Possible Mercenary ships...

[Irishmafia2020]

I am suggesting that Mercenary ships be recruitable in EB2. I know that they are not available in EB1, but I think that a faction that does not control a military dock should still have access to the occaisional basic troop transport - for enough money anyway. This could be even more important considering that EB2 will have new factions, who's small size and location prevents them from occupying key naval installations. That is all just a suggestion, but a doable one...

[antisocialmunky]

Back in the day, basic troop transports were just impressed civilian vessels.

[General Appo]

Which is why basic transports should historically be available everywhere. Only problem with that is that they actually have a chance of making it somewhere, since the AI doesn´t always have a fleet ready to intercept.

[antisocialmunky]

Which wasn't that uncommon.

[General Appo]

No, but succesfully moving an entire consular legion from Capua to Africa by unsupported transport ships was.

[eggthief]

Yeah AI ships seem to be sailing into random directions.

[Hax]

Please do!

*worship*

Perhaps, this will make the Casse also get some boats and go insane on the mainland!

[Mithridates VI Eupator]

I agree!
There was a sad lack of naval landings in EB1, (and in Rome, for that matter), which made the geographical advancement of certain factions both predictable, ahistorical, and limiting for the factions progression.
If there are transport vessles readily avalible, we can hope to se both Roman landings in north africa, Greek colonization in the mediterranean area, and Sabaean intervention in ethiopia, on a grander scale than before. Not to mention what those new mystery factions might be up to, colonization-wise. Who knows...

[Watchman]

The main problem in EB1 is that the strategic AI of the game engine is plain stupid and doesn't use its available naval assets for anything much, nevermind something so clever as naval invasions. Playing with the BI.exe apparently helps somewhat, not that I would know the difference since I did that from the start anyway.

[antisocialmunky]

Yeah, but BI replaced naval stupidity with amphibious stupidity. Something about lobbing all your FMs on me and having me kill them eventually killing the enemy faction. Atleast the AI was somewhat good on land, with the amphibious invasions, they just burn all their units sailing across water to suicide against the same city over and over again.

[Irishmafia2020]

As important as this feature is to the a.i., I was thinking that it would be useful for the player as well. For example, a migration campaign might be possible with the purchase of a mercenary transport at the beginning of the game. I am actually bringing this topic up because I played as Sabyn and I could not get to Ethiopia until I captured and upgraded the right city. Since I did not know that, I played for fifty years before I asked someone on the forum and I was told where the port was. Now assuming EB2 has new factions, they should have access to the occasional transport even if they do not control a major port. For example, the Mauritanians or Illyrians (I am speculating here) might not control a major military port, but a human player playing as those factions would want to have a merc transport to raid other factions with, even if the a.i. misuses it. This might even be historical for some factions, like the Illyrians - who were never a true military power, but who were famous as pirates. Also, I tend to disband my navy in the first few turns if I have one, and a merc ship, even if high priced, can make a useful temporary appearance. Finally, A ship takes two turns to build, and a merc could be a lifesaver if you are trying to get out of dodge because you stirred up trouble by sacking Rome for the easy money, and now three legions are chasing you down the coast... Time to spend some of that money and make a getaway! - Which is not an option if you have to wait two turns to build a boat and then send it on a rescue mission...