New Unit (Galleon): What Do You Think?

[ShakaKhan]

Galleons could become Long Distance Cargo Vessels. What I mean by this is that in order to bring in resources from cities not on your original continent/island you would need a Galleon (and later on, when Galleons become obsolete, other means of transportation)
To transport colonists and military units to far away (colonial) lands you need Galleons.

Galleons do not sink in Ocean tiles(hexes) unlike their predecessor transport ships, are armed with cannons and capable of, if not sinking, then at least seriously damaging any frigates attempting to sink them or board them (in order to steal some of Galleon's cargo and convert it to gold for their civ)

Bad idea?

PS. Please stop insisting that this whole 'Embarkation" idea introduced in CI V is a good one, when it really isn't.

I wouldn't call it a bad idea - it certainly would be a neat addiition to Civ4, but I'm not sure how it would fit into Civ5. Not that I'm defending embarkation (I could do with or without it). It seems that the unit would require changing (or eliminating, if that's what your suggesting) embarkation mechanics, which is probably doable; I dunno, I'm not a modder. However, it also would seem necessary to restructure how resources work in the game, and I doubt that's easy. Plus, it seems like your making a unit that serves as a military unit, a civilian/merchant/trade unit, and a transport unit all in one - not that you couldn't make a unit that serves these roles and have it be somewhat balanced, just that the function seems unclear. Your ideas, if I'm understanding them correctly, seem like they'd be more well suited as a mod that consists of several units, instead of adding just one unit.

Maybe you could elaborate more?

 

[Hurricane55]

Also, I apologize for the confrontations occurring on your thread and hope that we can stay on topic herein.

No need to apologize; your response was not a rant and it was justified, anyway. If anything, I should apologize to you for initially ignoring Callonia's comment.

Galleons could become Long Distance Cargo Vessels. What I mean by this is that in order to bring in resources from cities not on your original continent/island you would need a Galleon (and later on, when Galleons become obsolete, other means of transportation)
To transport colonists and military units to far away (colonial) lands you need Galleons.

Galleons do not sink in Ocean tiles(hexes) unlike their predecessor transport ships, are armed with cannons and capable of, if not sinking, then at least seriously damaging any frigates attempting to sink them or board them (in order to steal some of Galleon's cargo and convert it to gold for their civ)

Bad idea?

PS. Please stop insisting that this whole 'Embarkation" idea introduced in CI V is a good one, when it really isn't.

I'm not sure if you were referring to Shaka or I or both of us about the criticism of the embarkation feature, but I am not at all opposed to getting rid of it. Your idea is definitely one that I would like to see in the game eventually; I don't think that it's bad at all. But the problem is that I can barely be considered a modder myself at this point. The most I've done is go into the game files and change all of the settings of existing mods. I simply don't have the experience or expertise to make such a mod. Someone else might, though.

The mod could follow the similar model that is present in the modern era: Frigates could get a bonus vs privateers (or just have the bonus of being able to attack land units), privateers could get a bonus vs galleons, and galleons could get a bonus vs frigates. Only frigates could attack land units, and privateers could be faster than frigates and galleons. Galleasses would upgrade to galleons, and galleons would upgrade to subs. This would create a rock-paper-scissors model where every unit would have a purpose. Share your thoughts on this idea.

 

[daft]

Frigates could get a bonus vs privateers (or just have the bonus of being able to attack land units), privateers could get a bonus vs galleons, and galleons could get a bonus vs frigates. Only frigates could attack land units, and privateers could be faster than frigates and galleons. Galleasses would upgrade to galleons, and galleons would upgrade to subs. This would create a rock-paper-scissors model where every unit would have a purpose. Share your thoughts on this idea.

I like your setup idea very much. All I'm trying to push for is a more realistic naval experience for players. Naval transport vessels need to be constructed, just like naval melee or/and naval ranged ones. Speaking of which, weren't most ships throughout history in fact a combination of ranged/melee naval units even before gunpowder/cannons were invented? (except triremes of course).

A human player would build these ships in order to transport goods and units to/from cities not on his/her original continent. They do not need to be able to transport more units than short ranged naval transport ships (if in game).

In order to protect his/her galleons from enemy war ships a player might stack them up (if such option is viable in CI VI) with some frigates or other warships of their era as escort.

 

[ShakaKhan]

This would create a rock-paper-scissors model where every unit would have a purpose.

This was a critical game element in the first few civ games that seems to have all but fallen out of civ5, and I sorely miss it. In earlier civ games, you wouldn't dare attack a spearman with a horseman because it was the counter. Now it's all about varied bonuses and sheer numbers.

 

[daft]

I wouldn't call it a bad idea - it certainly would be a neat addiition to Civ4, but I'm not sure how it would fit into Civ5. Not that I'm defending embarkation (I could do with or without it). It seems that the unit would require changing (or eliminating, if that's what your suggesting) embarkation mechanics, which is probably doable; I dunno, I'm not a modder. However, it also would seem necessary to restructure how resources work in the game, and I doubt that's easy. Plus, it seems like your making a unit that serves as a military unit, a civilian/merchant/trade unit, and a transport unit all in one - not that you couldn't make a unit that serves these roles and have it be somewhat balanced, just that the function seems unclear. Your ideas, if I'm understanding them correctly, seem like they'd be more well suited as a mod that consists of several units, instead of adding just one unit.

Maybe you could elaborate more?

Certainly.

To illustrate I'll use this scenario:

You explore the seas near your starting landmass and discover a new, attractive for settling island/continent. However, this land is unreachable by your currently owned ships which only posses up to 2 cargo spaces and sink in all non-coast(al) tiles/hexes. Since settlers take 3 cargo spaces on a ship you are temporarily unable to settle this fine new land.

The Colonist unit, recently made available for production (through researching proper tech) occupies 2 cargo spaces on a ship, is available for production and is capable of settling (forming) colonial towns on lands other than your starting landmass. (Colonial) towns your Colonists found/form are smaller at founding than cities found on your original continent but with similar growth ratio.

Since you're about to research Astronomy and you know that after you accomplish that task Galleons will become available for production in your coastal towns.
Galleons posses more cargo spaces, do not sink in seas or oceans, and can carry large quantities of goods besides land units.

I suggest trade route gains being partially dependent on type of naval transport ships you have available at the moment.

I suggest your transport ships (for colonial towns in pre Industrial Era-that would be Galleons) transporting goods to cities on other landmasses, carrying out trade route supplying orders (on the map you can see them going back and forth between trading cities), capable of Defence-Only naval warfare, quite strong and not easily sunk.

 

[inthesomeday]

I like this idea about transport ships, but it doesn't work very well with the established mechanics of Civ V.