1.3 RTW Comments

[screwtype]

BTW, one thing I have noticed with 1.3, and that is that you can still blockade an enemy port and not be attacked by that faction's shipping. I blockaded the port of Carthage with just one ship and even though there must have been a dozen Carthaginian ships within an inch of the port, not a single one tried to raise the blockade. How stupid is that.

I also noticed the same silly phenomenon of your ships running into neutral ships during their move and thus having their movement ended for that turn. What the heck is the reasoning behind that? The ocean isn't big enough for two ships to pass each other in the same turn? I missed completing a couple of Senate missions because of this nonsense.

[Red Harvest]

BTW, one thing I have noticed with 1.3, and that is that you can still blockade an enemy port and not be attacked by that faction's shipping. I blockaded the port of Carthage with just one ship and even though there must have been a dozen Carthaginian ships within an inch of the port, not a single one tried to raise the blockade. How stupid is that.

Yes, I've noticed that still seems to be the case. I've not yet had my blockaders attacked.

I also noticed the same silly phenomenon of your ships running into neutral ships during their move and thus having their movement ended for that turn. What the heck is the reasoning behind that? The ocean isn't big enough for two ships to pass each other in the same turn? I missed completing a couple of Senate missions because of this nonsense.

It seems to be that neutral always presents the opportunity for combat, so they "square up." Probably reasonable as it represents a defensive posture against a potential threat.

[screwtype]

It seems to be that neutral always presents the opportunity for combat, so they "square up." Probably reasonable as it represents a defensive posture against a potential threat.

These are six month turns. It makes no sense to me.

BTW the range of ships also seems to be a lot shorter than I remember. I think a ship's range should probably be effectively infinite. Is there a way to mod a ship's movement range? If so, I might have to do it.

[Jambo]

The naval side of BI/1.3 has taken a big dunt with the increase in the pirate spawn rate. Mid-late game there's essentially no AI ships and instead what you have is a multitude of top-of-the-range pirate stacks. Lessen the pirate spawn rate and you find a much more rewarding naval game, blockades and all..

[Red Harvest]

The naval side of BI/1.3 has taken a big dunt with the increase in the pirate spawn rate. Mid-late game there's essentially no AI ships and instead what you have is a multitude of top-of-the-range pirate stacks. Lessen the pirate spawn rate and you find a much more rewarding naval game, blockades and all..

I'm at mid game as the Brutii, and I've swept out the pirate fleets with triremes. I have oodles of money. There aren't that many pirates in the eastern med. The pirates were more a problem in the central med from what I've seen so far.

I like the pirate fleets as a threat to me, but they are clobbering the AI early on. Historically, those pirate fleets were a big problem. Unfortunately, battles on the seas are still not decisive...arrggg. I have to beat the same stack half a dozen times to kill it.

What is still missing is weather on the sea. The real world enemy at sea is the weather. The weather destroyed several huge Roman fleets during the 1st Punic War, full of troops too! The losses were absolutely staggering, the equivalent of losing Cannae several times...and this when Rome was a much smaller power.

I've been seeing a number of small "stranded" AI fleets carrying armies. They sit in the same place for many turns. I think what is happening is the area they want to take is too well defended, so they sit in limbo. (In this campaign the Scipii never could take Syracuse for example.)

And of course we need a naval scale adjustment so that 1 bireme or 1 trireme can transport a single unit of infantry, or 2 of them can haul one cav. Larger boats (two turn builds like quinquiremes) would be allowed to haul more. I'm going to have to use this sort of rule for my own actions to keep the game challenging. (Also should take more than 1 unit to blockade the larger levels of ports.)