Races, Units, Buildings

[Nelphine]

Actually that would be fair. Have wraithform cancel transportation.

Wouldn't solve flight, but at least that's uncommon. Could make flight when used on ships, set the speed to 3 (instead of at least 3) as ships are big and hard to maneuver with the same amount of magic. Could even set it to 2.

[Bahgtru]

Eh you can move earth elementals...

Seravy said it's impossible to cancel transportation, but it can just not work on transport and the same is basically achieved, I don't think that WF ships are tactically so important. Ultra minor nerf to death I suppose.

[Seravy]

We don't want to disallow sending wraithformed ships attacking enemies. Ghost ships are a fantasy staple, it's very hard to justify disallowing them for any reason. Losing transportation would be fine but it's impossible.

[Nelphine]

Can we replace the unit entirely, with another unit? (In the same idea that we use raise dead to get undead swordsmen from swordsmen, except in this case, we get wraithform ships from ships (that have the same experience as the old unit; and if it's dispelled, we get back a ship with the same experience as the wraithform shop had), and therefore we'd need to use up... 5? More unit slots with wraithform versions of transport units, that don't have the transport ability? Maybe only 4, airships are windwalkers so this probably couldn't work with them anyway)

Oh I bet carrying over correct health if the ship (or wraithform ship when dispelled) was injured would be really difficult with that.

[Seravy]

So basically, if the ship has overland wraithform on it, morph it into a different unit type, an identical ship, that has no transport ability? That's doable in theory. But then we'd need 5 units slots for the 5 different transports in the game. That's way too wasteful even if we have that many remaining (which I doubt).

We haven't really determined which of the listed possible problems is the real culprit though - dwarven economy, rarity of wraithform, all 3 spells that enable ships to enter land, having a move 4 transport, or warship being undercosted. This would only be a solution for the second problem of these, but I'm not entirely sure that's the real one. I suspect building up to Maritime Guild takes long enough to research Flight/Chaos Channels anyway meaning it's either dwarf economy, all 3 spells, cost of the ship/building, transport ability or movement speed.

I'm pretty sure warships weren't a transport in the original game, although they most likely should remain faster than other ships - equal speed isn't really good enough for sea dominance.


...I don't think the AI would know how to use a nontransport ship though. The AI pretty much considers "transport" and "sailing movement" identical things. SO a nontransport warship actually is a pretty bad idea.

[Nelphine]

For the AI just don't make ships a valid target for wraithform. I've never seen an AI do it anyway.

For me, my barbarians never build more than 1 triremes. Consider that's pure life, and ship transport is practically mandatory, I'd say darven economy has nothing to do with it. My barbarians usually get one warship before I get my fourth fighters guild, often before I get my third, and even sometimes before my second.

That makes it squarely move 4 transport.

Except with life, a trireme is move 4, so you haven't actually fixed that.

So I think cost is fine because I don't think you can increase trirereme cost, so you can't make warship too high or life is just too much better.

So if dwarven economy is a non factor, you can't fix cost, and speed 4 is either ok, or life is too powerful, and therefore we have to accept speed 4 is ok, then the only possible problem is wraithform/flying ships. In which case, this is a potentially valid solution.

I can't say they're undercosted - but since I use them for transport, not fighting, I'm biased. I'd probably pay 750 for a warship (including maritime guild) and still build it just as fast with barbarians. Overland speed is king.

[Bahgtru]

We don't want to disallow sending wraithformed ships attacking enemies. Ghost ships are a fantasy staple, it's very hard to justify disallowing them for any reason. Losing transportation would be fine but it's impossible.

Yeh but still floating on a river or a lake, not going up a mountain...

...Which actually gives me the idea for another option: why don't you hard-code a special case in WF to make transports not acquire the special ghost movement type?
Or make transport be higher priority than the ghostform if that's how it works.

[Seravy]

So if dwarven economy is a non factor, you can't fix cost, and speed 4 is either ok, or life is too powerful, and therefore we have to accept speed 4 is ok, then the only possible problem is wraithform/flying ships. In which case, this is a potentially valid solution.

Logic doesn't really work like that. Having no solutions to those problems doesn't mean they aren't the problems. It merely means, if they are, we can't fix them.

Or make transport be higher priority than the ghostform if that's how it works.

You mean sailing, there.

So basically, I thought about that before but none of the possible options is acceptable.

If wraith formed ships remain sailing, they can't attack targets on land. This is unacceptable unless we determine the ships are too powerful in BATTLE as well as when used as a transport. But then Flight and Chaos Channels are a problem too - you can research those during the time it takes to build the maritime guild.

If wraith formed ships are noncorporeal but we change movement stacking rules with corporeal units, we can have
-Noncorporeal is what we have now as the result - the ship carries the units so overrides their movement type.
-Sailing would mean the ship can fight or move on land but becomes unable to move together with other units. That's still a problem, you might want to attack with a stack of 4 ghost warships and 3 paladins for example.
-Walking or whatever the rest of the stack can move like allows the ship to move together with the units on land - but then the same stack is unable to enter water, as well as this making no logical sense - the units are STILL being transported and spend no movement points so why would the carried units determine the ship's movement type?

[Nelphine]

Sorry I worded that badly then.

If I can do it with barbarians as early as my second city, then dwarven economy is not a problem.

If life with triremes exists, then speed 4 transport is not a problem - otherwise endurance is vastly undercosted. (However, I have actually argued for endurance to be uncommon before, so I could accept that's a thing). However, since endurance seems to be accepted then speed 4 transport is not a problem. Similarly, since endurance trirenes exist, then warships are not undercosted for their overland speed. (I would pay up to 50% more for warships, but only for the overland speed never the combat ability).
So none of those are problems, unless other things are bigger problems (particularly endurance).

Which leaves military ability is too good for their cost. But since cost is intrinsically linked to overland speed and comparison to endurance triremes, then the cost isn't the problem, so if this is a problem, then they are too good military stat wise. However, if the AI is meant to use them for naval dominance then I don't think the stats are too good.

Which leaves wraithform transport as too good, or wraithform military ships are too good.

If the first, then flight/chaos channel ships may be too good as well.

If the second then the delay required for researching and casting those spells may make it fine, so only wraithform military ships is a problem.

Personally, if the transport is the issue (for me this is the issue), then we continue the discussion on stopping wraithform transports, including possible flight/chaos channel issues.

If the military is the issue, my guess is flight/chaos channel isn't a problem, and so simply having sailing overwrite wraithform is probably the best solution. Unless you could implement that wraithform + sailing only allowed sea or river movement. It would suck to lose ghost ships on land, but you could still get flying ghost ships if you wanted.

[Seravy]

Endurance+Wraith Form together costs 135. That's really expensive for a single transport and the trireme dies easily in combat (although you can easily keep it out of combat while you transport you doomstack, on the way back for reinforcements the ship is alone and will get killed.) so no I don't think that can be compared to the much superior warship (which is 60 MP cheaper to buff, and won't even get attacked unless the enemy already has their own warships - and even if attacked, can fight if needed.). That said, I do use endurance triremes occasionally, but that's definitely not the kind of "I have transports everywhere and attack in all directions" gameplay Sapher is showing and we consider a problem. Having a single stack that doesn't split up much on the ship shouldn't be the problem, having half a dozen boats juggling your units around to kill 4-5 enemy stacks each turn is. But for that purpose casting both spells is quite steep and the trireme's inability to fight is a major problem.

We've already determined the problem is when the player can reach too many AI targets each turn. That means it can only be a problem if the ships are spammable, and probably also need to be strong in battle.

So yes in the end I agree that we need to figure out if the military power or the transport ability is the problem first.

I don't agree with the conclusions though.

If military is the problem, for military use the ship has to be a warship and has to be spammable. Dwarves definitely can build them faster and spam more of them than Barbarians. I don't think your "I can do it with barbarians" refers to actually beating the game using warships only, it merely refers to building some for transportation. If, and only if, you beat the game using military warships, without or with only minimal help from berserkers, then you can say the economy can't be a problem.
So I say in this case there is a 50-50 of it being the dwarf economy or the stats on the ship. (which are pretty much identical to the Carrack which we had to nerf. The difference is for Lizardmen they had no economy boost, instead the ship itself was cheaper and had less building requirements.)
Both of these have fairly clear solutions - either disallow the ship for dwarves, or reduce the stats.

If transport is the problem, then I agree we likely need to stop wraith form ships, but we might also need to stop flying and chaos channelled ships. Those spells are more expensive, but even though you need multiple transports, you don't need as many as for military use.