German GameStar: rivers as ship roads?

[ColdFever]

According to the German GameStar magazine, "ships can follow the natural course of rivers."

This could explain why rivers do not look so natural anymore, going from tile by tile without loops, probably forming roads for ships this way.

source: http://www.gamestar.de/preview/strategie/rundenstrategie/2313377/civilization_5.html

 

[caether]

But the river in screenshots does not seem to be able to accommodate ships.

 

[Commander Bello]

According to the German GameStar magazine, "ships can follow the natural course of rivers."

This could explain why rivers do not look so natural anymore, going from tile by tile without loops, probably forming roads for ships this way.

source: http://www.gamestar.de/preview/strategie/rundenstrategie/2313377/civilization_5.html

For the community, here is the original quote (taken from ColdFever's link):

Schiffe können nun etwa dem natürlichen Verlauf eines Flusses folgen und müssen bei Engpässen nicht gleich einen Umweg um die halbe Insel nehmen.

Which roughly translates into:

Ships now can follow the natural course of a river and no longer have to circumnavigate the whole island in case of bottlenecks.

The topic already is under discussion in our German forum Civilization Forum, where we are concluding that it most probably is a mistakable expression.

The problem I see would be the display of the ship unit, which would have to be drawn on a land hex, then. Another problem would be how to deal with possible attacks against such a ship.
Therefore, I am not much convinced of such an option to be implemented.

 

[ColdFever]

The problem I see would be the display of the ship unit, which would have to be drawn on a land hex, then. Another problem would be how to deal with possible attacks against such a ship. Therefore, I am not much convinced of such an option to be implemented.

I do not see much of a problem here. On the screenshots it is visible that rivers now are running OVER tiles, not along the boarders anymore So if a tile carries a river, it could also carry a boat/ship. This would be great for viking scenarious. Free attacks on boats/ships from adjacent tiles certainly should be possible, but a boat/ship probably only can attack the next river tile, for attacking land tiles it should have to unload a carried unit.

 

[Ahriman]

Yeah, there are still no river hexes that a ship could move into. I don't see it happening.

Maybe though there can be a river as a "canal". Imagine a 2 hex long 1-hex wide isthmus, with a river running from coast to coast down the border of 2 hexes. Maybe a ship can move from 1 ocean tile on one side to an ocean tile on the other side?

But I am still suspicious.

 

[caether]

I do not see much of a problem here. On the screenshots it is visible that rivers now are running OVER tiles, not along the boarders anymore So if a tile carries a river, it could also carry a boat/ship.

Spoiler :

From this screenshot, you can clearly see that river is still running along the border of the tiles. I can't see there would be any space for a ship between the catapult and the spearman.

 

[ColdFever]

From this screenshot, you can clearly see that river is still running along the border of the tiles. I can't see there would be any space for a ship between the catapult and the spearman.

Look closer. There is always a specific tile below the river, even where it appears to be very close to the border of a tile. The one-tile-one-unit rule probably would apply here too, so that a marine ship probably could not enter the tile with the spearman, while I civil boat probably could.

 

[Andrew_Jay]

No, that river is definitely running along the borders of the tiles.

 

[eireksten]

Agree that it is clearly along borders. It just "enters" tiles because of smoothing.

If you'd have river tiles, why not make it obvious?

 

[eoran]

Cool, like Civ II

 

[V. Soma]

hm, hm - interesting,
as in one of the other articles it was also vaguely mentioned that ships can be on rivers,
though I can't recall which one that was

 

[Pazyryk]

It looks like it runs along the borders, but why would that exclude boat travel along rivers? A boat could be "parked" between turns on one side or the other (i.e., on a specific tile, but graphically shown near the tile border). If the boat has 4 movement points, then it can move through 4 tiles, each of which must border the river. Graphically, it would be shown moving in the river, but that is just an animation issue. For the one-unit-per-tile rule, it ether breaks this rule (that would make the most sense to me, so that troops can load/unload on the same tile) or it really only can "park" on an empty tile (but move "through" other units in a turn as other units can).

It would make sense to me, and river travel is long long overdue in civ. It would allow river cities to become major port cities, as they can be in the real world.

 

[Ahriman]

It looks like it runs along the borders, but why would that exclude boat travel along rivers?

Because having naval units on land tiles (especially letting them attack/defend vs land units?) is kinda ridiculous. I hope they don't do that. How could a ship destroy a land unit? The people could just walk away from the river.

 

[Pazyryk]

Yes, it would be kinda ridiculous for a boat to attack land units, but it is hardly ridiculous for some archers to take on a boat in the river. So? I would think that this could be easily dealt with in attack/defense rules (or just adjusting stats so that it is a futile effort and never happens). Hardly a reason to not implement river travel.

 

[Schalke 04]

How could a ship destroy a land unit? The people could just walk away from the river.

bombardment!

Of course, people can just walk away. But what if the river is along a frontline?

I'm not sure if this feature really is in the game, it could be a bad description by the article. However, I would love to see this in CiV

EDIT: Moreover, there is no need to use ships just for military. They can be used very well for logistics

 

[Ischenous]

Maybe it's not all ships? Sure, your small galley won't have trouble but that huge battle ship might not be able to, due to the hull.

 

[caether]

I'd rather believe it was a mistakable expression though I like the idea a lot.Based on what I have seen,it is just out of my imagination, not the mechanics,but how tiny ships would be to fit into that narrow river in the screenshots and at the same time ,make themselves in line with other units.

 

[Ahriman]

bombardment!
Of course, people can just walk away. But what if the river is along a frontline?

You miss the point; its not that *units* can walk away from the hex adjacent to the river to another hex, its the idea that galleys rowing up a river (whose power comes from ramming, and maybe a handful of archers) could kill a unit in a land hex; a naval unit just can't effectively contest a land hex.

Archers shooting 2 tiles is one thing, but naval units destroying land units would just breach all suspension of disbelief.

 

[Yakk]

It appears to be 1 domain unit per tile.

So a tile containing a ship can also contain a spearman.

I'd suspect that ancient ships wouldn't be able to defend against land units on a river. More modern ships might be able to.

Similarly, maybe you won't be able to attack land units with your ships.

With bombardment, you could do a 'ranged attack' on a land unit near the river, however.

Going further, it isn't that hard to have ships always be on the vertexes of hexes (or even the edges). If they did that, then a ship could block land units from crossing the river-edges adjacent to it.

 

[Pazyryk]

Well, I agree that ships shouldn't be able to "ram" land units. So just code it that way in the combat stats/rules. Most people agree that spearmen shouldn't kill tanks either, but I haven't heard anyone say we have to remove spearmen and tanks from the game to prevent this unlikely occurrence.

I don't see graphics as an obstacle either. We already have human troops towering over city buildings.