Submerge?

[Sorrow]

Naga and Mermen? It would be useful, not enough deep water to break balance I don't think. Would make more sense.

[Urs]

I don't think nagas can breathe underwater.

On the other hand, it makes sense, but it does seem a bit tough to balance.

[Erk]

Mermen could really use a submersible unit. I've always found it bizarre that they can't submerge... but it would imbalance them relative to the naga at present, which should not be able ot submerge.

This is one reason for introducing new aquatic terrains. I imagine, for example, that naga might be able to hide in a sargasso sea among the kelp, while mermen would be free to dip in the open water.

[Turuk]

I would say mermen too, and I agree with Erk, tying this to his idea for new terrain for deep water and the possibilites it opens for water-based combat, giving them proper abilities would add a whole new realm to the strategy needed for maps with any significant amount of water.

[Weeksy]

Heh... the only water unit with submerge is the EE Naga Depthstalker, who also gets backstab (and is fairly worthless IMO), who guards the caves of young nagas (which seem to be underwater, but that doesn't make any sense to me, as the normal naga description says they have to breathe air)

[MDG]

It's been suggested before earlier this year and was rejected. Old topic here.

[Sorrow]

Figured it would have been suggested before, seemed to obvious. Seems like submerge on Undead is such a waste. Useless in MP and you really have to try to make the map geared toward submerge in campaigns. ah well.

[Erk]

It's been suggested before earlier this year and was rejected. Old topic here.

Not exactly...

The best way to get such proposed changes into a development version is to make an era with the change. People can then test it and see if they like it in practice, not just in theory.
Until someone does that, this is, so to speak, dead in the water.

With some more deep water terrains added, most of the arguments in that thread could be invalidated. If mermen could submerge in, only, say, deepwater trenches and doldrums, while naga could hide in sargassum (or had some other bonus: maybe a Sylvan Spark kind of regeneration in sargassum?) the balance of MP would be preserved on existing maps simply because those terrain types would not yet exist.

[YbeRn00b]

The mermen submerge was not rejected.

Multiplayer developers wanted someone to try it out outside the official develope version before a final call was made. Unfourtainly I've been unable to do this. If someone set up a map or two and want to try it out, feel free to add my msn, and I'll join the testing.

[irrevenant]

Hmm, seems to me that if we put this idea together with this one we might have a win.

From the other discussion, the big problem seems to be that Submerge would be unbalancing on maps that have a lot of open water. Especially since Mermen already fight well and move rapidly on that terrain.

So how about adding sandbars and reefs to that water? This would effectively make parts of the water shallow and drive mermen to the surface. Passing through the hex wouldn't slow them down, but if they wanted to remain submerged they'd have to take the time to go around.

As a bonus, this is a purely graphical change. Basically it just provides an explanation for why there's shallow water out at sea.

[EDIT] Oops, looks like Erk beat me to it! Ah well, the point stands.

Additional terrains would be great IMO, but if that seems too drastic a change, just adding shallows out at sea would do a lot. Even if Mermen aren't given submerge it'd liven up the map.

[MDG]

It's been suggested before earlier this year and was rejected. Old topic here.

Not exactly...

The best way to get such proposed changes into a development version is to make an era with the change. People can then test it and see if they like it in practice, not just in theory.
Until someone does that, this is, so to speak, dead in the water.

With some more deep water terrains added, most of the arguments in that thread could be invalidated. If mermen could submerge in, only, say, deepwater trenches and doldrums, while naga could hide in sargassum (or had some other bonus: maybe a Sylvan Spark kind of regeneration in sargassum?) the balance of MP would be preserved on existing maps simply because those terrain types would not yet exist.

Yes exactly, see below and also note that Darth Fool is not an MP dev.

The mermen submerge was not rejected.

Multiplayer developers wanted someone to try it out outside the official develope version before a final call was made. Unfourtainly I've been unable to do this. If someone set up a map or two and want to try it out, feel free to add my msn, and I'll join the testing.

The Merfolk submerge proposal was rejected.

Only one MP dev posted in the topic.... Noy. I have quoted both of his statements exactly and emphasised the most important parts...

Actually I disagree. First off the difference between the Wose and the Skel to this situation is that the Merman has very high movement in water, making submerge a far more effective ability. With the Skel, it horribly slow in the water, and difficult to use effectively.
In addition deep water is not like forest in maps. Deep water is often contiguous and made up several hexes. Its very plausable for a fast moving merman to effectively use it to his advantage, far more than a skel or a Wose could ever do so. So in some situations it would make it extremely useful, while in others it would have no effect. Because of how it would skew the balance in the water, it would necessitate an cost increase, but that would be unbalancing for it on the ground, where its fairly balanced.

I think the big loser for this will be the SP campaigns which rely heavily on mermen... this change would have the most effect on the game there, and for little gain overall. I'm sorry to say that myself or the other MP developers can't agree with this addition.

See you don't see all the implications of what you're suggesting. You ignore how the map balancing process has been developed from the unit balance. Maps like Mori 4, Blitz, and plenty of others have built in the ability for water units to be more effective. Now nagas will be far better deals than mermen because the mermen would have to be at 17 gold. Then playing in other maps with plenty of deep water (lagoon?) the merman would be balanced only there.

The problem would be even worse for SP map makers. Ken OH in the first place pointed out how very wrong it could be (Thanks Ken), and its a problem that can't be fixed easily (adding shallow water in a map to make it balance would probably be a greater esthetic detraction than the benefit of adding submerge.)

I can think of a plausable rational for why it shouldn't be added for asthetics.

I'm sorry its not going through, the esthetic benefit is minimal compared to the problems it would create.

The proposal by Erk for new terrains not currently used in default era maps plus a new camouflage ability specifically for those new terrains makes some sense but why would the MP devs add an ability to default era units which has no effect in default era? It would just be confusing.

New terrain plus new units plus new ability... fine.

[irrevenant]

I would agree that Noy, as MP Dev, has "the casting vote", and I agree that he was right to vote down the idea as it stood.

Note the reasons that he rejected it though. This thread is addressing those concerns, which the original thread did not.

Noy even came up with the same solution I did - include shallow water - but he discarded that idea for aesthetic reasons. If you change the aesthetics so it makes sense (by adding reefs and sandbars as types of shallow water) his concerns are addressed.