Normal or Epic (or quick?)

[DaviddesJ]

Ship chaining doesn't work anymore. Units lose a turn every time they load into a new ship.

I know this isn't true, because I've done it. You can load a unit onto a ship (which does leave the unit with zero movement), move that ship on top of another, empty ship; activate the unit, click the "load" button, and select the other ship, which re-loads it onto the second ship; move the second ship with the unit onboard; etc.

P.S. I haven't tried it yet in 1.52; maybe you are saying it changed with the patch? I'm still playing 1.09 until I finish this annoying GOTM1.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Even so, as with Civ3, ship chaining doesn't help your main army move any faster, it's just for getting a very small number of units someplace fast - bringing a great artist to the front line for a culture bomb, for instance.
As for being able to upgrade units anywhere in your own territory; yes that's nice, but it is still savagely expensive. I think I might try some graphs comparing the price of each unit's upgrade to the price of the tech required; I'm sure the ratio of upgrade/tech price is much higher in Civ4 than Civ3.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Even so, as with Civ3, ship chaining doesn't help your main army move any faster, it's just for getting a very small number of units someplace fast - bringing a great artist to the front line for a culture bomb, for instance.

I don't agree. It just depends how many ships you have. One galleon can move 3 units a distance of 4 spaces in one turn (5 with Magellan). You can move 15 units a distance of 16 spaces, with 20 galleons. You just have to decide how much you want to invest in sea transport. That's a tradeoff just like any other in the game.

But, the original complaint was that units become obsolete during the time they are being sent overseas. Using ship chaining makes a big difference in this regard, because units don't spend so much time "in the pipeline". You can build a few units, and then send them quickly, then build a few more advanced units, and send those quickly as well, etc. Rather than building a huge army of identical units that all become obsolete at once.

 

[MeteorPunch]

I know this isn't true, because I've done it. You can load a unit onto a ship (which does leave the unit with zero movement), move that ship on top of another, empty ship; activate the unit, click the "load" button, and select the other ship, which re-loads it onto the second ship; move the second ship with the unit onboard; etc.

P.S. I haven't tried it yet in 1.52; maybe you are saying it changed with the patch? I'm still playing 1.09 until I finish this annoying GOTM1.

I believe you are right, and units may be moved out of the ship and into another just once per turn (I could be wrong here).

The advantage of ship-chaining in Civ 4 wouldn't be worth the trouble. It was great in Civ 3 though (strategically).

 

[DaviddesJ]

The advantage of ship-chaining in Civ 4 wouldn't be worth the trouble.

I strongly disagree with this. I'm not going to get into comparisons with Civ3, because the games are quite different, but I think it's extremely important in Civ4, because (as mentioned earlier in this thread) technological progress is fairly rapid, and units stuck in transit for several turns are losing the "window of opportunity" to be effective. Also, because units become obsolete, most often when I want to attack overseas I'm not starting with a completely prebuilt force, but I'm loading the units onto the ships continuously as they come off the production lines. This presents an ideal opportunity to have a chain of galleons/transports and send the units across in a continuous, rapid stream. Chaining wouldn't be so useful if you had all of the units ready at once, because then you would have to choose between sending a few quickly or many slowly. But, when you are sending a few at a time, the tradeoff is between sending a few quickly or a few slowly, and that's an easy choice.

P.S. It's not true that a unit can only chain ships once per turn.

 

[MeteorPunch]

@DaviddesJ: We have completely opposite playstyles then. I was prebuilding units (catapults and footmen) while waiting for Astronomy to be discovered, thus I could take full loads at a time. Ship-chaining would become beneficial after all the "full loads" of units were over, but not all that beneficial to me.

So you're right.

 

[Smirk]

Allowing ship chaining isn't a very good solution to the flaws with respect to technology and combat unit obsolescence.

Ship chaining is exploitive of the turn based mechanism.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Allowing ship chaining isn't a very good solution to the flaws with respect to technology and combat unit obsolescence.

Gosh, I didn't think this was the "How should we design our own game" forum. I thought it was about how to play the game we've got.

 

[Shillen]

I agree, ship chaining is exploiting and should be banned. It should never have been allowed in civ3 either.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I agree, ship chaining is exploiting and should be banned. It should never have been allowed in civ3 either.

I don't know why you think this, but, if this is going to turn into the "should ships chain" thread, then I'd definitely say that allowing ship chaining is more "realistic" than disallowing it. It doesn't take a ship 50 years to cross the ocean once. The long time periods for movement in the game represent many, many transits, which cumulatively carry a given cargo. So it entirely makes sense that a fleet of ships should collectively be able to carry cargo all the way across the ocean in a single turn.

But, (re)designing the game isn't my thing. This is the way the game works, and I'm fine with it. If the designers were to implement it a different way, or choose to change it in a patch, then I'm fine with that, too. But, meanwhile, we'll all play the game the way it actually works, not the way some people wish that it worked.

 

[AlanH]

ship chaining is exploiting and should be banned

Exploiting what? The designers knew that ship chaining was possible in Civ3, and didn't disable it in Civ4. There's no way it's a bug or an unintended side effect in the software. One ship can still only carry x units a distance of y tiles per turn, so there's no disproportionate misuse of resources.

Ship chaining has advantages, but it also has drawbacks. If you start with nothing in place you need the same number of turns to get your first units to the other continent whether you use ship chaining or not. But using chaining means you deliver one boatload in that turn instead of having all the ships deliver boatloads in the same turn. Since there seems to be an emphasis on combined arms in Civ4, it sounds like delivering more units in the first turn of a battle would be a good thing.

As DaviddesJ says, let's play Civ4 as it comes, not some other game that no one else plays.

 

[Shillen]

Sorry, there's no way that's a design feature, it's an oversight. I hope civ4 doesn't turn into a manipulating poor design game like civ3 was. That was one of the biggest reasons I stopped playing civ3. RoP rapes, palace jumps, ship chaining, etc. Those type of strategies ruin a good game.

 

[DaviddesJ]

The designers knew that ship chaining was possible in Civ3, and didn't disable it in Civ4. There's no way it's a bug or an unintended side effect in the software.

Sorry, there's no way that's a design feature, it's an oversight.

I think it's funny that you are both so certain. You can't both be right! And, to me, either seems possible.

But the idea that a game is "ruined" because you can build more ships and use them to transport units overseas more quickly, strikes me as pretty ridiculous. With that attitude, I'm sure you're never going to be satisfied with any game.

 

[Monthar]

Since GOTM2 requires the latest patch, how about adding Marathon to the choices on the poll.

 

[solenoozerec]

I hope civ4 doesn't turn into a manipulating poor design game like civ3 was. That was one of the biggest reasons I stopped playing civ3. RoP rapes, palace jumps, ship chaining, etc. Those type of strategies ruin a good game.

I am afraid you might want to stop playing civ4 too after we explore it more. IMHO all these 'exploits' are evidence of 'the fanatics power', not 'poor design'.

 

[MeteorPunch]

RoP rapes, palace jumps, ship chaining, etc.Those type of strategies ruin a good game.

I don't think those ruin the game, they are just additional strategies to consider. Although there was some banned exploits which were game-ruiners.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I am afraid you might want to stop playing civ4 too after we explore it more. IMHO all these 'exploits' are evidence of 'the fanatics power', not 'poor design'.

I think that ROP exploitation in Civ3 was poor design. And it's not an example of an unexpected and subtle discovery: it was immediately obvious that you could do this when you first play the game, and the designers must have known it as well.

One big difference between Civ3 and Civ4 is that the developers seem both more able and more willing to patch (perceived) game balance issues. There are things that never got fixed in Civ3, or that were never fixed correctly, while similar problems (like production overflow) in Civ4 have been promptly patched. Perhaps this is a result of the improved implementation framework of Civ4 making it easier to make changes. In any case, from what I've seen so far, I think we can expect much more in the way of patching perceived problems in Civ4, than we saw in Civ3.

 

[Quantum7]

Ship chaining has advantages, but it also has drawbacks. If you start with nothing in place you need the same number of turns to get your first units to the other continent whether you use ship chaining or not. But using chaining means you deliver one boatload in that turn instead of having all the ships deliver boatloads in the same turn. Since there seems to be an emphasis on combined arms in Civ4, it sounds like delivering more units in the first turn of a battle would be a good thing.

Pretty much the only situation I can think of in which this is advantageous, is when you have a large existing army that you want to transport. It's probably pretty safe to say that in most situations ship chaining will offer an advantage instead.

As DaviddesJ says, let's play Civ4 as it comes, not some other game that no one else plays.

I'm seems more logical that it wasn't intended as they tried to minimize excessive micro management and this definitely sounds like an instance of that (and added to that the actual way of doing it is not very intuitive). And even from a realism point of view it's pretty unrealistic. You can transport a unit from one side of the world to the other side in one turn (in the middle ages).....

But you do have a point with just waiting until they patch it (as it doesn't seem to be a major exploit). Maybe start a bug thread?

 

[DaviddesJ]

And even from a realism point of view it's pretty unrealistic. You can transport a unit from one side of the world to the other side in one turn (in the middle ages).....

I really don't get why you think this is unrealistic. If you have ships that can cross the ocean at all, then they don't take 10 years to do it, much less 50 years (5x 10-year turns). What's unrealistic, imho, is that you build a unit with current technology, put it on a ship, and by the time it arrives overseas, the technology is 50 years obsolete.

The movement rates in the game reflect the fact that when you're advancing through enemy territory (the case where they matter most), you have to fight all along the way and bring along supply lines, and this limits how rapidly you can advance. None of this is an issue when sailing overseas. I think ship chaining is a pretty reasonable way to avoid making the ships themselves unrealistically fast, and yet to provide a decent transport capability and speed. I do agree that it's cumbersome and fiddly to use, though.

The main bug thread is here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138058

If you think it's a bug, you should certainly feel free to report it.

 

[Quantum7]

The movement rates in the game reflect the fact that when you're advancing through enemy territory (the case where they matter most), you have to fight all along the way and bring along supply lines, and this limits how rapidly you can advance. None of this is an issue when sailing overseas. I think ship chaining is a pretty reasonable way to avoid making the ships themselves unrealistically fast, and yet to provide a decent transport capability and speed. I do agree that it's cumbersome and fiddly to use, though.

Realism indeed isn't a very strong argument against it. Not so much in that ship chaining is realistic, but more because realism isn't a very strong argument related to movement. Most of it seems unrealistic .
--> I'll retract that realism argument.

The main bug thread is here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138058

If you think it's a bug, you should certainly feel free to report it.

Done. Do note that that thread doesn't seem to get updated anymore, I reported a few other bugs and possible bugs that didn't get added to the main list in over a month. Some of those got fixed anyway though, so maybe someone from Firaxis looks at it.