Cannon-firing Galleys!! LMAO!

[Zouave]

The funniest animation in Civ III involves galleys. When in combat they turn sideways and start firing broadsides at the enemy!
That occuring about a thousand years before ships started mounting guns!

Of course, galleys (or triremes) attacked by ramming their opponent, or, sometimes shooting fire or boarding the enemy vessels. Galleys moved primarily by rowing (go see "Ben-Hur").

Worse, I once had a privateer unit attacked by a galley. The privateer was sunk! The reality is the ocean-going privateers would have just hoisted sail and moved away, or, blasted the galleys to the bottom with cannon.

Thus we have yet another reason why privateers are a waste of time.

AI GALLEYS. We've heard about AI magic cavalry appearing out of the ether every time you leave a cannon unit unguarded, and it seems civs swap technology all too easily, but I've noticed AI galleys seem to never sink on ocean tiles. Anyone notice this??

 

[gfeier]

Actually, galleys DID mount cannons. Look up the battle of Lepanto (1571), one of history's major naval engagements. They did NOT mount them on the broadside, however, as this would have damaged their power plant, so they were located fore and aft.

 

[Ghengis Brom]

I had the Aztecs do it to me. No one had the LH yet, I was in the process of building it when low and behold here come the Aztecs across 3 ocean tiles to land a settler and spearman on the only open coast tiles in the southern part of my empire. This was on Regent level too. It appears the depths of the AI's cheating are limitless. :crazyeyes

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Zouave
Worse, I once had a privateer unit attacked by a galley. The privateer was sunk! The reality is the ocean-going privateers would have just hoisted sail and moved away, or, blasted the galleys to the bottom with cannon.

I posted this before. John Paul "I have not yet begun to fight" Jones used a refitted merchant vessal to capture a British frigate.

Of course, the British captain should have pulled away and/or blasted him, but Jones got close under the guns of the British, so they ceased to be effective. Then, after several hours of hand-to-hand fighting, took over the Frigate. Jones and his crew then watched their own vessal sink.

So as usual, local decisions changed the expected outcome of the battle. We're dealing with people: some make mistakes, and others exceed the call of duty. The intangible factor we call the randomizer.

And indeed, capturing the Frigate is way worse for the British than having it sunk.

 

[Zouave]

At Lepanto the Turks had cannonless GALLEYS.

The Venetians had GALLEASSES with, indeed, forward firing cannon. These were a different kind of vessel.

So ancient GALLEYS are not really what the Christians used to kick Turkish butt at Lepanto.

Nice try though.

Historical note:

The Venetians provided the technological cutting edge that was to win the battle. In the Venetian fleet were six galleasses. Broader in the beam than regular galleys and with a deeper draught they were so difficult to manouevre that they had to be towed into battle by speedier vessels. Despite their lethargy of movement, they were the most powerful ships in the Mediterranean. Their broad beam and deeper draught gave them a stability as a gun platform hitherto unknown. On their prow was constructed a kind of walled platform mounted with swivel guns that presaged the armoured turrets of later battleships by almost 300 years. The sides and the stern of the galleass were also heavily armed and a wooden deck protected the rowers. On its bow there was a long point that could effectively crush any smaller vessel that was unfortunate enough to be in the galleass' way. A total of 80,000 men manned the ships of the Holy League. Of these 50,000 toiled at the oars and the remaining 30,000 were soldiers.

 

[gfeier]

So, lets see, Zouave, a galleass is a large ship, very similar to a galley, primarily driven by oars and mounting cannons, right? Close enough for me. In fact, you could even say it floats MY boat!

 

[Stravo]

Once ran into a trireme in the middle of the ocean as I was exploring with a caravel, after getting Magellan's, I followed the trireme around a few turns because I could not believe the audacity of the cheating! He was just happily sailing along ocean tiles for three whole turns before I decided to go on my way shaking my head ruefully.

 

[Magnus]

Those aren't guns firing on the galleys, they are arrows. Look more closely next time.

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by Stravo
Once ran into a trireme in the middle of the ocean as I was exploring with a caravel, after getting Magellan's, I followed the trireme around a few turns because I could not believe the audacity of the cheating! He was just happily sailing along ocean tiles for three whole turns before I decided to go on my way shaking my head ruefully.

I think that after a civ discovers navigation, any boat can traverse any water square. This is also the tech that allows you to trade across ocean squares, so it makes sense.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

the AI seems to get a LOWER risk rate. I`ve seen them reach distant continents easily, but also outraced them to closeby ones...

And the "good luck" often seems to come in strings (i.e. if your Galley survives the first turn in ocean then it will have a high prob of surviving the next two)

Seems like these strings only happen to me when I`d need 4 lucky turns in a row - my Galley almost always sink when America is in view...... but I guess this is what you see with AI Galley running around in Atlantic Winter Storms....

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Killer


And the "good luck" often seems to come in strings (i.e. if your Galley survives the first turn in ocean then it will have a high prob of surviving the next two)

I'm not sure if the strings are just an example of "gamblers fallacy" and just normal distribution. In a integral random sample, any arbitrary length of results will occur at some point, no matter how ong the specified string. In other words, if you flip coins, eventually you will see 100 heads in a row.

Of course, it could be a problem with the randomizer.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Zachriel:

Sure! You are right and I know that stuff. BUT: It happenes far too often JUST WHEN IT`S NEEDED! Sometimes to me but often to the AI.......

By the way: 50:50 fights have a stronger tendenciy to look strange. That`s because of the way results are determined. If it`s 10:1 the chance of getting ten numbers between 0 and 9 in a row is just rarer then getting 10 numbers between 0 and 49 out of 10 draws..... That`s why I tripled all hitpoints.... but since the same strange numbers are used for the Galleys that problem won`t go away that easily....