Exploration and explorers

[Thyrwyn]

Ahriman raises some good points:

I think explorers were mostly designed for a "second phase" exploration. You initially explore your own continent, and then you use explorers to explore a "New World". They're useful on Terra maps.

Ideally, yes - but spies are more useful, since they can pop guarded huts. Also, a unit that is only useful on a particular map is, by definition, useless on all of the others.

The problem with preventing workboats from leaving culture is that it means you can't build a boat in city A and then sail it along the coast to newly founded city B to build a net on its fish resource.

The set distance solution would allow that (within the given limitations).

I'm not sure that a strict range limit would work well either. You could end up with situations where England couldn't engage in the Crusades because the Holy Land as "too many tiles away". And lots of frustrating/counterintuitive "hey, I can move to tile 1 just fine, but this tile on the other side of the river is unreachable for me - a tile too far?".
And what about being supplied by allied/friendly territory?

The "a tile too far" is an intended effect. It would really be no different than the range of Air Units - "My bomber can fly 8 squares, why not 9?"

The Holy Land/Crusades/Allied Territory can all be solved by introducing a new type of treaty - call it "Mutual Supply & Support". This would let you use friendly territory. Of course, if you lose the treaty you could end up like King Richard . . .

The losing health mechanic (instead of a hard limit) works (kinda) for choppers, but only because of their high move rates. Imposing the same mechanic on slow land units would make them useless for exploring - which is the primary point of the proposed mechanic.

 

[Ahriman]

Ideally, yes - but spies are more useful, since they can pop guarded huts. Also, a unit that is only useful on a particular map is, by definition, useless on all of the others.

Oh, I totally agree that explorers weren't particularly useful in game. But I think that is a problem with their implementation, rather then the design goal. Having a second exploration phase is good, but its a challenging design goal to achieve that except for unsettled continents.

I'd be ok with explorers still only having a function on other continents, as long as they could actually perform well at that goal (which means, can still get tribal villages, and villages are still useful).

The "a tile too far" is an intended effect. It would really be no different than the range of Air Units - "My bomber can fly 8 squares, why not 9?"

Bombers have fuel, and its the amount they can move in a single turn. Explorers are living off the land, they aren't being supplied from home. So its weird that they can keep exploring through jungles and whatever for 10 turns at distance X, but can't cross the river once to explore the other side at distance X+1.

Its also non-transparent. With aircraft, you can easily see where their range is. That's not so true with explorers. So you'd need a really clear delineation of range.
Its not un-doable, but you'd have to be careful.

A supply treaty seems feasible, but maybe that should just be tied into open borders.

Also, what is the distance drawn from? Your cities? Your culture? Your roads?

The mechanism has some promise, but I'm not sure if its really worth the extra hassle in order to accomplish a relatively minor design goal.

 

[Osama Bin Davis]

Also, what is the distance drawn from? Your cities? Your culture? Your roads?

The mechanism has some promise, but I'm not sure if its really worth the extra hassle in order to accomplish a relatively minor design goal.

Maybe you could do it from cultural borders. This might be a silly question but can you build a fort outside of your borders? cause if you can or make it so you can, that would allow you to explore further, and give a real purpose to the forts as well considering how useless they are currently.

I don't see how making exploration a more important and strategic part of the game is a minor design goal. It'd add more to the beginning of the game and add a huge fear of the unknown behind that darkness of the known world!

 

[frekk]

Explorers are living off the land, they aren't being supplied from home.

Don't know which explorers you might be referring to, but most of the ones that match the unit in the game (who looks like a De Soto sort of guy) actually did carry supplies from home. They didn't know the flora and fauna well enough to forage much, or safely. Plus there were lots of things, like gunpowder and so on, that couldn't be foraged.

Sometimes they traded to get supplies along the way, but of course they needed to bring something to trade.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well I think having a 'soft limit' might be best

distance<X : no penalty, regains hp if healing
X<distance : no hp gained if healing, hp Lost each turn Not spent healing.

X would then be more for certain units, with certain techs, buildings.

And the Distance could be meaured to closest City, or closest Allied/Friendly City.

Distance Could also be a 'travel time' distance rather than fixed # of Hexes

 

[TopDog]

Totally agree.

Add in building forts outside your territory to regain any 'supply points' feature.

 

[Thyrwyn]

I would say cultural borders for simplicity.

The fort idea has promise, but you would have to distinguish ownership of the fort. This could be done a couple of ways:
1) It belongs to the civ that built it. I don't like this one.
2) It belongs to the civ that occupied it last. I like this better, but not much.
3) It belongs to the civ that occupies the fort with a military unit. I would go with this one, personally

My gut says only allow forts to extend the range by <half+1> as much as from own borders (for example - a unit must remain within 10 of its own borders or within 6 of an owned fort). I think forts would have to abide by the same limits (that first one would have to be built within 10, too). The numbers are just for discussion, not necessarily what I think they should be.

 

[StittsvilleJame]

I don't think I have ever built explorers, for the simple reason that they are useless. Much easier to send in a couple warriors, especially ones with the promotion to move 2 spaces through forests.

Maybe Explorers should have special benefits while outside your cultural borders, where they are the only ones that could, for example, discover natural wonders (yes, I love the idea of natural wonders), or certain resources or something. Inside your borders though, you should be able to see natural wonders and special resources.

 

[Craxymaxy]

I think Natural wonders should be in the game and should be able to be discovered by anyone, it is not like warriors just ignored the Sahara because they weren't scouts
I also think that having any type of limit on units distance from cities would severely handicap the game.

 

[StittsvilleJame]

I think Natural wonders should be in the game and should be able to be discovered by anyone, it is not like warriors just ignored the Sahara because they weren't scouts.

Because explorers are useless otherwise, and because it's a game, I disagree with this. It would give a reason to actually build them. Unless they appear way earlier in the game, why bother with them if they have no special benefit?

 

[innonimatu]

I'd rather see a time (turn) limit for units outside civ borders, instead of a distance limit. It was time, not distance that which always limited explorers. Marco Polo took half a lifetime in his travels. Most other travelers who ventured as far either got killed on the way or retired somewhere far away due to old age or simply losing/switching whatever allegiance they had started with, never sending back news.

So, allow units to spend a certain number of turns outside cultural borders. It is accepted that during this period they're sending back information. Beyond it they disappear into whatever new lands they found, or die out. Or they might even be turned barbarian, or automatically found a barbarian city at that point.
As the game progresses (and each turn represents fewer years) the turn limit can be increased. It need not (it better not) be completely realistic (trying to use a human lifespan) but it can easily be a fixed amount of game years - that way the range of explorers and armies is automatically increased as the game progresses through the ages, with fewer years by turn.

 

[Osama Bin Davis]

I like that idea, but im still up in the air which would be a better solution. A hard limit like Thyrwyn's solution or yours above me. I think I prefer thyrwyn's just for the fact you know what distance yo ucan travel and can increase it.

I do think being able to use forts as supply points would suit either solution and actually make forts useful, maybe giving it a border of influenice of 1 tile around it, and have it that anyone enemie passing the fort will have to attack the fort.

 

[Dale]

I can't remember which game it was in but if you discovered a river you could name the river or a mountain, forrest etc.

Conquest of the New World. You could name rivers, mountains and ranges. Great game, loved it!

 

[Thyrwyn]

The time limit might work, but I am inherently opposed to the idea of suicide units. A turn limit (even a semi-random one) would seem to encourage that.

 

[LDiCesare]

A turn limit is a really good way to lose units by forgetting one turn or miscalculating one move. How would you show the limit on your units? It would requite a visual information like the hp bar, and we already have that, so it would clutter the map with additional info that would likely be hard to read.

 

[Tantor]

I also think we must have some sort soft limit.
My suggestion is that unit upkeep increases the further you get away form your borders. Upkeep outside your borders should eat both gold and food and increase for every x hexes away. A friendly controlled fort may act as a supply source, but then again the unit occupying that fort must be supplied and the fort must be built. Units like scouts, explorers and caravels don`t need extra upkeep. Explorer may also be a promotion.
With this suggestion you are still able to explore the world if you choose, but you must invest resources to do and it will also increase the importance of forts and supply lines. It will cost you to loose control of a fort if it supplies ten units....

 

[frekk]

Increasing upkeep would be a good idea.

Another thought I had is that if a command and control limitation to the number of units that could be moved in a turn (enhanced with the addition of leadership and communication technologies) were introduced, one could technically scout out the whole world early on, but it would rarely happen. Balancing it would be difficult though; nations with large, exposed borders would suffer quite severely relative to those shielded by mountains or water.

 

[Semmel]

I find the Idea of food supply for military units in general (one slice of bread per turn and unit, no matter what type) very very tempting. Because soldiers must eat, but they do not work. And keeping a large army up and running will cost you not just money but also reduces your population limit. I really really like that Idea because it also mean you can overbuild units so you can have temporarely negative population groth if you plot a war and you loose these units during the attack. But you cant wait for to long because it would cost you.

Explorers might be able to find food on their way and dont need food supply as long as they are outside your boarder.

To realize this on a empire scale, each city can donate food to the empire by a separate slider in the city menue. With technology like refridguration, it might also be possible for cities to take food from the empire supply or to stack empire food supplies to some maximal amount. this way it would be possible to build farm cities that support for example production cities. Which in turn would make buildings that increase the food per tile more worth it like a can-production so you gain one extra food on each farms in that city. This building might not be build in any city but especially in farm cities. So you can work more hammer tiles in production cities.

I might just open a new thread for this idea.. Its maybe a good idea for a mod of some kind.

 

[frekk]

Well, since there's been some suggestion that the game might be using resources to limit the unit-count, it's possible that food-type resources (wheat, cattle etc) might play into the equation.

 

[lietkynes]

apart from finding the other civs and the odd hut there isn't much value in exploring much farther away than your starting city.

I dont think we play the same game

I also get annoyed by fishing boats that explore the world, i think they shouldn't beable to leave your own borders, so you actually have to make exploration craft.

Agreeable, but it doesnt bother me much