battleships: Round the world in 45 years

[Yog-Sothoth]

I to see this as a gameplay issue, not a realism issue. It will become extremely tidious on huge maps to move naval units. And the difference between land units moving on RR and naval units will make the naval units so much less usefull on larger maps.

I simple option where you select a naval unit movement modifier would solve this problem. For example: 1x, 1.5x, 2x etc.

Or you could just change the movement rates yourself of course.

Will there be a possibility to select different rulesets to use, or do you have to manually overwrite the rules everytime you want to play with different ones?

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Yog-Sothoth
I simple option where you select a naval unit movement modifier would solve this problem. For example: 1x, 1.5x, 2x etc.

This could be really great if they could make that

[dainbramaged13]

naval units moves should be increased.

-words of wisdom from the Mind of Sam

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Blake
...
Then again I disagree with the bonus incured by roads, on flat land, what exactly is the difference between grass and a muddy track? That ones always puzzled me
...

The main advantage of roads, especially on 'clear' terrain is that they lead you to where you want to go. You waste a lot less time trying to go from point A to point B, only to find that there is an impassible ravine in the way.

During the North Africa campaigns in WWII, roads were little better than the surrounding desert, but they were VERY essential.

[Blake]

The main advantage of roads, especially on 'clear' terrain is that they lead you to where you want to go. You waste a lot less time trying to go from point A to point B, only to find that there is an impassible ravine in the way.

Ah, good point.
I guess in Civ2 that was how the explorer worked, he had a good enough knowledge of the land / how to guide by sun/compass etc, to know where he was going without the beneift of a road.

[Cre8engr]

Originally posted by Darkknight
Why dont you mod the game so that the game lasts a year and that every turn is called a day?

Why not stop in at Aussieland on the Round the world trip?

Can have some of your scientist? In January, they start out in the Stone Age and discover Space Flight by December.

[Roland Ehnström]

Phutnote, you have a very good and important point. With the larger maps, the movement rates of many units will feel very slow late in the game (and I am talking game-play wise here, not "historic-accuracy" wise).

It seems to me that Firaxis really need to up the movement rate of some of the modern units, and especially the naval units, so I hope they are listening to this thread... Or maybe they are way ahead of us and have already dealt with this problem?

Peace!
-- Roland

[tuckson]

Originally posted by Roland Ehnström

It seems to me that Firaxis really need to up the movement rate of some of the modern units, and especially the naval units, so I hope they are listening to this thread... Or maybe they are way ahead of us and have already dealt with this problem?

-- Roland

Well, Since they are playing Civ for quite some time now (testing.... yeah right! ) I guess they will have encountered this problem already indeed. As supposed earlier this tread, I also think the movement rate of the air units should depend on the size of the maps. (If their code is set up a bit properly this should be no problem, just a formula instead of a hard value).

[Sava]

Originally posted by dainbramaged13
dude... thats one of the most important things that anyone MUST realize about civgames... of COURSE its not realistic.. but how fun would it be if a. you had really small maps or b. you had to play months upon months to finish one game because turns are only a few days long.... its not realisitc, but this is THE prime example for gameplay over realism, and i think it NEEDS to be accepted

This is the prime reason why it needs to be changed. Ships should be used like air units in Civ3. On a mission type basis. I think that you should be able to appropriate scouts (a la Colonization) to automatically scout territory. If you think about it, exploration isn't a very time consuming task (relatively speaking). North America was explored by 1700. That's 200 years, or ten turns in Civ 2 at that time.

I don't mean to offend you daimbramaged, but people like you are preventing the progression of games to the next level by saying, "oh no that would be stupid" when you can't envision what another person's suggestion would be like.

Gameplay is the first priority. But the job of the programmer is to tailor realism so that it's fun to play while retaining realistic qualities. Firaxis was probably too scared to change things because of people saying, "That's lame, I'm not buying the games" when they haven't even played it. They will solely dismiss the game because it was made more realistic, without even stopping to think that, "Hey, maybe it's just as fun if not more fun this way."

In a field where innovation is king, it's a shame that so many conservative gamers scare companies into anti-progress.

Again, this is not a knock on you dainbramaged, I think you are cool and I enjoy your posts. This is just my opinion on the concept of gameplay/realism.

[Adagio]

Just curious, why does some people think that realism only destroys the game? Just because it's more realistic to move a little faster doesn't mean it doesn't improve gameplay. It just seems like when more realism is mentioned everybody shouts out loud that the point is to make the game have a high gameplaye rate instead of fun...agree to that, but why do people not think twice and see, "hey maybe this adds more realism, but it does also add much to the gameplay area"

I just don't get it

[Sava]

Originally posted by ADG
Just curious, why does some people think that realism only destroys the game? Just because it's more realistic to move a little faster doesn't mean it doesn't improve gameplay. It just seems like when more realism is mentioned everybody shouts out loud that the point is to make the game have a high gameplaye rate instead of fun...agree to that, but why do people not think twice and see, "hey maybe this adds more realism, but it does also add much to the gameplay area"

I just don't get it

This is the smartest post in the history of Apolyton!

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by ADG
Just curious, why does some people think that realism only destroys the game? Just because it's more realistic to move a little faster doesn't mean it doesn't improve gameplay. It just seems like when more realism is mentioned everybody shouts out loud that the point is to make the game have a high gameplaye rate instead of fun...agree to that, but why do people not think twice and see, "hey maybe this adds more realism, but it does also add much to the gameplay area"

I just don't get it

I don't think the problem lies with people who are interested in better gameplay. If someone comes up with an idea that is both historically more realistic AND improves the gameplay/balance, then I am totally for it.

I would agree that all movement rates could use some tweaking. But that's what the editor is for! I would always alter the movement rates in Civ2 via the rules.txt file when I wanted to play on massive maps. So there is validity here.

I DO have a problem with people who rant about things being unrealistic but what they offer does not enhance gameplay one bit, or in fact would make it worse (see the satire thread and the "America shouldn't be in the game" or whatever thread for some good examples.).

Cheers.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
I DO have a problem with people who rant about things being unrealistic but what they offer does not enhance gameplay one bit, or in fact would make it worse (see the satire thread and the "America shouldn't be in the game" or whatever thread for some good examples.).

Cheers.

Totally agree...It's a strange world we're living in

[monkspider]

What I don't get is how some people think increased movement rates would be detrimenal to gameplay

[Jaybe]

The trick is to add your realism in an elegant fashion which provides appropriate feedback and does not force the player to keep track of things, or memorize all sorts of mundane minutae, uh, details.

For instance:
Supply status and supply lines of units could be kept track of by the computer, and units that are low on supply (or losing strength because of lack of supply) could be indicated like the unit's strength is shown. But then you would have to explain in the documentation as to how it is calculated, and if you give the wrong amount of info (too little or too much), the player either has the opportunity to not know what the bleep is going on or to try to calculate supply needs for each of his units.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by monkspider
What I don't get is how some people think increased movement rates would be detrimenal to gameplay

By increasing movement in large maps it makes it faster to get to the enemies. See it this way: You play on a large map with the same movement rate, this means it will take forever to reach the enemies, which means you wont see most of the enemies before they have reached modern times, this means you play as a lonely country in the middle of nowhere through most part of the game.

I don't know about you, but playing a civ game alone most part of the game kinda kicks down the gameplay (try for instance to play a arcade game, where the only enemy in the game is the bad boss at the end of the level)

This is atleast how I see the problem

[monkspider]

I have agreed with you all along actually ADG, I suppose "Detrimental" isn't a commonly used English word in Denmark.

[monkspider]

...which is why I always played on small maps in Civ 2, and will most likely play 16 civs on a normal sized map in Civ 3.

[monkspider]

[Sabre2th]

I refuse to get caught up in this argument again, but I'm against any drastic changes to the system. Small increases are fine, but the civ2 movement rates weren't terrible and made for a fun game. In this case, with realism.

[Pembleton]

Why do you assume that the different map sizes should be approximations of the dimensions of earth? How can a small map and large map do that at the same time?

What if the map was representative of a planet like Jupiter? It would take much longer to go around the globe. Of course it wouldn't take 45 years but I think comparing the map to earth is a bad analogy to make.

Why does the largest map, by default represent earth?

[Sabre2th]

Originally posted by Pembleton

Why does the largest map, by default represent earth?

Who said it did? If you recall, they included 3 different world maps with civ2 and gave you the option to make much larger maps. I haven't seen anything that suggests Earth is the largest planet

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by Sabre2th
Who said it did? If you recall, they included 3 different world maps with civ2 and gave you the option to make much larger maps. I haven't seen anything that suggests Earth is the largest planet

It's being implied. I can't be bothered to explain further. I'm all forummed out today.

Why else would the title suggest "round the world in 45 years?"

[Sabre2th]

Originally posted by Pembleton


It's being implied. I can't be bothered to explain further. I'm all forummed out today.

If you can't be bothered to clarify, I can't be bothered to answer.

Why else would the title suggest "round the world in 45 years?"

People make assumptions based on nothing (or very little). Larger worlds don't necessarily mean longer travel time. They could just mean finer detail.

OTOH, It could just mean it's a larger world with the same detail level. It depends on how each person interprets the information.

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by Sabre2th

OTOH, It could just mean it's a larger world with the same detail level. It depends on how each person interprets the information.

Not sure why you started an argument over such a nit when we agree on the basic issue: that they shouldn't change the movement of ships, although a small increase wouldn't be such a big deal. I've always been a proponent of gameplay over realism.

[ToD.MB]

The important thing, which we're perhaps digressing from here, is that a huge map, for all its possible bad points, surely has more good points - for example:

a map with a Britain that can hold 10-15 cities will allow a proper British-playing experience, instead of having 1-5 crowded cities and no world influence. A huge map will allow (hopefully 16 civs) to each have a decent chance to make a go of it, with huge diplomatic and military results - I think that each civ is likely to survive the initial ancient period and develop at least a country-sized empire by AD1.

Isn't this worth a few (admittedly) unrealistic elements to the game?

[Sabre2th]

Originally posted by Pembleton

Not sure why you started an argument over such a nit when we agree on the basic issue

It takes two to argue. I guess I should have paid more attention to my favorite quote:

Never argue with a fool, people may not know the difference

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by Sabre2th

It takes two to argue. I guess I should have paid more attention to my favorite quote:

Touchy, aren't we? It also happens to be my favorite quote (posted here by a forumer, not of all time) . And you shouldn't judge people so quickly. Just because you disagree on one thing doesn't automatically mean they are a fool.

And like I said, we agree on the basic issue. So I guess fools aren't always wrong. Unless of course, we are both fools.

[Cyclotron]

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. If you have 20 moves then 20 moves or something like that, you end up actually sacrificing the realism you want because ships might never even meet, let alone have to maneuver.

2) Blockades become useless. If a transport can cross an ocean in 2 or 3 turns, it's going to be extremely hard for anyone to stop that transport. In the interest of increased strategic latitude, blockades should be kept a viable part of the game.

3) A single powerful unit, having a lot of movement, can easily wreak havoc on enemy forces just because it happens to go first. Let's not forget that movement is also the amount of attacks a unit gets. It boggles the mind to think of how many destroyers a "movement augmented" battleship would have. One could clear out any city unlucky enough to be without a coastal fortress in one turn.

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

[Phutnote]

wow, excellent points Cyclotron7

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.

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.

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.

On the other hand, I have found battleships generally ineffective against any city with a coastal fortress and modern fortified defenders. The point value of the battleship compared to the units it can kill before being knocked out isn't very high in the games I play.

On diety, the AI puts up an extremely vigorous defense to naval invasions, using hundreds of cruise missiles to batter ships down. Mostly I use battleships to draw fire and stack them with AEGIS cruisers. 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.

And thanks, I appreciate your addressing the points I raised with a lucid argument.

Phutnote