Are there seriously no land-unit transports in CiV?

[cembandit]

Oh man, good riddance to transports. I found moving armies in civ 4 tedious.

 

[Agent327]

So I'm sitting here in the Modern Era with Fighters, Tanks & Infantry.

I get bored with the happy family I have going on with my neighbours and decide I want to crack some skulls overseas.

So, I change the production in my 'shipyard' city and ... um ... I can build Destroyers, Submarines, and Carriers but no Transport.

Figuring I missed a tech somewhere along the way, I begin scouring the Tech Tree, but there is no transport!


Am I missing something here?

Does Firaxis really expect us to move 5k+ worth of defenseless embarked troops at a paltry rate of 4 movement with only 1UpT?

If this is true, I feel like it makes Pre-Industrial overseas warfare a bit .

One word: Legions. (Let´s you stack as much as you want on a tile. No need for transports of any kind.)

 

[player1 fanatic]

Here is my only issue with embarking:

Naval combat is slow. These units have big combat rating, but low ranged attack. It takes several rounds just to destroy frigate with destroyer. In these several rounds frigate could just ignore destroyer and rush for embarked units you are supposed to protect.

And the bigger the embarked "fleet" is the more places where enemy ships could sneak in. Despite positioning of defensive ships and ZoC.

 

[Venereus]

One word: Legions. (Let´s you stack as much as you want on a tile. No need for transports of any kind.)

Mods are not supposed to be the solution for this game's shortcomings. They should be a nice addition if you fancy it, nothing more.

 

[zonk]

That's bad military AI, not an issue with the embarking mechanic. If the AI made/used navies, you'd see situations where maritime power was a requirement for any transcontinental operations. If it knew what it was doing, your Caravel would've been eaten by a Destroyer many turns ago.

Seriously, 95% of the "myriad issues" with fundamental Civ5 mechanics are the bad military AI.

Maybe... but I was thinking about this last night, and I don't have a lot of confidence that the military AI CAN be fixed. I say this as someone that would prefer a hex/1upt system -- but it makes for/requires a completely different AI/game to pull off. Civilization was never really supposed to be a military strategy game - so balancing the AI in previous iterations was really just a matter of doing one or more of three things:

1) Give the AI ever more bonuses/free units to simply make them a size-dependent overwhelming force

2) Create counters for axe/horse/whatever rushes -- change unit strengths, add attributes, etc

3) Change the AI's build prioritization

The AI in I, II, III, IV was never made brilliant -- even with improved AI/BTS -- but it didn't need to be.

V, to work properly, requires a completely different kind of AI. Overwhelm - which seems to be what they landed on - will simply never work. Even with a 10 to 1 unit advantage, if pieces are improperly placed and moved -- any decent human player should still win in a walk. They need a completely different AI for military strategy than has ever been seen before in a Civ game... and I'm sorry to say, I don't have a lot of confidence that can pull it off. I hope I'm proven wrong, of course.

Are you playing with barbarians disabled? Every game I've played where I needed to sail across ocean, I always sent out a military ship first, because Galleys/Caravels would eat my Settlers otherwise. If you're sailing across mare incognita, you're going to have to deal with the possibility of barbs sinking your undefended vessels.

Raging, actually -- and yes -- I lose a fair number... but what else am I going to do with gifted CS scouts. I've even taken to exploring with workers --- by this point, beyond maybe shifting a few mills to mines when certain techs pop new resources, I don't need them anyway. Work boats are another great exploit -- cheap and disposable exploration units... Barbs eat 'em? So what -- just build another.

And defend your entire embarked navy with one ship?

Maybe - an amphibious invasion since the dawn of time was a monumental undertaking... I'd have no problem with a "convoy" unit being a super-unit and enormously expensive, or requiring a special building or unit to create. But there are a ton of better ways to do it than just 'research X, then voila -- every unit becomes Overlord capable with no further effort'. There's no "cost" to trans-ocean play now, whether it be exploration, colonization, or warfare -- and simply making the AI less stupid still makes the "cost" too low. Make it a promotion. Make it an attachment unit. Make a tile improvement called an embarkation harbor... whatever. You shouldn't be able to just flip a switch -- pop Astronomy -- then, the very next turn -- any unit you please can suddenly sail to the far corners of the earth.

That's beyond silly.

I don't think so.... what's the difference between a desert tile or marsh tile (setting aside that you can build on them in V for some reason) and the ocean? Desert tiles cause units to suffer -50% combat penalty.... ocean tiles -100% combat penalty. Like I said above -- there's no "cost" to ocean-traversing beyond researching a tech that you're inevitably going to research anyway. It's beyond ridiculous that you can simply pop a tech, then immediately sail across the Pacific with whatever happens to be laying around on your shores.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Welcome back, OTAKUjbski.

It feels good to be back ... two years away is a very long time -- especially when the exit is so abrupt.

--------

Wow. So a lot happened here while I was away last night. I'm not going to quote everything but instead just respond as best as I can to some of the points made. Sorry if it feels fusterclucked.

Yes, I am complaining. Yes, some of it is cIV whining. Yes, I was hoping for clarification on how this is supposed to work. No, I don't want them to remove embark (If I wanted to play cIV, I would ,lol).

This complaint is not about whether embark is good or not. This complaint is about the lack of a land unit transport to keep from filling my screen with units when they move across the ocean.

While I didn't think about this myself, I agree embarkment as it's implemented now makes overseas exploration lackluster. Without the need of some naval unit to cross the ocean, circumnavigating and exploring the entire continent with a Scout is all too doable, and you don't even need a coastal city anymore!

The whole reason for embarkment being in the game was to eliminate the tedium of needing transports. I don't see why anyone expected there'd be both.

Because every CIV before has them..? There are Carriers for air units, so why not include Transports for land units?

All they did was trade the tedium of loading/unloading for the tedium of moving dozens of units 1-by-1.

Waging transoceanic Modern Age warfare requires much more than just a small task force if you expect to take and hold ground for future reinforcements. Embarking 12+ units then moving all of them and their escorts 1-by-1 is absurd and frustrating.

Ultimately, if they would allow embarked units to stack 2 or 3 UpT (maybe scaling for the Era), the lack of a land unit transport would be moot.

 

[Teodosio]

I will try to contribute by commenting a couple of points I consider important.

While I didn't think about this myself, I agree embarkment as it's implemented now makes overseas exploration lackluster. Without the need of some naval unit to cross the ocean, circumnavigating and exploring the entire continent with a Scout is all too doable, and you don't even need a coastal city anymore!

I have experimented a bit about naval exploration and I can say that using a land unit is really inefficient compared to a caravel. The difference is that a caravel has many more movement points and sight radius than an embarked land unit. Because of this a caravel can explore in the same amount of time roughly 10 times what an embarked unit can. Since their upkeep is the same, I think it's much better to explore with a caravel.

All they did was trade the tedium of loading/unloading for the tedium of moving dozens of units 1-by-1.

I don't think this is due to the removal of tranports; it is a direct consequence of 1upt.
If you consider, moving an army on sea requires no more effort that moving it on land. Select each unit, give them destinations and after a while they will arrive.
Of course, you have to acquire sea power beforehand and keep frigates or destroyers on scouting positions. If an enemy warship appear in some following turn your ship will awaken automatically, informing you of the danger.
Alternative solutions that involve 2upt, 3upt and similar risk to bring back the infamous stack that in my opinion is better to leave for dead.

 

[Doctor Phibes]

I have experimented a bit about naval exploration and I can say that using a land unit is really inefficient compared to a caravel. The difference is that a caravel has many more movement points and sight radius than an embarked land unit. Because of this a caravel can explore in the same amount of time roughly 10 times what an embarked unit can. Since their upkeep is the same, I think it's much better to explore with a caravel.

Absolutely, the choice is a no-brainer. The sight radius is half the point of having a proper navy, and when they're not exploring or escorting convoys, having mobile pickets all round your empire is deeply reassuring. I noticed incidentally that on a discussion of civ attributes that the English +1 sight, +1 movement is considered weak by many, but on a sea map it gives you just the edge you need. And if you get the Great Lighthouse too, well...

 

[duxup]

Oh man, good riddance to transports. I found moving armies in civ 4 tedious.

Amen brother, amen!

 

[migkillertwo]

In theory this would make for greatly enhanced naval gameplay because you have to win the sea before you can use it to transport your troops across.

In practice however, the AI often doesn't put up a fight, so you don't get anything in return for the work you invest in protecting your units... which might explain why it could seem a bit bland.

yeah, I've noticed this in gameplay as well. Perhaps I just need to up the difficulty level, but it seems like the AI still hasn't mastered naval warfare. I often find it to be the case that while I build a huge navy of frigates to protect one flank of my empire from an amphibious invasion, my enemy has no navy, no amphibious invasion force (despite having a pretty sizeable army), or when they do have a navy they just use it sporadically to bombard my cities. Pathetic I say, I hope they can fix this in a patch, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Svest]

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.

In my games the AI has built an actual navy. Using that navy effectively is a completely different matter.

Just as an example, the game I'm currently playing (well to be honest I'm probably going to abandon it because its a complete joke) I did random map settings and random leader. I got Napoleon on an archipelago map (this is immortal difficulty) I think the map size is probably large.

My first war was when Japan and Russia attacked me within a turn of each other. At this point I had about 8 triremes and absolutely no land units besides the original warrior you start with (which had been upgraded a bit by ruins though - I think it was a pikeman at this time).

Japan and Russia each had 5-6 triremes "escorting" their invasion fleet. The problem was they had no idea how to use them. They spread them all over the place, didn't concentrate their fire, did pretty much nothing to actually defend their transports. Within a couple turns I had sunk almost all of their triremes without losing any of my own. Then I went around snatching up embarked units and shooting the few that managed to land to pieces. Then after I had complete control of the seas they still kept embarking units only to get slaughtered. I must have killed 20-30 in this way. Finally they each offered me over half their cities for peace (I thought this was supposed to be fixed).

After this war the exact same thing happened with Babylon.

So they did actually try to build a navy (they even had more triremes out exploring), even though they probably should have never bothered based on how poorly they managed it.

 

[Venereus]

yeah, I've noticed this in gameplay as well. Perhaps I just need to up the difficulty level, but it seems like the AI still hasn't mastered naval warfare. I often find it to be the case that while I build a huge navy of frigates to protect one flank of my empire from an amphibious invasion, my enemy has no navy, no amphibious invasion force (despite having a pretty sizeable army), or when they do have a navy they just use it sporadically to bombard my cities. Pathetic I say, I hope they can fix this in a patch, but I'm not holding my breath.

It's well known at this point that the AI doesn't get (much?) better at higher difficulties. So it's not that.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

... a caravel can explore in the same amount of time roughly 10 times what an embarked unit can.

I don't discount a Caravel as a better choice for locating land, but there are a few things an embarked land-unit (namely a Scout) has going for it over a Caravel:

• Scouts are 4-times cheaper than Caravels
• Scouts are already in play but likely out of land to explore by Astronomy
• Scouts can be readied at all 4 corners before Astronomy finishes
• Scouts can disembark to pop ruins for goodies
• Scouts can be built in any city

Nevertheless, there shouldn't even be an option in the first place.

If you consider, moving an army on sea requires no more effort that moving it on land. Select each unit, give them destinations and after a while they will arrive.

I mean no offense with this question, "Have you conducted Modern Era transoceanic warfare (esp on King/Emperor)?"

Aside from the Pathing AI being jacked up, moving across the ocean doesn't work nearly as well as across the land.

Moving on land is usually a few tiles at a time through friendly territory with a smaller group of units having the same .

In my experience, oceanic movement for the purpose of conquest involves 2 or even 3 times as many units (multiple waves, naval escorts, fighters, etc). It has never been as simple as just click-it and forget-it.

Alternative solutions that involve 2upt, 3upt and similar risk to bring back the infamous stack that in my opinion is better to leave for dead.

I agree the Stack of Doom should stay dead. Allowing only embarked units to stack multiple UpT in only ocean tiles to move together doesn't revive it, because they are still defenseless and unable to attack anything.

 

[zonk]

I don't discount a Caravel as a better choice for locating land, but there are a few things an embarked land-unit (namely a Scout) has going for it over a Caravel:

• Scouts are 4-times cheaper than Caravels
• Scouts are already in play but likely out of land to explore by Astronomy
• Scouts can be readied at all 4 corners before Astronomy finishes
• Scouts can disembark to pop ruins for goodies
• Scouts can be built in any city

Nevertheless, there shouldn't even be an option in the first place.

Exactly.

Not to expand beyond the original thread topic, but this again points back to the whole idea of 'opportunity cost'. Maybe embarkation can be saved - it's got its pluses - but it completely eliminates the opportunity cost decision making of exploration and trans-ocean colonization and warfare.... I suppose there's a little bit of escort/don't escort - but by astronomy, scouts and settlers are cheap enough that you can (and I do) just spam them and send them out one after the other... One gets killed? Oh well - it's not like there was anything I cared to build in that city anyway (again... opportunity cost), just send out the next one... two get killed? Oh well again - but maybe this time, I will send a naval unit to the general area to check for barbarians.

I found loading transports tedious, too -- but it was an opportunity cost... you had to build 'em.

This is sort of the big IV vs. V fault line... I feel like V was really meant to satisfy those who complained about quecha rushes and "you just build everything in every city" --- but a lot of us who played more dovishly, rather than seeing how quickly we could beat the AI, never saw it that way....

I'm not even one of those hardcore types that would calculate hammers per day and get seriously math heavy on the calculations -- but I recognized it and heeded it....

OOB matters and SHOULD matter.

 

[Agent327]

Mods are not supposed to be the solution for this game's shortcomings. They should be a nice addition if you fancy it, nothing more.

Hmmm, you clearly underestimate modders. Thye´ve been contributing to official releases ever since Civ2.

Anyway, point is, you don´t really need transports.

 

[Exterminas]

Here is my only issue with embarking:

Naval combat is slow. These units have big combat rating, but low ranged attack. It takes several rounds just to destroy frigate with destroyer. In these several rounds frigate could just ignore destroyer and rush for embarked units you are supposed to protect.

And the bigger the embarked "feet" is the more places where enemy ships could sneak in. Despite positioning of defensive ships and ZoC.

The zone of controll prevents exactly that. You can't move more than one tile though the area near any unit. That way you can easily outmaneuvere these attempts (for which any KI is far too stupid)

 

[Kerosene31]

I have always been a fan of archipelago maps, so this was a big change for me. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

I really miss the strategy involved in moving units across water. You had to plan out your navy if you wanted to attack anyone. You had to find a landing point where you could gather troops before attacking otherwise the defensive side would tear you apart.

Now, you still have to escort your troops, but not worry about transportation for any land units. On the other hand I don't miss all the tedium involved with moving units now.

 

[Teodosio]

I mean no offense with this question, "Have you conducted Modern Era transoceanic warfare (esp on King/Emperor)?"
Aside from the Pathing AI being jacked up, moving across the ocean doesn't work nearly as well as across the land.
Moving on land is usually a few tiles at a time through friendly territory with a smaller group of units having the same .
In my experience, oceanic movement for the purpose of conquest involves 2 or even 3 times as many units (multiple waves, naval escorts, fighters, etc). It has never been as simple as just click-it and forget-it.

No offense taken!
I had experience with naval assaults in my last game, Emperor/large map.
I planned a naval invasion of the Iroquois territory. This was a flanking manouver actually since the main battle was being fought elsewere. The plan was: sneak a task force, capture a couple of cities on the cost, go for the in-land capital, conquer it and make the enemy surrender.
I was in early modern age so the invasion force was composed by: 2 artilleries, 6 infantry, 1 great general.

Beforehand I spent some turns clearing the sea. I sent 3 destroyers: the only resistance I found was an enemy ironclad quickly despatched. Afterwards I placed the destroyers in long-range scouting positions and finally moved the troops.
I just selected each unit and gave the movement order to 2-3 tiles away from the coast. I didn't have to do anything else because no enemy ship showed to hinder the transport.
When the troops reached their destinations I micro-managed the actual landing since there were enemy troops on the beaches. Long story short... the plan worked

I didn't find this tedious or difficult at all!
This is my wartime experience. Then I did some heavy oversea colonizing using the same pattern: good frigate/destroyer scouting before, movement after, one click for unit.

I didn't really have issues with naval movement. My 2 cents!

 

[Exterminas]

No offense taken!
I had experience with naval assaults in my last game, Emperor/large map.
I planned a naval invasion of the Iroquois territory. This was a flanking manouver actually since the main battle was being fought elsewere. The plan was: sneak a task force, capture a couple of cities on the cost, go for the in-land capital, conquer it and make the enemy surrender.
I was in early modern age so the invasion force was composed by: 2 artilleries, 6 infantry, 1 great general.

Beforehand I spent some turns clearing the sea. I sent 3 destroyers: the only resistance I found was an enemy ironclad quickly despatched. Afterwards I placed the destroyers in long-range scouting positions and finally moved the troops.
I just selected each unit and gave the movement order to 2-3 tiles away from the coast. I didn't have to do anything else because no enemy ship showed to hinder the transport.
When the troops reached their destinations I micro-managed the actual landing since there were enemy troops on the beaches. Long story short... the plan worked

I didn't find this tedious or difficult at all!
This is my wartime experience. Then I did some heavy oversea colonizing using the same pattern: good frigate/destroyer scouting before, movement after, one click for unit.

I didn't really have issues with naval movement. My 2 cents!

You are talking about a relatively small force there. I once tried to invade a whole continent and was moving up with about 10-15 infantry, 3-4 Artillery. Was all I had got. It was so annoying to move them across the sea and being kicked out of it every few klicks, because some worker in wheretheheckisthan wanted to know what to do next.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

In theory this would make for greatly enhanced naval gameplay because you have to win the sea before you can use it to transport your troops across.

In practice however, the AI often doesn't put up a fight, so you don't get anything in return for the work you invest in protecting your units... which might explain why it could seem a bit bland.

Tell me about it. In my current emperor game as China on huge continent map, I gained naval superiority with 1 destroyer and 1 battleship against tech equivilent opponent because AI refused to update its navy.