Exploration

[Pook]

I want to overhaul the way ships explore the seas.

I looked through the current topic and thread lists and didn't see anything close, so I'm starting a new thread.

As I understand the current method of sea movement & exploring, I envision my advisors telling me:
"Sire, in the last 5-50 years (one turn), our voyagers have traveled another 1200-1600 kilometers (3-4 tiles). One group of galleys has found only open ocean but we still have contact with them, another group has perished 1600 km from shore without finding new land, and a third group is continuing up the coast, but has only traveled 1600 km in several years."

Problems: 1) There is no way to duplicate the Phoenicians circumnavigating Africa around 700 BC, the Romans doing the same a few hundred years later, Polynesians traveling thousands of kilometers across the Pacific, Columbus traveling across the Atlantic and back again in under a year, and Magellan's crew traveling around the world in a few years.
2) There is the "cell phone" capability that rcoutme mentioned in the "climatic and distance effects" thread. You as a player know exactly where your far-flung expeditions are at any given moment, and you know exactly where your explorers were lost in open ocean. In real life, you'd just count them as lost, not knowing what happened.

Proposed solution: A new unit to do long-range sea expeditions, and a new unit function for exploration.

The New Unit: Since Explorer is already taken as a land unit, we could call it an Expedition/ Discoverer/ Seafarer/ whatever. Cost would be similar to a galley, caravel, or galleon. It would have no combat capability, and would not have normal movement. Instead, it would have single-shot usage, similar to a cruise missile. After you built an Expedition, you would specify its "setting off point", which could be any known coastal tile which it could reach from the city where it was built. Then you would hit the new unit function to have it explore.

The New Exploration function would have two options:
A) Follow a coastline- unit follows a known coastline in a clockwise or counter(anti)-clockwise fashion. When it circumnavigates a land mass or reaches a pole, it returns.
B) Open seas- Pick a cardinal direction (W, NW, etc) for the unit to travel. If it finds land, it travels around it in a clockwise or counter(anti)-clockwise direction until it circumnavigates or reaches a pole, then returns home.
There would be a chance of the entire expedition being lost, with seafaring civs having a lower risk of this happening. The risk would increase depending on how many tiles of open ocean the Expedition had to cross.

For either option, you could specify in advance what to do when encountering new civs or barbarians. Either keep going with an increased chance of loss, or "Run away!" and come back immediately with a report of what they found.
After you as a player sent an expedition, the game would tell you that either the expedition had found new lands and peoples and show you the map, or tell you that the expedition was lost (you wouldn't know where it was lost or why).

Drawbacks: 1) I'm no big fan of automation either- I never use city governors, the current auto-explore, or automated workers because I know I can manage a city better than they can. However, I don't see a better way to do long-range exploration while still keeping you as a player in the dark about lost/failed expeditions.
2) It would not have giant death robots.

Comments?

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

You as a player know exactly where your far-flung expeditions are at any given moment, and you know exactly where your explorers were lost in open ocean. In real life, you'd just count them as lost, not knowing what happened.

But that is the basis of all the game.I know that it is not realistic but it applies on land sea or air. In real life you dont know where your troops are, what they encounter until you get a report, (which in ancient times could be years later) if and when they come back.
Applying this principle to the game would change everything until radio or satelittes, and I see no reason it should apply only to sea exploration(Marco Polo, Livingston, the quest for the sources of the nile?)
...and as if all that was not enough there are not GIANT DEATH ROBOTS....hmmmm
see also: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=89119

 

[Pook]

I agree that the idea could be expanded to land units- Marco Polo's journey only took three years.

There is a difference with expeditions by land units- unless you're in a Teutoberger Wald situation, there will be some survivors who could tell you what happened. This would take place within a few years (i.e. in the same turn). That's often not the case with sea units. As the poster points out, http://www.despair.com/fear.html "Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you'll never know the terror of being forever lost at sea."

Part of my frustration with the current game mechanics is the slow movement rate of ships- a warrior on a road can travel as fast as a galley. I understand in game terms that we're often talking more about migrations than invasions, but still, something's just not right....

 

[judgement]

Realistic or not, I think this idea would make the game less fun. I like being able to direct where my units explore.

 

[Pook]

Realistic or not, I think this idea would make the game less fun. I like being able to direct where my units explore.

Would you be in favor of a lightly armed exploration ship with a high movement allowance, say double what it is now?

 

[Dell19]

Well we already have curraghs in C3C and the fact that you can build them so early makes up for them only having two movement points. Also a ship with say 6 movement points would negate the effect of the great Lighthouse, unless you can only build them later in the game but then the map is usually already explored...

 

[dylanhatesyou]

I hate the Great Lighthouse, IMHO. I think that no civ should be allowed to navigate open ocean under the advent of, who guessed it? NAVIGATION. Or Magnetism. It makes more sense to me that way. Pacific islanders and Phoenicians notwithstanding, historically.

 

[Dell19]

Perhaps it is unrealistic but continents can already be explored far too quickly and the great lighthouse allows the seas to be explored at the same rate. Also the great lighthouse only allows galleys to move into sea squares I think.

 

[judgement]

Would you be in favor of a lightly armed exploration ship with a high movement allowance, say double what it is now?

No.

For one, I think exploration already happens too fast, so a ship with higher movement doesn't help IMHO.

And second, very high movement rates make combat problematic. Once how far a unit can move gets significantly higher than how far one can see, then it becomes much too easy to move right past an enemy and then be far out of sight before its their turn to move. Realistically, if you sail close past an enemy, the enemy, assuming they are just as fast or faster, ought to be able to pursue and engage you (or, more realistically, attack you on the way past). But in Civ, when movement rates start getting above 4 or 5, then you can get out of sight of the enemy you just slipped past, and they might not even be able to find you again. This leads to all sorts of problems... for example, ships are useless for defending your coast if enemy ships have enough movement points to move past them and drop off troops before your ships have a turn to attack them.

 

[Dell19]

That wouldn't matter that much if it was just one ship type that had double movement points and that it couldn't transport units. Although I agree that exploration already happens too quickly.

 

[LtBurger]

I don't know about any of you, but I've been playing for years and have never used Explorers. By the time you get them I've traded for enough maps and the world is populated to such a point as to make them useless.

However, I agree with Judgement (exploration is pretty fast already) and also with dylanhatesyou (I think there should be no ocean movement until Navigation).

I also think when a map is generated there should be at least one large land mass that has no civs on it that can be discovered mid game, but thats probably another topic.

My idea for liquid exploration would be to have it more similar to land by limiting a units ability to see by type and what type of water they are on (like mountains & hills for land units). For example: a galley moves 3 sees 2 in coastal waters, 1 in seas and 0 ocean (can't enter at all & just stays blk even if next to it), a Caravel moves 4 sees 2(or3) in coastal waters, 2 in seas and 1 in oceans (can enter but risks loss). Then make a unit that can breaks these rules when you achieve Navigation.

Another option would be to not allow any unit to see or move into uncharted ocean unless it has an explorer (only available when you get Navigation) aboard. Then have another tech advance (like Magnetism) that cancels this.

Land exploration seem ok to me, though I do miss being able to move a little faster along rivers.

 

[sampedestal]

i think that the idea would rock, but the ships would have u see only one square into the mainland and have a certain range.

 

[Haradrim]

In my opinion, this is a very good idea. I think the same should go for early-game land exploration, and maybe even early game wars, because there is no way for you to instantly communicate, unless you consider yourself the general of the armies you have doing the fighting...