I think that is mostly an example. The main thrust of the point I think is that Portability will help us mitigate some of the hidden/not directly obvious effects of our marginal Trails status (See inefficient Support Subordinate action)
As opposed to hauling non-insignificant amounts of goods or people via bigger ships? I think bigger ships will help more.
Actually, we *do* have Heroic Admin leader at the moment, so...
@Academia Nut , which boat upgrade would allow us to best communicate with our marches?
I brought up China to point out the advantages in a strong river trade system because people were flat out ignoring it. The rest of it is completely fucking irrelevant.
No, the rest is not irrelevant at all; it just is an evidence which contradicts the thing you are pushing for, thus you really want to ignore it.
China has started out with big ships since ~800 BC and had no problems, and indeed were able to trade all across the Indian Ocean with India and, IIRC, even Zanzibar, though I am not sure avout that. Not in BC, sure, but without starting in suxh a direction it will get harder to shift gears and mindsets into seafaring.
So, uh, China is a historical example how damn useful focus on size can be. Now you can make a decision with a little more facts and less one-sided propaganda and bullying people into agreement, folks.
And to play Other Side Advocate for a second here, as a voter for Portability as well, if we build big we can still make smaller ships.
The point that it influences our longer term design is mitigated by the fact it's long term, in my mind. As time goes by we will be given opportunities to change any design we make, since they won't be perfect. Long term we are gonna end up trending though the Size, Speed, or Portability tech trees.
That's a good point, but I think AN's reply meant a little more finality in the degree of influence.
But I also want the exploration mission to the not!Egypt - if we get the long-distance sea trade going before others, we can dominate a local trade on both sides by goods from the other region. Pulling a Carthage via early mover advantage.
To be fair, portable boats can indeed be beneficial to a somewhat bigger degree than size for infrastructure, but their lacking in long-distance bulk transportation outweighs it for me.
Basically, this seems to be a sort of:
Speed - war, couriers and exploration.
Size - trade, transportation, exploration and war.
Portability - inland ability to pass terrain, trade, raiding.
Having portable boats means we can reach further than anyone, which means the Hathatyn river system can be utilized fully to either wage war, map the environment (basically survey the lands), and/or establish contact with land-locked civs (or ones that don't have access to our sea).
Not further - that's size or speed - but deeper. And bigger ships will allow to better utilise sea just as portable ones will allow to better utilise rivers.
