Second Guessing Japan

[Polobo]

The one thing that seemed odd to me was that Greg had troops across the red-sea ( did it part or did they walk on water )

I would have just maximized my defense in Suez (built the citadel one tile closer to the channel and let Frace puts troops on the tile, not Japan).

I would also have made sure one of the first cities was on the red sea and put two or three trimies out.

I would have used the trimies and water-walking scouts to cross over to India and do some exploring.

Eventually get some cities on the Mediterranean Sea as well; though it is of less importance since you can leave your troops up there and the other three sides of Africa are pretty hard to get to via sea and, even then, no one sub-African region should be that important that you couldn't afford to lose it temporarily during a war.

Leveraging Liberty I would have spammed cities to as much as Africa as possible; once Liberty is filled out you're hosed with getting new policies for a while (until you get culture buildings up) but with that much food and production you don't really need policies.

Happy is going to be an issue but it should be manageable; we still don't know how #-of-cities scales but a bunch of smallish cities with trading-posts and happy/culture buildings should be sustainable.

With that many possible people setup a few production cities and the rest focused on research and go for space.

The big thing is not to let Japan get dragged into a hot-war. If France or anyone else wants to attack the citadel at Suez let them; the Red Sea should be easily defenseable (and also added support for Suez) and North Africa can be left for later.

 

[12agnar0k]

They didnt part the sea, they can walk on water.

 

[Schuesseled]

i really did like the move across water mechanic, it felt so natural.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Yeah, it worked a lot better than I feared. I wasn't expecting a cognitive dissonance there, but I believed it as something Civ could always have.

BTW, I agree completely that he should have gone to war to protect that City-State up north. If France had it, France would control the land bridge to Asia and pretty much dominate the Red Sea. He'd be completely cut off from friends and city-states and have no real good defensible positions for when Napoleon most likely would inevitably attack him.

 

[SeismoGraf]

i really did like the move across water mechanic, it felt so natural.

Especially the beginning part of the embarkment animation, where the ships seemed to plow a few grainfields before reaching the Red Sea.

 

[Ihmemies]

You can always play in the 2d mode to avoid witnessing unpleasing graphical glitches.

 

[SeismoGraf]

You can always play in the 2d mode to avoid witnessing unpleasing graphical glitches.

I will be able to cope with it. Don't want to miss those beautiful units and nice animations, thus use the 2D mode mainly as an overview tool. Maybe also in competitive MP.

Concerning strategy, the AI will have a hard time on an Earth map, because knowing the map beforehand is such a huge advantage. I noticed Greg's supply (maximum of units allowed) was around 36, while he had only 20 units. His military upkeep was 52 or so. He had a healthy gold income and could even afford to gift Monaco 750 gold. In exchange he got a few poorly coordinated pikemen from this city state.

Don't know how much total troops Napoleon had in the game, but with 16 units more, all visible French units would have gone through the meat grinder, even with Japan's technological inferiority.

 

[iop]

The one thing that seemed odd to me was that Greg had troops across the red-sea ( did it part or did they walk on water )

They probably walked on water.

I would have just maximized my defense in Suez (built the citadel one tile closer to the channel and let Frace puts troops on the tile, not Japan).

I thought so too. However, Greg said that there had been a French city at the channel, so probably he didn't own the other tile yet when he built that citadel. I would also probably have tried to fight a purely defensive war, building at least one more citadel with the excess GG, make at least another treb and let French bleed to death. Of course, once artillery comes around while you don't even have gunpowder, there's not much you can do anymore than to die with honor.

BTW, I agree completely that he should have gone to war to protect that City-State up north. If France had it, France would control the land bridge to Asia and pretty much dominate the Red Sea. He'd be completely cut off from friends and city-states and have no real good defensible positions for when Napoleon most likely would inevitably attack him.

Me too. Also, a BFF city state is very nice - practically an additional city for free.

I found it interesting, BTW, how Monaco distracted French troops for a moment. I guess one might be able to use this as a tactic to help free a path to the enemy.

 

[Schuesseled]

Especially the beginning part of the embarkment animation, where the ships seemed to plow a few grainfields before reaching the Red Sea.

Sorry, did you miss the memo on shipbuilding, generally speaking its a bad idea to build a ship on the water. You build them on the coast, and then you roll/slide/push them down onto the water, best done with a drydock.

 

[Zhahz]

The one thing that seemed odd to me was that Greg had troops across the red-sea ( did it part or did they walk on water

He turned one into a transport to cross during the demo. :/

We only saw a small slice of the tail end of a long war. Greg said he wanted to build a coastal city but never got a chance because the war started (the french had 8x or so of his score, higher tech, more production, successfully fighting on multiple fronts). Still kinda odd because it looked like he had africa to himself and built several cities.

I think he also said it took him 10 hours to get to that point in the game, mostly due to the warring. Les ouchies. War definitely makes turns drag but that's pretty crazy.

Don't know how much total troops Napoleon had in the game, but with 16 units more, all visible French units would have gone through the meat grinder, even with Japan's technological inferiority.

When the demo starts, Greg has no available iron. I'd imagine his better units needed it. He had few cavalry too, so horses were probably in short supply. Samurai were his best unit, as a UU, beyond that anything he put out would've been donating xp to anything french in range.

There was also nowhere to really stack up more troops. The front was pretty small - to push it towards the french he would've had to open the front up, face the ranged fire from multiple cities, face france's entrenched and defended siege, and who's knows what else, since the visibility range and fog greatly limited knowing what france had in reserves or was bringing up.

 

[SeismoGraf]

Sorry, did you miss the memo on shipbuilding, generally speaking its a bad idea to build a ship on the water. You build them on the coast, and then you roll/slide/push them down onto the water, best done with a drydock.

Talking about realism? Your army is 500 miles away from homeland. Where's the next drydock? Bad luck, there is none - we'll have to build one. Do we have someone who knows how to build ships? Fortunately, yes. He usually builds ships with the help of dozens of qualified workers, requiring special wood from large trees, taking 2 years to build, costing more than a small palace. The commander says: do it with the help of some militia peasants, a few fir trees, in 2 weeks and at no cost!

Seriously, some realistic options are: 1) the ships came from the homeland 2) the ships were seized, bought or made available on-place through other means. Building a few rafts to cross a river was done frequently and is believable. Building ships on-the-fly to cross an ocean with a whole army is not. Maybe you can find some rare historic example, but that would be no comparison to the "embark anytime everywhere" we have in Civ5.

The more you advance in time, the more unbelievable it gets. Can you imagine what kinds of technology, industries and production capability is needed to build a single modern troop transporter? As if some dudes out in the field would just spontaneously decide "hey guys, lets build a ship from scratch, so we can travel faster".

I wonder how you want to pull yourself out of the water. In the end I don't really care where the ships came from, as long as the animation is nice. So much about "memo on shipbuilding".

 

[Scaramanga]

One would have thought Honour a better policy branch for Japan than Liberty, would've helped him against the Frenchies.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Yeah, but he had unlocked liberty long before he expected war.

 

[Earthling]

i really did like the move across water mechanic, it felt so natural.

I know a lot of people were complaining about this for weird reasons, and I agree that part is acceptable in the end, I wouldn't have to be a huge stickler for realism here but it was always about gameplay concerns. I just wanted to say that the concerns I've expressed I don't think have been cleared up though.

Here's what has always worried me:
a) It appears to become available Once, at optics, with nothing distinguishing it much before or after? Does that mean ocean too or is that question not answered? Do we get better embarked transports with modern techs or something? And if we really can't embark at *all* before the classical era, well, couldn't that get frustrating for many maps with islands and imple coastal channels and so forth in the early game.

b) We have little indication how effectively one can move a large number of transports over a signficant amount of ocean to invade someone. Example problems: Movement takes too long, so we have the classic problem in many civ games that when your units finally get there and tile-by-tile work out a landing pattern, your opponent just has lots more units built and waiting. It also could still just be trivially easy to chew up transports with a navy or something (particular a human player defending against AI invastion, btw), and in fact Greg said Napoleon earlier sent over some units on utter suicide landings that could destroyed once they hit shore.

Concerning strategy, the AI will have a hard time on an Earth map, because knowing the map beforehand is such a huge advantage. I noticed Greg's supply (maximum of units allowed) was around 36, while he had only 20 units. His military upkeep was 52 or so. He had a healthy gold income and could even afford to gift Monaco 750 gold. In exchange he got a few poorly coordinated pikemen from this city state.

Don't know how much total troops Napoleon had in the game, but with 16 units more, all visible French units would have gone through the meat grinder, even with Japan's technological inferiority.

I can agree with all this, it was fun to watch though and we're all grateful. But by all indications I'm thinking what we saw speaks for AI being at quite a decent level but not going to be absurd even at the higher levels (and its advantages will be the typical land/production/tech, seems like we're still going to be able to pwn it at tactical stuff and micro, but really they do their best.)

 

[Fizticks]

b) We have little indication how effectively one can move a large number of transports over a signficant amount of ocean to invade someone. Example problems: Movement takes too long, so we have the classic problem in many civ games that when your units finally get there and tile-by-tile work out a landing pattern, your opponent just has lots more units built and waiting. It also could still just be trivially easy to chew up transports with a navy or something (particular a human player defending against AI invastion, btw), and in fact Greg said Napoleon earlier sent over some units on utter suicide landings that could destroyed once they hit shore.

I agree with you on the issue of speed of the transports. If the only viable way to use the transports is for short distances, whether this is due to slow speed or lack of protection, then maps like earth maps become boring and essentially cut the map in half.

Also if naval units are eating up strategic resources, your not going to have any embarked units to defend and likewise if you have a fleet of embarked units you will not have any naval units to defend them.

From what i understood from Greg those units were sent unescorted before Napoleon knew about the trebuchet.

 

[The_J]

Here's what has always worried me:
a) It appears to become available Once, at optics, with nothing distinguishing it much before or after?

It seems so.

Does that mean ocean too or is that question not answered?

On the Gamescom i could not move my embarked units or the trireme after optics on ocean, only on coast.

And if we really can't embark at *all* before the classical era

Optics did not feel to be that far away.

 

[Polobo]

Ocean travel becomes available (it appears) with Astronomy just like in CIV; thinking that maybe they add a point of movement at the same time (there are two specials unlocked with Astronomy).

Also, sailing likely is the tech where the embark promotion becomes available for purchase.

Liberty was a much better social policy choice than honor due to the fact that Japan had Africa pretty much all to itself. Play to what the map gives you.

One effect of the reality of naval movement is that finding a friend at the destination it important since, with open borders (or friend/ally with city-states) you will have a place to land some troops in relative safety. Even then you'll want a few Galleons or such to create a landing beach. As mentioned one of the first cities probably should have been founded on the Red Sea or Indian Ocean which would have made crossing easier as well as provided extra firepower at Suez. He also could have landed some swords/archers on the other side of the Arabian peninsula to open at least a second front (a third front via the Iberian peninsula would have been great but none of the part of the map was uncovered).

 

[Schuesseled]

Talking about realism? Your army is 500 miles away from homeland. Where's the next drydock? Bad luck, there is none - we'll have to build one. Do we have someone who knows how to build ships? Fortunately, yes. He usually builds ships with the help of dozens of qualified workers, requiring special wood from large trees, taking 2 years to build, costing more than a small palace. The commander says: do it with the help of some militia peasants, a few fir trees, in 2 weeks and at no cost!

Seriously, some realistic options are: 1) the ships came from the homeland 2) the ships were seized, bought or made available on-place through other means. Building a few rafts to cross a river was done frequently and is believable. Building ships on-the-fly to cross an ocean with a whole army is not. Maybe you can find some rare historic example, but that would be no comparison to the "embark anytime everywhere" we have in Civ5.

The more you advance in time, the more unbelievable it gets. Can you imagine what kinds of technology, industries and production capability is needed to build a single modern troop transporter? As if some dudes out in the field would just spontaneously decide "hey guys, lets build a ship from scratch, so we can travel faster".

I wonder how you want to pull yourself out of the water. In the end I don't really care where the ships came from, as long as the animation is nice. So much about "memo on shipbuilding".

I stopped reading after Talking about realism? Which i was not.

 

[Schuesseled]

It seems so.



On the Gamescom i could not move my embarked units or the trireme after optics on ocean, only on coast.



Optics did not feel to be that far away.

I was under the impression taht you can get the embarkation promotion by getting unit xp, and that optics gives it to all units.

 

[SeismoGraf]

I stopped reading after Talking about realism? Which i was not.

Then, what was the purpose of your "memo on shipbuilding" you adressed me?