All the navy stuff

[Marla_Singer]

Going back to sea navigation, a thing that could be interesting would be to add streams on oceans and coasts.

As I told often over here, the reason why no Mediterranean civilization navigated South of Morocco before the Portuguese was because of a strong stream beyond Cape Bojador making the return impossible. But beyond that, navigation was very dependent on streams untill steam boats were invented. Only sailing ship would be influenced by streams, subsequent motor boats could become immune to them.

Streams could be pictured by little arrows on the tile pointing towards a specific direction, accelerating ships that way and slowing them down in the opposite way. Streams could be of varying strength pictured by the number of arrows on them (from 1 to 3).

 

[Evie]

Yes, introducing currents and prevailing winds to tiles would add a lot of diversity to naval movement and exploration with sail ships (and help make naval movement more predictable, therefore naval battles more likely). That would be a major sea improvement that would benefit most of the game (until the introduction of steamships). The trade winds were historically *massively* important and determined navigation pattern across the Atlantic and Pacific, and they would also help make the whole ocean less boring.

That would be a simple and yet infinitely valuable addition to naval gameplay, functionning as roads and impassable terrains across the ocean.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Streams could be pictured by little arrows on the tile pointing towards a specific direction, accelerating ships that way and slowing them down in the opposite way. Streams could be of varying strength pictured by the number of arrows on them (from 1 to 3).

Or, especially in the first Eras of the game, Prevailing Winds could be depicted by the traditional God blowing in the right direction.

And the effect of winds on sailing ships to which steam vessels are immune would also emphasize the massive advantage steam vessels had both as Trade ships able to steer a more direct course and as naval vessels able to steer Intercepting courses without regard to the Prevailing wind direction.

 

[GeneralZIft]

Yes, introducing currents and prevailing winds to tiles would add a lot of diversity to naval movement and exploration with sail ships (and help make naval movement more predictable, therefore naval battles more likely). That would be a major sea improvement that would benefit most of the game (until the introduction of steamships). The trade winds were historically *massively* important and determined navigation pattern across the Atlantic and Pacific, and they would also help make the whole ocean less boring.

That would be a simple and yet infinitely valuable addition to naval gameplay, functionning as roads and impassable terrains across the ocean.

This idea is amazing, I really like it