All the navy stuff

[dagriggstar]

Dumping all my naval stuff into a single topic...

Terrain - Dangerous seas and calm waters. This is roughly Ocean and Coast tiles however Dangerous seas can appear adjacent to land under certain circumstances (for example, the Southern/Northern tips of continents).

Naval Unit movement - Needs to be drastically increased, particularly late game. Oar powered vessels move 5 spaces, Sail power moves 12, Warships move 20, something like this. Extend ZoC (depending on move rate) and combat happens on entry to another ships ZoC.

Infrastructure - Harbours for fishing villages gain food adjacency from calm waters. Drydocks for shipbuilding gain production adjacency from land tiles (Sheltered bays become better for shipbuilding).

Ferrying - If at the start of a turn, a naval units ZoC extends between two disconnected lands, land units may cross between the two lands. This uses the naval units turn. You can stack multiple ZoCs together.

Sealift - At some stage in the game (Ocean going vessels) land units can "sealift" (teleport) from one friendly port to another friendly port, provided the route is not "blocked/intercepted" by an enemy ship. If the unit is intercepted it is destroyed.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I love the "Ferrying" idea. In Civ3 (although the idea may have began in Civ2), the player could set up ship chains to do this explicitly, with lots of micro steps. Having a way to streamline that, have it appear seamless as you describe it, would be wonderful.

The increased naval movement could dramatically alter the AI's gameplay, if it can handle it. I play a lot of Beyond Earth Rising Tide (BERT). The AI in that game is quite aggressive with its ships, both in hunting aliens (barbs) and attacking coastal cities. In my experience, the AI does *much* better in conquering coastal or aquatic cities with its navy than it does conquering land cities with its army. Being able to zoom in from 12 tiles away, on the first turn of the war, could be a nasty surprise.

 

[reddishrecue]

They should make a really high seas and increase the trade. Merchant marines should upgrade from naval trade routes and the bonuses they used to have in civ 5 returned. Crossing the oceans shouldn't be as easy because the oceans are already too difficult to cross in reality. In civ 6 however, there are some storms and disturbances that cause damage to units. There should be a health meter on the trader as well so that the trader won't have it as easy to cross whatever is crossing for trade and encourage more internal trade such as a desert or a high sea when encountering a storm on the sea or on the sand.

 

[Iceberg1er]

WTH CANT LONGSHIPS GO UP RIVERS AND DEPLOY UNITS???? I have been watching Viking stuff and playing that AAA RPG where you go Viking and I'm just really let down by being Harald here nah this is major component OF CIVILIATION PIRACY AND FRAIDING AND NAVAL TECHNOLOGY is basically the main driver of who dominates the globe and holds real power. ships deploy troops and troops enforce whatever you want!

7654201993​

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Civ 6 doesn't have rivers, does it?

I do agree that you should be able to place multiple units within a single transport ship. It doesn't make sense for a Galley to slow down to a pace of 2 tiles per turn just to let an embarked Settler keep up with it when the Settler could just be able to sit in the Galley. Transport ships would also ease the 1UPT logistical madness, at least on the naval theatre

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Civ 6 doesn't have rivers, does it?

Yes. Though they aren't navigable with naval units.
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/River_(Civ6)

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I am such an idiot. Of course it has rivers, as does Civ5. I haven't played either for a while, but I still don't understand what I was thinking when I made that bloomer

 

[GeneralZIft]

I don't think there's a very good compromise. If they turn Rivers into a tile, which would mesh weird with lots of other mechanics, it would allow some ships to swim up.
Because otherwise, I don't think it makes sense. Unless maybe all units move on the boundaries of tiles rather than the insides, like in Catan or something.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I don't think there's a very good compromise. If they turn Rivers into a tile, which would mesh weird with lots of other mechanics, it would allow some ships to swim up.
Because otherwise, I don't think it makes sense. Unless maybe all units move on the boundaries of tiles rather than the insides, like in Catan or something.

One possible graphics/play compromise would be to move rivers into the tiles instead of on the edges. Navigable rivers (a definition that would change during the game) would be indicated by a heavy, wide river graphic, other rivers by a thinner line. ships could be indicated as 'in water' elements, land units as 'on land' elements in the same tile. With the proper Technology, barriers could also be set up across a river to prevent riverine movement (Medieval Paris served this function, preventing Viking raids from going up river past the city, which had fortifications on the Isle de la Cite and both riverbanks)

In addition to movement of ships/boats and faster movement of land units up and down navigable rivers on boats, rivers would also allow any Trade Route traced along it to carry Food and other bulk goods/resources - before the railroad and internal combustion vehicles and modern roads, there was simply no other way to move such goods effectively long distances.

Those waterfalls that everybody initially admired on Humankind maps could be graphic markers of where the river turns Un-navigable, so not only would look good but also serve a useful purpose. - And yes, I know the Rus portaged around the cataracts/waterfalls south of Kiev on the Dnepr River to carry goods to Constantinople/Micklegard, but that's my compromise to keep both riverine movement and waterfalls!

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

then again. land units and naval units can be placed on this big river tiles ? and this is the only instance where land 'melee attackers' can be advantageous against warships. ?

 

[GeneralZIft]

One possible graphics/play compromise would be to move rivers into the tiles instead of on the edges. Navigable rivers (a definition that would change during the game) would be indicated by a heavy, wide river graphic, other rivers by a thinner line. ships could be indicated as 'in water' elements, land units as 'on land' elements in the same tile. With the proper Technology, barriers could also be set up across a river to prevent riverine movement (Medieval Paris served this function, preventing Viking raids from going up river past the city, which had fortifications on the Isle de la Cite and both riverbanks)

In addition to movement of ships/boats and faster movement of land units up and down navigable rivers on boats, rivers would also allow any Trade Route traced along it to carry Food and other bulk goods/resources - before the railroad and internal combustion vehicles and modern roads, there was simply no other way to move such goods effectively long distances.

Those waterfalls that everybody initially admired on Humankind maps could be graphic markers of where the river turns Un-navigable, so not only would look good but also serve a useful purpose. - And yes, I know the Rus portaged around the cataracts/waterfalls south of Kiev on the Dnepr River to carry goods to Constantinople/Micklegard, but that's my compromise to keep both riverine movement and waterfalls!

See the thing is, mechanically speaking, this is not so different from what we have now. A navigable river is just a relabelled coast tile... the case remains that you would still be unable to go up the whole river (which is presumably what players want)
(PS. I know obviously that Warships cannot physically go up the entire stretch of a River, but you know what I mean)

EDIT: I know Scale is not Civ's strong point, but if you think about a wide river the size of a tile, that is the entire width of a city... a little over the top if you ask me

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I don't think there's a very good compromise. If they turn Rivers into a tile, which would mesh weird with lots of other mechanics, it would allow some ships to swim up.
Because otherwise, I don't think it makes sense. Unless maybe all units move on the boundaries of tiles rather than the insides, like in Catan or something.

Or Viking Longships are a special unit and can instantly teleport to a city tile on a river, as long as they start their movement on a coast tile where the river enters.
It's not like we've never had units that could teleport between mountains before.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Or Viking Longships are a special unit and can instantly teleport to a city tile on a river, as long as they start their movement on a coast tile where the river enters.
It's not like we've never had units that could teleport between mountains before.

Is 'Harald Fairhair' a longship galley or Knorr? it doesn't shown using oars at all.

 

[Marla_Singer]

I don't think there's a very good compromise. If they turn Rivers into a tile, which would mesh weird with lots of other mechanics, it would allow some ships to swim up.
Because otherwise, I don't think it makes sense. Unless maybe all units move on the boundaries of tiles rather than the insides, like in Catan or something.

The way I see it, I think rivers should work as natural roads, increasing the movement speed of units the same way as roads. That would require them to be on tiles, exactly as roads are. Also, goods should be transiting naturally through both rivers and coasts, making them the natural paths for trade routes. Therefore they would require to be protected in order to develop trade.

Also I think the wheel should be a much later tech than it is. The wheel should be a "bronze age" technology (If you don't like defining ages by metals, let's say a 2nd millenium BCE technology) having as prerequesite animal husbandry and masonry and leading to horseback riding. Also I think the movement advantage from rivers should be superior to the one of roads (for instance that could be x2 for roads and x3 for rivers and coasts). Later in the game, high seas navigation would expand trade to ocean tiles, railroad would become faster than rivers.

 

[Evie]

While I get the desire to have ships travel upriver, and there are historical examples of it, I'm not sure the idea has gameplay value. Historically, outside larger estuaries (which are essentially coastal-ish areas), the historical forms of upriver travel find very little application to gameplay in civ.

This is because in gameplay terms, ships in the game exists for the purpose of warfare. And sea-going warships carrying out warfare in rivers is something that, outside the Viking century, just hasn't really been much of a thing historically. This is not to say river warfare didn't happen, it did (Red Cliffs readily come to mind, all the way to the swiftboats of vietnam), but throughout history that has been the province of separate, specialized units that were only suited to warfare on river, a crippling overspecialization that would render them worthless in-game. Outside the viking era, I struggle to think of a single major military engagement featuring military sea-going ships operating on rivers (as opposed to river estuaries, which are coastal tiles).

So, build an entire system in the game to account for Vikings being able to wage raids a couple tiles further inland than others? It does not seem like a wise use of design resource.

All other naval use of rivers are best represented in other ways: accelrated unit movements for military transportation, amphibious capacities for land units with riverine crafts support, and trade routes along river for commercial shipping. Even in movement terms, a scout unit that moves faster along rivers and can embark upon reaching the sea is probably more in line with river ships-based exploration than trying to make navigable rivers work.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

So, build an entire system in the game to account for Vikings being able to wage raids a couple tiles further inland than others? It does not seem like a wise use of design resource.

Sounds like it could at least be a unique attribute for Denmark/Norway, either ability or for a UU, instead of making it accessible for all civs.

 

[Evie]

Best to just give them longer range on pillaging rather than program navigable tiles just for the one unit (and it would be only one unit, not a civ ability - the golden age of viking raids was over pretty quickly historically.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Best to just give them longer range on pillaging rather than program navigable tiles just for the one unit (and it would be only one unit, not a civ ability - the golden age of viking raids was over pretty quickly historically.

Yes, I didn't necessarily mean designing the rivers to make them navigable. Just give them the ability to raid farther inland on a tile adjacent to a river, as long as they are adjacent to where the river ends on the coast.

 

[Evie]

Sounds cumbersome to be honest - I'd just say "tiles adjacent to a river" and leave it at that.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

There should be two kings of rivers, navigable and non-navigable. non-navigable look like civ 6 rivers navigable would be full tiles like canals are.