What we have to hope is that the AI will be competent at defending its transports, instead of sending them at you like lemmings to be obliterated by your fleets. And that's a tall order, considering that they can't stack.
Well, in Azazels (what I will call) Infamous Carvel Travells, he on a couple of occasions ran into several "embarked military units" and they had no escorts. Whether he was playing on settler or was it an old build with an AI that needs tweaking I don't know.
Hopefully they will have some sense though not just in naval combat but in land combat too, we dont wan't enemies just gifting us XP with small armies that couldnt even scratch whatever we had defending.
I thought I read somewhere that embarked land units were treated like civilians, and could stack with military naval units. Have you read anyone who's played the game say opposite?
Yeah that has been said, but we don't know if its confirmed, I have yet to see it in action. It may well be that they are simply defenseless military units, still with health, and might take more than one attack to kill, who knows if they keep their "strength" or not. We have no specific confirmation on that.
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As far as "but the enemy can just jump onto the water with "Embark Anywhere" and avoid my troops", you forget, they are a sitting target, not just for your navy, but for city bombardment or ranged land troops, sit in the water ungaurded to "run away" at your own peril, I will certainly laugh If I get free XP from embarking lonely troops. Just like capturing a wandering worker.
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Personally I think the navy aspect of the game, with maybe the exception of units ignoring the fact they are being fired upon at range when they have ample ranged weapons to fire back with, is very realistic. Including Embarking, if anyone says "but you must have a city" or "you must have tranports already" you are wrong, a turn is 10 years or more, I belive this "turn" is enough time for your army to build a raft. Do you think the viking hordes returned home each time they needed a new boat, no, they merely built it from where ever they were. This is realistic, and certainly much better for gameplay, 1UpT completely rules out "transport vessels" in the old sense, and silly ideas that you can only embark on a harbour improvement or a city are just that, silly. They would spoil what would otherwise be an awesome naval system that Civ has designed, such as the ability for land&sea units & the cities to all combat each other. If units are hampered at getting into the seas then you will hardly ever use them unless you want to make an invasion on another continent, opening up the water tiles like this may mean that an otherwise simple land assault on a nieghbour on your continent can now become an assault of many fronts including the water. This mechanic plus others also makes Navies more important, you cant just allow your waters to be freely travelled by enemies unlike in civ4. This is a great addition for gameplay, but it also ties in nicely with what realism the game gives.
