Ships?

from Stardock Forums

Will there be warships in the release version and will they be customizable like regular units?

 

I know that future expansions will be more sea oriented, but I am wondering about the state of ships/naval war/fishing in the day zero release.

 

Thanks

elemental
3,525 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

It seems like in the release we're just getting transports.  Which is ok with me for now.

But: does the AI understand them?  I haven't seen the AI launch an amphibious invasion yet - which is always a tough thing to get the AI to do.

But the AIs on islands have been stuck there forever.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting _Scooter_, reply 1


But: does the AI understand them?  I haven't seen the AI launch an amphibious invasion yet - which is always a tough thing to get the AI to do.

End of _Scooter_'s quote

 

I've always wondered about why this is a hard thing to pull off. Thinking back most strategy games I've played have had poor AI when it comes to to traveling across sea... <_<

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Because pathing alone can't do it.  On land, you can trace pathfinding between any two points.  You can't do that if you have to load the units onto a transport, calculate a path for the transport, and then unload at the other end.

Loading/unloading creates a much more complex problem.

It looks like Civ5, which has a big development budget, has to some extent given up on the problem by having land units be able to automatically turn into weak transports, and so they can just trace a pathfinding route themself.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting _Scooter_, reply 3
Because pathing alone can't do it.  On land, you can trace pathfinding between any two points.  You can't do that if you have to load the units onto a transport, calculate a path for the transport, and then unload at the other end.

Loading/unloading creates a much more complex problem.

It looks like Civ5, which has a big development budget, has to some extent given up on the problem by having land units be able to automatically turn into weak transports, and so they can just trace a pathfinding route themself.
End of _Scooter_'s quote

In Civ IV I had AI dump massive amounts of troops on my island via transport. Not sure if they wa s a beyond the sword only thing. So its not impossible.

Hell they even protected their transports with other ships!

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I never said it was impossible.  But in Civ4 it didn't work very well.  It could happen, but was much less common than land invasions.  [Though there were several AI mods that improved on the core AI.]

The Total War games were absolutely terrible at inter-continental invasions - particularly Empire, which really needed it.

 

Its much harder to get an AI to coordinate an army with a navy than it is to get it to just use an army.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

How did the AI handle transports in EMPIRE?

I don't recall.