An idea for wooden ships

[aimeeandbeatles]

The thing that got me was that the ships could go all around the oceans without apparently ever stopping for food. So I have an idea for the early wooden ones (e.g. caravels):

-- Each one has a limit on how many turns it can last. If you use them all up, it disappears. It increases as the ships get bigger and more advanced and the limit disappears with refridgeration.

-- The limit is for open-ocean only. If you stay near the coast, it's fine (the ship's crew can run ashore and get berries or shoot some animals). However if you have 5 turns left and then just sail along the coast without going to cities or seafood resources, it stays at 5 turns.

-- To reset the limit, you can pass through a friendly city (either one of yours, or someone you have 'open borders' with). You don't have to stop in the city. This would be restocking the food supply.

-- You can also reset the limit by stopping on a seafood resource for one turn. This would give them time to catch enough food to last a while longer.

-- If you destroy another ship, sometimes you get "salvage" from it, which would give you more turns.

There could also be special promotions to let them last longer. Or maybe techs (e.g. salting?)

 

[CivMyWay]

Firstly, good job on the long post (by your standards).
Secondly, sorry I don't like the idea. You would be giving a supply-line like rule ONLY for ships. Either for all, or for none.

 

[TheMadMonk]

How would you colonize the West? It's a tad more then 5 spaces in most maps and there are no islands to forage off of.

It's a good Idea but it isn't very effective for it wold only be effective for like, one age, Astronomy-Refrigeration.

 

[Gamemaster77]

It's the same problem for everything else like tanks.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Well, perhaps other units too, but I was thinking of how to do it for ships.

Also, only the galleys/trimenes would have something like 5 turns (if they're allowed the ocean). I was thinking maybe galleons could have 10-15 turns which should be enough to reach the new world. Or perhaps have more seafood out in the middle of the ocean. Obviously the limit would increase for larger maps.

 

[Gooblah]

It would work if the AI was updated to take advantage of it. You could kill two birds with one stone by rewriting the ship Go-To functions to make the ship stop at a city within its 'survival limit' automatically, reducing micromanagement. To make it even better, tack on a +1 gold bonus every time a foreign ship stops in your city, with bonuses depending on resource placement or land; thus, placing cities on the coast near canals and luxuries would actually benefit the civilization beyond pure military reasons.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Good ideas.

 

[Rusty Edge]

It would work if the AI was updated to take advantage of it. You could kill two birds with one stone by rewriting the ship Go-To functions to make the ship stop at a city within its 'survival limit' automatically, reducing micromanagement. To make it even better, tack on a +1 gold bonus every time a foreign ship stops in your city, with bonuses depending on resource placement or land; thus, placing cities on the coast near canals and luxuries would actually benefit the civilization beyond pure military reasons.

That would neutralize my micro-management objections, and add some realism, too, by redirecting the maintence gold to foreign ports.

It would make me even happier if this limit and movement would scale with map size while we're at it. Oh, well.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Well, I did mention that about the map size, in post 5.

 

[TheDS]

I like this idea. Mostly, I think I like the toll collector part. Race to set up canals at critical choke points! Fight for them! Something similar could be done for land units too. Set up your roads and rails to go through toll points. Don't wanna pay the toll? No problem, you'll just have to go around. Obviously, this only works on people you have OB with. I can't imagine someone you're at war with paying a toll.

 

[Camikaze]

I don't really see much problem with wooden ships as there are now, apart from galleys, but I think allowing them in oceans with a large chance of failure sufficiently rectifies that problem. However, I kinda like the idea of forced docking after a certain number of turns, perhaps increasing with more technologically advanced ships, so that modern ships can circumnavigate the world without docking. And I like Gooblah's idea of an income boost for ports that are frequently used for this purpose by other civs.