Units transforming into navy?

[ninja51]

I was hoping someone could clarify a situation I keep running into, but can't quite figure out. It appears that an enemies ground troops can transform themselves into a powerful navy force pretty much on the fly. I've had two situations of this, on one occasion, I was blockading a port as Rome, and while the city I was blockading had plenty of ground troops in the garrison, they only had two weak ships fielded. I figured my navy was 6 or so units strong, and vastly superior, so I attempted to starve them out through a blockade as I was led to believe through tool tips I could. Now the next turn, my 6 unit strong navy was suddenly being attacked by what appeared to be all those ground troops, and the battle projections had me all in the red with no hope of victory. Confused, I started the battle, and found an absolutely massive force of very well equipped ships barreling at superhuman speeds towards my fleet. I fled and moved on.

I didn't think much of it until just recently on a play through as Athens. I began an assault on Crete, which was kind of a nightmare to set up. I didn't know you lost food from recruiting units, at least I think that's what happened (Some slums appeared in Athens which could have been it, but there was no change in my food situation after the slums were destroyed) so my army was starving. I tried to get them on board my starting fleet, but found they wouldn't merge with it at all, so I moved them into my port and assumed they were finally on board. I moved my navy off towards the south of Crete to hit the city, only to find my troops had all stayed in port. I guess you can't have them travel together, which is pretty stupid, but I moved on and sailed my troops to land on the northern part of Crete. Now Crete had a ground force of about 10 troops, same as me, and two ships out of port. Once I ended my turn, the ground troops sailed out of the city and attacked my fleet south of the island, apparently with a vastly superior naval force some how! The unit icons were all those of Crete's ground troops, their fleet out of port didn't even join the fight, it was just them!

I'm very confused obviously, I swear as Rome I was sinking enemy troop transports left and right without them being massive fleets, but at the same time, I've encountered that situation where ground troops somehow make themselves into a very strong naval force twice now. I don't understand whats happening at all, if ground troops somehow can just make themselves into a fleet at will, what the hell is the point of naval units at all? As with many pieces of this game, I'm told nothing, and left confused with only the forums to turn to for answers.

[krisslanza]

Armies can move into the water and they auto build Transports to carry them. Transports are weak and slow, but ground troops have greater numbers, and the ranged units can use their abilities still.

They're scary, but really, unless your navy is very lacking or they heavily outnumber you, ramming them into oblivion, or peppering them with ranged attacks with fast ships should do it. Transports are some of the slowest and weakest ships in the game. Just try to not get into boarding actions with them, and if you need to, tie them up with a weaker ship, and let a strong ship ram them when they can't move - if their ship is destroyed, the unit is wiped out even if it's boarding another ship.

[Mephalamos]

Armies can move into the water and they auto build Transports to carry them. Transports are weak and slow, but ground troops have greater numbers, and the ranged units can use their abilities still.

They're scary, but really, unless your navy is very lacking or they heavily outnumber you, ramming them into oblivion, or peppering them with ranged attacks with fast ships should do it. Transports are some of the slowest and weakest ships in the game. Just try to not get into boarding actions with them, and if you need to, tie them up with a weaker ship, and let a strong ship ram them when they can't move - if their ship is destroyed, the unit is wiped out even if it's boarding another ship.

I am at year 199bc in my Athens campaign, and right now I am in a cutthroat war with Egypt and its allies, and despite us being seperate by water, I could not even imagine diverting funds to building dedicated warships, there is just no need for them...despite my enemies having navies.

The reason is, largely, that Transports are sufficient to protect themselves in the rare event that they are attacked, and since warships are not needed, in any capacity to help transport the army, warships are now just redundant.


Seriously, the average upkeep on a low grade warship is about three times the upkeep on an equivalent tiered land unit. Navies are just not cost-effective anymore.

[beksibeksi]

I am at year 199bc in my Athens campaign, and right now I am in a cutthroat war with Egypt and its allies, and despite us being seperate by water, I could not even imagine diverting funds to building dedicated warships, there is just no need for them...despite my enemies having navies.

The reason is, largely, that Transports are sufficient to protect themselves in the rare event that they are attacked, and since warships are not needed, in any capacity to help transport the army, warships are now just redundant.


Seriously, the average upkeep on a low grade warship is about three times the upkeep on an equivalent tiered land unit. Navies are just not cost-effective anymore.

I agree the AI needs to be much more aggressive with their navy.

[Doge Domenico]

In the early times, especially as barbarians, use the transports, they are better and not so expensive. In the later games, or against Athens or Carthage, use a real navy.

Unless you're me, and can on Athens with transports for some reason.

[ninja51]

From the battle I saw as Rome, they weren't all just transport ships, there was a number of skirmishing, raiding, and a large number of serious frigates packed with full on well equipped soldiers. I'm happy about the decision to allow troops to just sail on transports as apposed to needing a navy for them, but from what I saw, they got full on well equipped ships, not just hulking slow transports in the battle screen.

Thanks for the clarification though, for how damn long that tutorial was, you would have thought they'd teach you some actual info about the finer mechanics of the game instead of just kinda letting the player try to piece it together

[krisslanza]

From the battle I saw as Rome, they weren't all just transport ships, there was a number of skirmishing, raiding, and a large number of serious frigates packed with full on well equipped soldiers. I'm happy about the decision to allow troops to just sail on transports as apposed to needing a navy for them, but from what I saw, they got full on well equipped ships, not just hulking slow transports in the battle screen.

Thanks for the clarification though, for how damn long that tutorial was, you would have thought they'd teach you some actual info about the finer mechanics of the game instead of just kinda letting the player try to piece it together

The Transport ships will have whatever unit the army had. This makes them inherently scary, as armies have larger numbers then navies. In a straight up battle in melee, Transports will wreck your warships. If you have to board Transports, ensure your Navy is outfitted for melee actions, or use that time to ram their unmoving Transport to easily wipe the whole unit out.

[PlacidDragon]

Any land unit can walk onto an ocean tile, and turn into a transport ship. These transport ships are quite crappy, and wont stand up to warships, at least not normally. Numbers does matter though, especially if they manage to board you.

Regarding food, buildings you raise can have a negative food modifier. Units themselves does not consume food.

Fleets and Armies are separate entities, and cannot be merged. They can however, be within each others sphere of influence (red circle on mouseover), and participate in the same battle.

[zowrath]

Fleets and Armies are separate entities, and cannot be merged. They can however, be within each others sphere of influence (red circle on mouseover), and participate in the same battle.

You can merge them like in Shogun II, but it is just for convenience of moving one unit instead of two. In battle the troops will enter their own boats juts as if they'd travelled side by side. But units need to be at sea to be merged though.

[ninja51]

Ok I see now, thanks for the replies everyone. I still wish navies had more of a point, it seems like a navy of just transport ships is better in every way until much later in the game, but I do have a much better understanding of it all now. Hopefully this patch on Friday will fix the many annoyances in the game, including this one. I suppose it is probably too much to hope for that they put in some decent explanations of many of the systems in the game they don't tell you crap about, but we can dream.

[beksibeksi]

Ok I see now, thanks for the replies everyone. I still wish navies had more of a point, it seems like a navy of just transport ships is better in every way until much later in the game, but I do have a much better understanding of it all now. Hopefully this patch on Friday will fix the many annoyances in the game, including this one. I suppose it is probably too much to hope for that they put in some decent explanations of many of the systems in the game they don't tell you crap about, but we can dream.

Her is how it'll work. Optimization patches for a month. Then another month of minor function/balance patches. Then one giant balance patch. I can see it now.

[Caelifer_1991]

In my opinion you should have to build dedicated transport ships in order to carry troops as in paradox games, but what can you do.

[Teodosio]

In my opinion you should have to build dedicated transport ships in order to carry troops as in paradox games, but what can you do.

It would be too much micromanagement. The game already is a clickfest as it is now.
They have copied that feature from Civilization 5 and they did good to copy it since it has worked great since Civ5 came out.

[T-Duke]

It would be too much micromanagement.

It's called planification. It's a part of that thing which is called strategy.

The game already is a clickfest as it is now.
They have copied that feature from Civilization 5

Lol do you know how "warfare" works on Civ series? Please be serious.
I've been played since Shogun and in my humble opinion the "floating army" is the worse campaing feature of the whole saga. Something really, really stupid and childish.

[Teodosio]

It's called planification. It's a part of that thing which is called strategy.

Lol do you know how "warfare" works on Civ series? Please be serious.
I've been played since Shogun and in my humble opinion the "floating army" is the worse campaing feature of the whole saga. Something really, really stupid and childish.

Even logistics requires pianification. The fact the we don't manage logistics seems really childish too. We should be able to create supply trains and to move them in order to resupply armies. The same for fleets. And what about reinforcements automatically adding after each turn? They didn't have teletransportation; you should be able to train those 50 men you lack and then to move them manually to the requiring army. It requires pianification to do that correctly. And what about scouting? Does someone really believe that armies just move in the wild like this, without scouting parties far in advance? You should be able to train specialized cavalry/light units and you should be required to scout with them before moving armies.
Oh yes, it sounds all very fun and strategy, really a great way to spend your playing time [sarcasm alert].

And don't forget, when you are in battle, the "fight harder" button on each single unit... that is 100% tactical depth... I am sure Sun Tzu himself would be pleased with Rome 2 [sarcasm alert bis].

[Caelifer_1991]

Even logistics requires pianification. The fact the we don't manage logistics seems really childish too. We should be able to create supply trains and to move them in order to resupply armies. The same for fleets. And what about reinforcements automatically adding after each turn? They didn't have teletransportation; you should be able to train those 50 men you lack and then to move them manually to the requiring army. It requires pianification to do that correctly. And what about scouting? Does someone really believe that armies just move in the wild like this, without scouting parties far in advance? You should be able to train specialized cavalry/light units and you should be required to scout with them before moving armies.
Oh yes, it sounds all very fun and strategy, really a great way to spend your playing time [sarcasm alert].

And don't forget, when you are in battle, the "fight harder" button on each single unit... that is 100% tactical depth... I am sure Sun Tzu himself would be pleased with Rome 2 [sarcasm alert bis].

Making transport ships is hardly comparable with any of that, it would be no more micromanagement than making any other ship, or than hiring a general to move an army across land. Transports would not be made instantly and would not be free to maintain, a naval invasion should need to be planned ahead of time with the transports made beforehand, and the strategic option to choose to maintain such ships so as to allow for future naval invasions or disbanding them to save on upkeep ought to be present.