I find amphibs are better on maps that dont have so much sea.

>I find amphibs are better on maps that dont have so much sea.

This is exactly my point! By definition, Amphibs should be good on land and sea. If you think they suck on sea maps, there may be some necessary balance changes.

That's not what I mean. I mean, the whole point of adding amphibs was to make the sea game more dynamic and to give allow better assault of land by sea units. By saying that amphibs are best on maps with little sea, we've missed the point of adding them in the first place. Instead, we just have another land factory that should be balanced around land gameplay.

Want to make sea more dynamic? Balance amphibs around THIS map type. This map combines all the major types of sea play:

Deepwater sea (all around sides)
Shallow island-hopping sea (middle)
Sea-to-land assault (big land masses)

Porky Islands is another one that sort of fits that desicription, but true to the name is tends to have too much porc.

The problem with this map is that the sea is too large. Ships and hovercraft speeds really come into play here. Because the whole map is ringed in sea, the distances are simply much greater than the land distances, not appropriate for slow amphibs, who are more suited to island or stream hopping. While the shallows allow torpedo and water tank usage, the amphs are never fully submerged, meaning amph gameplay is not seeing its potential with floating units and stealth.

Enforcer + battle ship + carrier can hold center better.

Then I ask again: what's the point of amphibs? Center seems like PERFECT island-hopping scenario that amphibs were designed for. If ships still hold better, why would I ever want amphibs?

Wait you want a replacement for ships........

They are not bad but any land unit can do shallow-water. Scallop can be countered in a large flat shallow area.

>They were designed for deep water now? I think they were designed for coastal areas and flanking.

This is my point. It seems like either

A)We never laid out exactly WHAT they were supposed to accomplish,
B)We laid out that they should be good at deep water, which seems dumb since hovers and ships already accomplish that,
or
C)We laid out that they should be good at coastal/shallows and instead balanced them around deep water, which is also bad.

Maybe this needs its own thread, but this map seems EXACTLY like the type of map that I would have designed amphibs around. Some shallows, some backdoor exploits, island-hopping, and the ability to decently assault land forces once you expose a vulnerability. Instead, we end up with a unit that sucks vs both ships AND hovers in deep water. Scallop is the only unit that is any good as a pure land unit and it still loses handily to mace.

What are these units supposed to do again?

Deep water, not 'out at sea'. Steep coastlines (with their slope tolerance). I don't mean blue comet, i mean steep enough shores that they can actually submerge. They are not designed explicitly to operate primarily in ankle-deep water (Though I did get google to lower the archers intake valve to his feet for this reason). The floating mechanics, and separate torpedo OR land weapon is designed for being in fully submerged water.

I really HOPE that the Scallop being able to fire both weapons in ankle-deep water was NOT explicitly designed and balanced for by Google. Because I'd say that was poorly done. Each weapon alone is very strong.

Of COURSE they are meant to work on the same kinds of maps as hovers and ships. They're a third factory to add to the restricted sea-game lineup.