It's been confirmed that it applies at sea also. But you have no need for transports anymore, and we don't know the movement points of different units, so I would pretty much guarantee that intercontinental invasions will still be very possible, just done in a different and more careful way.
Importance of naval supremacy
- Thread starter Tantor
- Start date
frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
Actually the fourth can be abstracted in a way that makes things MUCH simpler than having actual trade routes. It's done in an old game called Imperialism 2.
You'd put some of your ships in harbours, and they formed your global trade fleet. The cargo capacity of each ship in the trade fleet went towards your transport capacity, and that was how many units of goods you could move in a turn, globally (the resource scale is different in Imp2, so in civ terms it would probably be a ratio like 10:1 or something). Transport capacity moved goods from one port to another. Goods could also be moved overland, but they were not subject to this limitation.
Blockading the port didn't stop it from being able to send or receive goods, but, there was a chance that ships would be intercepted, which depended on the speed of the blockade ships vs the speed of the cargo vessels (very fast cargo ships like clippers could often run blockades and were only rarely intercepted; sloops were the best chance to catch clippers).
Fairly simple system, really.
With a bit of work, something similar could be featured in civ. The main problem is that naval supremacy isn't going to be important to alot of civs (this is true in the real-world as well, look at Russia for example). In Imp2 a blockade was devastating, because colonies - or rather, their resources - were crucial for production and income. But in civ, overseas colonies tend to be nice but not necessary.
frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
Yeah ... and no. The raw speed of the truck is definately faster, but that doesn't mean the goods necessarily arrive sooner. Say you need to move something from New York to Rio di Janeiro - by truck, this would take an interminably long time compared to ship.
Trucks are very good for local movement up to a certain distance, but for really long-distance transport, they aren't very good. If you wanted to move something from Berlin to Beijing, truck would be the slowest choice, even though the truck's clocked speed is faster and even though the distance by sea is much further. Across long distances, trucks unfortunately have to contend with a myriad of border crossings and customs agencies, poor infrastructure, and so on. Ships do not.
Well I don't doubt that that idea would be rather simple, but I think the idea of having an actual trade route system would also be rather simple, and would be a preferable system to use.
for the type of game civ is... sea is just not that important.
it becomes even less important when you go out of your way to make your map anything but archipelago
as mention by some but in less direct ways... sea in real life is simply for transport/trade
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civ is not a trading focused game
colonisation is a game where sea is important. the game focuses heavily on trade and the fastest way to transport between 2 cities is by sea. if you had a city inland, it was a massive pain since you had to build slow moving carts which the cargo would 99% of the time end up having to go on a boat anyway (to get back to europe).
transport tycoon is another good example but i won't go into that
in civ, trade is pretty much automatic once it has been set up and unless its one of those key resources, trade is not going to matter a huge deal and will most likely go unnoticed if blockaded.
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ships in civ are simply a pain.
they require specific research which you can't afford unless you are playing an island game.
moving units off ships is too slow.
they can't capture cities.
it can take 10-50+ turns to migrate to a new island (time required to move units to port, time required to create ships, time required to undock, time required to establish a beachfront). if you can win without doing so then you probably won't even visit that island.
then you have to keep ferrying units around.
the time it eats up is the biggest downer. moving a ground unit from a-b requires 1 click of the mouse. moving that same ground unit from a-b via sea requires you to do: move to dock, dock, water move, undock, move to location ALL separately and conciously... it cannot be automated.
it becomes even less important when you go out of your way to make your map anything but archipelago
as mention by some but in less direct ways... sea in real life is simply for transport/trade
----
civ is not a trading focused game
colonisation is a game where sea is important. the game focuses heavily on trade and the fastest way to transport between 2 cities is by sea. if you had a city inland, it was a massive pain since you had to build slow moving carts which the cargo would 99% of the time end up having to go on a boat anyway (to get back to europe).
transport tycoon is another good example but i won't go into that
in civ, trade is pretty much automatic once it has been set up and unless its one of those key resources, trade is not going to matter a huge deal and will most likely go unnoticed if blockaded.
----
ships in civ are simply a pain.
they require specific research which you can't afford unless you are playing an island game.
moving units off ships is too slow.
they can't capture cities.
it can take 10-50+ turns to migrate to a new island (time required to move units to port, time required to create ships, time required to undock, time required to establish a beachfront). if you can win without doing so then you probably won't even visit that island.
then you have to keep ferrying units around.
the time it eats up is the biggest downer. moving a ground unit from a-b requires 1 click of the mouse. moving that same ground unit from a-b via sea requires you to do: move to dock, dock, water move, undock, move to location ALL separately and conciously... it cannot be automated.
Aeon221
Lord of the Cheese Helmet
Based on information I've got available, carts during the Classical and Medieval periods -- the primary tool of logistics -- would have moved at between one and two mph, depending on the condition of roads, and much slower where roads are not present. Infantry could manage between two and three mph marching, depending on road conditions, but would outrun logistical support unless forward supply bases were available. Cavalry forces could maintain speeds of five or six mph, but would also run into logistical problems quite rapidly -- however, less reliant on roads.
For the Roman period, where I have more data on hand, the Rome-Antioch journey could be undertaken in one of two ways -- a journey mostly at land, or mostly at sea. At sea, using the expected speed of 1 knot, or roughly 1.5mph, it would take, on average, 55 days. The mostly land journey would require about 124 days.
HOWEVER, this misses the significant disadvantage of the ship, namely, that it can be held up in port by contrary winds, poor weather conditions or maintenance for weeks at a time. The winter months were also entirely unsuitable for sailing, and generally saw ports closed and ships docked. Troops would also tend to arrive in poor health after weeks afloat in terrible conditions, and often required one to two months of time to return to full combat readiness, gather material for the campaign, and generally stop having vertigo. And there was always the risk of a major storm wiping out the entire force, as happened many times during the first Punic War. The annals of British and French naval history recount similar episodes, where troops disembarked on Caribbean islands or the Indian coast would arrive in poor health, only to be ravaged by disease and enemy fire not long after landing.
So, while Civ naval transport isn't as fast as it could be, it also isn't nearly as painful as it historically was. If ships were regularly subject to disease, storms and the myriad other issues that plagued them, it would behoove us to make transport more powerful as a result. Since they are painless, we are under no such obligation.
For the Roman period, where I have more data on hand, the Rome-Antioch journey could be undertaken in one of two ways -- a journey mostly at land, or mostly at sea. At sea, using the expected speed of 1 knot, or roughly 1.5mph, it would take, on average, 55 days. The mostly land journey would require about 124 days.
HOWEVER, this misses the significant disadvantage of the ship, namely, that it can be held up in port by contrary winds, poor weather conditions or maintenance for weeks at a time. The winter months were also entirely unsuitable for sailing, and generally saw ports closed and ships docked. Troops would also tend to arrive in poor health after weeks afloat in terrible conditions, and often required one to two months of time to return to full combat readiness, gather material for the campaign, and generally stop having vertigo. And there was always the risk of a major storm wiping out the entire force, as happened many times during the first Punic War. The annals of British and French naval history recount similar episodes, where troops disembarked on Caribbean islands or the Indian coast would arrive in poor health, only to be ravaged by disease and enemy fire not long after landing.
So, while Civ naval transport isn't as fast as it could be, it also isn't nearly as painful as it historically was. If ships were regularly subject to disease, storms and the myriad other issues that plagued them, it would behoove us to make transport more powerful as a result. Since they are painless, we are under no such obligation.
frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
That's one of the best things about the new system. With units able to simply enter the water and transports becoming assumed, it's much more efficient than it was (in terms of the number of clicks a user has to do) to use sea transport.
This means it will probably be alot more common, necessitating greater use of naval warships to prevent coastal attacks - finally giving warships a role (besides minding fishing nets!)
Well one could say the same about roads and railroads. And it's not entirely true in the case of the sea. The sea produces resources - vast resources, actually. The food industry is the biggest industry on the planet by a long shot, and the biggest single industry within the food industry as a whole, is the seafood industry. Plus there is OIL, probably the single most critical resource of all in this day and age.
Sea plays a big role in a game like civ, because civ is about things like settling new lands, collecting resources, exploring, going to war, developing new technologies and capabilities, and so on. All functions the sea has played an important role in.
It only seems like the sea is unimportant in such a game because you've been familiarized with rules that don't reflect the sea's relevance in these sorts of activities. In civ, there would be no reason for the great naval battles of the Civil War, for instance. Two countries bordered on land would find little reason to engage each other with massive fleets or invest much in naval technology, in the game. But in the real world, they did.
There`s a big difference between moving people and moving goods in ancient Rome. People move themselves, but a very few number of people can move large quantities of goods by sea, but the same number of people could only move a fraction of it by land. To get the numbers right one has to include factors like: distance/day, reliability, amount of goods freighted etc. Even if a galley has the same speed as a cart, it moves 24/7 while the cartdriver and animals must rest.
frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
damn, double post
frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
It was even more efficient than that - galleys weren't used to move cargo. They used a sailing ship called a corbita. It had a crew of about 10-15 and could carry 400 tons of cargo. Far more efficient than 10 or 15 carts!
Galleys could hold only a minimal amount of cargo, once supplies and so on were accounted for. They just didn't have the space. They're for moving people, rather than cargo.
I know, but the Galley in CIV4 was a transport...
So you don't think that the sea has been at all important in the history of civilization?
Interesting opinion.
KIEJ.MANIK
Tlaneloli
awwww but I hate having to build ships, I like reserving my production for buildings and wonders
A lot of that is probably due to the fact that they don't have a really good use, though. They are only used for pretty basic functions currently, so there is no real excitement in building them. Making them more important would serve the purpose of making this aspect of the game more fun, as well as providing the other aforementioned benefits. 
troytheface
Deity
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2002
- Messages
- 3,262
they need to take it even further if you ask me
where a seapower only civ is viable
where a seapower only civ is viable
Ahriman
Tyrant
I am really really hoping that we can finally get a version of Civ where a Victorian Britain style naval power/farflung colonial empire is actually feasible.
To do this, we need:
1. Mechanisms that make it virtually impossible for land units (transports) to get through a screen of naval defenders without an almost equal navy of their own.
2. Fast moving naval vessels that can move long distances rapidly.
3. Some alternative to flat "number of hexes" distance penalties for city maintenance. So for example distance penalties are traced by trade-route distances rather than simple distance, and have water tiles count for much less.
4. Mechanisms that allow superior naval power to be leveraged seriously reduce the economy of a hostile power (ie trade route blockade that really matters, or allowing superior naval mobility to allow effective coastal raiding and pillaging).
I'd also really like to see some sea-barbarians (think Vikings, or barbary states).
To do this, we need:
1. Mechanisms that make it virtually impossible for land units (transports) to get through a screen of naval defenders without an almost equal navy of their own.
2. Fast moving naval vessels that can move long distances rapidly.
3. Some alternative to flat "number of hexes" distance penalties for city maintenance. So for example distance penalties are traced by trade-route distances rather than simple distance, and have water tiles count for much less.
4. Mechanisms that allow superior naval power to be leveraged seriously reduce the economy of a hostile power (ie trade route blockade that really matters, or allowing superior naval mobility to allow effective coastal raiding and pillaging).
I'd also really like to see some sea-barbarians (think Vikings, or barbary states).
mjs0
The 4th X
Big thumbs up on all of these.
On number 3 perhaps the distance used in penalty calculation should be measured in turns (based on the notional speed of overland shipping and merchant marine) rather than in tiles.
Hey it works for light years!
I agree with all the OP's suggestions.
Even today, ships are more efficient than trucks or trains for mass goods transportation. Speed is an issue, but volume and bulk is another one. How many trains do you need when you need one tanker?
Another important matter which made sea transport and trade more efficient than land-based is that there are less lords and kings trying to prevent (or make you pay) you from crossing their seas than their lands. I think this means rights of passage restrictions shouldn't apply to the open sea (at most the coastal tiles): You have no way without actually using a unit to prevent a ship from moving into your waters.
Even today, ships are more efficient than trucks or trains for mass goods transportation. Speed is an issue, but volume and bulk is another one. How many trains do you need when you need one tanker?
Another important matter which made sea transport and trade more efficient than land-based is that there are less lords and kings trying to prevent (or make you pay) you from crossing their seas than their lands. I think this means rights of passage restrictions shouldn't apply to the open sea (at most the coastal tiles): You have no way without actually using a unit to prevent a ship from moving into your waters.
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