My Problem with Ocean Travel in Civ

[Ramanag]

Dude it's a game. It doesn't have to be that complicated to work. I think your going a little overboard with this.

I don't believe it works at all, regardless of how complicated or simple it is.

 

[Ramesses]

I think your going a little overboard with this.

HE'S going overboard with this?

Anyway, my idea for improving naval navigation is as follows:

• Naval units have a very large amount of movement points. Galleons, for instance, will be able to travel halfway across the world in a single turn. However, the rules for naval unit movement are very different from the rules for land unit movement.
• Naval units can move freely inside your own or friendly cultural borders.
• If you try to send your naval unit out of friendly territory, you will be prompted to make a sizable payment of gold to explore the coasts/oceans (depending on ship's capabilities).
• An exploring ship will travel along a random squiggly path, "running away" from tiles you've already explored (including its own), using all of its movement points each turn. When it reaches land, it will head straight back to your territory. Your map does not update until the unit successfully returns. (And to avoid pissing players off, it always will.)
• If a naval unit is in one of your cities, you can order it to transport units. From there, you can select a coastal land tile (already explored) and the units you want to send. The number of units you'll be allowed to carry will depend on the distance of the destination from the city and the amount of movement points the ship has.
• Finally, combat. Each naval unit has a range for which it will automatically engage hostile naval units. A ship transporting units must fight every hostile ship whose range it passes through. Exploring ships are immune from encounters, since they are blindly sailing around uncharted regions and encounters would not be preventable otherwise.

So, take a moment to process that whale of an idea.

 

[qwerty25]

HE'S going overboard with this?

Anyway, my idea for improving naval navigation is as follows:

• Naval units have a very large amount of movement points. Galleons, for instance, will be able to travel halfway across the world in a single turn. However, the rules for naval unit movement are very different from the rules for land unit movement.
• Naval units can move freely inside your own or friendly cultural borders.
• If you try to send your naval unit out of friendly territory, you will be prompted to make a sizable payment of gold to explore the coasts/oceans (depending on ship's capabilities).
• An exploring ship will travel along a random squiggly path, "running away" from tiles you've already explored (including its own), using all of its movement points each turn. When it reaches land, it will head straight back to your territory. Your map does not update until the unit successfully returns. (And to avoid pissing players off, it always will.)
• If a naval unit is in one of your cities, you can order it to transport units. From there, you can select a coastal land tile (already explored) and the units you want to send. The number of units you'll be allowed to carry will depend on the distance of the destination from the city and the amount of movement points the ship has.
• Finally, combat. Each naval unit has a range for which it will automatically engage hostile naval units. A ship transporting units must fight every hostile ship whose range it passes through. Exploring ships are immune from encounters, since they are blindly sailing around uncharted regions and encounters would not be preventable otherwise.

So, take a moment to process that whale of an idea.

So we fight every single enemy on the hemisphere???
You change units INTO transports, otherwise you could fit many units on one tile.

 

[Ramesses]

So we fight every single enemy on the hemisphere???
You change units INTO transports, otherwise you could fit many units on one tile.

I can see where your confusion arises. I should have said that, while the movement range of the ship is extremely large, the distance at which a battle is triggered is like 2-3 tiles.

 

[wolfigor]

My solution is a system of ocean currents going throughout the world. These would act as natural roads in the ocean. These would triple movement speeds of all ships.

if you did try the RFC mod (included in CIV IV) then you get Ocean cost half movement while coastal sea movement cost one.
This makes for more realistic travel across ocean while keeping old ships accurately slow and slowing down sea units near the cost to facilitate interception.

The system is simple and works pretty well.
No need of complex simulations of currents.

 

[Alki]

if you did try the RFC mod (included in CIV IV) then you get Ocean cost half movement while coastal sea movement cost one.
This makes for more realistic travel across ocean while keeping old ships accurately slow and slowing down sea units near the cost to facilitate interception.

The system is simple and works pretty well.
No need of complex simulations of currents.

How slow were old ships? Early on a turn is 20 years and a ship can only travel 3 tiles.

If Vikings could sail to Scotland from Norway, plunder, and sail back in the same season just how slow were these ships? Not slow at all. It really stretches creduility to think that a sailor couldn't get from Norway to North Africa in his lifetime in his galley.

 

[wolfigor]

How slow were old ships? Early on a turn is 20 years and a ship can only travel 3 tiles..

Early in the game, yes, that's true, but later on the scale of time/turns changes to make this effect less extreme.
That's one of the many compromises between realism and gameplay, built to limit the extension of controllable area in the ancient times.

 

[Alki]

I understand that but I think another mechanism could be used instead. Perhaps making the upkeep of the unit increase the further it is from it's home port/ city?

 

[wolfigor]

I understand that but I think another mechanism could be used instead. Perhaps making the upkeep of the unit increase the further it is from it's home port/ city?

That would help, but it will not prevent the player or AI to explore all world in a few turns.
In previous versions of Civ it was possible for triremes to cross ocean, but there was a good chance that the ship would get lost (sink).
Maybe we could just add a chance for the ancient naval unit to automatically sink proportionally to the distance from your capital.
The farther you are from the capital the more likely for your ship to disappear.

Anyway superfast naval units may lead to balance problems, especially for warfare... something to consider too.

 

[ukcivfan]

I think Ocean currents are a great idea.

Get it modded!

 

[Alki]

Anyway superfast naval units may lead to balance problems, especially for warfare... something to consider too.

Of course but in 20 years I'm pretty sure I could walk from London to John a Groats and back again. Why can troops only move one tile in 20 years? Does that make sense to anyone? Game balance only.


If troops could march 5-10 tiles a turn then a ship could travel 15-20 and keep game balance... well balanced.

 

[wolfigor]

Of course but in 20 years I'm pretty sure I could walk from London to John a Groats and back again. Why can troops only move one tile in 20 years? Does that make sense to anyone? Game balance only.


If troops could march 5-10 tiles a turn then a ship could travel 15-20 and keep game balance... well balanced.

That depends on the scale of the map... the physical size of a tile depends on the size of the world (map).
In a small map, that "speed" in tile would be really excessive, transforming a strategic game into a tactical one.

 

[Xetal]

It seems low a slower paced game where you have time for transport/wars without having the world go from musketeers to infantry in the time it takes to transport troops across the ocean.

Slower pacing in which you can fight wars and really develop in each age would also improve gameplay in a lot of ways, I think.

 

[wolfigor]

It seems low a slower paced game where you have time for transport/wars without having the world go from musketeers to infantry in the time it takes to transport troops across the ocean.

Slower pacing in which you can fight wars and really develop in each age would also improve gameplay in a lot of ways, I think.

did you try to play marathon speed?
Normal speed is too fast for me too.

 

[Xetal]

Yes, the only speed I really play Civ4 on is Marathon (and the largest map size available).

Even at that speed the game progression feels a bit unnatural. I would prefer to play at a speed that is 2-4x slower. Some changes would be needed so it wasn't ridiculously easy to win at 600 A.D... such as making it so isn't as easy to conquer the world with a weak strategy and lots of brute force (as it is in Civ4). The concepts go hand-in-hand, and I think they might lead to gameplay that leads to fun and interesting wars and tactics in pretty much every major age.