Happy with the decision made?

[christof139]

Sure, but that makes sense if they're actually doing a fairly realistic sail-based naval combat engine. The AI has to be designed to work with those tactics. Once you get into Ironclads you're in the age of Steam. You can point the ship in any direction, and wind-based tactics don't matter. It's a whole other tactical situation, which implies a different tactical AI to develop.

I'd go for that Ancient/Medieval naval game too. The boarding/ramming action would be fun, and we'd get to play with Greek Fire! Probably more of a niche market thing though, so I understand why they did this as their first naval combat engine. If they get this right (I'm naturally skeptical but I hope I'm proven wrong), then it can be easily adapted to an expansion or later game with steam powered navies, or a mix or sail and steam. Internal combustion powered ships are much easier to model than sailing ships and tactics.

The same game engine within the same game could handle both sail and steamships, it would be a simple matter of having the steamships not affected by the wind too much if at all, and that would be done by simply coding it into the unit stats etc.

So, I'll wait until these things are done.

For large ancient battles involving hundreds of ships per side, a scale of 1 model/sprite to 5 actual ships might work, as this way you would get the tactiacl feel of such a sea battle, and a land combat game engine could be adapted for use. So, you would have a unit of 5 Triremes as compared to 60 Infantrymen, or 10 Biremes/Liburnians/Uniremes/Hemiolas/Dhows/Knarrs/Whatevers. This could easily be done, but I think it is a matter of just how many customers would appreciate it. If you mantion the word 'Economus' to most people, they probably would think you are speaking of the Greek God of economy or the economy itself in one manner or another.

Chris

PS: @FreedomO.: Actually the Gauls and Germans frequently and usually advanced in serried ranks at a steady pace until they got close enough to the enemy to initiate a charge. They even held their ranks on the defensive in a very disciplined manner and this is documented in several original sources. They weren't idiots but did not have the smaller and more flexible units of the Romans, but they didn't start a charge 200 yard/meters away from the enemy as that would tire them out quickly, and they were very familiar with warfare.