A Thought - Embarking

[TheMarshmallowBear]

As I was watching Rhye's and Fall (lowkey hoping it makes it's return in Civ 6 RHYS)... I remembered the fact that in Civ 4 you had to embark units onto a boat.

This then prompted and epiphany.

Do you think this system changed?

Now that tere's limited unit stacking do you think we might see the treturn of embarking armies onto boats, as an attachment support unit onto Naval units.

This would solve the issue of AI foolishly embarking units in plain range and would also decongest the naval tiles if someone launched a embark attack on a coastal city.

 

[ZTZaorish]

I guess this has to be weighed against the fact that having to embark all your units with boats might slow naval invasions quite a bit. It isn't a bad idea, as long as you don't need a boat for every single unit.

 

[Jewman]

I think civ 5 mechanics are still in. But I say in screenshots that some coastal tiles had cliffs instead of beaches which makes me think U can't disembark on every coastal tile. Nice tactical touch.

 

[JeszKar]

I think the entire idea of embarking was for to make over sea invasion easier. The problem is that AI couldn't handle the embarking + 1UPT combo.

And while they made naval warfare more important in CIV V it wasn't perfect.
My suggestions for better naval warfare:

- No embarking, but all ships can hold milliary units. Less micromanagement and the AI won't run into its doom.
- Water borders don't affect ships - you can't close off entire civilizations from using the seas. And it is not like there are secured border above the seas and oceans.
- Rivers what can be used for shipping. - It would give some new tactical opportunities.
- Faster shipping. In the base games the ships barely any faster than land units. I would take Rhye's approach. In his mod the ships are much faster. That would make oversea colonization more interesting.
- And for last we need some kind of function for oversea colonization (and a competent AI for that).

 

[Louis XXIV]

Embarking works better with 1upt. I'm OK with keeping it (I hated the idea at first, but it feels to me like water feels different enough from land, which was my fear).

 

[Stalker0]

The new embarking system was way better than the old system imo. The AI needs some love in this department, but not to the point its worth throwing out a new system.

 

[AriochIV]

Civ VI is still 1UPT; there would still be the same problems with transport ships (1 ship per unit, and a trainwreck at the loading and unloading sites) as there is in Civ V. Combined arms and Corps/Armies really doesn't change the equation that much.

 

[Barbarian King]

With 1UPT I didn't mind that they got rid of the transport unit, but I do think it's a bit ridiculous that you can just embark units with no cost other than finishing your movement points for the turn (which is as much of a speed-bump as a forested hill). I'd like to see a system where there is a nominal cost for turning your land units into sea units, to represent having to hire/build ships (although the "amphibious" promotion should waive said cost). A cost could also help steer the AI away from embarking heedlessly, as well as make water tiles more of an impediment and therefor more tactically significant.

 

[brianshapiro]

I think civ 5 mechanics are still in. But I say in screenshots that some coastal tiles had cliffs instead of beaches which makes me think U can't disembark on every coastal tile. Nice tactical touch.

I think its possible that the coastal tiles with hills are the ones that have the cliffs.. that's what it looked like.

Would be nice in general if they added a bit of real topology, a couple of different elevation levels to the game. Then we could even have things like canyons formed around rivers if the elevation was greater than the lowest level.

 

[Heinage]

I think civ 5 mechanics are still in. But I say in screenshots that some coastal tiles had cliffs instead of beaches which makes me think U can't disembark on every coastal tile. Nice tactical touch.

If it turns out that you can't embark/disembark along every costal tile, this could wreak havoc for AI planning overseas invasions because of bottle necking.
I hope that, whatever they end up going with, the AI can use it effectively.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

[dexters]

A great talk by Soren Civ3/4 programmer mentioned that the issue with transport ships is you have to program the AI to coordinate what cities to produce the units/ships and have the right units arrive at the cities on time when the ship sets for sail. Or you get half empty ships or the wrong unit types landing or not enough units landing.

I think cutting transport ship out of Civ is a good idea. Now embarkation has its own issues, but it's gotten a lot better in BNW compared to vanilla.

It's fairly common to see an AI take over another AI's territory half a world away. I remember this being in my wishlist of things for Civ3 Conquests when it was announced naval warfare was going to feature more heavily as there was a pacific war campaign and AI was adapted to it.

All we got was more numerous stacks of 2 warships guarding 1 full transport ad nauseum. The AI didn't actually got better at inter-continental warfare.

 

[brianshapiro]

I always thought river travel with boats would have been great.. I was disappointed when they decided to put rivers between hexes, and thus cut off from unit movement. I guess it made sense, somewhat, with the decision to allow units to disembark without a naval unit to carry them, but it blocked out a possible tactical element in the game.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Civ VI is still 1UPT; there would still be the same problems with transport ships (1 ship per unit, and a trainwreck at the loading and unloading sites) as there is in Civ V. Combined arms and Corps/Armies really doesn't change the equation that much.

Yes, but there could be tweaks in the system. Like a support unit you need to have with unit to embark, etc.

One of the biggest problems with Civ5 system is how redundant the naval units became. In previous games you had to build transports and with the 8 units inside they were becoming quite expensive to loose, so naval units came in. Plus embarked units were moved faster than most of land units, so using transports even on the same continent often made sense.

In Civ5 embarked units move with the same speed (or slower) with reduced visibility and combat ability, so you avoid this if you can. And if you can't, you rarely defend the convoy of swimming units as it would require too many ships and the risk of loosing 1 unit is not that big.

With this, the returning of transports doesn't look that bad. Of course, there could be more subtle ways to make naval forces important, but I can't see them right now.

 

[dexters]

Yes, but there could be tweaks in the system. Like a support unit you need to have with unit to embark, etc.

One of the biggest problems with Civ5 system is how redundant the naval units became. In previous games you had to build transports and with the 8 units inside they were becoming quite expensive to loose, so naval units came in. Plus embarked units were moved faster than most of land units, so using transports even on the same continent often made sense.

In Civ5 embarked units move with the same speed (or slower) with reduced visibility and combat ability, so you avoid this if you can. And if you can't, you rarely defend the convoy of swimming units as it would require too many ships and the risk of loosing 1 unit is not that big.

With this, the returning of transports doesn't look that bad. Of course, there could be more subtle ways to make naval forces important, but I can't see them right now.

Rose colored glasses my friend. Naval warfare / naval units was always a weak spot of Civ through to 5. Except in 5, they can actually invade properly since the AI can treat water mostly like an extension of land.

It makes a lot of sense to keep transports out and embarkation in. And I wouldn't really quantify the need for transports as adding focus to the navy. It is something the AI demonstrably couldn't handle very well.

I like your maintenance idea but again, it seems a bit redundant. Whatever they do in addition to embarkation needs to make sense in the game.

Added layers of complexity for the sake of complexity is not a good look at the game.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Rose colored glasses my friend. Naval warfare / naval units was always a weak spot of Civ through to 5. Except in 5, they can actually invade properly since the AI can treat water mostly like an extension of land.

The AI weakness is not good reason for choosing a system. It's better to fix the AI.

I remember using ships much more in Civ3 than in Civ5, but this could be rose colored glasses, yes. Anyway, I'd like to see more active naval gameplay. If it could be done with Civ5 embark, I'll be happy.

 

[dexters]

The AI weakness is not good reason for choosing a system. It's better to fix the AI.

I remember using ships much more in Civ3 than in Civ5, but this could be rose colored glasses, yes. Anyway, I'd like to see more active naval gameplay. If it could be done with Civ5 embark, I'll be happy.

If they can fix it and show us they have, I'm with you 100%. I love naval warfare.



Until then, I am assuming the solution is AI coding and computational resources that would put the min requirements and time spent coding a single feature above what they are willing to spend so they will go with the best solution they have, one that is proven to work. Embarkation.

 

[ls612]

A great talk by Soren Civ3/4 programmer mentioned that the issue with transport ships is you have to program the AI to coordinate what cities to produce the units/ships and have the right units arrive at the cities on time when the ship sets for sail. Or you get half empty ships or the wrong unit types landing or not enough units landing.

I think cutting transport ship out of Civ is a good idea. Now embarkation has its own issues, but it's gotten a lot better in BNW compared to vanilla.

It's fairly common to see an AI take over another AI's territory half a world away. I remember this being in my wishlist of things for Civ3 Conquests when it was announced naval warfare was going to feature more heavily as there was a pacific war campaign and AI was adapted to it.

All we got was more numerous stacks of 2 warships guarding 1 full transport ad nauseum. The AI didn't actually got better at inter-continental warfare.

In C2C we spent a ton of time making sure that transports showed up with escorts and units on board. The way it was done was by roping together the units into one pseudo-unit and then setting that "unit's" AI to wait unless it had something resembling a good force composition and then go to the invasion destination (choosing the invasion destination was also a tricky thing to do, we ended up going with an area next to the lowest defense city we could find).

For 1UPT I can only imagine how much more complex it would be as the fleet couldn't just all be on one tile.

 

[Stalker0]

One of the biggest problems with Civ5 system is how redundant the naval units became. In previous games you had to build transports and with the 8 units inside they were becoming quite expensive to loose, so naval units came in. Plus embarked units were moved faster than most of land units, so using transports even on the same continent often made sense.

Part of the main issue with navies has always been they don't represent their main function historically....protecting naval trade.

They have talked about the escort functionality in Civ VI (allowing a unit to follow another). If the trade system works the same way or similarly to Civ V...there is the possibility to allow navy units to escort trade ships. Which in term means you want a navy to kill those escorts and take out the trade ships.

If that is implemented, it would certainly increase navies use!

 

[stealth_nsk]

Part of the main issue with navies has always been they don't represent their main function historically....protecting naval trade.

They have talked about the escort functionality in Civ VI (allowing a unit to follow another). If the trade system works the same way or similarly to Civ V...there is the possibility to allow navy units to escort trade ships. Which in term means you want a navy to kill those escorts and take out the trade ships.

If that is implemented, it would certainly increase navies use!

Yes, that would be good. But since the game is far from perfect simulation, the real-world functions not necessary work and may need additional things.

If they could have useful ships and keep embarkation mechanic, that would be great.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

With stacking + transport the #inputs to cross ocean was far less.

With 1 UPT, however, embarkation makes more sense than transports, because you'd be stuck with stacking rules (and some pretty nasty stacking/switch tactics) or cluttering/bottlenecking naval landings like crazy while placing an enormous burden on the AI. Embarkation just makes more sense if sticking to 1UPT or modified 1 UPT.