The damned galley!

[MyOlde]

In PTW does the galley always always ALWAYS sink when you take it out to sea? Do I not recall that in Civ3 you could reload and reload and eventually get a safe journey some of the time?

I've had PTW for a while but always found the galley a pain and never bothered (nor had to bother) leaving my continent until about ironclad time.

Now I've moved up to a large map, continents, and the centuries are going by and I've no one to talk with except the backward Zulus to the south of me (I brought them under control early on). I've tried loading and reloading to get a galley out there to find a neighbour but it keeps sinking. Finally had to switch my tech route to pick up astronomy so I could get a caravel going.

Does anyone know that the galley will, for a fact, always sink?

And while we're on it: how do you manage to discover neighbours early on (who are on other continents)? Or do you simply play pangaea?

[CerberusIV]

Galleys don't always sink on sea tiles in PTW. If you are playing with preserve random seed on then reloading and doing the same turn again will just produce the same result. You can reload and try again on the next turn and eventually will get through.

I play continents on standard maps with 8 civs and usually can get enough contacts to stay in the game. If not then a dash for the Great Library is the only hope.

[TacticalGrace]

If you load the galley up with units then it will sink because it is heavier.

The more expensive the units the heavier they are and so more likely to sink the galley.

[Cyclotron]

Cerberus is right on. The random seed, assuming you didn't disable it, will "roll" the same result even if you reload the game. Thus, it will appear that the result is 100% certain.

[joncnunn]

Via an experment a few months ago, I determined that trading with an AI does affect the RNG.

I sent a sucide Galley (empty) that ended turn in a sea tile where it could see one civ. If I made contact with that civ, traded maps, but refused to buy the contact; my galley sank at the end of turn. But if I instead bought the contact to the other AI, my galley stayed afloat!

[joncnunn]

That's murphy law.

But note that it's recursive: Filling up the boat with expensive units to sink the galley on purpose won't work.

Originally posted by TacticalGrace
If you load the galley up with units then it will sink because it is heavier.

The more expensive the units the heavier they are and so more likely to sink the galley.

[Chemical Ollie]

The only galley that sinks is the one that is yours.

[Datajack Franit]

exact

[statusperfect]

Originally posted by Olaf HÃ¥rfagre
The only galley that sinks is the one that is yours.

True. AI galleys never sink.

[ACooper]

AI galleys don't sink because the never end their turn in an ocean square.

Whether or not you make contact with another civ has nothing to do with your galley sinking.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by ACooper
AI galleys don't sink because the never end their turn in an ocean square. ...

... until they have the tech where it is no longer at risk, of course (astronomy (for sea) and navigation or magnetism (for ocean)).

[Abdul-Aziz]

Well, as for distances where I have to step on sea only once, they doesn't always sink. However on farther ones, they most likely does... Not sure what is the percent of sinking probability is...

[The Mad Monk]

50% of the galleys that end up in sea or ocean will sink.

Of course, what they don't tell you is that the AI gets the 50% that floats, and the human gets the 50% that sinks.

[badams52]

Originally posted by TacticalGrace
If you load the galley up with units then it will sink because it is heavier.

The more expensive the units the heavier they are and so more likely to sink the galley.

[pedrojedi]

The Galley sinking is OK for me. It happens, the damn thing is not that good anyway. The problem is when the CARAVEL sink. Then it is really, really, REALLY painful, specially when you`re going for that nice island with oil, racing with the AI, and 1 tile away from the sea it does the "crack, fluuuushh" routine.

Very annoying.