PAX-E VideoInterview with Dennis Shirk

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, I'm going to weigh into this debate with the following points:

1) If transports are civilian units, then I'm guessing they'll have no more ability to attack or defend than settlers or workers-so don't go converting your precious military units to transports-without military naval support-unless you want to lose your army to the weakest naval units of the era.

2) I'm also guessing that, graphically, "transports" will match the technology of the era, & won't simply be units magically traveling over water.

3) Last of all, I suspect that there will now be differentiation between regular coastal tiles & Beach tiles-thus limiting the areas at which you can convert units to transports. As for changing back at the other end, I suspect that you won't be able to without either losing movement or the ability to attack-unless you have an appropriate promotion. This will make Marine, Paratroop & naval bombardment units a much more critical element in naval invasions.

If I had to make a guess, I'd say it works like this-To convert your military unit to a transport you either have to go to a city with a harbor/port or an *appropriate* coastal hex. Converting will probably use up 1 to 2 movement points, & create a "unit" with little or no attack or defense capability-making it very vulnerable to attack by the enemy! At the other end, you will also need an *appropriate* coastal hex, or to first capture a coastal city. Disembarking will use up 1 to 2 movement points, & will result in either *NO* attack, or an attack at lower strength. An amphibious promotion will probably counter this weakness. Therefore, in order to land your ground forces, you'll probably either have to have units with an amphibious promotion, or you'll have to soften up the enemy before landing your forces.

Aussie.

 

[galahadba]

The problem with units turning into ships is how it destroys what they're attempting to do with 1uPH with the ability to set up a front line. Barriers may not have meant much in earlier Civilization games but with the new system the ability to create choke points and limit the amount of enemies you face at once becomes much more important. A front line is much less formidable when your enemy can simply turn into a boat and swim around your defenses from any direction. At least with a transport system the enemy needs to invest in his fleet and the transports cannot cut across land. If units become boats then the defender has to set his navy against an enemy that can ignore the long sea route detours and potentially evade the enemy navy all-together. Essentially, the shortest path between two places for ground units is a straight line, and naval units don't have that luxury.

Workers however, could benefit from Wonder Twin abilities, as their free movement doesn't threaten gameplay like universal movement military forces do.

There was a game designer who mentioned how their plans to do transport this way were scrapped (for good reason), but I can't manage to find the interview. I did however find a Design Blog by Christopher Park about how he encountered an unexpected design problem with a Space 4X due to the lack of terrain features. He also talks about the effects terrain can have on strategy and how the AI behaves. It's at least partially related to the subject at hand since the issue with self-transporting units is how it destroys an aspect of strategy important to the genre.

Removing water barriers would be like allowing a Rook to leap units as a Knight does in chess - the effects are further reaching than a simple movement modification.

If you consider that the unit takes one turn to turn into a boat and 1 turn to turn back, and if you assume that they mantain the "amphibious warfare" thing, that atacking from sea (or loading and unloading from a boat in civ5) gives you 50% penalty in battle. try to goes into the sea to bypass a defense is just a suicidal atack as you can atack their units when they try to load or unload with 50% bonus.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Not only that but, as a civilian unit, those transports are going to be easily destroyed by any naval units your enemy has in the area. So even if you can transform your units into transports-willy nilly-then you'd better have a decent navy on standby or else watch your beloved army get smashed to pieces with the ease that most people would crush a bug!

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

On the other, it just seems wrong to drive my tank over a cliff, and suddenly it's in a boat

That's the point I'm getting at. I wouldn't be surprised if, in Civ5, it is impossible to convert units to transports in any coastal hex which has a hill or mountain in it (assuming mountains aren't impassable). Indeed, I'm guessing that they might have a differentiation between coastal plains & Coastal Beach/Coastal Harbor hexes-such that moving off the former will cost 2mp, wheras moving off a harbor hex will cost only 1mp. Of course, that's just an assumption, but it would solve all sorts of problems, & make the choice of an invasion site very important (just think of the Gallipoli invasion!)

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, here's something that came up in the interview. "Embarkation" is a technology. You can't convert units into transports until you've unlocked this technology-so there's another limitation on this ability!

 

[bonafide11]

OK, here's something that came up in the interview. "Embarkation" is a technology. You can't convert units into transports until you've unlocked this technology-so there's another limitation on this ability!

Wow, I figured it'd be unlocked with the discovery of Sailing, didn't expect them to make a separate tech just for that. I wonder if it'll follow the discovery of Sailing or where it'll be in the tech tree?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I'm guessing it would have to follow closely behind sailing-though of course he might be selling Embarkation as a new tech when-in truth-its just an ability gained via getting sailing. I guess we'll find out in coming weeks!

Aussie.

 

[moscaverde]

I like this idea, makes things much more practical and, at the same time it destroys a strategy part of the game, it creates another. Would really like if a cost be put on embarkation. Maybe land transport could be created with the same mechanics, IIRC PG had something like that.

 

[The Cosmic Kid]

OK, here's something that came up in the interview. "Embarkation" is a technology. You can't convert units into transports until you've unlocked this technology-so there's another limitation on this ability!

That's an... odd name for a technology. I sure hope it isn't final.

 

[Dale]

OK, here's something that came up in the interview. "Embarkation" is a technology. You can't convert units into transports until you've unlocked this technology-so there's another limitation on this ability!

He didn't say "is a technology" he said it's "part of the technology tree". It could be linked to a tech, such as sailing.

 

[frekk]

It sounds more like the name of a promotion or something - and who knows whether it refers to the ability to embark, or just more proficiency at embarking. Maybe it's a 2 turn delay without the promo/tech, just 1 turn with. Or something.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, Dale, that was kind of what I was implying in my follow up post. It was not entirely clear to me at the time, though. It certainly makes sense as a tech-derived ability or promotion.

Aussie.

 

[timtofly]

Not only that but, as a civilian unit, those transports are going to be easily destroyed by any naval units your enemy has in the area. So even if you can transform your units into transports-willy nilly-then you'd better have a decent navy on standby or else watch your beloved army get smashed to pieces with the ease that most people would crush a bug!

Aussie.

That may be true towards mid game. I think that at the start you will not have a navy, and neither will the AI. It sounds like the AI will determine after creating its 3 units (melee, defensive, and ranged) it will send them as transports to "find" the enemy. Maybe as the English or Japan you can get a navy early to ward off waves of these transports.

 

[Ahriman]

I severely doubt that you will be able to transport land units over sea before you have the tech to build a naval military unit.

Chances are, a "sailing" tech will provide both.

 

[eleazzaar]

The idea that the turning-into-boats mechanic could be a very good thing has been well defended by several posters.

I agree. This sounds like a very promising mechanic, that should actually emphasize naval action and protection.



I also like the idea of cultural borders expanding in more incremental and controllable ways. "Rough" terrain resisting culture expansion seems to be another instance of making the terrain matter more.

I wonder if the borders can expand past fortified units now? It seemed to me that there should be some military way to resist the encroachment of another nation's culture, without actually taking out the nearest culture-generating city.

 

[Roland Johansen]

The embarkation mechanic could be implemented in many ways. I just hope that you can't just transform your units into ships without any previous hammer investment into these transport ships. If there's no strategic planning in the past to move your units over the ocean at a certain moment in the game, then that would be a loss to me. Of course, if a future enemy has already build a strong military navy, then you'd need to do the strategic planning to also create an even stronger military navy. But if the future enemy's military navy is in a different location or if it didn't invest in a military navy, then there might not be a need for any previous investment in shipping to start a amphibious invasion. Can't say, I'd like that. Strategically planning stuff is a core part of civ to me and I also can't say that major amphibious invasions were performed on a whim historically.

All of this planning of amphibious invasions can of course be restored by just adding a shipping pool which can be created by a certain hammer investment per civilian ship. The pool could be visible on the side bar of the main screen by a small ship with a number underneath it and each time you'd embark a unit, the ship number would go down by 1 until the unit would disembark again.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Roland, as I've suggested elsewhere, I doubt very much that you'll be able to do such embarkation at any point on a coast. I've little doubt that it will require specific tiles to do it &-even then-it will probably cost movement &/or attack/defense strength (thus making you extremely vulnerable to repulsion by the enemy). Also, the fact that the transports themselves are vulnerable to attack makes the hammer investment in naval units almost guaranteed!

Aussie.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Roland, as I've suggested elsewhere, I doubt very much that you'll be able to do such embarkation at any point on a coast. I've little doubt that it will require specific tiles to do it &-even then-it will probably cost movement &/or attack/defense strength (thus making you extremely vulnerable to repulsion by the enemy).

My whole post is about the possible lack of hammer investment in the civilian fleet and how this could result in the availability of amphibious invasions without any strategic planning. Essentially, if you would notice that the future enemy had no military ships close to your coastline, then you could invade with your units without any thought of such an invasion in previous turns. You could invade on a whim.

I don't see what relation this holds to the section of your post which I quoted above.

Also, the fact that the transports themselves are vulnerable to attack makes the hammer investment in naval units almost guaranteed!

We know very little about the mechanics of naval invasion. I just worry a little that the designers removed a major part of the planning of these tough invasions, that they are too cheap now. It could be that the AI always quickly builds some military ships. But I doubt that these will be present during every single turn on every single coastal tile to block any and all transports which might arrive from any direction. If sailing into enemy lands (and thus declaring war) plus disembarkation can be done in a single turn (nobody claimed this to be untrue and it has been true in every previous version of civ), then the only way for military ships to stop transports is by sinking them before the declaration of war of the invader.
There are certainly ways to design civ5 so that military naval ships can easily protect a long coastline, but such designs were never chosen in previous versions of civilization. So I wonder what your guaranteed investment in military shipping is going to accomplish.

So, even though you give guarantees , I remain worried that military invasions in civ5 might require less investment and less planning and might often be performed on a whim.

I sincerely hope that there is still a significant planning cost involved in amphibious invasions. And I don't mean micromanagement, but a relative high cost in time and hammers to make such an invasion into a success.

 

[migkillertwo]

In a RTS game like Rise of Nations it makes sense... because there are lots of things happening at the same time and you couldn't manage everything if certain aspetcs wouldn't be streamlined.
But this is a TBS game... a whole different story.

micromanagement is micromanagement, and most people hate it in TBS or RTS games.

 

[vidion]

I think what he means is that, you have to build a large navy of triremes and frigates to support your invasion force. So instead of building 7 galleons and 3 frigates you might be building 10 frigates now. It still requires an investment.

Also with a new 1upt rule you can hopefully see a large enemy armada approaching your territory more easily. Naval recon is going to very important. I hope that with the new system we will see some naval action in the BCs.