Mechanics of troop conveying makes navies pointless.

[Hero164]

Because any ship can carry any number of troops and because you can load, transport and unload in a single turn, navies are pointless in terms of stopping land invasions.

I would suggest a better solution would be that armies can only load or unload in a single turn but can move after unloading. This means it's still the same amount of time to navally invade but that opponents navies come into play to stop your troops. This means you are forced to build a fleet to deal with opponents navies rather than just transporting a full stack on a single sloop and watching them go poof.

[Forge13]

i would alter that a little and say they can move 1/4 of their normal move points after unloading...

i think right now the delay after unloading till movement is intended to have the same effect as the single load/unload a turn...

heck, still have them not move at all after unloading, it will just make you think harder about where you want to drop that army off exactly.

[Hero164]

Generally I just want ships to be able to have a chance to stop armies before they are landed. As it stands I never need to build navies barring trade ships and the occasional disposable transport sloop.

[Elmar]

The question preying on my mind is: Are you going to re-load your game when that sloop carrying a full stack army crosses the ZOC of a powerful fleet?

[Rotaugen2009]

The question preying on my mind is: Are you going to re-load your game when that sloop carrying a full stack army crosses the ZOC of a powerful fleet?

Yep, that is the big question, as you can build a chain of fleets whose ZOC keeps an enemy country bottled up, much like the reality imposed on the French by the British during the Napoleonic wars. They did try one major breakout, but that didn't turn out so well for them at Trafalgar. And when I move 20 unit stacks, I make sure I have a really strong fleet to escort them.

[P|A|ntZ]

If you are looking to stop an amphibious invasion, just use the intercept range of your fleets to cut off sea routes or strips of shoreline. It's no different than trying to hunt down any other kind of fleet or prevent them from moving to areas you want to keep them out of.

[Tspk91]

This would be totally fixed if they made the game in variable accelerated time... as you could intercept the sloops while they travel slowly to their objetive...

[Anacapa]

If you are looking to stop an amphibious invasion, just use the intercept range of your fleets to cut off sea routes or strips of shoreline. It's no different than trying to hunt down any other kind of fleet or prevent them from moving to areas you want to keep them out of.

there are no amphibious invasions.

[Lubeck]

So your enemies never use their navies to raid your trade routes? You never raid your enemies trade routes? You never cause them economic damage by raiding and damaging their ports?

And as far as the taking time to get your army established after a naval invasion the game does a good job already. If your enemy (or you) leaves a port unguarded (by either naval or land forces) a fleet can sail in, taking posession of the port and its facilities. Those facilities make it much easier to land troops so they can move immediately. If you are going across a beach it is of course going to take longer to assemble your army so they can't move.

[Tspk91]

As I said, the real time style of paradox games would be the solution... another advantage of it...

Aside of that, I think they should have included the transport ships as a convoy. Imagine, the AI sets the convoy to cross the map. You scort it, and the enemy has to destroy it before it goes out of the map ("has escaped")... of course these ships should move very slowly and not be first class.

[Lubeck]

As I said, the real time style of paradox games would be the solution... another advantage of it...

Aside of that, I think they should have included the transport ships as a convoy. Imagine, the AI sets the convoy to cross the map. You scort it, and the enemy has to destroy it before it goes out of the map ("has scaped")... of course these ships should move very slowly and not be first class.

Given your distaste for the letter e, shouldn't it be nemy?

It would be interesting though to have to defend a convoy if you have troops in a stack and an enemy fleet attacks.

[Tspk91]

Given your distaste for the letter e, shouldn't it be nemy?

It would be interesting though to have to defend a convoy if you have troops in a stack and an enemy fleet attacks.

Sorry but I´m not a native speaker. You refer to that "scape"... well I have to accept that it is a bit stupid as I have it witten in my keyboard

And I think the convoy thing would improve a lot the naval battles with transports. If you are the attacker tough I think the convoy should not appear.

[Kolath]

I would just like to see each ship only able to carry say 4 units. Has anyone looked to see if there is a value for this in the pack file databases?

[the_mango55]

I would just like to see each ship only able to carry say 4 units. Has anyone looked to see if there is a value for this in the pack file databases?

I think it's generally accepted that the warships you see depicted in the campaign and on the battle map aren't the ships carrying your troops, they are military escorts to transport vessels.

there are no amphibious invasions.

There will be soon.

Hopefully...

[HawkDreams]

Rather than go to all the trouble of rewriting so much base script, how about a simple change which is more realistic... 1 ship:1 unit. You lose that ship, you lose that unit. A stack of 5 ships would carry 5 units. Heck, even a 1 ship: 2 units would not be bad!

This would be totally fixed if they made the game in variable accelerated time... as you could intercept the sloops while they travel slowly to their objetive...

I dont quite know what you mean about variable time, but would not a two stage system of set your move and then execute be about as good? It would not allow for anything more than random interception, but if games were reset to load an autosave after the move turn completed rather than before you would be stuck with consequences!

[Tspk91]

Rather than go to all the trouble of rewriting so much base script, how about a simple change which is more realistic... 1 ship:1 unit. You lose that ship, you lose that unit. A stack of 5 ships would carry 5 units. Heck, even a 1 ship: 2 units would not be bad!



I dont quite know what you mean about variable time, but would not a two stage system of set your move and then execute be about as good? It would not allow for anything more than random interception, but if games were reset to load an autosave after the move turn completed rather than before you would be stuck with consequences!

I mean a la europa universalis, but in a free-roaming environment like total war. And now: how can you carry two line infantry units in a galley? As it is now, it is supossed that the fleet is a scort of a transport fleet.

[psyclog]

I want an unloading army to be half-unloaded for an entire turn.

And if the unloading fleet gets destroyed during that turn, you lose half your army.

As of now, it is just too easy to slip to the coast of another nation and quickly unload an army (declaring war only then!). It is irrelevant whether the army can move or not once it has landed.
The problem exists for both human and AI players once the AI learns how to pull off naval invasions.


I never expected CA to do these things right. But I hope they at least created the game so that it can be modded into the right direction.

[MrOsterman]

I want an unloading army to be half-unloaded for an entire turn.

So you're saying it takes a year to transport some troops and get them battle ready?

As of now, it is just too easy to slip to the coast of another nation and quickly unload an army (declaring war only then!). It is irrelevant whether the army can move or not once it has landed.
The problem exists for both human and AI players once the AI learns how to pull off naval invasions.

That's the challenge when you allow potential rivals to build up a navy and keep troops within striking distance. That's the challenge when UK and France both have navies floating around the channel looking at each other. Is this going to be the turn that they try to invade? Is it worth it to strike now, to declare war and knock out that navy now, rather than risk one of them slipping through to land an assault force?

About the only tweek I would consider is to make it so that a ship cannot move through another navy's zone of control even in peace time, without declaring some kind of chance to intercept and declare war. You might not know where those troops are headed but you have the option to declare preemptive war and get them at sea, rather than watching a few dozen transports sail past and start thier landing.

However a full turn to deploy is just too long.

[psyclog]

So you're saying it takes a year to transport some troops and get them battle ready?

Don't blame me, blame ETW's simplified turn-based strategy map system.
And if you are raising questions here, you are breaking the dam: Why does an army need a year to cross France? Wonder how Napoleon would have fared, had his soldiers been that slow, huh?
I am just trying to put marching speed and embarking speed into balanced proportions.

[...]

About the only tweek I would consider is to make it so that a ship cannot move through another navy's zone of control even in peace time, without declaring some kind of chance to intercept and declare war. You might not know where those troops are headed but you have the option to declare preemptive war and get them at sea, rather than watching a few dozen transports sail past and start thier landing.

Well, that idea is even better. And even less likely to get implemented. CA doesn't give a damn, and surely hasn't left any such option for the modders in their code.



Concerning the Offtopic RTS discussion: I think we should have a short sticky thread, explaining what exactly we mean when we refer to RTS for ETW (aka EU3/HoI2 style instead of Starcraft style). Getting ever the same clueless comments whenever someone mentions the word RTS is an annoyance.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

The navy is fine. No one carry troops on warships because then the ships cannot have enough cannons to boot.. The transports are escorted by the war fleet.

Anybody also can take an army and march it up to your lands via land routes and it is the same as if someone used a sea route. For a surprise attack you never tell the enemy that you mean to attack. If you are concerned that they will invade then you must perform a preemptive strike on their navy to take it out of commission.