Simulating naval boarding in ancient times

[TorpedoA]

I need a sea unit which is able to hold land units to make amphibious assaults while some of the those land units have the capability to have influence on a sea battle if present, additionally to be amphibious attackers. The sea unit of course isCombatTransport.

Think of a galley in ancient times which is involved in a sea battle and their specialized marines on board are somehow enhancing the sea battle outcome, by archery and then naval boarding while keeping the ability to do amphibious assaults.

Afaik, the only way to accomplish that would be that the land unit has both, transportCost AND carrierCost while the Galley has transportCapacity AND carrierCapacity.

Furthermore, to complicate things, i want to have air battles beforehand, in which both the combat transport/carrier and the marines are partizipating, which you can think of as a simulation of a ranged combat battle phase, before the melee type boarding or ramming will take place.

But i guess this is not possible in exactly that way?

<attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="Galley" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
<option name="attack" value="3"/>
<option name="defense" value="3"/>
<option name="movement" value="1"/>
<option name="isSea" value="true"/>
<option name="airAttack" value="3"/>
<option name="airDefense" value="3"/>
<option name="canAirBattle" value="true"/>
<option name="carrierCapacity" value="6"/>
<option name="transportCapacity" value="6"/>
<option name="isCombatTransport" value="true"/>
</attachment>

<attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="Marines" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
<option name="attack" value="1"/>
<option name="defense" value="2"/>
<option name="movement" value="1"/>
<option name="airAttack" value="1"/>
<option name="airDefense" value="1"/>
<option name="isMarine" value="true"/>
<option name="carrierCost" value="3"/>
<option name="transportCost" value="3"/>
<option name="canAirBattle" value="true"/>
</attachment>

Any thoughts and help much appriciated.

[beelee]

@torpedoa not quite sure what you're after but can you use the
<option name="isAAforCombatOnly" value="true"/>
<option name="targetsAA" value="whatever you want it to attack"/>

It'll attack before regular combat though. Also, I've recently read where it's not AI friendly.

[Hepps]

@torpedoa As far as I know no cargo of a transport can participate in combat. So any unit that has a transport cost would never be part of a naval battle. The only way for non naval units to be part of a naval engagement would be if they were air units and on a "transport" that was actually a carrier.

[TorpedoA]

@hepps
Ok thanks.
So i have to decide between either carrier units to have sea battle partizipation or transport units for amphibious assaults.
As all other units are transportable not matter what, i will try to make one unit a carrier unit then.
If the AI will use it, i consider it intresting enough. Because i only have 1 single sea unit each nation and no real isAir units. Thats boring enough.

[Hepps]

@torpedoa Now the one thing I have never tested is making the same vessel both a transport and a carrier together... so theoretically a ship might be able to be both at the same time.

The only things (if it works) is that you would likely need to make the Marine and Archers purely consume Carrier capacity. Thus meaning that your galley would likely be able to carry one of those 2 units AND however many of the normal units as cargo (depending what the transport capacity is)

You could test to see whether a unit with both transport cost and carrier cost will consume both spaces and still participate in the naval battle... but I have never tried it and I'm not sure what effects it might have.

[TorpedoA]

@beelee
Thanks for that, but i rather skip AA entirely for now.
I have air battle and land battle, enough for me atm.

[TorpedoA]

@hepps
Oh yes. Thats a point. I will try that.