How often do Galleys sink?

[zygmuntt]

I sent seven Galleys through the sea tiles (with one New Year party on the dangerous waters) and every single boat got sunk sink. ! Moreover since I started to play Civ3 I've never seen AI's Galley sink

If I lose a galley with probability 25% it would happen with probability 0,006%. Am I lcuky so much??


Is anybody here who can explain it?

 

[erix]

Short answer: Very often

Long Answer: Try to build "The Great Lighthouse". It will give your galleys safe sea travel and +1 movement points.
Try to make last moves headed to land.

 

[Black Fluffy Lion]

I think it's meant to be a 50% chance that if it ends a turn in a sea or ocean square it sinks. Seems to be a lot higher for me though

 

[Alc0p0pz]

Nah, I'm willing to buy that it's 50%, and also that the A.I. doesn't cheat regarding unsinkable Galleys.

It's just force of numbers, really.
If a Galley sinks, send another.
And another.
Until one of 'em finally makes it across da ocean.

The advantages (on Continents, Archipelago) to meeting all civs early on will easily pay for a strong coastal city to pump out endless Galleys.

 

[napoleon526]

I'm pretty sure that the AI's galley's never sink. I have seen them cruise effortlessly over ocean squares many times.

 

[zygmuntt]

But has anybody ever seen AI's Galley vanish under the water?:aargh3:

 

[napoleon526]

Originally posted by zygmuntt
But has anybody ever seen AI's Galley vanish under the water?:aargh3:

Not me.

 

[Park Ranger]

Originally posted by zygmuntt
But has anybody ever seen AI's Galley vanish under the water?:aargh3:

Never seen it myself - but to be fair, has anyone ever seen an AI galley end its turn in ocean when the AI did NOT have Navigation or Magnetism? I have to admit I haven't really been watching for this but I will now!

 

[The Hun]

I made this effort in my current game. I needed to get my galleys across the channel (spending one ending turn in the sea). My luck resulted in a 1-way trip about 3-4 times. That return trip is a doozy.

 

[Mr Spice]

Originally posted by napoleon526
I'm pretty sure that the AI's galley's never sink. I have seen them cruise effortlessly over ocean squares many times.

So the "Unsinkable AI galley" comes back to haunt us yet again. Here it goes:

The unsinkable AI galley does not exist. Once you discover either one of navigation or magnesitm all your ships, even galleys, can end their turn on ocean without the risk of sinking. This goes for the human player as well as the AI. Further, the AI never lets it´s galleys end their turn on sea/ocean when it is not safe, meaning they do not make "suicide runs". But since the AI sees all the map all the time it knows about passages where it can cross safely and does not have to guess like a human would.

 

[Zouave]

Yea, here we go again.

I have seen galleys in places they DID NOT REACH BY SEA, and must have been teleported to Star Trek style. Even if they did reach that location by water (and they did NOT - I saw the entire map via a cheat) they did not reach it before magnetism or navigation.

And I don't care what advance was discovered, galleys could never survive long in oceans.

 

[Black Fluffy Lion]

Originally posted by Mr Spice


So the "Unsinkable AI galley" comes back to haunt us yet again. Here it goes:

The unsinkable AI galley does not exist. Once you discover either one of navigation or magnesitm all your ships, even galleys, can end their turn on ocean without the risk of sinking. This goes for the human player as well as the AI. Further, the AI never lets it´s galleys end their turn on sea/ocean when it is not safe, meaning they do not make "suicide runs". But since the AI sees all the map all the time it knows about passages where it can cross safely and does not have to guess like a human would.

That is correct Spice. I am so glad someone else understands this

 

[BillChin]

Originally posted by Zouave
Yea, here we go again.

I have seen galleys in places they DID NOT REACH BY SEA, and must have been teleported to Star Trek style. Even if they did reach that location by water (and they did NOT - I saw the entire map via a cheat) they did not reach it before magnetism or navigation.

And I don't care what advance was discovered, galleys could never survive long in oceans.

Teleporting galleys do exist. They get this ability when asked to leave, and they get bumped to the closest neutral sea square. There was a thread about this some time back with a picture.

As for crossing oceans, I loaded up GOTM2, which has two continents. One of my galleys made a ten tile ocean crossing without sinking. Lucky? Yes. Impossible? By no means. (Edit note: Oh, I think you mean real life. Well, row boats can cross the Atlantic Ocean. So did a Leif Ericson Viking style galley, so I think it is possible, though risky.) You can see a picture of a replica of the ocean crossing galley at this site:
http://www.libertynet.org/~viking/

It is sound strategy for an isolated player to fling galleys across the ocean. I suggest every player that needs contacts consider the strategy, instead of waiting for Astronomy, Navigivation and Magnetism.

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by zygmuntt
But has anybody ever seen AI's Galley vanish under the water?:aargh3:

Yes, I have once.

 

[Zouave]

Specific example:

On the Marla Singer map, me as the Chinese. I finally get a caravel and sent it north to the Bering Straight region. I ran right into a GERMAN GALLEY about 10,000+ miles from home. I immediately pay for the German's World Map. There was nothing but BLACKNESS between the Bering Stright and Iceland, so the German galley was teleported by the AI to the Bering Straight, and, no, the German did not have the advances to even make even a caravel yet, and no, in the real world a galley would not only be unable to survive the fifty foot waves of the Paciific but the crew would have months before run out of water and food. That besides being terrorized by being in the Northern Pacific in a galley.

So the AI cheats with galleys, and uses them in a laughably unrealistic way.

BTW, I also spotted with my caravels flottillas of Japanese galleys in a different game heading across sea tiles (I had the Lighthouse) towards an overseas island I had two towns and a colony on - an island no one on the planet should have even known existed. And that was only at Regent level.

Yes, that stupid, CHEATING AI with its OCEAN-GOING unsinkable galleys.

 

[Erdrick]

And I don't care what advance was discovered, galleys could never survive long in oceans.

The Polynesian peoples also got quite far in "primitive" boats, (lesser boats than civ galleys) getting all the way to New Zealand. And possibly more than one group did this. Now that is a trip I wouldn't want to take.