battleships: Round the world in 45 years

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
The reasons I do not support the idea of increased movement are these:

1) The game is more tactically sound with a few moves here, a few moves there, etc. ...
2) Blockades become useless. ...
3) A single powerful unit, having a lot of movement, can easily wreak havoc on enemy forces just because it happens to go first. ...

... Realism is fine if it doesn't detract from gameplay, but I believe this particular issue does.

Here, Here! Well Stated!!!

[monkspider]

Well stated Cyclotron, but I don't think the majority of us are arguing for radical changes in movement rates. I think maybe a simple +1 or +2 (or maybe in the case of battle ships or tanks, +3 at most). I'm honestly not sure what the optimal number would be, but I think a slight movement rate increase would only help things.

[Phutnote]

Pembleton:

Interesting point. My view was just that the larger worlds were simply more detailed representations of earth.

Sure, if the planet was intended to be the size of Jupiter or whatever, fine, then your ships would take forever to get around the planet.

But the issue I am addressing is both gameplay and realism, which some have recognized and others have not. A lot of people are getting hung up on the realism label. I suppose that's because I used the term 'year' instead of 'turn'.

Lets take your jupiter planet for example: my mech inf is on a long continent populated by 12 empires, which have put railroads all over it, connecting it from one end to the other. My mech inf can then go from one end of the continent in a single turn to the other, while the battlefleet takes another 30 years to catch up.

This makes a combined arms operation all but impossible on such a world. Is this a realism issue or a gameplay issue?

Man, if I had known that making a post about naval movement rates would stir up such a hornet's nest, I never would have made it in the first place. And I still support higher movement rates for ships on the huge map.

Phutnote

[Phutnote]

Monkspider: I agree with you completely. I am not arguing for a complete overhall either. I am saying that on a huge planet the naval rates are kinda slow.

And as you point out, an increase of 1 or 2 for tanks is already in the works, so that tanks can reach a city in a turn without the use of roads (cavalry now can move 3, I'd make an educated guess that tanks move 4).

Movement rates of 20 become too cumbersome, and give the unit too many attacks. But a smaller increase, or a larger increase (8 say on a huge map) but without an increase in attacks, would address the issue very well.


And for the others, as I also noted in my first post, its not a big deal because there are editors. I pointed it out as an issue for the new, super huge maps. I think it is a gameplay problem.

Phutnote

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by Phutnote
Pembleton:

Lets take your jupiter planet for example: my mech inf is on a long continent populated by 12 empires, which have put railroads all over it, connecting it from one end to the other. My mech inf can then go from one end of the continent in a single turn to the other, while the battlefleet takes another 30 years to catch up.

Phutnote

Well, there is much evidence that RRs will no longer have infinite movement, so I'm not sure your analogy is too good of one. Besides, how can you compare anything to infinite movement anyway?

Anyway, I don't think adding some movement to naval units should hurt the game. I just don't think there should be a such a concentrated effort to make the ships adhere to any "years" concept.

Using years, it could take a settler 20+ years to traverse 20 squares of land mass. Is that realistic?

[Nemo]

would be nice if the units speed increases as map size does. but don't think that'll happen

[Phutnote]

Pembleton:

I know culture impedes use of foriegn railroads, but once you dominate an area and have to move troops to the front, it think you have unlimited movement.

' I just don't think there should be a such a concentrated effort to make the ships adhere to any "years" concept.

Using years, it could take a settler 20+ years to traverse 20 squares of land mass. Is that realistic?'

No, it wouldn't be. And I agree with you here completely. It was my mistake to use the term 'year' instead of 'turn' in the firstplace, and it has led to some trouble. =)

I totally concede that point.

And I appreciate your being reasonable and engaging in discussion.

Considering the dust that has been brought up over this, I think it'd be best if I simply conceded the argument here. I never intended for it to become such a big issue, much less cause attacks to be made on people having fun posting about historical detail.

I have tried to respond to posts dealing with what I am saying respectfully. And I lost my temper with a fellow who I see as being obnoxious, which as Cyclotron7 pointed out, I really shouldn't have. And I agree on that point too.

I have no objection to people posting ideas about realism and whotnot. Some others do. I overreacted to that. And for that, I apologize, but not for putting forward my argument in the first place.

thnx for the responses,

Phutnote

[Harlan]

I believe ships should move faster, and not just a tad faster. The Battleship should move double or even triple. Plus, faster movement all around as time goes on. Here's why.

1. Its more realistic. Magellan sailed the world in 3 years back in the 1500s. In the same era, just crossing Asia by horse would take 3 years. Until recent times, ships were always the fastest mode of transport, all other things being equal. They're still damn fast today - everything is faster these days. With Civ2-like movement rates, a US attack on Afghanistan would be completely impossible. The game would be over in 2050 by the time it could happen.

Of course, some compromise is needed. If Galleons could move 10 a turn, then it would still take 18 turns to round the world on the largest map. At that point we're probably talking 5 years a turn, so his trip would take 90 years. That's still slow, but much better than if the ship could only move 5 or less, which is likely if Civ3 keeps its current numbers.

Some people may have a hissyfit over this pro-realism attitude. But I believe that what is more realistic generally leads to more fun and better gameplay, as long as it doesn't increase the game's complexity. The history of the world is an incredibly interesting thing and there's more than enough realistic material to draw on to make zillions of games without making stuff up. Why not have ancient units with invisible powers? Wouldn't that be cool, wouldn't that be more fun? Luckily, the makers of Civ3 are smart enough to not do things like that, because they know the feeling that you're a part of history is a big part of the appeal of Civ3.

2. If ships are too slow, I for one don't want to use them except when absolutely necessary. This was largely the case in Civ2 - I would only use ships if there was no land connecting point A and point B, and then usually just for transport. Slow ships = poor gameplay.

3. People argue that in ancient times, ground movement is also very slow, if measured in years. First off, one wrong doesn't justify another. Second, in ancient times, unit movement is more symbolic of the spread of your civilization. A Settler may move slowly, but its movement also symbolizes the colonisation of the area it walks across. As time goes on in Civ2, the game morphs from symbolic movement to more real-time movement, as the turns get shorter and one can move completely across the world in a year (though not by ship!).

4. Faster movement makes for a more exciting game. How boring is it to move a ship across an ocean, and have it arrive 45 turns later?

5. If you've built a unit, you should be able to use it in battle before it becomes obsolete. In Civ2, many times I'd build a unit and immediately rush it towards the enemy only to have it far obsolete by the time it got there (especially since getting a new advance every two or three turns is pretty easy as the game goes on). Civ3's new restrictions on rush buying is likely to make this problem even worse if movement is still slow.

6. The points mentioned below:

"1) The game is more tactically sound with a few moves here, a few moves there, etc. ...
2) Blockades become useless. ...
3) A single powerful unit, having a lot of movement, can easily wreak havoc on enemy forces just because it happens to go first. ..."

These would have some merit except I personally believe the game will be changing in one important respect: automatic response. We know the nature of airplane movement is changing dramatically. Rather than physically move every square, the airplane picks out a target, and if its in range, attacks it. The logical follow up to this is to check if there are any enemy units within range of that target that can respond, and have them automatically respond, even when it isn't their turn. This is what CTP1 and 2 did, and it was one of their better ideas. Certain units have respond ranges (which can vary by unit), others don't. Note that Civ2 already had a simple version of the automatic response feature for the airlifting of units between airports, and now all air movement will be just like that airlift function in Civ2. This automatic response also is necessary to properly implement nuclear warfare, and we've seen signs that Civ3 is making major strides in that as well.

Once you have an automatic response option, points 1, 2 and 3 are all rendered moot. You can stand guard to secure trade routes for instance, and enemy ships can't avoid you. This is clearly the way to go to make naval warfare more fun, AND more realistic.

It looks like Firaxis was smart enough to overhaul air movement - let's hope they do the same with naval movement.

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by Phutnote
I know culture impedes use of foriegn railroads, but once you dominate an area and have to move troops to the front, it think you have unlimited movement.

Actually, I wasn't even talking about foreign railroads. I'm talking about even on your own.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Phutnote
I agree with your first point. 20 movement points is too many, even on the huge map. To make the battleship move across such a map in 20 to 25 turns, it would need a move rate of something like 7 or 8. I think that's hittin the upper end of whats feasible for that unit, with destroyers and such moving a few more than that.

I think that this is more of a fine-tuning issue. If Beta testing establishes that battleships with more movement still let you have good naval battles, then it should be allowed. It's just a matter of balancing. As long as it is well balanced, some added movement is fine by me.

Point 2: with a move rate of 20, blockades would be much more difficult. But a movement increase on the super big maps that results in a proportionate movement change would result in the battleship arriving in the same number of turns as on a regular sized world.

My real problem is that if you have cities that are only 8 or so spaces apart, a transport with augmented movement could move to the enemy city without hassle. The bloackade would actually have to physically surround the enemy city on every sea square, which would be extremely costly.

point 3: A good point. An infinite number of attacks would make the battleship too powerful, which is why I suggested its attack number be half its movement number. That way it can get to a battle faster, but not have it's military capability way out of proportion.

Well, I would want to keep movement points equal to attack points for the sake of simplicity. Really, this problem is already partially solved by damage taking away movement. I would recommend, however, that damage take away even more movement per point of damage, and I would take away that "two move minimum" that Civ2 had.

...But the battleships are too slow on large maps in Civ II to be really worth the effort. Huge maps in civ iii will be a lot bigger than the largest in Civ II, which will make the battleship useful for little more than coastal defense.

Once again, balancing will solve this. I always thought the movement factors in Civ2 were perfect, so we'll just have to see how well high movement works in Civ3.

Harlan:

Although the instantaneous response used by CTP's "active defense" capability is nice, we shouldn't overdo it. If you convert things that could have been normally done with your movement into active defense options, the player doesn't get to actually fight on his turn, which can be very annoying. We have to remember that the base of Civ2 is still the TBS classic of attacking on your turn, and instantaneous response needs to be a bonus, not the normal way of fighting. It's a good way to solve #2, the blockade problem, but I think if you use active defense for most naval battles the game will get boring very quickly.