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???