[newman]

Well that's pretty obvious.
Units can't stack right? So if you put 9 guys inside a transport, are you going to wait 3 turns to fully unload them? That would be infuriating and unrealistic I think. Most places where you can make landfall you can only have 3 adjacents hexes which means 3 units unloading each turn which means 3 turns to get 9 guys ashore.

To be fair units probably shouldn't stack inside the transports, either. At any rate what they did is the worst possible alternative. Throughout the history of war islands always had a special strategic significance because of the logistical and tactical difficulties one needed to overcome in order to successfully invade them. This tactical significance of islands has been reduced significantly by this game mechanics. Yes, invading islands should be a big deal - finding the proper landing locations, escorting your transports in, making landfall.. all that has been reduced to build&send.

[QuantumDelta]

You've been playing against the AI too much.
Try build and send very a player and you will lose a massive number of units before they even get to the shore.

[newman]

That's not the point, I just said build & send as opposed to build, embark on transports, find suitable landing zones, make landfall, march towards cities. Personally I don't play multi, but I want my sp experience to not feel dumbed down. Any proper strategy game that involves islands and seas should have sea transports. Fact.

[Akalabeth Angel]

That's not the point, I just said build & send as opposed to build, embark on transports, find suitable landing zones, make landfall, march towards cities. Personally I don't play multi, but I want my sp experience to not feel dumbed down. Any proper strategy game that involves islands and seas should have sea transports. Fact.

Hmmn, I'm not sure it's that big a deal.
The bigger question is, does the AI actually do amphibious assaults?

I never played 4, I only played 3. But in that the AI would basically almost never in my experience do any sort of assault from the sea. They'd drop a couple dudes off, sure. But not like a big time invasion. So if under the new game they do assaults it would be a step up.

Also I hope they changed the railroads. That was the second biggest pain in the butt for me. One time I tried to invade a guy with like 4-5 transports full of dudes. Next turn, two countries' continent worth of dragoons attacked my invading force. It was dumb. I'm pretty sure railroads dont' give infinite movement anymore though.

Heck, for that matter. If you're arguing for amphibious transports, why not argue for railroad as well? Since Civ 1 normal units have been able to use railroads without use of a train. Is this not the same thing???

[mxlm]

If you can't play it without patching it, it isn't complete.

Yeah, the thing about steam? It means they put the stuff on the disc, and send it off, and keep working on the game, and you get that extra month or two of work when you install the game.

Ideally, anyway. That's how it worked with GPG and SupCom2.

Yes, invading islands should be a big deal - finding the proper landing locations, escorting your transports in, making landfall.. all that has been reduced to build&send.

I dunno which Civ games you were playing, but the ones I played reduced it to build and send too. Oh, sure, you had to build one or two transports to carry your guys, but so what? Build, send. Simple. Hell, then you could start airlifting guys in to the first city you conquered.

[QuantumDelta]

Yes, invading islands should be a big deal - finding the proper landing locations, escorting your transports in, making landfall.. all that has been reduced to build&send.

I dunno which Civ games you were playing, but the ones I played reduced it to build and send too. Oh, sure, you had to build one or two transports to carry your guys, but so what? Build, send. Simple. Hell, then you could start airlifting guys in to the first city you conquered.

Airlift ++ <3

I used to have most of my attacking force on a continent after the first transport had been there and back.
What's more, no more airlifts = awesome, personally.
And, the AI do use their naval forces a lot more on the higher difficulties.

[Bob-san]

Yes, invading islands should be a big deal - finding the proper landing locations, escorting your transports in, making landfall.. all that has been reduced to build&send.

I dunno which Civ games you were playing, but the ones I played reduced it to build and send too. Oh, sure, you had to build one or two transports to carry your guys, but so what? Build, send. Simple. Hell, then you could start airlifting guys in to the first city you conquered.

Airlift ++ <3

I used to have most of my attacking force on a continent after the first transport had been there and back.
What's more, no more airlifts = awesome, personally.
And, the AI do use their naval forces a lot more on the higher difficulties.

I liked how airlifts were done in Civ4, though it was a bit annoying after you automate all your works and build airports. Even so, being able to airlift a group of fresh defends was a godsend. Add to that instantly moving airplanes and short-range missiles.

[NGTM-1R]

The AI in this game is stupid. All I ever seem to get is nothing, hostility, or war from them. They like to randomly go to war with the player for absolutely no reason at all, you can't ever seem to get them to form packs of cooperation or secrecy nor can you get them to go to war with anyone else. Trading with them is finicky too.

tl;dr The AI are assholes

So they're just like human players!

No, really, this is the first Civ I've ever been able to pry cities out of them in a settlement. They'll go to war with me primarily because I lack sufficent military might for them to think twice about it. (That his usually backfires in the face of wartime production is something they've yet to learn, but then that's a typical mistake of real nations too.) I've gotten them to respond of pacts of secrecy or cooperation early on, but eventually I'm the strongest power on Earth and they're all doing it against me.

As for the current system being merely build-and-send, you take awful losses doing that because of random floaty barbarians. It needs escorts and consideration of route and jumping-off points. Most of the other concerns are the nature of logistics Civ and most 4xs haven't included.

[TrashMan]

I hate the city-states. Your reputation with them is constantly falling. How the hell does on keep them happy?

Meh..I'm just gonna conquer them with my legions.. FOR THE GLORY OF ROME!


EDIT:
Strategic resource limitations suck. The number of units you can build is terribly limited because of that.

[mxlm]

I hate the city-states. Your reputation with them is constantly falling. How the hell does on keep them happy?

Strategic resource limitations suck. The number of units you can build is terribly limited because of that.

You keep city states happy with bribes and by doing things they want you to do. Bribes are often easier.

You also just described why strategic resource limitations are nice.

[newman]

I dunno which Civ games you were playing, but the ones I played reduced it to build and send too.

I played every Civ game ever made, from Civ 1 to Civ 5, including Alpha Centauri. In previous civs island invasions felt like they required more effort, and I liked that feeling. Of course it wasn't realistic any more than this is but for me it felt better.

You also just described why strategic resource limitations are nice.

I for one don't think you should be unlimited, but I do think the current resource system pertaining to unit building is badly unbalanced and illogical. Almost the entire modern era unit selection depends on aluminum, as do certain city improvements, meaning you'll need heaps and heaps of the stuff just to build a modest force. Otherwise you're forced to use ww2-era tech, like regular tanks and first generation of fighters. A nuclear sub requires aluminum? Their hulls are built of special high-strength steel alloys. So, never mind, you build a nuclear sub and it takes one aluminum. Lose or decommission it and that aluminum magically reappears. Not to mention that one aluminum can be a lot in that game - it's enough to build a spaceship factory or a hydroelectric plant. Building a single unit should require less - the old system where as long as you had access to needed resources you could build units that needed them made more sense to me. Or at least make it possible to spend like 0.2 of a resource so the expenditures make a bit more sense.

[Titan]

How about a resource gives you so many points. Different tiles of the same resource could give you different amounts, which leads to more battles for valuable fields instead of just that one resource tile.Until you research recycling, those resources don't come back once applied to units. However, those units would use little amounts compared to very modern units.

[newman]

Different tiles contain different amounts of resources already. I had tiles that had like 8 aluminum, or ones that had 3... with uranium, I found between 1 and 4 per tile.

[mxlm]

In previous civs island invasions felt like they required more effort

Nah, they felt like they required more tedious micromanagement bull****.

[newman]

Let's agree to disagree then. For me, micromanagement was always an integral part of civ.

[QuantumDelta]

You can't really call it micromanagement like it's a skill or anything engaging in a turn based environment.
Also, there's a long thread about naval combat on the forums, and having spent more time on the higher difficulties I think you need to get off settler.

[newman]

You can't really call it micromanagement like it's a skill or anything engaging in a turn based environment.

Yes, you can.

Also, there's a long thread about naval combat on the forums, and having spent more time on the higher difficulties I think you need to get off settler.

I played on "king". Meh, I'm done with this discussion, wonder if the good ol' Civ 3 still works under win 7..

[mxlm]

Let's agree to disagree then. For me, micromanagement was always an integral part of civ.

My clearest memory of a naval invasion is of sitting around for a dozen turns waiting for the transport to complete, then another dozen for the transport to get over there, and then steamrolling the victim. I can do without the first part going forward.

But yeah, agree to disagree. Civ V has significant flaws, but they're not the ones you're pointing at. Which is to say, I don't think it matters that aluminum shouldn't really be needed for boomers. I do think it matters that the AI is--at best--as bad as ever and that we don't have information on how some game systems work.

[General Battuta]

i just want to know which one to buy 

Right now I think Civ 4 sounds more appealing. It has all those neat expansion sets. But maybe I should just try to get SMAC?

[Turambar]

there's an AC total conversion mod for Civ IV