We'll be Able To Encounter Transport Ships in Battle

[weirdoascensor]

Now, Land and Naval Battles are merged, enabling Amphibious Assaults, Right? You all saw The Video...

In The Gameplay Footage, The Troops jump off the Ships, and fight inland. The Troops are there, on the ship, before the landing, not magically appearing when The Ships hit the beach.
This means Transported Units are really represented in Naval Battles.

New Info from Magazine states:

Armies can cross waters themselves. Apparently armies will build themselves ships for one turn and they will then be able to continue on water. Interestingly you will apparently not be able to capture enemy ships anymore.

Family members can also be nominated to admirals. Warships can be built in shipyards as before. "That was ridiculous," said Dominique Starr. "They built a rowing boat and it was able to ship whole armies of 2,000 men." Now each army can simply move to the water. The soldiers then set off a turn and then automatically built ships for the crossing.

Ever think how if The Ships transports Cavalry? or Elephants...disembarks in a landing assault...
You should see The Beasts on the Ship! Jumping Off Them!

In Extension...Imagine if you intercept such Invading Transport Fleet, containing an whole Army, complete with Cavalry, Elephants, and Light Ballistae...

You Board a Troopship = Your Marines must fight Hardened Landlubber Soldiers.

You Bombard a Siege Transport = Their Engineers add some extra Engines on Board.

You Ram a Troopship = Hundreds of swimming(Then drowning) Landlubbers.

You Sink a Cavalry Transport = Seahorse Cavalry.

You Sink a Elephant Transport = Pachyderm Submarines.

And You'll see all of it on the Battle...

[Wothan]

I dont think they will go as far as putting animals or siege engines on boats but the transported men should appear
On previous total war games no matter how many men you were carrying they would just disappear on naval battles, I hope this time around they join in those and participate on boardings

[MagicCuboid]

I have a feeling they will, Wothan. Previously men didn't appear because you could have 5,000 men in one bow kobaya, but now the game will automatically assign the right number of boats .

[Lockcaps]

It's going to be interesting to see how this is implemented. Having your land army assist your navy during land battles via transports could be interesting, but it could also lead to issues - you'd have to constantly have a full stack on board your ships in order to "maximize" it's effectiveness.

How i think it's going to end up:
During naval battles you don't see the transports. The only ships you command are the ones you've built in a dock

In combined battles you command both, however the only thing the transports can do are unload and load troops. They are unarmed and can't fight back at enemy ships, not even board.

[Lord Tomyris]

Caesar's first expedition to Britain, anyone?

[Faris ad Din]

On previous total war games no matter how many men you were carrying they would just disappear on naval battles, I hope this time around they join in those and participate on boardings

Seriously, having land troops on naval vessels is probably the crux of Roman naval warfare. This was essentially a Landlubber nation that didn't know how to fight at sea but quickly learned how, under pressure. They developed what we may have seen as the "corvus" (literally Latin for "crow") which was essentially a large gangplank tied up in place until the Roman ship boarded another, and I think it had a spike at the far end so it can "hook" the target ship in place while the footsoldiers can cross over and kick their butts. The Romans essentially turned sea warfare into land warfare which is the thing they were good at.



http://rtw.heavengames.com/rtw/info/...Romans-Scipii/
"The first, which priests of an Awesome Temple of Neptune can command built, it the Corvus Quinquereme. Most Roman factions can build a five-banked galley- the quinquereme. Ours as well. But the Corvus adds a spiked bridge to the ship, which drops down upon the enemy ship. Our marines and soldiers can then cross this bridge to board the enemy vessel- allowing us to use our formidable land power at sea."

CA seems to have a knack for featuring all the most unique and quirky knickknacks and oddities in Total War games - keeps the masses entertained. They even featured rotting cow carcasses as a standard ammo option for trebuchets in Medieval 2: Total War and Head Hurlers and Hornet throwers. Surely they will implement the Roman corvus as a naval weapon in the first game to feature RAMMING as the main mode of naval combat.

Of course, that would be a whole lot more fun when one has armies on board.

It's going to be interesting to see how this is implemented. Having your land army assist your navy during land battles via transports could be interesting, but it could also lead to issues - you'd have to constantly have a full stack on board your ships in order to "maximize" it's effectiveness.

I don't see it as an issue. One shouldn't have to have a FULL stack in order to get the most bang for the buck in a balanced-type navy that aims to maximize the use of ramming, artillery, archery and boarding actions. Furthermore, one shouldn't have to commit top-line elite troops to naval duty in order to overpower most opponents at sea. I personally may place one or two units of medium-quality land infantry in a fleet for every five naval units - probably hastati pre-Marian reforms and some good sword- or axe-armed auxilia troops post-Marian reforms - not a big hit to the purse.

Furthermore needing an army (legion) aboard a fleet was indeed the system in the old DOS game "Centurion: Defender of Rome" (1990) http://www.abandonia.com/games/23
One would steer these pixelated vessels towards the AI's using the arrow keys, and they would fire arrows at each other as they approached, and then the goal would be to have the pointy prow of your own single vessel (abstractly approximating the possibly 100 or so ships you have in your fleet) ram the enemy vessel (abstractly approximating their own fleet) and at that point the computer takes into account the land troops aboard each fleet. And of course if one rammed wrong, one loses the hugely expensive fleet AND the army.

One might consider this DOS game one of the granddaddies of the original Rome: Total War. Fun little quirky game. Try the gladiatorial/chariot races.

[weirdoascensor]

It seems like Standing Naval Armada are distinguished from ad-hoc temporary Transport Fleet. Transport Fleets will be only consisted of High capcity, big, lumbering Transports, whereas Standing Naval Armadas can consist of many varieties of Specialized Battle Vessels. Transport Fleets battle capability will only supplied by its transported forces.