Announcement: Balancing change to "Galleon" [IMPLEMENTED]

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

please pay attention to this balancing change coming with next release.
(see below "How to revert in your private version" if you do not like it)

Due to the new ships being added, they are now also all getting more specialized.

I.e. the Galleon is no more the "One ship that rules them all".
(Since it could transport everything and was the only ship to also transport treasures.)

It has now become a dedicated transport for treasures and goods.
(It can not transport other Units anymore.)

Gameplay effect:
Most likely you will still have a few of them, to do most of the heavy treasure and goods hauling to Europe.
But you will now also need other Ships to bring Units from Europe or transport them between the colonial cities.

Is it immersive?
Not sure about it, but I really hated the fact that all other Ships became worthless compared to Galleons.
I can imagine that the "Treasure Galleons of the Kings" were not necessarily open to transporting people.

Reason for this change:

Spoiler :

The current balancing was boring because no more strategic decision existed.
In the end everybody just bought or built Galleons and ignored everything else.
Now things are a bit different and players will have to think again which ship they want to buy for what.
(By the way, AI will have no problem with this. It can handle it.)

How to revert in your private version:
(In the case you do not like it.)

Spoiler :

It is pretty easy, since it is just one single XML value.
(If you change as below, Galleon can then transport everything as before.)

1. Open: "Assets/XML/Units/CIV4UnitInfos.xml"
2. Search for: <bTreasureShip>1</bTreasureShip> (It is only set for UNIT_GALLEON)
3. Change: "1" to a "0"
4. Done, feature deactivated, everything as before.

 

[XSamatan]

I like it.

More specialisation equals more choices for the player!

Regards
XSamatan

 

[nci]

As far as I remember, before the now-cancelled global cargo overhaul, allowing any ship with 3x cargo slots to transport treasures was considered. Why was that idea dropped?

 

[raystuttgart]

... allowing any ship with 3x cargo slots to transport treasures was considered.

Yes, it was discussed as another idea to break the "dominance of the Galleon".
It was also implemented like that in the V's modmod if I remember correctly.

Why was that idea dropped?

Because it conflicts with the idea of "specialization" and would basically make the Galleon as implemented above worthless.
Now it still has its special purpose (as only Ship being able to transport Treasures) and still valuable because of having 6 slots.

Also, many members of community did not like the idea "every ship with more than 3 slots can transport treasures".
Also team members did not want it and I now also feel it would have been a design failure, making the game less challenging and more boring.

-------

Summary:
I think this design is much better for balance and more interesting for gameplay.
(In hind sight the idea "every ship with 3 slots ..." would propably have been boring game design.)

 

[Aradziem]

Now it still has its special purpose (as only Ship being able to transport Galleons) and still valuable because of having 6 slots.

Galleon can transport galleons? Interesting, but I'm aware that galleon could go to city, unload galleons and unloaded galleons could have full move points and repeat this indefinetely, so they will only be stopped by more than 5 tile gap between cities (not always, they may have more movement points because they acquired promotions) .

 

[raystuttgart]

Galleon can transport galleons?

Just a typo in my post.
The typo is corrected now.

... as only Ship being able to transport Treasures ...

 

[jaeyeom]

I think that's a good change. "Treasure and goods" includes all cargo like lumber, furs, salt, etc. Is that right? Sometimes goods looks like just trading goods, which I got confused for a second.

 

[Martin Peralta]

I was doing a cost/benefit analysis a few days ago for all the available ships, and based on it, the most efficient vessel is the Merchantman. It has the least resources+time per cargo slot requirement of them all. Once i saw the numbers, i really understood that it makes no sense to invest in other types of ships.. Thus I welcome the decision to specialize ships for different roles/goals... Any chance of further specializing the rest of the ships?

 

[nci]

@Martin Peralta

1. Galleon is the only ship able to transport treasures, so unless you completely ignore exploration, owning at least one makes a lot of sense;

2. While you are relying on buying ships in Europe instead of building them yourself, diversifying your fleet makes a lot of sense since each consecutive ship bough from Europe will cost more.

3. Did you factor in possible upgrades?

E.g. any ships with combat ability can get Merchant Vessel II promotion, which adds additional cargo slot. A single Ship Wreckage grants enough XP for Merchant Vessel I & II promotions, making Carrack by far superior in efficiency - albeit a bit slow. Caravela Redonda with the same upgrades has 4 cargo slots while being faster and costing slightly less. Additionally, ships with combat ability can attack sea animals, helping score precious Great Admiral points.

Privateer with Piracy III promotion makes a fine trade ship too - when not occupied otherwise. 5 cargo slots and ability to sail to Port Royal is nothing to be shunned of.

 

[Martin Peralta]

@nci

1. Yes, for transporting treasures - Galleon is a must, but as you said, having at least one is fine. Once you are mid-game, you probably either cashed-in your treasures or already transported them... When you start building your transport fleet, you focus on goods, not treasures.. Thus the option of having a treasure-carrier becomes irrelevant.

2. No, I ignore upgrades un purpose. Once i start building my trade fleet, I know that I will assign them a trade route, thus I don't have the time/option to promote them.

Priateer will indeed see some battle during its lifetime, but its not the most efficient trade vessel in the game.. Its purpose is different

 

[nci]

@Martin Peralta it is great that you find Merchantman the ship of choice for your fleet - however, this does not invalidate other trade ship choices.

 

[PlanarFreak]

Interesting... if slightly counter-intuitive to me. I feel that having one ship unable to carry units is a bit odd; for ship diversity, why not add more types of ships, or make galleon more expensive?

In my experience, I loved using caravels and carracks for small, short automatic trades.

Edit:
I just saw that 2 new ships were also added (Slave Baroque and Troop Transport)!
This type of specialization sounds like it could work... reserving final judgement after play

 

[raystuttgart]

I just saw that 2 new ships were also added (Slave Baroque and Troop Transport)!

Not just 2 new ships.
We added 8 new ones in the internal release.

You probably missed this thread.
Quite a lot has happened in the last months.