AU Mod: Post-sail ship movement

[Madine]

I think that the AI would be much more dangerous in the late game if transports could carry more ships, and the movement rate of ships was increased.

The AI is inferior at long term planning, and efficiently using its units. Humans are much better at planning and executing an amphibious landing, giving them a significant advantage in industrial and onward.

Even if it was easier to land an amphibious force without having the transport sunk first, consider that industrial nations tend to be covered in railroads, allowing the defenders entire army free movement to counterattack or defend.

[ducki]

Actually, as much as I hate capacity-6 transports, I actually think that benefits the AI - the AI blows at naval invasions, rarely sends full transports, and always escorts transports with far more escorts than I ever use.
I also think faster ships would - for the same reasons - not benefit the AI much, if at all, but would help the human.

Add the fact that many human players will be fully railed and have a big ole stack of Arty and a bunch of leftover Cavs to easily take out any invasion force, and I just don't see the whole sea-borne AI attack benefitting whatsoever.

The main reason I see as a plus for increasing ship movement and transport capacity is that it would make IC invasions easier for the human... less of a burden... less painful. I just don't see any evidence that this sort of change would do anything to help the AI in a meaningful way.

That's just my opinion.

[nbarclay]

I agree with ducki. AIs are so inept at intercontinental invasions that faster transports would almost never make a real difference when they invade humans, at least when they invade our home continents. In island invasions, who would benefit more would depend on how many transports each side has to deliver reinforcements and where the transports are, so which side would benefit more would be up for grabs.

Human players would get a real benefit a lot more often. Situations where transport speed would actually tip the balance in a war would be relatively rare, but could happen. Consider the implications of having reinforcements arrive a turn sooner against a heavy AI counterattack, or of being able to land two waves of troops per transport instead of one in the initial invasion (unloading, returning to a city, loading, and then going to the landing site and unloading again). More often, the difference would just be one of helping the player win a bit more quickly, but winning one war more quickly help provide a stronger position for the next.

Nathan

[ZargonX]

If anything, I think this may be a discussion for the AU MP Mod, because, as nathan says, many of these changes will end up aiding humans more than AI.

[Madine]

I have seen the AI land full transports. More often than not they are full in games I have played.

I usually see 3 escorts for a transport.

There are three main reasons why I think an increased transport capacity benefits the AI. The human is much better at long range planning, and can calculate, "I need/want to invade with X units, so I need Y transports". Also, the AI tends to build more units than the human, and an increased transport capacity benefits that strategy. Finally, an increased transport capacity reduces the need/effectivenss of a simoultaneous landing of many transports.

Even if the AI isn't able to effectively invade the human main continent effectively, wouldn't an increased transport capacity help stronger AIs defeat weaker AIs, as well as invade islands?

Consider the implications of having reinforcements arrive a turn sooner against a heavy AI counterattack, or of being able to land two waves of troops per transport instead of one in the initial invasion (unloading, returning to a city, loading, and then going to the landing site and unloading again).

I don't understand why those scenarios wouldn't benefit an AI invasion.

[nbarclay]

If the first wave of an invasion dies before the second wave can arrive, the timing of the second wave makes little difference. Whether the second wave comes a turn sooner or a turn later, it is an entirely separate attack and can be dealt with as such.

In contrast, when the initial invasion wave cannot be defeated immediately, the timing of reinforcements is a lot more critical. Consider the following scenario:

A player underestimates how strong an AI is and lands 20 infantry protecting 10 artillery. The AI counterattacks, but does not have the forces to destroy the entire stack right away. After the second turn of the AI counterattack, the player is down to half a dozen infantry, none of which has more than two hit points left.

If the player can land another 30 units before the AI gets to strike again, the AI counterattackers will have to go up against fresh infantry with artillery support. At that point, the success of the invasion is all but guaranteed.

But if the player cannot land the reinforcements until the turn after that, chances aren't bad that the remaining infantry will be killed and the artillery captured. The loss of half a dozen additional infantry that could have healed to fight another day, and the loss of ten artillery at least until they can be recaptured, would be a very serious setback - especially if the player has little spare artillery in reserve.

Granted, players usually do a good enough job calculating what they need for a successful invasion that they succeed. But every now and then, AI resistance proves to be unexpectedly strong. (That's especially true when playing on a higher difficulty level than a player is accustomed to.) In one AU game back in PtW, I had an invasion force that had to hang on by the skin of its teeth for a while before additional (and more advanced) reinforcements could arrive to help out, and in an experiment on Deity (a level I don't normally play), my initial attempts to invade one of the AIs were actually repulsed. So borderline invasion situations definitely do happen.

Regarding landing multiple waves per transport in a single turn, that's a standard trick in my own playbook when land masses are close enough to allow it. I've even been known to build a city for the sole and specific purpose of putting me as close as possible to the enemy land mass in order to pull that trick. But in years of playing Civ 3, I don't recall ever seeing an AI do that to me. So I view making that trick available more often (as would be the case if transports moved faster) as something that would definitely favor human players.

Regarding the capacity of transports, I view the reduction from earlier versions in C3C as something that makes intercontinental invasions clearly more challenging for me. Transports can only be built in coastal cities. Coastal cities tend to have lower production than inland cities, so not only do they take longer to build a unit of equal cost, but they're generally lagging behind inland cities in city improvements. On top of that, coastal cities have more city improvements to build - such as harbors and commercial docks. And transports have to compete with warships for space in shipyards.

Put all of that together and the result is that I virtually never have the capacity to build as many ships as I'd really like to, at least until well into the modern era, without diverting cities away from other things I want them to build. So with each transport carrying less, I have to either divert more production away from city improvements and/or warships to build transports or settle for less transport capacity than I'd really like to have. That is the sort of interesting strategic choice that I'm inclined to think that the AU Mod should not undermine.

[Theseus]

I very much agree with Nathan's post. Reducing Transport capacity to 6 was an excellent change.

I don't think, for the moment, that we need to tweak late game movement in order to speed it up. I do think, however, that we need to re-visit the movement of various late game ships in order to sync them up. I don't remember which, but in AU 502 I kept getting annoyed by this.

Current C3C AU Mod movement values are:
Transport: 6
Destroyer: 8
Cruiser: 6
AEGIS Cruiser: 7
Battleship: 5
Carrier: 7

Does anybody else find this intensely annoying? I'd say leave Destroyers at 8, and change everything else to 6.

[Risa]

Just for the sake of change?
Group movement can sync them up pretty well, without any change.

[ducki]

I agree with Risa, using the J-key to move a stack/pair together works just fine, and the extra movement points on the non-transports gives you an opportunity to have your escort attack without getting away from you sometimes.

I say leave them as is.

[Aqualung71]

It's really the Battleship that's the odd one out. Slowest movement for your strongest escort is annoying.

Then again, the earlier era is no better. Galleons move only 4, so lag behind their Frigate escorts at 5. Then along come the stronger escorts Ironclads, and they move only 3. That's frustrating too.

All said, I think it's part of the game and gives you more strategic choice (if you can call it that) than if it was more even. I say leave it.

[lockstep]

Same here. It may be annoying sometimes, but gives strategic choice. Ship movement is one of the things I really like about C3C (compared to PTW). Don't change anything for now.

[nbarclay]

I'm also in the "sometimes annoying, but gives more strategic choices" camp. The issue of what ships to use for what purposes is a lot more interesting in C3C than it was in earlier versions.

[Theseus]

Oh, okay.

PITA, though.

[Ision]

Does anybody else find this intensely annoying? I'd say leave Destroyers at 8, and change everything else to 6.

hell yes ! very annoying

please DO submit this for consideration-

Ision

[alexman]

Annoying it may be, but it's not the job of this mod to remove annoying elements of the game.

Unless we can justify the change in terms of the mod's philosophy, I don't think it can be put under consideration.