Do you like the new embarkation?

[Drakarska]

Send in the Marines


Semper Fidelis!

Agree with you whole heartedly... Minor problem though, you need the Navy to get your Leathernecks to where they need to go.

 

[eric_]

But in later eras, should infantry and tanks be able to build themselves an ocean liner like the Queen Mary out of thin air to cross the ocean!?
Those civilian ocean liners had to be built in cities first.

Yeah, but from the military's point of view, they were just ready and waiting. Certainly there is a history of military usurping civilian infrastructure, goods, etc, during times of war.

 

[Balzemon]

I feel that embarkation should only work from a friendly port. If that proves to be too much for the AI to manage, then reducing it to only working from a friendly land hex would be an improvement IMO. Disembarkation would be available in any hex open for the unit to move through normally.

Units should be able to disembark in cities with harbors at a cost of 1/2 their full embarked movement allowance. If they have insufficient movement then they enter the city and stop. If they have sufficient movement then a proportional amount of their own movement allowance is retained allowing them to move on land with the remainder of their allowance. This would be particularly useful to late game units with large movement allowances and access to transportation networks.

 

[Sonereal]

combined ideas of mine and Sonereal

TRANSPORT CAPACITY
* shore tile has to be connected by sea to any coastal city to perform embarkation on it.

This is the one part that makes me nervous when it comes to possible implementing because I'm unsure how players would like having to deal with bottlenecks to get an invasion force just to sea. The other, very huge, problem is what if units need to get off a hostile island?

 

[Pizlenut]

There is nothing horribly unrealistic about how units "embark" in this game.

Troops would have the mobility to use any (civilian) cruiser retrofitted for transport and should be able to embark or land practically anywhere - but it could be more "refined" as to what it allows to be transported from anywhere because heavy tanks or catapults or horsemen could be more difficult and require specialized equipment both on the transport and the dock. It would make more sense to force these units to be inside friendly territory to embark.

transports should not be auto-destroyed like workers (they should need to be fired at) and they should retain at least 25% of their original strength for attacking other naval units in the water.

Warships should also either take a free shot as a unit passes by their "zone" or they should slow enemy units (2x movement penalty) to simulate a war ship attempting to sneak by the picket line or needing to take "evasive maneuvers" which would also technically slow them down.

 

[Wombleburger]

Yeah, but from the military's point of view, they were just ready and waiting. Certainly there is a history of military usurping civilian infrastructure, goods, etc, during times of war.

Agreed. But from a civilization's point of view, those civilian ships still need to be built somewhere.

And I like to imagine I am the leader of a civilization when playing the game, not just a military.

 

[khanofmongols]

I like it but I wish that their was a one turn delay to build the ships before embarking. Too often in a late period multi-player game when I have no navy, I've cornered an opponent's unit on a peninsula and am about to kill it and then he embarks and I can't do anything.

 

[Sonereal]

I like it but I wish that their was a one turn delay to build the ships before embarking. Too often in a late period multi-player game when I have no navy, I've cornered an opponent's unit on a peninsula and am about to kill it and then he embarks and I can't do anything.

You could've built a navy....

 

[fcarsten]

I like the embarkation feature as it removes quite a bit of tediousness.

I also don't mind that embarked units are more or less defenseless. It's also not too unrealistic as the incident where Somali pirates captured some tanks has shown.

I would like to see embarked units to become civilian, and also a mechanism where you could provide more effective naval escorts, e.g. through zone of control; or maybe a special, optional armed naval transports.

And I agree, the AI needs to get better at using embarkation. But that's not a flaw of the feature itself

 

[GKling]

The embarkation is a change I like, but (there is always something) I agree with those that say it would be nice to treat them as non-combat when at sea so key embarked units can be stacked with some protection.

 

[Vordeo]

I believe this is a common misconception that is biasing many people judgment on embarkment.
The historical truth is that more often than not troop carriers were not specifically-built ships but were makeshit vessels or private ships taken by the military.
I will provide just two examples in very different ages.

1. If you read Caesar's books you will see that his legions built makeshift troop carriers themselves and took some private ships too in order to cross both the Rhine and the English Channel.
2. During World War 2 the biggest and fastest troop carriers were civilian ocean liners taken by the military, example:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary

So I would say 'realism' is actually an argument for embarkment

Er, not really. I like CiV, but the idea that an infantry unit separated from your empire can magically whip up boats good enough to cross a vast ocean just doesn't make much sense to me.

Again, I like the change. Gameplay wise it's great. Realism-wise, not so much, really.

 

[NukeAJS]

I like embarking but 1upt makes moving an entire army across an ocean a nightmare. I think army units that are embarked should be able to stack since they can't fight anyways.

 

[Rudster816]

I think Destroyers should have +1 range for bombardment. It makes no sense that a Frigate has the same bombardment range as a modern Destroyer. This would allow for better naval bombardment before invasions. Specially because it can take 8-10 attacks on a fortified unit from a Destroyer to kill it. I dont like building Battleships because they are so much slower than Destroyers, but I might give it a whirl. Missile cruisers come in too late of a stage to be useful for anything buy carrying nukes too.

 

[killmeplease]

This is the one part that makes me nervous when it comes to possible implementing because I'm unsure how players would like having to deal with bottlenecks to get an invasion force just to sea.

what bottlenecks do you mean?

The other, very huge, problem is what if units need to get off a hostile island?

ships would have some zoc that could be used to make embarkation in enemy's cultural borders possible.

 

[The_Quasar]

I disagree, I think the system is fine how it is...

Anyone embarking in someone else's theoretical zone of control, as with Legion 2 in the example, is more than likely to lose the unit, and rightfully so... no real zone of control rules are necessary, as it's so easy to pick off an embarked unit. In other words, the system works for that purpose, so why fix it?

 

[killmeplease]

In other words, the system works for that purpose, so why fix it?

there is a problem with "realism"
transports cant get to legion 2 therefore it cant to embark.

 

[kekekeke]

I hate it. Though its hilarious to eat AI's troops crossing small body of water, because they are too stupid to build escorts (om nom nom)

Maybe transports and embarked units shouldn't be mutually exclusive? Embarking could allow crude way to cross over small bodies of water. To cross oceans, you would need transports. This would still help AI to expand and improving nearby island hexes would be manageable etc. but to wage a war across oceans, you would always need a fleet.

 

[Quueg]

At first blush, embarkation seems great - it removes the headache of having to build fleets to mount invasions. Great!

But it also removes an element of planning that was present in the earlier games. Not good!

The lazy guy in me likes it. The strategy gamer in me, not so much.

 

[eric_]

But it also removes an element of planning that was present in the earlier games. Not good!

You still have to plan your invasion, plan to protect your embarked troops, etc., you just don't have to spend so much time building transports (which aren't the kinds of military ships that can cross oceans anyway).

 

[Sonereal]

You still have to plan your invasion, plan to protect your embarked troops, etc., you just don't have to spend so much time building transports (which aren't the kinds of military ships that can cross oceans anyway).

It was always odd to see a landing barge go across the Atlantic to drop off the Normandy invasions in WW2 scenarios.

what bottlenecks do you mean?

By the sound of it, units can only leave friendly territory through coastal cities or nearby tiles.