My Problem with Ocean Travel in Civ

[B-29 Bomber]

My problem is that in say TETurkhan: Test of Time map in civIII the mediterrain seems to me to be like the earth-moon system is in real life and the Atlantic is like the solar system and trying to go around the the world that's like trying to go to a star that's 10 light years away in a rocket powered ship(it would take 70,000 years using rockets to get to alpha centari 4 light years away.). The result of this: the new world remains unmolested by the old world. 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. So if a ship moved 3 hexes per turn base then on a ocean current it would increase it to 9 hexes per turn! This would make these routes very valuable. Naval battles could be fought for control for these routes. If you were to place a ship on one of these routes it would criple someones colony. You could even establish your own trade route through the current and place a toll that other civs would have to pay to go through. Unless they declared war on you! Which could happen if the price was too much. Whole wars could be fought over trade routes. Trade routes increase movement by one in ocean currents and by 2 on regular ocean. You could destroy a nation's economy by taking a trade route.

 

[cardgame]

tl;dr translation

I suggest ocean currents. triple speed of naval units.

I'm not against the idea in concept, but unless the map is really really huge, this isn't going to matter a whole lot. naval units are already ridiculously fast, mainly in the modern era; at most these routes should double speed of Age of Sail ships. and they only work in one direction, other direction is half speed.

 

[Jamuka]

That might be pretty cool. Looking forward to trying a mod.

 

[Earthling]

Everything about navies scales really poorly with map size; it is unfortunate. The solution in civ4 is to just change gamespeeds, and between Epic and Normal I think it's ok, but civ4 wasn't perfectly balanced and I see very little guarantee civ5 will work well at all sizes and speeds.

 

[aMoralAtheist]

Good idea I think for the age of sail. Make it a national wonder, call it "Harnessing the trade winds" or something. Make it one way routes both ways. Other wise movement speed is halved for going against the wind.

So west to east is one route, and east to wests is a different route is what I meant by that.

 

[B-29 Bomber]

It's OCEAN currents not wind patterns. Also it can't be a national wonder because it would be a map feature. I do agree that since ocean currents go only one way that there would have to be a two lane trade route.

 

[AriochIV]

The problem with making ships as fast as they should be (20 or 30 hex/turn) is that they would become impossible to intercept. Transports could cross the Atlantic in a single turn, come in past your huge military fleet and drop troops (or themselves in the case of Civ V) on your coast before you have any chance to defend against them. Making military naval vessels useless.

Ships are the speed they are in Civilization for a reason.

 

[brianshapiro]

It's OCEAN currents not wind patterns. Also it can't be a national wonder because it would be a map feature. I do agree that since ocean currents go only one way that there would have to be a two lane trade route.

We would be talking about wind patterns though, monsoon winds. Monsoons are what were referred to as trade-winds, because in the ancient world entire trade networks were built around them. For example, the Roman trade with India ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_trade_with_India )

 

[LL_LordOmega]

you mean like in rhye's of civilization (from civ III)

 

[brianshapiro]

I would love it btw if game turns were split into seasons. It would enable seasonal currents, but would also affect things elsewhere in the game, like in winter food production would decrease and troop movement would be slowed.

 

[Tomice]

The problem with making ships as fast as they should be (20 or 30 hex/turn) is that they would become impossible to intercept. Transports could cross the Atlantic in a single turn, come in past your huge military fleet and drop troops (or themselves in the case of Civ V) on your coast before you have any chance to defend against them. Making military naval vessels useless.

Ships are the speed they are in Civilization for a reason.

That's right, I modded ships to be faster in Civ4 and the effect is just that enemy ships appear out of nowhere and start pillaging and dropping troops far behind the frontline. I had to rethink my mod and only increased the speed of earlier ships.

The downside is that Civ games fail to simulate things like early mediterrenean culture (e.g. Phoenicians). The medit. sea was so important for mankind because ships where so superior in transporting goods at rather high speeds.

A solution could be that ships are slower in enemy territory/close to enemy coasts. Or that ships can slow down enemy movement around them. Let me explain:
Player A positions his ships somewhere between his fishing grounds and his coast cities and activates a "control" mode. In a certain radius around A's fleet enemy ships move much slower now, giving A a chance to intercept.
It's similar to an enemy's inabilty to use your railroads. A ship should only be able to activate this mode if it's within it's own territory, of course.

 

[Alki]

A ship can cross the Atlantic in one turn no matter if it has a sail or a screw. We didn't need 50 years to sail from Europe to The New World

The solution is that ships 'stop' when they come into a units zone of control. If you have half a dozen ships making a curtain ZoC across a body of water a ship can't progress without engaging the unit with the ZoC.

 

[killmeplease]

I have an another solution: rebase mission for ships. Distance is restricted to a speed of a ship (which is treated as 'operational' speed). E.g. it should not be greater than speed*5. Enemy ships create a ZOC through which rebase route can not pass thus having to double it (if possible).

on the picture you can see 3 naval bases. our ship can rebase from 1 to 2 and back but not from 2 to 3 as there is an enemy fleet that closes the direct passage and we are short of base speed to get to base 3 by the roundabout route. So we have to kill enemy fleet in that location to have ability to rebase quickly from base 2 to 3 and back.
The radius of ZOC could be a half rebase distance for example, say 5 for trirema unit.

 

[B-29 Bomber]

I think you've missed the whole point. It's OCEAN CURRENTS not wind patterns. You guys are just making it way too complicated. Just think of it as roads on the ocean. Also this would be a feature on the bigger maps. Also I'm not saying a ship should go across the ocean in one turn. It should take some time to get acrost the ocean. Now actually read my first post and take note of the numbers. A ship's base movement is 3 then it would move 9 on an ocean current. If you were to build a trade route which would belong to you on it then the movement would increase by one to ten. A trade route can be built anywhere but can't be built adjacent to one. The ocean current would thus become a loose choke point. You can make an agreement to let another civ use the trade route for a price. Unless the trade route was defended properly it could fall and could instigate a war.

 

[Zhahz]

Interesting idea that ultimately adds nothing much to gameplay and is probably more of a hassle to deal with than anything.

If you're going to add something like this then you probably need weather, seasons, natural disasters, and all kinds of other stuff til you're to the point where you're playing something other than civ.

Navy suffers enough in civ without complications.

 

[the343danny]

If anything its a simplification for the AI. You now have a tile at the end of the current where the AI knows to defend with its fleet, and that would provide an adequate sea defense along with some patrols covering non currents, rather then making the AI cheat by letting them know where your fleet was like in Civ4.

It also adds strategic depth to sea fighting. If the currents are 1 tile wide, then you have to stretch out your navy to make the most out of them, breaking their formation and leaving them vulnerable to attack. Much better to add a third element then just having coast/ocean.

 

[B-29 Bomber]

Interesting idea that ultimately adds nothing much to gameplay and is probably more of a hassle to deal with than anything.

If you're going to add something like this then you probably need weather, seasons, natural disasters, and all kinds of other stuff til you're to the point where you're playing something other than civ.

Navy suffers enough in civ without complications.

Are you just doing this to test my self control? Well your doing a swell job just a swell fricking job. Your making it complicated all by your self! You don't need weather and all that crap to make it work. All you need is a tile feature that increases ship movement by 3X. That's all! It's akin to roads except they're on the ocean tiles and they're natural. Wow really complicated. I think that your still talking about WIND PATTERNS. Wind patterns are not what this thread is about so drop it.

 

[Ramanag]

All you need is a tile feature that increases ship movement by 3X. That's all! It's akin to roads except they're on the ocean tiles and they're natural.

Except that's not even close to how currents work. What you'd most likely have is a large circle of tiles that push units into the next tile in the current, be it clockwise (throughout most of Earth's Northern hemisphere) or anti-clockwise (for Earth's Southern Hemisphere) You're basically describing very slippery water, that lets boats just zip across it in any direction based upon their speed, rather than the speed of the water itself.

Currents, imo, should be large circles covering huge intercontinental swaths and having a definite direction. Ending a turn on one pushes your ship some number of squares along the current. Though, personally, I see limited, if any, value in including them at all.

 

[Jerrymander]

Are you just doing this to test my self control? Well your doing a swell job just a swell fricking job. [...] Wind patterns are not what this thread is about so drop it.

Take a chill pill, man. Go sit in the corner for a few minutes and come back when you're ready to have civilized discourse.

 

[B-29 Bomber]

Except that's not even close to how currents work. What you'd most likely have is a large circle of tiles that push units into the next tile in the current, be it clockwise (throughout most of Earth's Northern hemisphere) or anti-clockwise (for Earth's Southern Hemisphere) You're basically describing very slippery water, that lets boats just zip across it in any direction based upon their speed, rather than the speed of the water itself.

Currents, imo, should be large circles covering huge intercontinental swaths and having a definite direction. Ending a turn on one pushes your ship some number of squares along the current. Though, personally, I see limited, if any, value in including them at all.

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