Are there seriously no land-unit transports in CiV?

[OTAKUjbski]

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.

QFT.

9 units (12 including the escorts) doesn't feel like much. My first naval experience was more like what Teodosio reports -- 6 Tanks, 10 Infantry, 6 Artillery, 4 Destroyers, 2 Carriers (-ish ... iirc).

My last experience was with about half as many. It wasn't nearly as annoying, but I couldn't stop thinking the whole time, "This is stupid. All I need is a frickin Transport."

When the troops reached their destinations I micro-managed the actual landing since there were enemy troops on the beaches.

This is one thing I definitely like about the current embark rules. In cIV, landings were too simple, because you only needed one tile to land from and one to land on. Boring.

I like how once all the troops are finally there, you have to spend time bombarding troops along the coast before landing a couple times to establish a front on the beach. (Assuming relative tech parity, of course.)

I just hate the process of getting them all there.

 

[timtofly]

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.



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.



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.

Amphibious: Eliminates penalty attacking from sea or across rivers. (Anchor icon)

 

[player1 fanatic]

• 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

With all that said, in my experience Caravels are still much more efficient for their shield cost.

Exempt for one thing: Quickly trying to find another continent. For that, scouts will be fine. Just go to east or west and you'll probably find another land mass. Then, explore the land.

 

[Venereus]

I'm still appalled that my embarked warrior can cross the pond but my Tireme can't until I pay to update it.

 

[MadRat]

I'm still appalled that my embarked warrior can cross the pond but my Tireme can't until I pay to update it.

I thought embarked units were limited to coastal tiles until navigation?

Rat

 

[DaveGold]

I thought embarked units were limited to coastal tiles until navigation?

I've had a scout and a trireme sitting next to each other across the other side of the world in shallow water. One tech later one of those units could explore the deep oceans and the other couldn't. Do you think it was the naval unit or the land unit?

 

[Venereus]

I thought embarked units were limited to coastal tiles until navigation?

Rat

That's exactly what I meant. You get Navigation, and the warrior can do ocean. But the Tireme has to wait until you can upgrade it to a Frigate. Want a Caravel instead? You gotta build it.

 

[ChrisRoed]

i generally like embark, but at the same time i think there are a lot of things about embarked units that are simply wrong.
i, for instance, dont understand why embarked units are treated as civilians in terms of combat strength (instakilled by naval units), since they are clearly not civilians on a luxury liner. then again, if they gained some sort of defense while embarked, the Songhai civ bonus would become somewhat useless, unless it increased the existing defense. (i have yet to play as the songhai, so i do not know how the embarked defense works) Either way, military units are not tranported by unarmed ships, ever.

and staying somewhat on topic, i find that naval units are a bit too powerful for the same reason. instakilling units is just too good no matter how you look at it, and the AI tends to embark units when moving them around on smaller islands, which means easy pickings for your navy. combined with ability to bombard landunits and cities very effectively (especially with range promotion + double attack) you rarely need other siege weapons when fighting near the coast.
i played a game where i built 3 caravels and just took off bombing just about anything i could, i ended up with 3 ships with well past 500 exp each = total naval dominance. in fact, i didnt have to instakill embarked units at all, since the AI had no real naval units so i could just go around and bombard them for extra exp. i just picked off the ranged units and stayed out of the range of cities, so didnt take much damage, if any.
i really feel that was way to powerful to be true, but even as the AI got frigates out i still owned them and later on i upgraded to destroyers and killed anything that moved.

well not quite, because somehow my extremely powerful and fully udgraded 790+ exp destroyer couldnt kill a frigate in one hit, nor could the submarine i built later... which brings me to another gripe i have with naval combat, and combat in general. its the old situation all over, why, oh why, cant my modern era destroyer just instakill anything wooden ? why does arrows hurt my destroyer ? why can cities and ranged units see my submarine when im close to an enemy city and then hurt it with rocks and arrows ? why will me, moving my unit onto an embarked unit instakill it, while my cannon barrage or torpedos wont ?

so yea, naval combat and embarked units have a long way to go, but somehow most of the problems relate to the AI being stupid.
i wonder when the game will go out of beta, cant wait for retail !

 

[paganizer]

Yes, you need a transport.

Example:

2 continents on huge map. You want to take your army to the other continent. Moving 2 tiles at a time with embarked units is not my idea of fun... If transports in Civ4 was tedious, what is moving 20 units individually 2 tiles at a time, while protecting with navy? It's stupid. Embarking is ok I guess, although i'm not a big fan of it (eliminates chokepoints on land and AI doesn't know how to use og abuse embarked units), but there needs to be a transport too. The functionality/code for stacking units is already there from the carrier (it can hold 3 planes), so that code should be applied to a transport vessel aswell.

They can work on stacking workers/civilians at the same time!

 

[MadRat]

which brings me to another gripe i have with naval combat, and combat in general. its the old situation all over, why, oh why, cant my modern era destroyer just instakill anything wooden ? why does arrows hurt my destroyer ? why can cities and ranged units see my submarine when im close to an enemy city and then hurt it with rocks and arrows ? why will me, moving my unit onto an embarked unit instakill it, while my cannon barrage or torpedos wont ?

I agree 100% this is a mess. I find I need multiple modern era ships to sink an age of sail vessel?? I think I read a while back they scaled down the naval damage. Bad move! now naval battles (if you really ever get one!) devolve into lengthy pot shot sessions. Especially with the insta-heal promotion it makes it quite sad as seeing 2 destroyers take 10 years to sink a frigate



Rat

 

[player1 fanatic]

The problem here is that all ships have big combat values, but low ranged values. So destroyer has lower ranged value then "hull strength" of the frigate, leading to very looong, although winnable battle.

Now seriously, if they really want to keep such system, at least give all modern "steel" ships additional free promotion called +200% damage vs wooden ships. Either that, or rebalance system completely.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I am guessing they scaled down naval damage in order to reduce the effectiveness of navy bombarding cities. However, the unintended side effect was that wooden navies are also slow to destroy now.

I am not sure what the solution would be, but a flat bonus against wooden ships as player1 fanatic suggests could work well enough.

 

[evrett37]

This choice exists somewhere between making Navy units usefull in an era of embarkation and consideration for cities being actively able to fire back at naval attackers.

 

[zonk]

I am guessing they scaled down naval damage in order to reduce the effectiveness of navy bombarding cities. However, the unintended side effect was that wooden navies are also slow to destroy now.

I am not sure what the solution would be, but a flat bonus against wooden ships as player1 fanatic suggests could work well enough.

I'm not so sure -- there are separate naval promotions for ship-to-ship vs. shore bombardment, so I would think nerfing shore bombardment while making for better naval engagements would already be baked in.

That said, I agree that this is a really bad flaw... it's relatively hidden now under the AI issues, but I am definitely not looking forward to a game whereby a better naval AI leads to a lot of nonsensical battle results.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I'm not so sure -- there are separate naval promotions for ship-to-ship vs. shore bombardment, so I would think nerfing shore bombardment while making for better naval engagements would already be baked in.

The fact there are different promotions for each type (naval vs. land bombardment) does not necessarily imply the mechanics for each are different, but only that it is easy for the game to distinguish between those two types of combat.

My guess (or suspicion) is that the way naval bombardment works against land units is exactly the same as to how land bombardment works against land units. That is, taking relevant promotions into account, it just boils down to the 'combat' and 'ranged' strengths of the bombardier, and the combat strength (plus bonuses etc.) of the victim.