Are there seriously no land-unit transports in CiV?

[Jayhawks]

actually, according to the developers (i would link a 1 hour youtube video, yes its actually 1 hour on youtube not 10min, if i could find it again) embark was done almost exclusively as an attempt to improve the AIs naval combat prowess in lieu of 1UPT. you're nuts if you don't want transports. yeah embark is good for tactical movement around your own continent, but any serious overseas invasion is so much easier with transports, and safer

edit: ok found it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI minute 58-60

 

[Doctor Phibes]

actually, according to the developers (i would link a 1 hour youtube video, yes its actually 1 hour on youtube not 10min, if i could find it again) embark was done almost exclusively as an attempt to improve the AIs naval combat prowess in lieu of 1UPT. you're nuts if you don't want transports. yeah embark is good for tactical movement around your own continent, but any serious overseas invasion is so much easier with transports, and safer

edit: ok found it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI

First of all, thanks for the link, later, 1hr too much right now.

But, wow, Jayhawks, if I read you right, embarked units were originally regarded by the developers as wannabe naval units. OK, so it looks to me like the AI still thinks that they are - they coded for that and haven't had the time to change it. Explains a lot about the men with spears mobbing my destroyer...

 

[Airion]

Wow, I find embarking instead of transports to be one of the great improvements in this game. Granted, if you wanted to move a lot of troops in the same direction at the same time, a transport might be nice. In practice, I rarely ever want to do that. I can move my troops between continents and islands independently without having to wait and coordinate it with one or two transports. Don't wait, just embark and go!

The fact that embarked units are defenseless, and that your opponents have the same freedom to easily send units over the sea means that having a good navy is more important, both to watch for enemy troops coming over as well as enemy ships so they can't sneak up on your own embarked units. Having naval units to "protect" your embarked units is the wrong mindset. Use your naval units to destroy your enemy's navy first, so there's nothing to oppose your embarked units at all. Naval dominance is the name of the game, and a perfectly reasonable prerequisite to launching an overseas invasion.

 

[Jayhawks]

ok, so to save some time the part where he talks about naval units etc is from minute 58-60. Now of course he didn't say it exactly as I phrased it above "devs did it almost exclusively to improve the AIs naval combat prowess" or whatever i said, but if you watch just those 2 minutes i think you will infer the same thing as I did.

in terms of the mechanics you're referring to doctor phibes, your explanation is very plausible, the AI could regard embarked units as naval vessels hence them trying to attack with them... dunno. but, i thought they had no combat values

 

[Sonereal]

Maybe there should be a "build-time" for transports? In other words, as soon as the unit enters the coast, it spends three or so turns constructing the transport. Civilian units would probably be excempt from this.

That way, there still feel like you're building transports and oceans no longer seem like a "get-around-the-mountain-free-card".

 

[Atros81]

Well, one of the things to remember about embarkation is that getting into or out of the water eats up all your remaining movement... potentially leaving you vulnerable.

 

[Sonereal]

Well, one of the things to remember about embarkation is that getting into or out of the water eats up all your remaining movement... potentially leaving you vulnerable.

It's really not enough nor fun though. Sure, it eats up remaining movement but for the most part, you can cross an incovient strait of water to sack a city pretty easily but that's probably because the AI doesn't know what a blue water navy is.

 

[Venereus]

Wow, I find embarking instead of transports to be one of the great improvements in this game. Granted, if you wanted to move a lot of troops in the same direction at the same time, a transport might be nice. In practice, I rarely ever want to do that. I can move my troops between continents and islands independently without having to wait and coordinate it with one or two transports. Don't wait, just embark and go!

The fact that embarked units are defenseless, and that your opponents have the same freedom to easily send units over the sea means that having a good navy is more important, both to watch for enemy troops coming over as well as enemy ships so they can't sneak up on your own embarked units. Having naval units to "protect" your embarked units is the wrong mindset. Use your naval units to destroy your enemy's navy first, so there's nothing to oppose your embarked units at all. Naval dominance is the name of the game, and a perfectly reasonable prerequisite to launching an overseas invasion.

Dude, the AI has no navy, so no struggle for naval dominance for you. The real threat are the barb vessels, and they pop out of nowhere. In my experience, you have to create some sort of perimeter around your embarked units with your navy. It's like fog busting on water, you make sure no barb will get to your units by making sure you'll see them coming before the are close enough to snatch them in one turn with the insane movement points naval units get. If I could stack embarked units with my navy just like you can escort settlers, then my invasion army would move and look in a way that makes sense.

 

[Airion]

Dude, the AI has no navy, so no struggle for naval dominance for you. The real threat are the barb vessels, and they pop out of nowhere.

I'm not sure what makes the difference, but my experience has been the opposite. My opponents have made decent navies and barbarian vessels have never sneaked up on an embarked unit. Maybe I'm just better positioning my naval units to spot stray barbarians.

Besides, is it even possible for embarked units to be "snatched" in one turn? Maybe take some damage, yes, but they have hit points.

 

[ChaplainDMK]

I'm growing more and more anti-embark...

For one thing, it really nerfs navies to the extent that they become pointless. I'm still using caravels in the modern age to blast embarked AI units because - what's the point in upgrading? I just run and hide in the rare instances where an actual AI naval vessel shows up.

It also makes cross-ocean exploration a lot, lot less fun -- ruins terra maps for me... Building that first caravel was a real achievement in previous iterations - and it added a second exploration phase. You then had to tech up to the appropriate galleon tech, too -- in order to get settlers and such across the ocean.

Now - pop astronomy and send anything and everything everywhere....

As for the "transports were tedious" complaints -- are you seriously saying that its LESS tedious to inch 10 individual units across the ocean - and if you're smart, a few escorts? Eliminating some tedious aspect is all well and good - but I'd hardly call replacing it with an entirely new kind of tedium an improvement.

If you're not going to bring back TPs, fine -- then create a "convoy" unit that allows me to move a complete army in a single click. Require some sort of improvement or something.

I'm not one to generally fault a game for "realism" issues - but there's a point where it gets ridiculous, and for me (and apparently, OP) - this is it.

Might as well just get rid of the concept of oceans entirely and just call it "blue land", with limitations like "cannot build cities here", "produces 1 F/1C", and "double/triple movement cost".

If we had transports in Civ 5 it would be the same tedium, because there is no stacking so you would still need to inch those transports across the sea....
And i don't think that the transports you get when you research navigation can go out to ocean tiles.

 

[winthrowe]

Besides, is it even possible for embarked units to be "snatched" in one turn? Maybe take some damage, yes, but they have hit points.

Yes, you can move a naval unit on top of it and it instant kills. Much like stealing a worker, except you don't get the unit.

 

[Venereus]

I'm not sure what makes the difference, but my experience has been the opposite. My opponents have made decent navies and barbarian vessels have never sneaked up on an embarked unit. Maybe I'm just better positioning my naval units to spot stray barbarians.

Besides, is it even possible for embarked units to be "snatched" in one turn? Maybe take some damage, yes, but they have hit points.

What game are you playing? Embarked land units and work boats get insta-killed when a naval unit enters their tile. No need for combat or ranged attacks (it does count as your one attack for that turn but doesn't eat up remaining movement points). So yes, units can and do get snatched in one turn if an enemy vessel get to their tile in one turn.

And like I said in my post, I do position my navy to spot incoming barbs by forming a perimeter, but that shouldn't be the way to do it, no invasion force moves like that, it's ridiculous.

Seriously, you're playing another game if the AI has an actual navy, especially if you haven't seen them throw embarked land units at your navy to get snatched, like I described.

 

[Airion]

What game are you playing? Embarked land units and work boats get insta-killed when a naval unit enters their tile.

Seriously, you're playing another game if the AI has an actual navy, especially if you haven't seen them throw embarked land units at your navy to get snatched, like I described.

I stand corrected. But I've never given the AI a chance to attack, so I've never witnessed myself. For some reason the game gave me the impression that naval units only attack ranged, so I've never insta-killed an enemy unit myself.

I agree then that a one hit kill is a bit much, and they should patch that. But I think if you've had a big problem with this, then your naval strategy isn't right. Rather than making a perimeter, station naval units at choke points as lookouts. Also, barbarians don't spawn out of nothing. Once you get caravels you should explore the map and take out barbarian camps on the coast. You're not helpless.

 

[Venereus]

I stand corrected. But I've never given the AI a chance to attack, so I've never witnessed myself. For some reason the game gave me the impression that naval units only attack ranged, so I've never insta-killed an enemy unit myself.

I agree then that a one hit kill is a bit much, and they should patch that. But I think if you've had a big problem with this, then your naval strategy isn't right. Rather than making a perimeter, station naval units at choke points as lookouts. Also, barbarians don't spawn out of nothing. Once you get caravels you should explore the map and take out barbarian camps on the coast. You're not helpless.

The one hit kill is OK, but they should allow naval+embarked stacking like they said they would.

There are not many choke points to look out for when your crossing an ocean. And Caravels can only kill the barbs in and around the camps, they can't destroy the camp, you need a land unit for that. You'd need a vessel per camp to wait out for the next barb spawn and kill it there, not very effective, and tedious. Even then, there can always be some barbs that you missed.

 

[dannythefool]

OK, so it looks to me like the AI still thinks that they are - they coded for that and haven't had the time to change it. Explains a lot about the men with spears mobbing my destroyer...

The AI is mostly based on priorities and weights. For example, when settling, there seems to be a high priority for resource grabs but a lower one for settling close to your own border.

This is probably what is happening here, too: Somewhere, it is coded that going anywhere that requires moving units across the sea should be a lower priority, and the same goes for building a navy. This is probably why the AI doesn't actively try to do things that require embarked units: There is enough other stuff for it to do first. Hence, we only see the large navies very late in the game. (Notice how all the screenshots of AI navy mostly show destroyers?)

In a similar way, it seems the AI's pathfinding algorithm treats land squares as much cheaper than sea squares. It will embark units if necessary even if there only is a blocked land connection, but it will always prefer the land route. And I think the logic is not really tied in with management of the AI's navy. I don't know if embarking is treated as more costly when the AI has no navy, but I do know that I've never seen it actually move its navy close and try to protect the embarked units.

Or in other words, it's quite possible that adjusting these weights to make it slightly more *likely* for the AI to use water will drastically improve gameplay.

 

[King of Spades]

I really like the embarking feature. The only problem is that the AI don't understand basic naval warfare. Yet....(?)

 

[Disreg]

It's one of the 'streamlining' features I actually like about Civ 5. But naval warfare is simply missing from the game because the AI barely builds naval units and doesn't know how to use them, so it feels wrong.

Same goes for ariel combat too really.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Welcome back, OTAKUjbski.

 

[Asylumer]

Well, one of the things to remember about embarkation is that getting into or out of the water eats up all your remaining movement... potentially leaving you vulnerable.

To ranged or naval units... to Melee you make your unit completely invulnerable. It also matters very little if you lose all of your 1 or 2 remaining movement points. That's what, the same movement rate as a normal infantry unit has over hills/forests?

 

[pi-r8]

Dude, the AI has no navy, so no struggle for naval dominance for you. The real threat are the barb vessels, and they pop out of nowhere. In my experience, you have to create some sort of perimeter around your embarked units with your navy. It's like fog busting on water, you make sure no barb will get to your units by making sure you'll see them coming before the are close enough to snatch them in one turn with the insane movement points naval units get. If I could stack embarked units with my navy just like you can escort settlers, then my invasion army would move and look in a way that makes sense.

nothing quite like the feeling of frustration from losing a modern era unit to a barb gallye.