Ships lost at sea

[SpartanX]

This is something i always had as an idea ... In previous civ games the only ships you could lose in sea were trimeres & caravels. Now you cannot lose even those them since they cannot enter ocean squares at all.

But as we all know the sea is in true somewhat dangerous. thousands of ships have been lost at sea due to many reasons. Rough seas, dangerous waters etc etc.

So why not add a random chance that a ship travelling in the ocean or elsewhere ( not only a trimere or anything ancient, but also a modern ship ) can get lost at sea? Maybe even eliminate this threat with sattelites or something like that ( since now ships will have GPS guiding them )

I believe that the game is complete enough without this small add, but i would like to see it

[Dis]

But how many modern ships are lost at sea?

Yes I know about rogue waves. I was in the U.S. navy after all. But how many modern cruisers and aircraft carriers have been lost to them? None that I know of. There was a destroyer that was very badly damaged in a storm during ww2. They even made a movie about it. But the destroyer was not lost.

I'm afraid I don't know the statistics of frigates and galleons though.

You could add in a random event to lose caravels. But random events seem absent in this game. I would have liked to have seen volcanos, earthquakes, and hurricanes.

But nevertheless, here's some interesting reading for all of ya.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_waves

[alms66]

Yea, this would be great. At the start of the game, all ships have a 90% chance of getting lost in the ocean. Throughout the game various techs would drop this percentage to nil once in modern times. Seems like a very simple mod, but I'm already working on something, so I'll just add it to the list.

[Ninot]

90%

Bad idea, because it would be un-fun.

[itecs1]

The lost of units at sea was a total gameplay pain. It was often difficult to be sure if you where in the correct type of title (unless you used a mod that had a greater contrast between sea titles) and you (or at least I ) would often make silly mistakes and end up in a ocean square. This is most likely why it was dropped.

(As you may guess I think the dropping of this feature is a gameplay improvement )

[Gaal Dornik]

I would reload. And i dont like reloads. Also i find it rather hard to believe that something like carrier or battleship can sink because of storm

[alms66]

Well, yes, 90% is high, but the actual values used would have to be determined by playtesting. I was just using it as a "filler" number to illustrate that early units would be much more likely to get "lost" in ocean than later units.

I also agree that making a silly mistake and loosing a galley wasn't fun, I'd rather have that (rather remote) possibility than not be able to enter ocean tiles at all.

If you're willing to reload a game just because something didn't go your way, that's your problem, and I don't believe anyone should design games to cater to the tastes of people like you. That's not a personal attack, it's just that if you think it's ok to reload, and you're fine with it, just to get your way, than you go right ahead, I don't play that way. I roll with the punches, like most players do - and I don't want my gameplay castrated to cater to people who do reload.

[Sarxis]

I'd prefer to keep that kind of randomness out of Civ 4. The scale is too big - one lost shipt/transport can mean a lot of effort wasted.

[Gaal Dornik]

alms66
now now, thats not a nice attitude. Besides, last i checked, ships dont have a chance to sink, so its your problem, not mine or that of other civ4 players.

On a related note, more randomness means less player impact, means worse strategy game.

[ajbera]

My 2 cents: modern ships, no. So few modern ships are lost that it would seem very out of place. However, I would welcome bringing back the possibility of older ships being lost at sea. Maybe triremes get a 50% (or more) chance of loss per turn on ocean squares, caravels a 20% chance, galleons a 10% chance (%s adjusted after playtest, of course.) So you could risk crossing the ocean if you think you may find the "New World."

[cpt.thc]

arent "silly mistakes " the reason most ships are lost to sea in real life
like oooops i drank to much and crashed my oil tanker into the reef

[Todd Hawks]

Considering how many ships there where at all times in history and how many of these were actually lost... you can easily round down the number to zero without making too much of an error.

Now additionally consider that one ship in Civ means something like a complete fleet... so at the most, I'd agree that maybe ships could lose a health point with a chance of, say, one percent. But that's not really worth modeling in my opinion.

[fypo13]

No. can. do.

Losing ships at random is like useless... There must be a basis for a ship's loss... Like a storm or whirlpool... Which gives me an idea...

Like what if disasters hit, like storm or whatever... But there should be an initial warning of this...

In the case of early game, a pop up window will appear saying, "There are prophecies that the North of New York will experience great storms." Probably 2 to 5 turns before there actually will be a storm...

In the late game, a pop up window will appear, saying "The national disaster coordinating council has seen a rise of low pressure area in the South of Paris. A typhoon is likely to occur." again, 2 to 5 turns before...

This way you can change stategies...

[ElConejo]

Originally posted by Gaal Dornik
I would reload. And i dont like reloads. Also i find it rather hard to believe that something like carrier or battleship can sink because of storm

Couldnt have said it better myself.

[Henrik]

Even ancient ships being lost at sea would be a very low percentage. Traveling by sea was allways a lot safer (and quicker) than traveling by land historically.
And losing entire units of ships at once (while it's unclear how many ships there's in a unit it's probably more than one atleast before the modern battleships and carriers) seems very unprobable.
It has happened at times that entire fleets has vannished at sea (off the coast of japan and england for instance).
However when such things took place people considered them extraordinary enough that we remember them even today...