Since nothing about ships was shown in Age of Empires 4 latest trailer, I would like to address some points that (for me) would make a great gameplay:
Types of ships:
Commercial boat (you can trade between your docks and your enemies’s with different rates and options).
Carrier (with capacity for up to 100 light units).
Fisher (classical fishing from Age 2 with both natural and created resources; maybe hunting whales would be nice too).
Warship (many options: light, heavy, tiny, large; be creative Relic).
Behavior of the ships:
If they put ALL the boats and ships (or the majority of them) to fish like Age 3, that would be great.
For getting into the ships, it will be necessary that the units use rope ladders or ramps. Also, it would be nice if the ships did’nt come too close to the beach on the shores.
Weather conditions should make the ships balance AND damage according to the calm/rain/storm.
Docks must have a port for repairing all the ships that come close to it.
Ground units will be able to move certain distances onto the beaches, at a certain deep (specially for getting into the ships).
Battles:
Through archers on boats close to each other
Through infantry jumping on the enemy boat
Cannons in later ages (in the trailer – time: 31 seconds – you can see something glowing on the river at the corner of the screen)
Ships should destroy other ships through crash
All large ships should be hard to destroy. Once they are destroyed, they should be seen on the bottom of the sea, or simply turn into a source of wood if too close to the beaches (that would be nice).
For getting into the ships, it will be necessary that the units use rope ladders or ramps. Also, it would be nice if the ships did’nt come too close to the beach on the shores.
while this makes it more realistic this would be a pain to use in games. loading or unloading troops wouldn’t be easy and make island maps really annoying when you cant offload quickly or retreat in time.
Weather conditions should make the ships balance AND damage according to the calm/rain/storm.
again a realism thing that sounds cool and while I like certain bonuses or penalties based on weather I don’t like damage or anything major. naval combat is already not used that much in age2 we don’t need to make it even less appealing.
I really agreed with this ones. I love all that realistics stuff in a game like random weather for example, but just at the point that slightly affects gameplay without being too complex.
I would love an animation to load/unload units as much as it is faster and not tedious. Storms in the seas in rainy days would be f**king espectacular and epic, as much as it just slows down movement speed a bit instead also damaging your ships regardless where they be. Naval combat as cool as it is, never was too much popular in the game series (except for Age 3 for a while, just for the sake of espectacular naval fights tearing apart enemy ships with your cannons and watching how pieces of ships flew everywhere) and adding random and complex mechanics to it would make that less people goes for it.
I love age of sails, top rank for SOL
(Naval action)
Make difference type ships attack or counter-attack.
Wish AOE4 available for Challenge ship of the line with enemies.
