Sea Travel Feedback

[Chenier]

First, there will be some sort of early warning system, to be developed later. This has been mentioned about 8 times so far.

Second, the fact that you are playing blind is one of the 'fun' parts of the game--uncertainty in combat, and surprise landings/repelled landings--is going to add some new dynamics to the game.

The level of blindness that is suggested is greater than my preference, personally.

We could never know for sure, in land battles, if an enemy army would arrive at the same time we do in any region we moved into. Many moves were forced to be blind as a result. But it was always possible to take one's time to send a vanguard to scout the way for the army, if desired, at the cost of revealing one's travel path. It was pretty balanced, imo.

The possibility of foreign armies dropping on your capital's doorstep, without any form of serious forewarning (more than just when they arrive), does not feel very balanced.

[Tom]

The possibility of foreign armies dropping on your capital's doorstep, without any form of serious forewarning (more than just when they arrive), does not feel very balanced.

Put down militia and fortifications. The losses a landing army suffers if it faces any kind of serious defense are devastating. There's your balance - your enemy is as blind as you are.

[Chenier]

Put down militia and fortifications. The losses a landing army suffers if it faces any kind of serious defense are devastating. There's your balance - your enemy is as blind as you are.

In all of your coastal rural regions?

Spending this much on militia means a whole lot less for the mobile army and other fun stuff, greatly decreasing everyone's offensive capabilities and therefore making war less viable an endeavour.

[Tom]

In all of your coastal rural regions?

Spending this much on militia means a whole lot less for the mobile army and other fun stuff, greatly decreasing everyone's offensive capabilities and therefore making war less viable an endeavour.

Ah, look! Decisions! What horror, you might have to make a choice. Do you defend everything, or just the important regions? How much? At all times or only during war? Do you station militia or keep a mobile defense force to move to where you expect an attack? Decisions, decisions, decisions...

How horrible to not be able to look up the perfect, optimal, tested levelling-up-HOWTO somewhere.

[Chenier]

Ah, look! Decisions! What horror, you might have to make a choice. Do you defend everything, or just the important regions? How much? At all times or only during war? Do you station militia or keep a mobile defense force to move to where you expect an attack? Decisions, decisions, decisions...

How horrible to not be able to look up the perfect, optimal, tested levelling-up-HOWTO somewhere.

We always had to make choices. But never could a huge army arrive on your doorstep arrive in your capital with but a mere's day forewarning.

Are we supposed to plop huge amounts of militia onto every coastal region, draining rural regions of all of their income, only to have them get crushed by an invading force anyways? The answer is most likely no. But then that means that any attacking army will not disembark directly on the capital, nor the doughnut townsland around it if on Dwilight, but on the next rural region next door. Giving absolutely no time for the realm to react.

It's effectively a nuke. A weapon against which there is no defense. Are wars going to be more fun once people start plopping in huge armies next to enemy capitals by sea?

[Lorgan]

Put down militia and fortifications. The losses a landing army suffers if it faces any kind of serious defense are devastating. There's your balance - your enemy is as blind as you are.

It's not that hard to coordinate a land and sea army where the land army destroys the militia, starts a TO and is then guarded from intervention by the threat of a out of the blue reinforcement by sea. I don't mind at all that they /can/ be reinforced so easily, the only issue I have is that it is nigh impossible to know anything about the reinforcements until they've already arrived. Making battles not a thing of planning, but just of stabbing in the dark. The only way to cope with it would be late-turn movements and I don't think that's something to be encouraged.

[Tom]

It's effectively a nuke. A weapon against which there is no defense.

Ask Fissoa how it worked out for them.


And yes, I stopped listening to "this is going to destroy the game" whining about 6 or 7 years ago.

[mikm]

The true problem would not be cities but rurals. Cities are quite difficult to handle as it is. It is much easier to simply loot rurals to the ground and let cities starve out. If the enemy mobile troops don't come in time to stop you their realm is finished. With the new system you can simply hop on a boat when reinforcements come.

[Indirik]

The only way to tell how it will work out, is for someone to try it and see what happens. Until someone really makes a serious attempt to drop troops behind enemy lines and loot, and finds an undefended coastline, we won't know what the effects will be. One incident of GDoF crashing into the rocks doesn't give us enough to go on.

[Chenier]

Ask Fissoa how it worked out for them.


And yes, I stopped listening to "this is going to destroy the game" whining about 6 or 7 years ago.

It's not because it fails for one case that it is impossible.

Falkirk is a one-city realm, for whom it would be foolish to send an army abroad due to the still-existing sea route from the old system and due to the fact they are at war with a neighbor.

On top of that, Fissoa is a relatively small realm, with no big cities or significantly rich regions. Their army is small, and even if Falkirk's army was away it'd be questionnable if they could have taken on Madina city by themselves.

These are not the scenarios that raise concerns. What raises concerns is for the possibility to send 40 000 CS or more, on a realm that doesn't have all of its forces constantly around the capital (either due to being larger, or to be active abroad).

[Penchant]

Put down militia and fortifications. The losses a landing army suffers if it faces any kind of serious defense are devastating. There's your balance - your enemy is as blind as you are.

The enemy only needs to have a unit less noble scout ahead for them, the defenders can not do the same, so the whole the enemy is blind too, is not exactly true.

[Nosferatus]

These are not the scenarios that raise concerns. What raises concerns is for the possibility to send 40 000 CS or more, on a realm that doesn't have all of its forces constantly around the capital (either due to being larger, or to be active abroad).

40 K enemy CS in your realm is indeed something to concern your self off, may it be sea travel or land travel.
Sea travel has a little more of the element of surprise in terms of when the enemy is coming.
But dont forget that sea travel is very very expensive, and still quite a risk even for the attacker.
Besides what an attacker does the defender can do as well, you mention for example the defender to be abroad, that means that as long as the enemy torches your land, you can torch his?
Let us just form opinions like this a bit later on, when we learn more.
Right now we can only make assumptions, and i found yours to be rather extreme right now.

[fodder]

it's expensive and it's not expensive.

eg.. on bt, my 81 sf/3 scout/2 cart/5 healer/5 banner/3demo tools (no idea what cost what so listing it out...) is said to cost 90 gold and take 11 hours to procure and board ships.

now... 6 days' wages for that lot costs 166 gold. If sea travelling is far enough to save say... 3 or days' worth of travelling (that's including stopping at every small region) then it's a bargain. that doesn't even count the equipment damage.

that said.. have to take into account of re-provisioning as you'll have to land and get provision before embarking again.. if the journey is that long. totally forgot how much provision is eaten a day at sea. haven't tried using it to move troops yet. might do that the next time i refit.

[Tom]

These are not the scenarios that raise concerns. What raises concerns is for the possibility to send 40 000 CS or more, on a realm that doesn't have all of its forces constantly around the capital (either due to being larger, or to be active abroad).

If your enemy can project 40k CS abroad, sea travel is the least of your worries. Right now, there is exactly one realm on Dwilight that has more than 40k CS in total, including militia.

Let us just form opinions like this a bit later on, when we learn more.

Exactly. I am fairly sure you will find out soon enough that you don't want to do hot landing zones if you can avoid it.

[Chenier]

40 K enemy CS in your realm is indeed something to concern your self off, may it be sea travel or land travel.
Sea travel has a little more of the element of surprise in terms of when the enemy is coming.
But dont forget that sea travel is very very expensive, and still quite a risk even for the attacker.
Besides what an attacker does the defender can do as well, you mention for example the defender to be abroad, that means that as long as the enemy torches your land, you can torch his?
Let us just form opinions like this a bit later on, when we learn more.
Right now we can only make assumptions, and i found yours to be rather extreme right now.

If you are a large realm, with half of your troops doing stuff in the West, a quarter in the east, and a quarter simply not mobilized for combat, with many of the troops deployed ranking in equipment damage and expecting pay, then the counter-attack idea isn't really a viable plan, and odds are the troops can't race to the capital before the enemy reaches it. And by the time they do, they'll have a smaller and battered force. And should the capital be coastal, odds are the attackers will have started a TO to prevent any use of the walls.

Before, the enemies would have needed to enter by the border. In small realms, the forewarning isn't large, but the troops are rarely far away from the capital. In large realms, that gave plenty of forewarning to rush troops to defend. In addition, the enemy could not conduct a takeover of the capital before effectivelly destroying your realm, meaning you were sure to get some use of the walls sooner or later.

The costs and risks of such an operation limit who can effectively launch it, but doesn't make it much less potent for those who can.


Please note that I am not saying that everyone will be able to do massive damage by sea, but rather that some will now be able to do unprecedented damage by surprise.