Sea movement

[mac224]

I checked the "current topics" but did not see one for naval unit movement. Isn't it way too slow? Seems like it should be substantially faster than it is (to make it comparable to land movement speeds). and that modern naval units should have a much greater advantage over sail or galleys. If you made it roughly twice as fast, but gave enemy naval units that have a bombard ability a ZOC to hinder movement, that would be a good compromise. Something like:

Galley: 4
Galleon: 6
Caravel: 6
Privateer: 7
Frigate: 7
Ironclad: 7
Transport: 8
Submarine: 8
Nuclear Sub: 10
Destroyer: 12
Carrier: 10
Battleship: 10
Aegis Cruiser: 12

Imo a galley a little bit faster than it is now, and a destroyer 3 times as fast as a galley, is not pushing it too much.

mac

 

[AKtionFich]

this issue is discussed already, in serval topic of course
there a ideas of limited range etc.
but i agree that ships are to slow now

 

[Gregski]

I believe that a better way to go about making sea travel faster is thro' charting sea squares.
Any ship can 'chart' a coast/sea/ocean square which has the same effect as a road built on a land square, effectively increasing the movement of ships threefold. The chart move would take up the turn for the ship, or even take more than one turn. You can only chart squares that are next to land or another charted square. On the map this could probably be represented by a dotted red line or the like. Ships can only chart squares that they can safely stop at (galleys can only chart sea squares after the discovery of astronomy etc). optionally a 'charted' square could even increase trade by one. As another improvement, with the discovery of navigation, you might be able to upgrade charted squares (similar to the road -> railroad upgrade) to increase movement to ninefold (maybe add a shield to the water square as a bonus).

Greg.

 

[AKtionFich]

but navigation allows a independing ship to drive the same speed instantly andto upgrade seetiles would take to much time!

 

[Lennon]

but navigation allows a independing ship to drive the same speed instantly

Say what?!

 

[sir_schwick]

they are right that upgrading sea tiles would take too long, but i like the idea of Charting to make trasnport a lot faster. Here is the new idea. What if as a ship travels, it charts the squares it passes through. Since sea travel should be a lot faster in the early eras, this would not be unrealistic. In order to upgrade from Astronomical(1/2 movment) to Compass(1/4 movement) to Radio Compass(1/6 movement) to GPS(1/8 movment) a ship just has to pass through the square.

You get Astronmical Navigation with Map Making.
You get Compasses with Magnetism.
you get Radio Navigation with Radio.
You get GPS with Satellites and the Apollo Program.

 

[Algernon Pondlife]

I think you have to seperate out ancient from modern at sea, but I'm not sure where to make the split. The problem is largely because different game features don't scale properly. I always try to conjure up a picture of what it can mean in the way it is set up.

In the ancient period a turn is many years (first 50, then 40, then 25 for a while). So, what does it mean that a "warrior", say, takes several turns to get from Babylon to Ur? Well, I tend to think of this as representing a gradual extension of influence, perhaps migrating groups setting up villages (not visibly of course) and generally interacting with the land. Now when my warrior arrives at the gates of Ur, I immediatelystart to think in terms of the here and now. not even 25 hours never mind 25 years. My brave troops are going to put these chaps in their place. The two views are mutually exclisive. They have to be because the game models in conflict analogous to battles so that it can represent different types of weaponry and tactics etc.

Sorry for the preamble, but I think it helps to keep that idea in mind when you think about sea travel too. If the game is modelling general influence, a single ancient world boat is hardly a drop in the ocean. So think of the arrival of your trireme as representing the establishment of a considerable amount of sea traffic with intermediate bases and all the infrastructure that it implies over a long period (a few turns). for that reason I think the ancient sea craft have their movement about right. however there comes a time when sea travel is a major element and from then on we get closer to a true match with the game clock (sorry, calendar) just as we do with, for example, railroads.

Now I'm not sure when the switch takes place. It could be argued its from about the 14th or 15th centuries when there was certainly a vast amount of sea traffic in the Med. Or perhaps opening up the atlantic a bit later is more significant. Or perhaps it's the arrival of steam-power that made the biggest difference. whichever, in game terms it has to be represented by the development of certain types of ships. There certainly is a case for modern ships to be much faster relative to ancient ones than in the game. So perhaps the speeds should be stretched out over the eras. They fall behind the changes on land, because of the effect of both roads and railroads. but think how practical it is to mobilize vast sea-power nowadays within one or two years. Obviously not quite as potent as the use of railroads, but pretty vast nevertheless.

The only nagging worry I have is how it would affect game play and balance. But that is for developers, not armchair critics like me

cheers

Algie

 

[NP300]

Now I'm not sure when the switch takes place. It could be argued its from about the 14th or 15th centuries when there was certainly a vast amount of sea traffic in the Med. Or perhaps opening up the atlantic a bit later is more significant. Or perhaps it's the arrival of steam-power that made the biggest difference. whichever, in game terms it has to be represented by the development of certain types of ships. There certainly is a case for modern ships to be much faster relative to ancient ones than in the game. So perhaps the speeds should be stretched out over the eras. They fall behind the changes on land, because of the effect of both roads and railroads. but think how practical it is to mobilize vast sea-power nowadays within one or two years. Obviously not quite as potent as the use of railroads, but pretty vast nevertheless.

The only nagging worry I have is how it would affect game play and balance. But that is for developers, not armchair critics like me

cheers

Algie

The scaling will be difficult to simulate in the game. In real-life the average speed of caravels was around 4 knots. Modern ships can go up to 35 knots. So we are talking about a difference of 10x in speed. So if Galleys move 4 squares then destroyers ought to move 35! This is not going to happen in the game for gameplay reasons.

A very important naval development was the lateen sail. This is what made caravels possible.

A few things in the game are therefore unrealistic. Astronomy is a technology that has existed sice ancient times. It is not a medieval technology. It isn't astronomy that makes caravels possible. It's the lateen sail that made them possible. Obviously the compass is another important development. And so are accurate clocks, which allowed the calculation of longitude.

 

[sir_schwick]

Before the Roman Road system, sea travel was the way to go to cover distance quickly. In ancient Greece, for example, there were no roads between cities. Galleys and Triremes allowed people to make trips between Athen and Sparta in a few days. Such a voyage on land would last a few weeks.

I think the movement rates, and the sea-road idea are both on. What really needs to be changed is the "Destroyer killed by Frigate" syndrome. Its a problem throughout civ. I know it was a desing decision that made it so the weakest unit could beat the strongest, but it is just annoying in my opinion. The problem with changing it so Destroyers almost never lost to Frigates is that there are so much space between units. There would have to be intermediate unit types, which would add filler rather than substance.

 

[rcoutme]

Try reading the Civ IV consolidation sticky. Also, the idea of allowing ships to 'relocate' (similar to current rebase of air units) would probably help out the sea movement problem.

 

[sir_schwick]

What about battling on the open sea and places along coasts far from cities? The re-base feature would level out some problems, but that main one still applies.

 

[Harrier]

Comment on the first post. (not yet read the replies).

These can be changed through the editor in Civ3.

So do not constitute a change for Civ4. IMHO.

 

[rcoutme]

Actually, Harrier, the rebase idea is not editable in Civ III. Also, the idea of having 'road-movement' over mapped sea squares, vs regular movement over unmapped sea squares is also not moddable in Civ III.