more after Navigation.

 

[Tekamthi]

Can the unit embark/disembark even if another unit occupies canal? That seems to be where I'm always getting stuck. Here it would be trivial to swap units or move the garrison but not always possible.

I'll need to test further to understand how it would cost more as suggested, seems to me it would cost same once all the bonuses apply? Anyway intention is not to increase movement costs, will revise proposal once I understand the concern a little better

 

[azum4roll]

Can the unit embark/disembark even if another unit occupies canal? That seems to be where I'm always getting stuck. Here it would be trivial to swap units or move the garrison but not always possible.

I'll need to test further to understand how it would cost more as suggested, seems to me it would cost same once all the bonuses apply? Anyway intention is not to increase movement costs, will revise proposal once I understand the concern a little better

No, you can't even stay embarked and go into the canal tile if a land unit is occupying it, given this proposal passes. 1UPT applies for all military units of the same domain.

If not disembarking, it costs normal terrain cost to travel to the canal tile (just like a ship does). Which means 2 moves for flat desert, 3 moves for desert hills, etc.

 

[Hinin]

Magi - Please respect the rules for proposal titles. I edited it this time. Have a good day.

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[Tekamthi]

Magi - Please respect the rules for proposal titles. I edited it this time. Have a good day.

my bad... last time I made a proposal a few rounds ago, the written instructions were to leave the numbering up to the mods. Anyways, change is noted, thank you.

 

[Tekamthi]

No, you can't even stay embarked and go into the canal tile if a land unit is occupying it, given this proposal passes. 1UPT applies for all military units of the same domain.

If not disembarking, it costs normal terrain cost to travel to the canal tile (just like a ship does). Which means 2 moves for flat desert, 3 moves for desert hills, etc.

Okay, I am on the same page then as far as these mechanisms go. I am struggling to understand your suggestion that "This change makes it cost more after Navigation." I suppose i've outlined two scenarios in OP, one via screenshot (a 1-plot canal) and another scenario in description (a 2-plot canal). In 1-plot canal scenario from screenshot, after navigation w/ status quo the unit arrives in desired destination in one turn iirc, whereas proposed change he arrives in 2/3 of a turn (but the proposed change would also apply after navigation -- is this where I'm disconnecting? ie you're suggesting applying proposed change pre-nav and status-quo post-nav?), but more importantly his movement matches his naval escort's movement in the latter (3 moves vs 4 moves notwithstanding), rather than following a different ruleset. In 2nd scenario with 2-plot canal, I think both status quo and proposed change arrive at desired destination in 1 full turn? I'm a little uncertain here just going on memory how the game handles the transition between 3 naval moves and 2 land moves as a unit disembarks.

Anyway I'll run the post-nav and post-rocketry scenarios later on, maybe I misunderstand how these are applied; its been a few months since a game reached post-rocketry for me. Ideally I'd like to eliminate the early discrepancy between naval & embarked movement through canals as seen in screenshot, without spoiling the intended tech-derived advantages post nav/rocketry; will adjust or clarify OP shortly.

Edit:

By the time we get to rocketry there are a lot of extra embarked moves -- i have not tested all combos of terrain and canals but so far, in those I have tested incl. nav & rocketry bonuses, the proposed change (using embarked moves to pass through canal rather than embarking/disembarking) would result in the unit further ahead or same as status quo, w/o the complications of early-game logjams and extra arithmetic of embarks/disembarks. I understand that the existing implementation is more easily achieved given existing VP/civ 5 code structure, but its a little convoluted from player perspective. Proposal would "undo" the specific embark/disembark at x tech advantage, however this can be recreated entirely in proposed regime just by adjusting embark moves

 

[azum4roll]

At Navigation, a land unit always uses 1 move to embark from/disembark into canals, while a ship (or a theoretical embarked unit) always has to pay the full cost. At Rocketry, the 1 turns into 0.1.

There's also the problem whether an embarked unit should benefit from roads in case of a 2-tile canal.

 

[Tekamthi]

Good points! in my testing at rocketry i had 6 embarked moves vs only 2 land moves, no roads, so I wasn't able to transit as far as if I were just using the embarked moves rather than transitioning back and forth, but you're right that this is complicated, especially the proposed approach of having embarked unit movement match its naval escort's.

However, we can still fix the problem in OP screen shot by either:

A) moving the navigation bonus forward, so that the flat cost embark/disembark is just inherent to canals from the get-go, and navigation confers some other naval-related bonus​

B) separate the disembark flat-cost bonus from the embark component, and move just the disembark bonus forward -- in promo tables it is organized this way, ie modder can separately make a promo that affects embark, and another for disembark -- have the disembark flat cost of 1 inherent to canals from the start, and embark flat cost bonus added at navigation. Rocketry stays as-is.​

​

I am preferring B), will update proposal with this approach for now.

edit: reflecting further, giving canal inherent disembark flat-cost of 1.9 might be sufficient to allow unit to pass through in OP screenshot -- navigation can then retain its 1/1 embark/disembark flat-cost, and still provide an advantage to this ability. Is my math right?

 

[Stalker0]

Proposal Failed due to Lack of Sponsorship