Main issue with water that I can see is that (a), every map is a giant Pangaean continent, and (, city spots can't be planned and are chosen based on what the random map generator offers you. You can't in any way be guaranteed a settleable city spot next to the water, making sea units a sometimes thing at best.

The latter part of that isn't even true for the simple fact that all maps I have generated have had numerous choke points between water, whether they be inland seas, lakes, or a bizarre semi-ocean.  This means that you're forced to go thru these almost too common isthmus that is sometimes occupied by an enemy or dangerous creep.  This effectively means you cannot explore and forces you, in some instances, to turtle because there's quite simply no way around this obstacle because we lack the technology to create boats with oars and/or sails beyond the rare mercenary ships found on certain maps.

As to the first part of that quote, rivers are in no way guaranteed for colonization either, but docks and other river upgrades exist that benefit cities founded near a river.  Not true for lakes, seas, and oceans.  Why is that?

Lastly, I'd like to point out that the official maps of the world of Elemental typically have a very wide inner sea that isn't traversable (with the exception of the mercenary boats) and therefore you're forced into the northern connecting isthmus to even explore the other continent.  It's quite a glaring omission to me and given that we're now on the third game of Elemental, I honestly don't see the reasoning behind not having any gameplay connection to the water beyond rivers.

Boats of their technology should be able to travel through rivers just fine. If you can produce transports that can hold/move an army and have decent MV and rivers connect to the sea reliably or into a central lake and branch out, then they could be a pretty powerful utility. Not sure if I am a fan of having islands if boats will cause bottle necks in gameplay. Or attacking armies in transport are taken out by naval vessels.

I wish there was an option when starting a new game to just turn off water. It would be cool to play a big open map (in the middle of the continent if you need a rationalization). With only mountians breaking things up.

You can use the Raise Land spell to do some tricky things, like building a bridge.

It's not necessarily making it AI friendly, as their isn't a good solution to the how to use the boats problem. Loading troops into boats is tedious, and having the units magically turn into boats seems funny. The boats with the AI is not really the problem, it's more on how to implement the passage with boats, and so far the devs don't like the options that are currently available.

We are playing a strategy game and some interaction with the ocean by ships or something similiar is really another depth to the game itself. It should be a nobrainer that when there is water and ocean that there are ways to use and interact with it. The only possible way up to today is by ignoring it and raising land bridges, which is not exactly adding anything to the game except "unpassable" terrain.

In all of the human history oceans played a big part. And especially in a world full of magic, the ocean itself should be something were magic happens. It should be travable (by magic or ship) and there should be monsters and city improvements.

It should add another depth to the game by giving ocean cities another point except "you can only reach this city from one direction".

Other games in this genre have this feature. That alone should be enough to at least see the possibilities.

And you think there are no compelling arguments for including something already existing and I mean massively existing in those generated worldmaps into the game itself!

I am positive you wont change your mind through anything I could even dream of posting.

The variety of mobs and gameplay elements that could be included in the sea and cities near it and even the sovereign's skills would make the game so much more fun to play in ways even you should be able to grasp.

I would like to see something done to interact with the ocean tiles, but I think that would be better left as an expansion/mega patch of its own. It would be a whole new element of gameplay that, while having awesome potential, will only detract from the experience if implemented poorly or partially.

Once Legendary Heroes is finished being ironed out, I would be super excited to see focus shift on to the potential for sea/water interaction, lost isles, sea beasts, etc.

The is the Groundhog's Day of Elemental Forum Post.  We've talked about it and talked about it, and there is nothing new here.

This is a response I made from about 18 months ago.

 And another

So the status quo seems to be, boats and water are hard or I don't personally care so lets not add them.

Is that really the reason against this?  This reminds me of the multiplayer debate where people saying just because they personally don't play multiplayer, the game shouldn't ever have multiplayer.  Right.

Okay, so let's take this one at a time:

There's nothing new because nothing has been done about it.  And the very fact that it is brought up repeatedly is because it is a feature people want.  Passing it off as something marginal that won't add anything to a strategy game is ignoring what a strategy game is meant to be, a game about options.  What are our options currently if we're locked in around water?  Control+N until you're not?  Mad dash to explore and hope you're not boxed in by a player or strong/deadly/epic creep?  It makes no sense to argue against freedom of movement when it fits within the context of gameplay and Civilization does this quite well while still limiting the player by having different depths of water your ships can traverse, not to mention having other natural barriers like mountains.

Legitimate reasons why boats and usage of water are needed:

-  Freedom of strategic planning.

-  Alternative means of exploration.

-  Alternative means of trade.

-  Alternative means of settlements.

-  Alternative means of warfare.

-  The ability to break out of bad starting locations that lock you around water (a not so uncommon situation).

-  Opening up new map type possibilities.

-  Making use of unused areas in pre-existing maps (such as the official maps of the world of Elemental where roughly 30% or more is sea).

And that's just off the top of my head.  If water tiles aren't needed for anything, why have them?  If you're not going to use water tiles at all for any benefit, why have rivers?

I think those against this idea are overthinking the concept too radically and therefore are against it.  As for the whole mentality of others of 'just wait for another expansion' are ignoring the fact we're on the third Elemental game with no change to this gameplay (or its lack) mechanic that most other games of this type already possess and have made work.

I'm not disagreeing with any of your points, I'm just saying they have already been made and Stardock is aware of them.