Landing operations - realistic or not?

[oChuckles]

To me the embark things is just sort of "making up" for the whole "it takes 200 years for your army to get somewhere" thing...

 

[Elenhil]

In that case I guess I didn't understand what you were trying to say in your post.

Your question: "Could you point me to a couple of historical events where weather, terrain or poor navigation alone caused large parts of an army to be wiped out while travelling across land?"

The answer: "Napoleon in Russia. Alexander in India/Gedrosia".

Your dismissal of the answer: "The massive non-combat losses that the various invaders have historically sustained in Russia has mainly been due to laying siege/fortifying in enemy territory under the stern gaze of "General Winter" - and not because they marched through a snow filled landscape.

Not a word about Alexander's case and a statement completely irrelevant to Napoleon's one (who did happen to march through our merry countryside in winter).

 

[deanej]

Actually, the "it takes 200 years for your army to get somewhere" thing doesn't matter because THE YEARS ARE COSMETIC AND DON'T MATTER AT ALL. Firaxis could eliminate years completely and nobody would notice. The transport thing DOES matter. Travel by water was certainly faster, but not easier. You did need ships. Now water will no longer be a barrier. Might as well turn the water into land tiles that have a major defensive penalty. Same effect.

Given that civ4's naval mechanic was completely broken (I'm referring to naval combat itself, not that navies weren't important enough for some people's preferences), I don't think raising the importance of the navy without fixing naval combat is a bad idea. You usually need three ships to destroy one enemy ship. And unless you have a ship on every tile, it's impossible to defend your coast because of the huge movement range. Eliminating transports, and water being a barrier to movement, will make this worse.

And for people that like the new mechanic, I ask only one thing of you: drive your car into a lake and see what happens.

 

[.Nightingale]

What i don't like about this is that it takes a strategic aspect out of the game.

Lets say you are on an island and at war with a larger civ with a far superior army, you're going to lose in a head on fight, but most of your enemy territoy is located inland with just a few costal cities. You could use all of your navy and/or air force to bomb and blockade those ports in order to prevent their superior ground forces to reach your land, but with this mechaninc it doesn't maky any difference since even a civ with no fleet at all can just mount a massive sea invasion.

I really don't like this mechanic, not because it is not "realistic", but because i have never been too happy about civ's all out wars that only end when you overrun the enemy, and i think the idea of more limited and strategic wars is far more fun, but to do that you need to have strategic value in certain cities or places.

 

[deanej]

I just thought of something else: the Atlantic Ocean is the only reason the US survived its first 100 years of existance. Both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 would have turned out quite differently if Britain could just march troops across the ocean.

 

[mjs0]

Anyone interested in Napoleon's campaign in Russia should be familiar with this graphic by Charles Minard:

Spoiler :

The effects of moving large numbers of troops while under the stern gaze of "General Winter" are clearly shown.

As the article says it is regarded by many as the best statistical graph ever drawn; I remember the first time I saw it almost twenty years ago I was struck both by the amount of information it conveys so succinctly and how terrible that campaign must have been for the men involved.

EDIT: A similar map by Minard for Hannibal's crossing of the alps is here

 

[Matches]

One of the reasons that this is unrealistic is because navies used civilian ships to transport ships and supplies - they were never faced with the choice of having to decide between manufacturing destroyers or manufacturing transports. You could convert a civilian freighter or liner to carry troops or supplies in a few weeks by simply adding lots of bunk beds, and maybe bolting an anti-aircraft gun or two to the deck (and sometimes doing things like scraping off the interior paint to reduce the risk of fire). Even in the Falkland war, there were almost as many requisitioned civilian ships as there were naval ships (including the QEII and two other luxury liners).

Nevertheless, the ships had to EXIST at the same place in space-time for the military units to be moved. What we're seeing here is now the idea that there are, at all times, and on every coastal tile, capable vessels at the ready to transport military units. This feels incredibly unnatural to me. It is understandable in friendly waters - I would accept that. For a player to just be able to evacuate an army at the drop of a hat seems absurd to me. Arguing that you shouldn't have to choose between building a transport and building a destroyer is one thing, but not at the expense of gameplay. As I've stated before, all the concerns could be eliminated by simply making a transport a super-weak unit that can be built with a cost of 5 hammers. Want to transport 4-5 units? Sacrifice one measly turn in a coastal city and build a freaking ship to do it. The navy is still important because those units are important and you had darn well better have an escort or your plans are sunk, literally.

 

[Scaramanga]

I just thought of something else: the Atlantic Ocean is the only reason the US survived its first 100 years of existance. Both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 would have turned out quite differently if Britain could just march troops across the ocean.

I'm only guessing, but they probably did have enough transports and could've marched their troops across the ocean, they were just preoccupied elsewhere (with the major European powers). When the veterans of the Peninsula War reached North America it did some major damage to the US.

 

[Lap]

Make a mini mod to only allow transporting from neutral or friendly territory and it would fix most of the predicted problems with hit and run invaders. Do naval units have a patrol option where they can automatically move to intercept incoming units?

 

[CyberChrist]

Your question: "Could you point me to a couple of historical events where weather, terrain or poor navigation alone caused large parts of an army to be wiped out while travelling across land?"

The answer: "Napoleon in Russia. Alexander in India/Gedrosia".

Your dismissal of the answer: "The massive non-combat losses that the various invaders have historically sustained in Russia has mainly been due to laying siege/fortifying in enemy territory under the stern gaze of "General Winter" - and not because they marched through a snow filled landscape.

Not a word about Alexander's case and a statement completely irrelevant to Napoleon's one (who did happen to march through our merry countryside in winter).

It wasn't weather, terrain and poor navigation alone that caused so many deaths in those 2 examples (or even the fact that they were marching). The main causes was being ill-equipped and poorly supplied to face the conditions of a harsh winter and a burning desert. Of course in the case of Napoleon the soldiers being overweighed by adamantly hanging on to useless equipment and loot - as well as facing hit and run attacks by the properly equipped Cossacks - didn't help either.

However, even with the best of preparations and equipment a ship can still go down killing most (if not everyone) onboard - if Neptune so pleases.

 

[Matches]

Re: Marching troops across the ocean.

Do we know what the movement rate of Conjured Transports is? What Civ X with a mass of 12 units floating across the sea to invade, Civ Y has 2 warships protecting the coast. It it possible for those 12 units to just outnumber the 2 warships, even unescorted, to land on the opponent's shore? If I have to maintain anything like a 1:2 ratio of naval units to their "floated" land units, that's going to feel pretty dumb.

If the MP of the Conjured Ships is prohibitively slow, it takes away the realism of the speed of transit across water that defenders of this concept cite. If the MP is equal to that of the naval units of their time, then you can embark a huge army and land them on an opposing shore, and the enemy will need to have enough ships to pick them all off, even if they're unprotected. Flotilla of Doom?

 

[CyberChrist]

Flotilla of Doom?

Lol

 

[Schuesseled]

I just thought of something else: the Atlantic Ocean is the only reason the US survived its first 100 years of existance. Both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 would have turned out quite differently if Britain could just march troops across the ocean.

You make it sound like its difficult to build a boat, its not, it was the amount of time an atlantic travel takes, that was the problem.

 

[imperialman]

I just thought of something else: the Atlantic Ocean is the only reason the US survived its first 100 years of existance. Both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 would have turned out quite differently if Britain could just march troops across the ocean.

If viewed soley in terms of success on the battlefield, the British won the war of 1812 hands down. The big exception is the battle of New Orleans, which was fought after the war was officially over. The US did not conquer Canada. The issue of British seizing American ships and sailors was almost a moot point since the Napoleonic wars were over (the war being the reason the British had little man power to send over to North America). Since the US started the war, did not achieve its political objectives and had its capitol burnt down for doing so, I think it is fair to say that militarily the US lost. The war in general was really just a draw though.

 

[generalwar]

I just thought of something else: the Atlantic Ocean is the only reason the US survived its first 100 years of existance. Both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 would have turned out quite differently if Britain could just march troops across the ocean.

Don' forget that during the War of 1812.(about which we haven't learned anything far now so I don't know almost anything about it) England was warring with Napoleon too,right? Same as Germany's war on two fronts in the I. and II. WW. You have to dispatch troops on two different sides and Europe is far more closer than America and even if British destroyed USA, few years after that proud American citiziens would dethrone Brits, wouldn't they?

Edit: 2 almost same answers in same minute?

 

[imperialman]

Wouldn't it be a waste of time building transports that can only carry one unit?

 

[imperialman]

England was warring with Napoleon too,right?

After 1707... Britain*, not England.

*Britain; Informal for the country 'United Kingdom'. Includes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Sorrrrry.

 

[deanej]

Wouldn't it be a waste of time building transports that can only carry one unit?

They could easily have made an exception to 1upt for transports.

 

[imperialman]

They could easily have made an exception to 1upt for transports.

So then, that means unloading in different hexes?

 

[deanej]

Yeah. Could also be made easier by allowing units to have their full movement after unloading, rather than none, so they could pass through each other.