Over the past 24 hours, I have come across multiple interesting threads advocating unorthodox beliefs about amphibious units. I have not yet had the chance to conduct a trial on the legitimacy of these new pieces of information, but wanted to write down what I have heard and tie the threads together so that, should I forget about amphibious units after going to sleep tonight, there is still a trail to the evidence.
The first thread is this one; see especially posts #18 and #19, and the sources they link to. Post #18 quotes Sulla, who wrote, "Their [Marines'] special ability is to attack cities from ships, during which they ignore city defensive bonuses." Post #19 quoted alexman writing at Apolyton in 2004: "OK, the amphibious bonus is actually 25% (confirmed by Firaxis)." It's worth noting that by the time Civ IV was published in the fall of 2004, alexman was a Firaxis employee; I am not sure if he was at the time of that post. I am skeptical of both claims, given the lack of additional citations and that they do not appear to be common knowledge.
The Firaxis editor's help says of the Amphibious trait, "Units may attack from a ship onto land", saying nothing of what Sulla or alexman wrote.
@MeteorPunch did some tests in this post, which asserts to refute Sulla's claim. Though the results seem to support that, and the methodology appears sound, no sample size was given. It also doesn't necessarily contradict what alexman said; a 25% bonus would be more difficult to detect.
Next, some astute observers noticed an extra defensive field for buildings in my editor versus Firaxis's. I dug into it, and the differences suggest that the extra field may be intended as a buff against amphibious attacks. It also has a value of 50 for the Coastal Fortress in the standard Conquests game, suggesting that cities with a Coastal Fortress may have a significant advantage against seaborne Berserk and Marine attacks. It is unclear at this time if this field is one that Firaxis has planned, but never implemented, or if like charm, is is implemented, but hidden from the editor.
I thought it made sense to have a central thread on these, since there are significant implications if any of these possibilities stand up to scrutiny, and the topic may be of interest to more than just the people visiting the threads where the topic has already come up.
If you do any studies on these, please post the results. Hopefully we can follow the scientific method and determine once and for all if there is any merit to any of these possibilities.
The first thread is this one; see especially posts #18 and #19, and the sources they link to. Post #18 quotes Sulla, who wrote, "Their [Marines'] special ability is to attack cities from ships, during which they ignore city defensive bonuses." Post #19 quoted alexman writing at Apolyton in 2004: "OK, the amphibious bonus is actually 25% (confirmed by Firaxis)." It's worth noting that by the time Civ IV was published in the fall of 2004, alexman was a Firaxis employee; I am not sure if he was at the time of that post. I am skeptical of both claims, given the lack of additional citations and that they do not appear to be common knowledge.
The Firaxis editor's help says of the Amphibious trait, "Units may attack from a ship onto land", saying nothing of what Sulla or alexman wrote.
@MeteorPunch did some tests in this post, which asserts to refute Sulla's claim. Though the results seem to support that, and the methodology appears sound, no sample size was given. It also doesn't necessarily contradict what alexman said; a 25% bonus would be more difficult to detect.
Next, some astute observers noticed an extra defensive field for buildings in my editor versus Firaxis's. I dug into it, and the differences suggest that the extra field may be intended as a buff against amphibious attacks. It also has a value of 50 for the Coastal Fortress in the standard Conquests game, suggesting that cities with a Coastal Fortress may have a significant advantage against seaborne Berserk and Marine attacks. It is unclear at this time if this field is one that Firaxis has planned, but never implemented, or if like charm, is is implemented, but hidden from the editor.
I thought it made sense to have a central thread on these, since there are significant implications if any of these possibilities stand up to scrutiny, and the topic may be of interest to more than just the people visiting the threads where the topic has already come up.
If you do any studies on these, please post the results. Hopefully we can follow the scientific method and determine once and for all if there is any merit to any of these possibilities.