changes in the latest patches

Isn't the point that they don't have utility at sea? Otherwise naval ships would be useless.

 

Not a fan. Embarked units shouldn’t have much utility outside of getting from point a to b (amphibious promo aside). I also don’t think it makes any sense thematically for embarked units to be able to fight back. They’re land units on a boat not built for naval warfare.
It makes perfect sense that they can defend themselves, especially if you imagine there is some boarding action involved in embarked vs naval. But fighting back is too much imo. You wouldn’t try to engage an F-22 with a passenger plane.

 

Honestly, I'm really not a big fan of embarked units taking up already limited ocean-space, and I mean if you don't have to protect your landunits with naval units (which you borderline can't do now because of how little space there is) then what's really the point of bringing a navy with you at all?

 

conversely, what if naval units could "disembark" and fight on land as weaker, slower land units, to increase their utility as well? There would be some historical basis for this with wooden ships at least -- as there would be with G's suggestion in that era. Metal ships maybe not so much

I think if you did it one way it would be too arbitrary to not have it working the other way too

 

Maybe a better question is: "Is there no easy way to make embarked units stacking with ships again after this code optimization?" (I would also add "with the same defensive strength for all types of embarked units (be it a trebuchet, knight or a worker, scaling with era").

Make Embarked Great Again!

 

Hardly useless - it would mean that embarked units would at least be a form of 'invasion attrition' for enemy melee naval units to have to deal with, instead of just being floating dead weight. They wouldn't be able to attack.

G

 

One thing I want to add is that subs should absolutely destroy embarked units. I’m talking OHKO 99% of the time.

 

While I agree with you, it's conceivable there could be fun ways to do a limited version of InkAxis' idea. Say, a promotion past amphibious that let units deal defensive damage to melee ships (but not attack). As far as balance between land and sea units, it would need to be a fairly weak retaliation so that it is more a source of attrition than an immediate tactical advantage, and it also might be good to work on a way for naval units to move across land.

I think sea units should be able to transport between cities over land somehow.

 

IMO the ideal place to go from here is to figure out how to get embarked military units to stack with naval units again. Otherwise moving a navy and an army over water is going to take forever.

With regards to embarked unit defense, I would give embarked units -50% CS. Naval units will hit most embarked units hard, while units with bonuses while embarked will be able to take a hit without being ship-killers.

 

melee naval units would be the only type of unit that would take damage from attacking embarked melee units. naval ranged, submarines, airplanes, and ranged land units don't face reprisal.

A Tercio has 25CS and costs 300
A Caravel has 25CS and costs 350, even though it comes earlier.

So, if melee land units can stand up to melee naval units of their era, they can effectively replace melee naval units of their era entirely. All they have to do is screen for the ranged naval units, who can attack embarked units without reprisal, blockade cities, and they don't have to be able to do much else. If melee land units can defend roughly as well as melee naval units, then they don't really need to attack; you can just ignore the enemy's melee naval units, because they can't effectively hurt your invasion force without hurting themselves, and they are useless once the fighting moves onto land.

 

The retaliation doesn't have to be 100% of CS, but I do think - if we truly can't stack naval and embarked (which I personally would like to see come back), the units need something to justify being unable to stack.

 

I would like each melee ship to have the ability to load one ground military unit. Or two.
Load in and go!

 

Of course, ships on lands definitively could be used for attacking

 

I think that if melee units can retaliate AT ALL while embarked it's just going to lead to more toxic inflation of melee naval CS, which has all the bad consequences we've already seen, the worst of which being that they get too good at knocking over cities. I say let the melee naval have its thing, why should it have to be damaged fighting land units in its own domain?

 

If land units were to do damage in water:

• could they also establish ZOC in water?
• Could they also establish city blockades in water?

If they can do these things... Why would I ever build ships? Military units can move into water, do damage in water, restrict other units' movement in water, pressure cities while in water. Ships can't do any of these things on land, and all cities can only be built on land, so it's already more important to control land. So why build ships? Ships are trash that just categorically does less in any situation; you may as well remove them from the game entirely.

@CppMaster skip to 1m53s

 

A few thoughts.

Embarked units are basically the same units with the same weapons. If some embarked knights fight some other knights, I suppose they can aboard the other ship and fight. For the same reason, they might disembark and fight with a penalty for being disordered. But facing a war vessel they should have zero chances. The war ship would sink the embarkation in no time. Maybe if firing from a long distance I suppose some transport ships may escape.
Traffic jams are an issue. The only reasonable way to avoid them is to give all naval and embarked units more movement points, so we can land some units behind a three line of ships. Even then, it's quite hard to set foot.

A Zone of Control applies when you can't pass certain point without fighting. A don't see how a transport ship is going to stop another one.

In all, I think we better keep most of the current system:
- Melee ships are fast and kill embarked units in one shot. They can flank and provide ZoC in sea. Escorts, basically.
- Ranged ships are slower but tanky. They can fire at land and sea. No ZoC. Warships.
- Embarked units as fast as ranged ships. Good ranged defense (they are many small vessels, hard to sink them all). Only naval melee and air fighters can melee embarked units. No ZoC.

- Amphibious allows embarking and disembarking without expending all movement points (rivers too) and removes the penalty from naval assault.

In order to avoid jams we can
A) Give more movement points to embarked units
or
B) Make moving through a tile with a friendly ship cost just 1/2 point.

 

My notes on the patch:

-Moving your naval and embarked units around is hell late game. Keep getting everything bunched up. Auto move (clicking a distance away and letting it find it's own way there), makes half your fleet move in circles or not moving at all. (units blocking paths, then not the next turn.)
-Promise not to spy is not working
-Keep doing a slow unhappiness spiral that I cannot get out of. Not sure what changed to cause this. Keep doing one step towards happiness then go back two steps.
-AI seems to do very well early game now. Am regularly the lowest scored civ up until mid classical three games in a row. AI civs seem to always be loaded with gold. Nice for trading but I think their AI bonuses got over bumped somewhere.
-Workers keep getting "spooked" (stop working) as if a enemy unit is near, but none can be seen. I believe they are able to see though fog of war and spot unseen barb units?
-(edit:Naval Melee) units are really hurting with these changes. They take too much damage going after embarked units.

Trying Prince difficultly now (from King) to see if I can manage happiness better and compete better early game.

 

What about Naval units being able to attack land units in forts doesn't make sense? It's attacking a coastal fort with a garrison in order to occupy it, making as much sense as attacking a city in order to occupy it.

The only problem is that it should be combat strength vs combat strength, not insta-kill.

 

ilteroi edited it for next version so that embarked units do 0 damage to naval melee units.

Speaking of next version, we're working on merging everything at the moment - so a new release is forthcoming, probably as soon as we can get the CTD issues fixed (although it's proving hard to diagnose).

 

I agree that naval units should be able to attack forts and citadels. Reason being: they are effectively canals in some cases - they allow friendly naval units to pass through.