Lack of sea province features and their disconnect from game systems.

[tulip spindle]

I feel like sea provinces should get features like land one do (I think I saw some rare ones but usually sea provinces are completely empty). E.g. land provinces often get: Gold Vein, Pastures, etc. which makes you prioritize them.

Also I kinda feel like sea improvements are kinda disconnected from the rest of the game in general.
Like when you build land provinces improvements they boost some buildings making it easier to build them.
But sea province only boost one specific port building. You don't get any special province improvement for sea provinces as well...

[exotic thorn]

I would look at sea more like a soft roadblock, kind of like mountains, now that every unit can move over everything just as well
and sometimes you basically need to annex one or two sea provinces to get to that juicy wonder on the other side of the water

[twin pasture]

eh, it would probably be a bad idea to have that as a boost requirement if you are playing land-only map. I'm not really sure whether the water is supposed to be the integral part of play, so not sure how to go about it.

Tbh the embarking and disembarking all the time to do stuff, since city centres are on land, is annoying as hell and I can't say that any AoW game did naval combat all that interesting.

I guess a workaround could be that the water provinces would have same functionality as land provinces, as in have cities and climes and nodes etc, but it would spike the complexity of things quite a bit. Also the usual fare of having borderline OP water creatures will probably have to go as to not wreck overall balance too much.

[crude dagger]

Sea tiles can have oysters and fish, which is fine in terms of tile improvements. They never have magic materials or wonders, and the tiles they do have never seem to be defended enough for me to care about investing in naval units.

[upbeat dew]

I'd love to see at least the ability for some wonders like Sunken City or w.e here and there ... almsot aesthetically if nothing else like all the other entires. Embarking is actually really useful (on the two maps I've played) as its an exceptionally fast lane to reinforce and offensive ... what iw as expecting is that "speed" be at risk to roaming bandits, environment events/hazards (like total war?), maybe temptation to explore a bit along the way, but ultimately it was just empty and I just rushed troops straight to the frontline and rekt them

Maybe a dlc later will add a bunch of POIs at least and some naval intrigue, but i agree its secondary no doubt, but doesn't "need" to be if its done right

Also a searoaming bandit leader would be a fun trope? Would need tomes around naval, world map and seafaring... maybe like enchantment for naval speed buffs, sea creature summoning [on water], and race tranform to enable swimming and/or no (or reduced 50% movement isntead) turn delay when embarking --- make it easier if you want to try and play for naval dominance and max map mobility for water maps

[tulip spindle]

eh, it would probably be a bad idea to have that as a boost requirement
I mean you could do it so there would be 2 possible boost routes instead of one.
Like rn some gold income related building requiring a gold mine or a food ones requiring farms. You could do it so alternatively you could have ports instead for food or something.

[tulip spindle]

Yea, sea wonders is another thing that is asking to be added in the future.

[upbeat dew]

Just to contradict myself, But I just played through Story 2 full of water and took seafaring and eventually a Wind Tome and... its actually totally valid for such maps, the mobility with Favourable Winds to double movement on water (or move as soona s embark) is real. (Same with fishery stacking with the extra bonus from the racial trait) ... foundation is there but still could be made more interesting as i found I didnt buold a single actual naval unit (other than an accidental kraken which soon dispanded). The issue was combat so rarely happens at sea (especially with the AI on Normal at least) and there is little reason to stay on the water other than to clear a few oyster pois and floating stuff. ... after this playthrough definitely think naval could be made more interesting (hazards, wonders, maybe a way for naval bombardment/increased reinforcement range from sea to land as a sneaky way to reinforce in battles and enhance to make use of staying on sea)

[tawny crane]

I'm with c33. Everything water-related seems more like a placeholder for a future DLC than a core part of base game mechanics. It's possible to play a naval game now, and there are a few traits/tomes to support, but it feels like we'll be getting races/tomes/wonders/etc down the line.

[crude dagger]

Eh, none of the DLC descriptions sound like they'd have a focus on water.

[tiny mirage]

Currently underground provinces that are adjacent to water count as a sea province despite been dry land.

Which means you cannot put features on them.

Please fix this, don't need more nerfs to underground.