Sailing Takes Me Away

[MeatWad]

I have been playing Civilization for a long time, and have only recently started modifying to make the game more geologically, technologically and historically accurate. After chopping down the old tech tree, juggling resources to new or additional homes, I thought I was done. Then it hit me The movement rates of all of the Naval vessels in the game are ridiculous!! Even a Curragh, with a move of 2 tiles, should be able to traverse more distance in the 50-20 year span of time a single turn takes at the onset of the game. I will back this up by stating waterways were the superhighways of the world until the invention of automobiles and aircraft. There was simply no faster way to travel. I thought about doubling or tripling the movement rate of ships to compensate. In more modern times, game turns slow down to every 10 then 2 years. You want to tell me a Galleon can't sail around the world in 10 years? Have any of you Modders dealt with this issue, and how? I even toyed with the idea of eliminating movement points for water squares. Thanks for any input.

"You can't polish a turd." Jeff Bakos, recording engineer

 

[Kubannus]

Well I mentioned it too, but I think the landmases isn`t so large as in real world, neither the oceans! But you know its a turn based game, originaly its a desktop game (as I read somewhere). I dont find it annoying.

Huh. I thing I should say.... Welcome here man!

 

[IbnSina]

Yeah, I've had the same problem. I dealt with it as follows. My early ships (boats) have the same movement as in the regular game: I reason that they needed to stop at night, and laid up for repairs often. I think ancient seaborne commerce was not more important or faster than caravans. However, as more seaworthy ships become available, they move much faster. I didn't want ships to move at light speed, but I thought they should be able to move faster than horses on roads, so movement points of 11 and up are common. This actually makes the game more fun for me. It used to be a waste to invade distant continents: by the time I could put together a good invasion force and transport it to the other continent, it was sometimes obsolete, or my allies had all abandoned me. Now wars across the sea proceed in "real time".

I should add that the attack and defense ratings of the stock civ ships struck me as silly also. When warships meet at sea, there is no high ground, little surprise, or advantage in surprise, and hence no reason to suppose that ships would be better at attack or defense. Thus, most of my surface ships have the same attack and defense ratings. I give submarines higher attack than defense, for obvious reasons.

Btw - welcome to CFC!

 

[TheDarkPhantom]

Look...the whole balance of movement etc. obviously doesn't match with the early timeline. Even a lonely warrior, if steered in a certain course at walking speed could traverse an entire continent in 50 years, yet in the game only moves one square. The point is that for playability the years pass very quickly relative to the pace of actual events in the game. The movement rates assume that these units arn't constantly travelling during the intervening time, your war on a neighbour for example where you send some armies and conquer territory can take around 3000 years according to the clock, obviously this isn't accurate...movement is representative the idea being that the war ocurred over a much smaller space of time within that period. At least...that's the way I look at it. For more accurate movement/time periods play the scenarios. Also, one other point, remember that in the later ages anyway, movement isn't just the base speed of a vehicle or man etc. Its the speed of a military division, including the weeks it takes to prepare the movement of any military forces, for their supply lines, transports, train timetables etc etc.

 

[Jake5555555]

Where could I find a mod with these ocean ship changes?

 

[Pook]

I started a thread under the Civ 4 ideas titled "Exploration", where you could fund expeditions to go and search out new lands. I wanted to simulate the Phoenicians sailing around Africa in roughly 700 BC, and the Romans doing it a few hundred years later.

I got very few takers for the idea. Part of the problem is that if naval ranges are increased, there's no way to intercept an invasion.

Aussie Lurker suggested an "Operational range" for each type of naval unit. If a ship got further away from a friendly port than its OR, it would start losing hit points.

 

[IbnSina]

@Jake - I don't know. When it comes to modding I'm a do-it-yourselfer, so my mods are always works in progress - I wouldn't inflict them on you. However, you can do it yourself rather easily using civedit. Just "modify rules", look at the "units" tab, and change various ships' movement to what seems interesting to you. That's the best thing about the game in my mind: any time it seems a little tired one can tweak the rules, or add some new units, or change it slightly in many different ways. Check the Creation and Customization forum for details.

 

[MeatWad]

Thanks for ome really great ideas. I had another mod I toyed with, based on the Aquatic theme. One of the reasons raiders like the Vikings were so successful was their ability to sail upriver to attack towns much further inland. I can't think of a way to allow a ship inland, limited to only river squares of course. That's the place for a miserable move rate of only 2!