Sea Zones

[Tom]

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?

Harbors are for embarking. You can land anywhere, provided there are no strong defensive forces.

[DamnTaffer]

This idea is simple and elegant, it also seems well designed to be expanded in the future. Though one thing that nobody has asked about yet; fishing. Would harbors be able to benefit cities through food production in the form of fish?

[Chenier]

Without having read everything, the proposal that units can only offload where there are few enemy troops means that D'Hara, and other isles, would be pracitally invincible.

[DamnTaffer]

Without having read everything, the proposal that units can only offload where there are few enemy troops means that D'Hara, and other isles, would be pracitally invincible.

You'd have to disembark on the rural coasts in boats. I doubt D'Hara could sustain a constant militia in all its coastal rurals and even if it could it'd need to find a way to spot the boats from the rurals and deploy the regions militia in the right area of coastline. Though i've no idea how anything like that would be coded...

[Geronus]

Regarding lakes, I would vote that they be treated like ocean right from the start. The interior lakes of BT and AT are certainly large enough to encompass 2 or three distinct zones. There is nothing I can think of that would make me treat lake travel any differently than ocean travel, honestly, so the only extra consideration is the extra work of adding additional sea zones to the DB.

Some more points for consideration:

4. Travel options. What will happen to, set next destination, field camp and delay travel? Will it be possible to manage arrival times by spending hours while traveling at sea? This is currently a very common method of coordinating arrival times with large groups.

5. Will sea travel time be affected by unit size and/or your current number of wounded, or any other factors that currently affect travel times by land? Will there be factors specific to sea travel?

6. How will priests/adventurers travel by sea? Same way? Will they even be able to?

7. Landings. Assuming you travel to and then arrive in a sea zone, would only the available landing points then appear on your travel page? I.e., if a region cannot be landed in due to enemy forces, will it not appear on the list, or will you simply get an error when you try to land there? This is somewhat important since the presence or absence alone provides information on the potential location of enemy forces.

Without having read everything, the proposal that units can only offload where there are few enemy troops means that D'Hara, and other isles, would be pracitally invincible.

...Excellent point. There are a few areas in the larger BM world that would have similar considerations. The Dark Isle on FEI. Obsidian Islands on EC. The Isle of Madina on Dwilight. Whatever is done, we have to make sure that the game's few true islands cannot simply make themselves invulnerable to attack with enough well placed militia.

Another consideration would be a region like Chaos Temple. If the new enhancement makes it impossible to carry siege engines with you when you travel there, how could you ever possibly attack that place? Or any city/stronghold on an island for that matter? You could land in a rural, sure, but good luck taking down a fortress with no siege engines, I don't care how big your army is.

[Zakilevo]

I think this is where Tom's diversification of SEs come in to play (make big SEs be unable to be carried while stuff like ladders are constructable in any place?). But that is for another thread.

As for troops defending regions, how will that work? How much militia do people have to put to stop people from landing?

[Uzamaki]

How much militia do people have to put to stop people from landing?

Beat me to it. 

[JPierreD]

Harbors are for embarking. You can land anywhere, provided there are no strong defensive forces.

Thinking about most of medieval times the population was kind of too small to patrol and defend all of the coastlines. If one wanted to land somewhere else, provided it was not a tiny island, he would be able to, if he had the ships.

I'd recommend traveling to cost gold (something like the crusades, hiring ships to move your army), and the more defended the region is the more expensive the cost to disembark (as the captains would have to be extra careful on where to land, taking more risks).

Outright blocking disembarking should be expensive and impossible most of the times. That is why the Viking and Moorish incursions where so feared: there was little they could do to prevent them from disembarking, sacking and leaving. Too much land to defend.

Perhaps there could be a small sea-region bordering the coastline which would be permanently seen by the owners of the coast regions. Beyond that there's the mysterious ocean and there would be no way to scout. This would make disembarking a two-turn move.

[Chenier]

Thinking about most of medieval times the population was kind of too small to patrol and defend all of the coastlines. If one wanted to land somewhere else, provided it was not a tiny island, he would be able to, if he had the ships.

I'd recommend traveling to cost gold (something like the crusades, hiring ships to move your army), and the more defended the region is the more expensive the cost to disembark (as the captains would have to be extra careful on where to land, taking more risks).

Outright blocking disembarking should be expensive and impossible most of the times. That is why the Viking and Moorish incursions where so feared: there was little they could do to prevent them from disembarking, sacking and leaving. Too much land to defend.

Perhaps there could be a small sea-region bordering the coastline which would be permanently seen by the owners of the coast regions. Beyond that there's the mysterious ocean and there would be no way to scout. This would make disembarking a two-turn move.

Not all ships can dock everywhere. Not all shores are good for landing. An amphibious attack, back then, was much harder than what can be accomplished today.

[Zakilevo]

Not all ships can dock everywhere. Not all shores are good for landing. An amphibious attack, back then, was much harder than what can be accomplished today.

True. Unless you are vikings, you couldn't land everywhere. Sadly BM doesn't have nice sand beaches!

Maybe make it impossible to land in forest regions?

[Indirik]

If traveling at sea uses provisions like marching, then the max time at sea is 5 days. After that, starvation starts in. You can only reprovision at home, right? So sea travel is going to be short distance, and use up all your provisions before you even arrive.

[Penchant]

If traveling at sea uses provisions like marching, then the max time at sea is 5 days. After that, starvation starts in. You can only reprovision at home, right? So sea travel is going to be short distance, and use up all your provisions before you even arrive.

provisions can be resupplied at any friendly territory producing a surplus, so 5 days of travel, then you need to go home or to friendly territory if you want to resupply. I think it's a good time frame for sea travel.

[Indirik]

So a series of 5 day travels and 10 day waits to gather provisions. Who's going to be first to drop a 30k army deep behind enemy lines?

[Chenier]

True. Unless you are vikings, you couldn't land everywhere. Sadly BM doesn't have nice sand beaches!

Maybe make it impossible to land in forest regions?

I was saying that more in the purpose of justifying why troops couldn't offload if there were too many enemies: because odds are they could get slaughtered due to unfriendly coasts and the overall difficulty of such operations with the technologies of the ages. I'm in favor on troops being otherwise able to offload pretty much anywhere.

[Tom]

There are already trends to overcomplicate things.

SIMPLE is the word you have to keep in mind. So there will be no travel delays, field camps, there will be no effect on unit size or composition. Nothing of that kind matters when you're onboard a ship.

Yes, islands will become strong, but at the same time they will have trouble attacking the continental areas.

I already answered the landing question: If you want to land somewhere, you try it. If there are too many defending troops, the landing operation will be aborted, at the cost of some hours, and you will be told. That is what you will have in "scouting".