Why cant caravels carry military units??)

[Addled Platypus]

I ment to post this awhile back


I think I am over the loss of caravels being useless


sign the petition to bring the real caravel back

[Bill3000]

They cannot carry military units because they can go into rival territory without an open borders treaty. If they could, you would have a sneak attack into someone you plan to go to war with easily.

[duke o' york]

So they're only useful for exploration then?

[Krill]

Pretty much. They can move stuff like spies, missionaries etc, but they are mainly for scouting out other continents, and you hare to research further into the tech tree to get to galleons, which can move military units around...

[Addled Platypus]

Originally posted by Bill3000
If they could, you would have a sneak attack into someone you plan to go to war with easily.

I see no problem with that

I have been visted many times by missionaries arriving by caravel

It does seem odd, once I AI civ finds you, the others find you within 3-4 turns,

[Mace]

I'm sure Firaxis and the testers thought about it a lot, so I won't second guess the Civ4 caravel...

But if it were my mod, I would make caravels like any other naval vessel (closed borders WOULD stop them) and they could carry probably 2 units of any type. The caravel would replace the galley.

Really it's a stretch (but acceptable for a stock game) to have galleys upgrade to Galleons. In real life the renaissance galleys/galleasses were more or less warships, not cargo ships, so their logical successor was the carrack/caravel or even frigate.

[Mao]

Originally posted by Mace
I'm sure Firaxis and the testers thought about it a lot, so I won't second guess the Civ4 caravel...

But if it were my mod, I would make caravels like any other naval vessel (closed borders WOULD stop them) and they could carry probably 2 units of any type. The caravel would replace the galley.

Really it's a stretch (but acceptable for a stock game) to have galleys upgrade to Galleons. In real life the renaissance galleys/galleasses were more or less warships, not cargo ships, so their logical successor was the carrack/caravel or even frigate.

Hmmm...how about 2 units? One "Explorer Caravel" that can't carry military units and aren't stopped by borders and a one vanilla caravel, that is more along the lines of traditional ones?

[MrFun]

Re: Why cant caravels carry military units??)

Originally posted by Platypus Rex
I ment to post this awhile back


I think I am over the loss of caravels being useless


sign the petition to bring the real caravel back

Are you too lazy to mod the change you want, yourself?

[marcuspeddle]

So there is no way to attack someone on another continent or island before galleons?

[baboon]

Originally posted by Masuro
So there is no way to attack someone on another continent or island before galleons?

Not if you have to cross ocean for it.

But isn't the next ship tech pretty close once you have the Caravel?

[Blake]

Caravels are hardly useless.

Take a terra map for example. Colonies are hugely expensive (maybe 10g+ upkeep each) so you want to found good colonies only, hence it's essential to do some scouting before starting colonies. Caravels let you do that scouting in preperation for sending out the Galleons with settlers and military.

[Senator]

Well, i think the point firaxis is trying to make is this: on terra style maps, or just any map with separate continents, people shouldn't be able to cross the ocean effectively without galleons, sure you can explore new words, discover new civilizations like columbus did in a caravel-style ship, but the large-scale colonization of "the new world" should only begin with galleons (and thus the astronomy tech). That's why you can't take settlers on a caravel. If they would allow however, to take military units on a caravel, people would cross the ocean to "the new world" and just take some barbarian settlements by force instead of creating new settlements with a settler.

[Mace]

Originally posted by Senator
Well, i think the point firaxis is trying to make is this: on terra style maps, or just any map with separate continents, people shouldn't be able to cross the ocean effectively without galleons,

Yes that is most likely Firaxis point. And it's a good one.

In my Civ3 mod, Galleys could not even enter ocean squares (they stole my idea for Civ4 ), and could enter sea but at a risk.

Caravels could enter coast and sea; they could also enter ocean, but at a risk of sinking. Despite this limitation, it was AMAZING at how well the caravel did at exploring the world. The mod worked, really, really, well and imo was far superior to stock Civ3's ship movement.

If I could implement this sinking behavior in Civ4, I would probably play around with such a mod in Civ4.

[Addled Platypus]

Re: Re: Why cant caravels carry military units??)

Originally posted by MrFun



Are you too lazy to mod the change you want, yourself?

just me and my rant