War Turtle

[reverend oats]

The Wat Turtle is the Lanun replacement for War Elephants. It has 10, 1 , water walking and requires no resources. I believe this is far too weak. Normal elephants have 16 and 3. The water walking is not so useful because 1 square a turn is not going to cross oceans. You may as well load it onto one of your fast boats. The only true advantage Turtles have over Elephants is no resource reqs, and that is not worth 6 and 2 .
My idea is to make turtles 14 attack/17 def, 2 , water walking, no resources, and slightly cheaper. This may make worthwhile for the Lanun to reseach an obscenely expensive tech that otherwise has no uses.

 

[C.Roland]

The Wat Turtle is the Lanun replacement for War Elephants. It has 10, 1 , water walking and requires no resources. I believe this is far too weak. Normal elephants have 16 and 3. The water walking is not so useful because 1 square a turn is not going to cross oceans. You may as well load it onto one of your fast boats. The only true advantage Turtles have over Elephants is no resource reqs, and that is not worth 6 and 2 .
My idea is to make turtles 14 attack/17 def, 2 , water walking, no resources, and slightly cheaper. This may make worthwhile for the Lanun to reseach an obscenely expensive tech that otherwise has no uses.

And its graphic is so cool that is a shame to not use it !

 

[TheJopa]

Huh, AFAIK Turtle has higher defense than attack, are you sure its 10/10 strength unit?

 

[reverend oats]

No I'm not, I was going by the civilopedia because I didn't want to research the tech without knowing what I'd get. Even if it does have higher defence, it dosen't get defensive boni because it is mounted, iirc, and spending >10000 beakers for a defender that can't even defend too well isn't worth it the vast majority of the time.
C. Roland- Yes the art is very cool and whoever (hem hem) made it did a very good job.

 

[reveler]

Usually I found that mounted units are a research dead end for my Lanum-games anyway. Perhaps the giant barbarian turtles could be tied in with something like the Grand Menagerie, so I could capture one, if I am lucky and get a turtle breeding pool in one of my cities. They could still be national units, but it could further the unique connection the Pirates have to the sea.

Sea Turtle Transport:
requires: turtle breeding pool
no other ressources
10/10/2
upgrades to War turtle

they are hard enough to capture to warrant the different route to circumnavigating the globe.

mmmh how about domesticated sea snakes

 

[DemonMaster]

Are we talking about the same units, because my war turtles have 11/19, slower than ships and normal cavalry, but the combo can be very useful I say.

 

[westamastaflash]

I'm pretty sure that's the same stats I see demonmaster. But given that they are mounted units they don't get def bonuses.

 

[DemonMaster]

But they have +50% vs. mounted units At least that's something.

 

[xienwolf]

Or give them x4 move in Ocean tiles. They ARE slow on land

 

[MacGyverInSpace]

or mobility 1 and 2...

 

[Aradiel]

4 Mobility at least, they should have an invisible promotion on seatiles as well, turtles can dive! A bonus against ships would be nice as well, they would simply ram a ship from below.

 

[C.Roland]

No I'm not, I was going by the civilopedia because I didn't want to research the tech without knowing what I'd get. Even if it does have higher defence, it dosen't get defensive boni because it is mounted, iirc, and spending >10000 beakers for a defender that can't even defend too well isn't worth it the vast majority of the time.
C. Roland- Yes the art is very cool and whoever (hem hem) made it did a very good job.

The rider mesh is from pirate, the turtle itself is, I think from DaoC and the puppet job is made by AA or Kael himself, don't remember.

 

[Kael]

Turtle is from Zoo Tycoon 2 and AA did the rigging.

A War Elephant is 15/15 move 3 and the War Tortoise is 11/19 move 1. There are a few other differences but the turtles high defense is its real value. The fact that it doesn't use defensive bonuses doesn't make the 19 as high as it could be, but its definitly still a strong defender.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I think that making War turtles fast in the water but very slow on land would be a good idea. I'm thinking that they should have extra movement costs like through the Heavy promotion on land, but be fast at sea.

 

[Saien]

4 Mobility at least, they should have an invisible promotion on seatiles as well, turtles can dive!

What, exactly, are the people -riding- the turtle breathing during this diving?

 

[Civkid1991]

I think it would be better to have it not as a replacement but a unit that is generated after a boarding party successfully attacks a giant turtle

 

[Blakmane]

the war turtle is a good defender, especially of coast tiles when ships are bombarding you.

However, they're almost never seen in any game ever because it's utterly pointless for the lanun to go up the mounted line.

I think it would be more interesting to tie war turtles back into the seafaring line somehow. Perhaps they could become a kind of submarine transport- invisible on water, and capable of transporting say 2 units (for you flavour people, play warcraft 2, the giant turtles have little watertight huts on them). This would really give them a unique place in the game strategy rather than just being essentially war elephants that can't attack well.

 

[Quetz]

imo the turtle definately needs faster movement in water... or something to make it little more than a ton of wasted research

 

[Ecofarm]

No-one rides the turtle. C'mon. Unless you can promote it cargo space or cast skeleton crew, we're going to assume that no-one is strapped to the turtle. My lord. Riding a dragon is cool; riding a turtle is not. Who was the great turtle rider of lore? There are none, cause riding a turtle sucks.


It should get navigation 3, hidden (recastable), lower attack strength, and high withdrawl. It would only have moves to withdraw in water, because the 'heavy' promotion would keep it terribly slow on land. + Blitz = turtle bouncing ftw

 

[Aradiel]

What, exactly, are the people -riding- the turtle breathing during this diving?

Are you kidding me ? Replace the tiny man with a drown or a stygian guard problem solved.