Sea Zones

[Tom]

My long-lingering unhappiness with the sea routes as we have them at this time has come to the point where I want to replace them with something else.

I'd like to make this a discussion, but with rules. Please follow these rules strictly. If you don't, your suggestions will be mercilessly ignored or moderated away and/or I might decide that it all falls into the "!@#$ this" category and drop the whole thing.

   
• do not de-rail this discussion. Strictly to the topic only, and I mean strictly.
• no over-complicating things. If something is not absolutely required for this to work, then it should be left for future improvements.
• when I say "no" to something, that is not up for discussion. Don't argue with me, don't try to convince me, you will only piss me off.

That said, here's the concept as it stands at this time:

   
• Remove all sea routes.
• Instead, seperate the oceans and lakes into sea zones.
• Add "harbor" as a building for cities, strongholds and townslands.
• Armies can embark upon ships in harbors only
• Armies can land in any region that is either friendly or has very few defending troops (harbor not required, but a harbor in a friendly region will make it faster)
• Once at sea, you can travel to other sea zones as well, so you can sail all around the world if you want
• Being at sea will require provisions, just like being in a starving region does (necessary to prevent realms from "parking" armies out at sea)

I have not yet decided whether to treat rivers as sea zones, that would allow sailing up and down a river as well as crossing a river by ship.
Sea zones would be larger than land regions. There can be "open sea" zones that do not border land at all. Here's a screenshot of one(!) of several concept drawings I've made showing what it could be like. This isn't the final word, zones could be larger or smaller:


While at sea, you could do very little with your unit. Some units will have to get special treatment. I'm thinking about cavalry not being able to land in non-harbor regions and siege engines not moveable by ship, things like that.

But, basically, it would be very simple. At a harbor, you would get additional travel options says "embark", once at sea you could travel to neighbouring sea zones or land at bordering land regions. If you try to land at a region you can't (enemy and defended), you would lose hours in the attempt. You could not scout while at sea. But I already said that you can do almost nothing at sea (paying your unit is the only thing that comes to mind right away that you should be able to do).



This whole thing has become possible thanks to the new maps system. As we now have actual polygons, we can determine neighbouring zones and regions in code and don't have to draw all of that by hand. To give you a perspective, the table that holds the travel connections for Dwilight has 498 entries, each and every one of which had to be calculated and entered by hand. For sea zones, we can do things in code because we do not have to take region types and travel speeds into account, all we need to know is what zone touches which other zones and which land regions and what the distances are.

[Foundation]

I believe we can safely move consideration for rivers into a future discussion.  I believe it is a sufficiently different use case to be dealt with then, if the sea changes work out.

[Zakilevo]

This sounds simple enough. Actually feels like Civilization :o. I don't think you need to complicate things for cavalries but that is entirely up to you.  I have one question though, what happens when you run out of provisions while you are at sea? do your men start to starve like they are in a starving region?

The current version looks simple enough. It would be nice if we can get this to other islands too not just BT. :)

[Anaris]

I like this.

Simplifying it to the bare essentials helps to make sure that we don't have to worry about the, by this point, clichéd problem of ship-to-ship combat. My brain is telling me there might be better ways to handle the debarkation rules, but I don't have any fully-formed ideas yet, so I'll just say generally that I think we need to look carefully at those.

The second thing that immediately occurs to me is the question of communication. Can one communicate with other people in the same "sea zone"? I presume one can still communicate with one's other, normal message channels (to do otherwise would both introduce irritating complications for the code, and make traveling by sea extra-super-mega-boring).

Finally, what (if anything) do we do with the existing bridges, such as those between Santoo and Orz and between Ciarin Tut and Garuck Udor? (East-central Dwilight) My first instinct is just to say "make those the borders of zones; they can be traveled through perfectly safely," and ignore the worries about what sorts of bridges and ships might actually work with that system in the milieu. :)

[Geronus]

I have one question though, what happens when you run out of provisions while you are at sea? do your men start to starve like they are in a starving region?

I would assume so, and that would in any case be my preference versus something more complicated.

Overall I like this concept outline and I honestly would not change much, if anything that Tom wrote. Having some restrictions on cavalry makes sense. Same with siege engines. Some points to consider:

1. Would there be a way to tell in advance of embarking what your available points of debarkation are? How will route finder work with sea zones?

2. How will scouts work with sea zones?

3. What happens when enemy armies are in the same sea zone?

Regarding the third point, I vote that they both ignore and are invisible to each other. Naval combat is too complicated. Regarding the others, I think that this idea introduces some major changes to strategy in the game. It should correspondingly be thought of from the standpoint of game balance. For example, if you cannot scout sea zones at all, it creates the possibility of surprise naval landings behind the front lines of a war. Small unit groups could sail up and down a coast looting and be very hard if not impossible to catch since you can't see where they're going every time they go back to sea.

[Anaris]

1. Would there be a way to tell in advance of embarking what your available points of debarkation are? How will route finder work with sea zones?

This is a good point. One possibility would be to have, in every region with a harbour, a list of all the regions with harbours, either within X miles or on the whole continent, accessed close to the place where you embark on the ship.

2. How will scouts work with sea zones?

Tom has already stated that you cannot scout from within sea zones. I see no logical reason to allow scouting sea zones from land regions.

3. What happens when enemy armies are in the same sea zone?

I think they should be able to see each other (as per my communication point above), but not interact beyond basic communication.

[Tom]

1. Would there be a way to tell in advance of embarking what your available points of debarkation are? How will route finder work with sea zones?

My current idea is: No.

This adds both an element of uncertainty and the importance for having scouts on the land side to tell you about possible landing locations.

The route finder will ignore sea zones entirely.

2. How will scouts work with sea zones?

They will drown.

3. What happens when enemy armies are in the same sea zone?

Nothing. I am with you on that, the seas are big, so armies would just pass each other by and we will ignore naval warfare.

One thing I am considering is that region lords can spend money to a) patrol and b) blockade their coasts. Patrols would tell you about ships passing through while blockades would deny passage to enemy navies. But those are ideas for the future and will definitely not be part of a first implementation. Basically, the concept is to keep ships and navies abstract.

[Uzamaki]

1. I know we will use provisions just like in starving regions, but will it be the same rate of provision decrease, less, or more?

2. I assume we are throwing Lakes into the rivers category of 'to be determined at a later date if this works out'?

3. I am assuming traveling over sea will be a slow process, since now we will be able to travel across the continent as long as we have the provisions to do so?

4. If a city does not have a harbor, will an enemy realm still be able to attack that city?

[Marlboro]

I am all for anything that makes it so that Golden Farrow isn't blowing half its tax income on do-nothing militia.

2. I assume we are throwing Lakes into the rivers category of 'to be determined at a later date if this works out'?

Assuming there's a city with a harbor on the lake, right?

4. If a city does not have a harbor, will an enemy realm still be able to attack that city?

Sure, but they won't be able to bring siege engines or cavalry.

[Perth]

This sounds really cool.

Honestly, this has the potential to be one of the biggest changes to the game in recent memory.

What this could do to warfare and strategy is huge, as well as hopefully help give some leverage against those nations conveniently tucked along the coast with only ocean on 3 sides.

However, because of how unpredictable and unable you would be foresee a naval landing because you can't scout sea regions, wouldn't everyone just automatically tear down their harbors during wartime to remove the possibility of sea invasion?

[Anaris]

This sounds really cool.

Honestly, this has the potential to be one of the biggest changes to the game in recent memory.

What this could do to warfare and strategy is huge, as well as hopefully help give some leverage against those nations conveniently tucked along the coast with only ocean on 3 sides.

However, because of how unpredictable and unable you would be foresee a naval landing because you can't scout sea regions, wouldn't everyone just automatically tear down their harbors during wartime to remove the possibility of sea invasion?

   

• Armies can land in any region that is either friendly or has very few defending troops (harbor not required, but a harbor in a friendly region will make it faster)

Tearing down your harbours would be pretty useless, since they'd just be able to land at whatever region they wanted where you didn't have a strong force waiting to repel them.

[Uzamaki]

What this could do to warfare and strategy is huge, as well as hopefully help give some leverage against those nations conveniently tucked along the coast with only ocean on 3 sides.

Suville, OI, Caergoth, D'Hara, and Riombara will be effected a lot by this change... Can't decide if it will be for better or worse though for those realms.

But I agree. Tactically, this is huge. Perhaps the biggest tactical change I have ever experienced(and I am a 5 and a half year member).

Assuming there's a city with a harbor on the lake, right?

Yes.

[Perth]

Hm, I still think you should be able to scout the coastal sea zones, at least. The natural alternative if that isn't provided is to simply sit a single noble out in the coastal zones so that he could at least give a small heads up to an incoming sea invasion.


Nevertheless, this all seems like a great idea to me. The details can work themselves out.

[Anaris]

Hm, I still think you should be able to scout the coastal sea zones, at least. The natural alternative if that isn't provided is to simply sit a single noble out in the coastal zones so that he could at least give a small heads up to an incoming sea invasion.

One thing I am considering is that region lords can spend money to a) patrol and b) blockade their coasts. Patrols would tell you about ships passing through while blockades would deny passage to enemy navies. But those are ideas for the future and will definitely not be part of a first implementation. Basically, the concept is to keep ships and navies abstract.

;D

[Tom]

1. I know we will use provisions just like in starving regions, but will it be the same rate of provision decrease, less, or more?

2. I assume we are throwing Lakes into the rivers category of 'to be determined at a later date if this works out'?

3. I am assuming traveling over sea will be a slow process, since now we will be able to travel across the continent as long as we have the provisions to do so?

4. If a city does not have a harbor, will an enemy realm still be able to attack that city?

   
• yes
• yes
• TBD
• you can not land in defended enemy regions, harbor or not