Can we take the ocean out of the mix?

[Crusis]

Every ship I have that enters the ocean in the early era dies. Yet the barbarians do not have that same issue, so I'm plastering my coasts with ships. That's great, but Shaka is down the street hammering my border with Impis. The unit costs are piling up fast.

What is sort of annoying was that before I could enter an ocean square with a galley if the square was under my sphere of influence. Now I cannot. I just tried to pass one ocean square in my influence that had just expanded to show a new pile of dirt on the other side. I loaded up an explorer, made a run for it, and everyone died at sea for probably the 12th straight time in a row.

Is there any way to return the early ship game to the 1 move, coastal only game? Or am I missing something? Because this is quite frustrating.

 

[Afforess]

Is there any way to return the early ship game to the 1 move, coastal only game? Or am I missing something? Because this is quite frustrating.

I disagree. I enjoy the added difficulty. The fact that this change adds more functionality and difficulty, is even better. Plus, you can use the sea storm event to your advantage. Because BTS only allows 1 event to occur to one civilization per turn, you can make a large fleet (7-10) of galleys and make it across the ocean.

 

[dr.Hyde]

I find the new system highly exploitable, not difficult. AI doesn't know how to cope with the new system so it loses most if not all of his ships fast, plus the fact that BetterAI mod makes AI build more ships then standard CIV4 AI would which makes resource loss for AI quite significant. The 1 event per turn is another exploit against AI since AI doesn't know how to use it properly. You can also upgrade ships to get +1 movement and cross 1 ocean tile and still land safe on the other side allowing you to get to the land you would not normally be able to if the old system was in place. A feat AI can perform only by lots of luck. Not to mention the annoyance of having to navigate your ships manually since Auto Explore tends to get them killed quickly.

 

[Crusis]

All of these things are true, of course, but do we play a game to exploit the mechanics, or do we play the game to enjoy as accurate a simulation as possible?

I still believe the old way, the way in 2.7 with no ocean travel outside of sphere of influence was the best way.

EDIT: The 7 galley thing is clearly a mechanics exploit, just ask Khublai Kahn and his attempt to invade Japan. He'd have been happy as hell to only lose 1 ship per event.