I have the following ideas:

Hexagonal map grid: Hexagons model the sphere of influence of a city better than a square. Travel is also more realistic: In Civ3 the diagonal distances are weighted as 1.5 and the orthogonal ones as one. Moving orthogonally still costs a single movement point though.

Timelines: The turn based system works fine for me except that travel time has been warped. Trains travel faster than planes in Civ! I understand that a plane has limited range and train goes as far as the rail goes. But then a plane should be allowed many missions in a turn – or something. I know its hard to get the balance right – but some units simply are not balanced due to the great advantage they give you? That’s why they were invented in the first place! The drawback of airpower is cost (both initial and running cost) and the difficulty of supply to keep aircraft serviceable – that could be included as well.

Battle models: I think its time we use something more sophisticated than a random number generator with attack and defense modifiers. What about a better model? Each unit receives an attack type in addition to only the usual attack strength. All units also have defense vulnerabilities that is better exploited by certain units. The notion that a spearman applies its defense points just as efficiently against a tank as mechanized infantry just isn’t right. Giving a spearman a chance against armor is fine by me – but that chance must be negligible. A unit will have certain attack types according to the weapons it has, and defense according to its protection and defense tactics. In the spearman’s case for instance, it only has a spear and shield. The attack type is a “manual sharp object attack” similar to what a swordsman might have and the defense is very light armor that might stop a barbarian club, but definitely not a tank shell or a tank running storming over a few spearmen.

That brings me to the next point: evasion. A spearman might not be effective against a tank, but it could avoid destruction better than another tank if he hid in the bushes. Infantry would also hide and take a shot at a tank with his RPG only when he thinks he’s not visible to that tank. Squaring off toe-to-toe would be folly.

Group attacks are also not being done the way I’d though they would work. All units in a stack the player selects to do a specific attack must be used (and not the one at a time we do now), and the same goes for defense.

Maybe the battles should occur on zoomed-in grids that are representative of the terrain on that block. All the units selected for the attack takes part. Everything can be kept turn-based, but then at least the power of a big army can be made visible in a battle. It would be great to see my whole army lined up for the battle and use some tactics instead of just commanding each unit to jump into the fray one by one.

One thing I do like about Civ is its way to portray complex interactions of politics, diplomacy and economy in a simple way. That must not change. Some things are just so oversimplified that their essential elements are lost, and the biggest of these is the physics and physical interactions of the world.

But even if I never see these implemented - I still love and live the game and will buy Civ whatever the edition.

Regards

as far as battle goes, I think civ4 should borrow heavily from panzer general. PG has a great turn based combat model, both on its zone of control, movement, unit supply, and attack type. it will be really great if civ4 can get some of the good stuff in PG

I have the following ideas:

Hexagonal map grid: Hexagons model the sphere of influence of a city better than a square. Travel is also more realistic: In Civ3 the diagonal distances are weighted as 1.5 and the orthogonal ones as one. Moving orthogonally still costs a single movement point though.
I've also wanted a map as such. Hexagons are far superior to squares in these sorts of games; the only problem with them is that you can either move north-south or east-west. You can't do both unfortunately.

Timelines: The turn based system works fine for me except that travel time has been warped. Trains travel faster than planes in Civ! I understand that a plane has limited range and train goes as far as the rail goes. But then a plane should be allowed many missions in a turn – or something. I know its hard to get the balance right – but some units simply are not balanced due to the great advantage they give you? That’s why they were invented in the first place! The drawback of airpower is cost (both initial and running cost) and the difficulty of supply to keep aircraft serviceable – that could be included as well.
There's huge support for removing infinite movement of railroads, so it would hopefully be a non-issue in Civ 4 if they change it.

Battle models: I think its time we use something more sophisticated than a random number generator with attack and defense modifiers. What about a better model? Each unit receives an attack type in addition to only the usual attack strength. All units also have defense vulnerabilities that is better exploited by certain units. The notion that a spearman applies its defense points just as efficiently against a tank as mechanized infantry just isn’t right. Giving a spearman a chance against armor is fine by me – but that chance must be negligible. A unit will have certain attack types according to the weapons it has, and defense according to its protection and defense tactics. In the spearman’s case for instance, it only has a spear and shield. The attack type is a “manual sharp object attack” similar to what a swordsman might have and the defense is very light armor that might stop a barbarian club, but definitely not a tank shell or a tank running storming over a few spearmen.
I think this is far too complicated. I've always advocated roles instead (though I did this when I was still active at CDG at not here).

That brings me to the next point: evasion. A spearman might not be effective against a tank, but it could avoid destruction better than another tank if he hid in the bushes. Infantry would also hide and take a shot at a tank with his RPG only when he thinks he’s not visible to that tank. Squaring off toe-to-toe would be folly.
Complication thing again. Spearmen though run around in very clunky and heavy armour, so I don't know if simply jumping into bushes would help much.

Group attacks are also not being done the way I’d though they would work. All units in a stack the player selects to do a specific attack must be used (and not the one at a time we do now), and the same goes for defense.
Group attacks are fine IMO. They aren't perfect, but they it works now gives balance and fairness.

Maybe the battles should occur on zoomed-in grids that are representative of the terrain on that block. All the units selected for the attack takes part. Everything can be kept turn-based, but then at least the power of a big army can be made visible in a battle. It would be great to see my whole army lined up for the battle and use some tactics instead of just commanding each unit to jump into the fray one by one.
That'd be a sweet feature (except the whole actually leading the army thing because some people like me would most likely suck at that and thus this feature would suck also), but unfortunately it would take a lot of resources to do and I'd imagine a lot of people would eventually turn the feature off, especially once full-scale invasions took place with 50 battles per turn.

One thing I do like about Civ is its way to portray complex interactions of politics, diplomacy and economy in a simple way. That must not change. Some things are just so oversimplified that their essential elements are lost, and the biggest of these is the physics and physical interactions of the world.
Diplomacy and Economics could so much be improved for Civ 4, but keeping it simple is the key here.

Some good ideas for Firaxis :thumbsup:

I think the battles now are so long because they occur one after the other. Most battles (for me anyway) occur on one concentrated front and making the units attack consecutively takes time and gets boring to the extent that some people turn off the animation.

I say: rather do a big battle all in one go and get the realism right as well. I would just love watching all the units go at it in glorious 2/3 overhead perspective.

what about octagons? can you make a map with them? then you'd get the full 8 move locations... N NE E SE S SW W NW...

Hexagons, big time! I've waited for this for a very long time too. Using squares should have been over with in the first civ - hexes should have come in with civ2. The squares are so completely outdated now. As to octagons, no, you can't make a map with them because they don't interlock properly.

As far as railroads, I don't support removing the infinite move. First off, it is not as unrealistic as ppl think. Rails allowed massive amounts of men to be moved very very quickly. Also, in terms of gameplay, I think you will all get frustrated NOT having unlimited movement towards the later part of the game, when you are moving many more units. Finally, planes DO NOT travel slower than rails. Nor helicopters. Rebase range (imho it should be unlimited) is usually much, much farther than you can travel on rails, unless you are on an all-land map and control almost all of it. Load a unit to a helicopter and it can rebase, effectively transporting that unit. If you create a transport plane it can do the same thing. The planes don't travel all that far on a single mission, but that's a factor of range, not speed. Carrying troops or bombs or missiles instead of fuel, the planes can't go that far, and then presumably they spend most of their time that turn reloading refuelling and repairing. I do not support removing infinite movement for rails, and I'll be very upset if I don't at least have the option of turning it back on in the editor.

The spearman and the tank thing again. OK, first off, how often do spearmen kill tanks? I've *never* had it happen to me, except with a redlined tank. That would be a small group of tanks that is all shot up and probably has no ammunition, food or fuel and the troops are hallucinating from drinking motor oil and eating rubber. It's not inconceivable that a horde of spearmen could clean that up. But, in order to end this debate once and for all, Civ4 should have all obsolete units that aren't upgraded change graphics and name with each era to make you people happy. Spearmen become Peasant Militia in the middle ages, Town Militia in the industrial age, and Armed Mob in the modern age. That would be the most realistic solution, because let's face it, even the poorest and most backward parts of the world today would not field spearmen in any conflict. The bottom of the military scale in the modern age would be civilians with Molotovs, bombs, and outdated rifles, not spearmen.

I am for some form of revision as regards the combat system, but nothing too radical. Civilization isn't a wargame. If you want a wargame that is extremely realistic, you should be playing a wargame. I don't mind the idea of stacked combat though, which would be simple and encourage the formation of proper armies with different elements (not often was there a force was made up exclusively of archers or chariots - you always had foot soldiers accompanying them).

Here's some stuff I *would* like to see.

-Restore the City View that was dropped in Conquests (understandably) and do it right this time. Not a big deal here, but it would be fun.
-Point and click editor. No more subfolder after subfolder and fooling around in notepad with text files and ini's and checking spelling bazillions of times. Have the editor able to point to animation and icon files and remember paths, preview animations, and enter civilopedia entries. I want all the functions of FLICster and the Multitool built into the editor, not have to open up third party applications and fool around in Windows and Notepad.
-For the Epic Game, stock rules, a longer Ancient and Medieval period, so that there can be real empires and bigger wars during this time.
-Hexes! (I know I already said I like that idea, but I have to say it again, because this is probably the single most overdue improvement).
-Unique city graphics for every civ; or at least, alot more diversity in city graphics.
-Canals and navigable rivers. Or at least canals.
-Offshore strategic or luxury resources. Worker should have to go and build some type of improvement over them, though (like an oil rig), from a ship.
-Resource, and resource trade system, should be overhauled. You should be able to buy a resource you already have for the purpose of trading it; some resources should be limited, that is, activate and use them a number of turns and then they disappear (doesn't need to be default but an editor option would be nice); and maybe, quantifiable resources that only supply X number of cities. Again, perhaps not something everyone would like so I'd say make it an editable option or something.
-Blockades. It should be easier to blockade a port. You shouldn't need to surround every water square next to a port to blockade it. It makes it impractical to even think about blockades as part of an overall strategy, because you'd need hundreds of ships and it would take till the end of an age to get them all in position. Maybe something like, if a warship or sub fortifies within waters that are within city radius, the harbour ceases to function. It still wouldn't be easy to blockade all the ports of a civ with lots of them, but it would make it at least possible to consider as an option, and would be a good way of representing the U-Boat war, or the Union blockade of the Confederacy in the American Civil War.

I say, keep infinite RR, but have RR's cost money per turn AND have each city passed through, by a unit on RR, cost 1 mp. This means that unless a civ has built a heap of costly 'RR's to nowhere', then there will be some inherent limitation to how far a unit can move in one turn on RR! Even more so if each city can only handle X units passing through each turn via RR. Hope that makes sense!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hmm, that might be good. It reminds me too of one other thing: do away with the crazy railroad sprawl by removing the production bonus, and instead bring back double improvements like building farmland over irrigation, so that railroads run in lines, not poured out like spaghetti all over the place.

i don't like the idea of railroads costing points for entering a city... then all you'd do is place an extra 2 railroads around the city and you have a bypass... which means you'd basically have it the same way as it was before... infinite movement.

but at the same time... let's think about it like this... what is wrong with infinite movement on a railroad track?? each turn is AT LEAST a year long USUALLY... you telling me you couldn't go from Miami Florida to Seattle Washington (or even Alaska!) in ONE YEAR on a railroad? i mean... come on...

i like the way railroads are, but i think they should be able to be edited to less for mods and people who don't like it...

I don't like the idea of railroads costing points for entering a city

It's not really historically accurate either. Railroads didn't only affect the speed of troops and supplies to the front, arguably, its biggest effect was in its ability to move much greater numbers of troops to the front, as well as supplies (which allowed much larger armies to be at the front). Roads simply cannot handle the amount of traffic rails can, even today. Dirt roads turn into mud and disappear, pavement breaks.

*Trip pulls his hair out.

The fact that the little box says "1880 AD" one turn and "1882 AD" the next turn means absolutely nothing. All that matters is gameplay. If you wanted things to be "realistic" then you should have infinite land movement ANYWHERE, infinite sea movement ANYWHERE and infinite air movement ANYWHERE.

How much fun would the game be then?

I say, keep infinite RR, but have RR's cost money per turn AND have each city passed through, by a unit on RR, cost 1 mp. This means that unless a civ has built a heap of costly 'RR's to nowhere', then there will be some inherent limitation to how far a unit can move in one turn on RR! Even more so if each city can only handle X units passing through each turn via RR. Hope that makes sense!
Uhhhh, what stops players from just moving units AROUND cities?

Plus, why should it be limited to movement points? Why should Cavalry move so much further ON RAIL CARS than Infantry?

Keep the infinite RR move, but add a 1mp cost for entraining or detraining (loading). For that matter, loading or unloading from a ship should also cost 1 mp. If you want to use it for instant defense then you would need to leave your 1mp units loaded and then they could rush to anywhere your rails go and unload. Meanwhile your 3mp Cavalry could move-load-RR-unload-and maybe move a little more.

Why should Cavalry move so much further ON RAIL CARS than Infantry?



Note that Cavalry don't move any farther than infantry, since there is no movement cost for rail.

The reason they might move farther AFTER they get off the rail:


Trains, moreover, traveled about five times faster than mule-drawn wagons, which not only expedited the delivery of supplies but actually reduced the number of supply vehicles required. Faster travel meant more round trips in a given time, which meant that fewer vehicles were needed to maintain the required flow of supplies (see table 2). Faster travel also meant that cargoes, be they men or supplies, arrived at the front in better condition. Troops traveling by train rather than on foot experienced less fatigue and fewer instances of straggling and desertion, even though the freight cars used for most troop movements were anything but comfortable. Supplies hauled by rail were more likely to reach the troops in useable condition, owing both to the speed of delivery and to the shelter afforded by enclosed railroad cars.

http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/gabel4/gabel4.asp

So troops getting off the rail line are supposed to be in really good condition, and having full move sort of reflects this in a way.

If you read the rest of that article, you'll see why unlimited movement on rails actually reflects the military realities of the railroad revolution quite well. The bunching up at the railheads, the death of the 'interior line' strategy, ease of and speed of reinforcement, and expansion of the possible scope of a front to the operational level are all replicated somewhat in the game because of unlimited movement.

Note that Cavalry don't move any farther than infantry, since there is no movement cost for rail.
I wasn't talking about how things are now, that was in response to people who think that MP should be tied to RR movement.

The reason they might move farther AFTER they get off the rail:

http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/gabel4/gabel4.asp

So troops getting off the rail line are supposed to be in really good condition, and having full move sort of reflects this in a way.

If you read the rest of that article, you'll see why unlimited movement on rails actually reflects the military realities of the railroad revolution quite well. The bunching up at the railheads, the death of the 'interior line' strategy, ease of and speed of reinforcement, and expansion of the possible scope of a front to the operational level are all replicated somewhat in the game because of unlimited movement.
I'm well-aware of how much RRs impacted military strategy, but there are better ways to impliment the change than allowing units to move across the entire map expending 0 moves.

And this is for both realism and especially gameplay purposes.

The ability to move any units anywhere in your emipre instantly completely removes a strategic facet from the game. No longer do you have to worry about the positioning of your troops, you can simply rely on the ability to move any units anywhere in case of trouble. That removes thinking from the game, removes strategy and removes fun.

I think the best solution is to give RRs a certain amount of free moves for every unit, regardless of how many MPs they have. 10 or 12 or 15 tiles along rail and possibly the removal of the ability to attack after moving would help balance it out from the current infinite state.

No longer do you have to worry about the positioning of your troops

But that's exactly what railroads did. You still have to worry about the positioning of troops not connected by contiguous land, but with the advent of railroads troops could be shuttled between fronts far faster than any breakthrough could occur or signifigant advance under fire made. Witness World War I. Railroads were one of the major reasons the lines held. Everyone just railed up to the front, and if there were a problem on another front you could transfer troops all the way across the country to reinforce before the enemy could travel more than a few miles. In World War 2 it got even better: the Nazis were advancing at something like 20 or 30 miles a day in the first few weeks of the attack on Russia, but consider that reinforcements were being railed in at about 30 times that speed. In civ, that translates to being able to move 30 or more tiles in a round. I'll admit, being able to rail across say all of Eurasia is pretty ridiculous, but realisitically, if you control all of Eurasia and have it connected by rail, you've probably already got airports in all your cities which could account for the movement. Get rid of the ability to have infinite land movement, with stacks even, and people will be forced, one by one, to airlift every single unit to get the most out of their round. No thanks!

Also removing the ability to attack after moving on rails would be historically false. Troops coming off a train were much better rested and had more supplies than troops who had to move by road; troops at a railhead were always ready for battle and if the enemy was near the railhead, he could expect waves of attacks. Troops moving overland were far less prepared to attack than those just coming off the rails.

Troops moving overland were far less prepared to attack than those just coming off the rails.

I take it the pun wasn't intended? ;)

The problem is that there are a number of things real generals have to worry about that Civ generals do not. If you have something like infinite movement, then it completely ruins all strategy in the Industrial and Modern eras. In real life you have to worry about morale, logistics, supply, breakthroughs, envelopments, surrendering troops...

In Civ none of that stuff exists, and the game must be abstracted. If you abstract it to the level it's at now and then throw in something like infinite movement, it basically eliminates all strategy - enemy army attacks, move your entire army to that point, kill the enemy. That's all. That's certainly not now war in real life has worked the past 150 years, and particularly today. Because of this you end up with the requirement of using exploits like fort cities and stuff like that in order to make any advance against a non-AI enemy. Wars in the Industrial and Modern eras become COMPLETELY dependent on the number of troops you have. That is not what makes fighting wars fun.

Do you see what I'm saying?

i see and agree... that's a big reason i think it gets boring near the end of the game... but at the same time... i don't like the idea of getting rid of infinite movement... hmmm... i wonder if there would be some other way?

The problem is that there are a number of things real generals have to worry about that Civ generals do not. If you have something like infinite movement, then it completely ruins all strategy in the Industrial and Modern eras. In real life you have to worry about morale, logistics, supply, breakthroughs, envelopments, surrendering troops...

But Civ isn't a wargame. Do you want to do supply lines too? For all your units? Should we calculate how much ammunition they have? The generals do worry about these things, but the leaders do not. They tell the generals what they want done, and if its possible, the general worries about all the details like logistics. Breakthroughs, envelopments, and surrendering troops are abstracted and further, not really affected by the difference between infinite rail and 20 points rail. If you want to play a game that explores these elements in depth, you want a wargame, eg TOAW or something like that. Infinite movement does not "completely ruin all strategy" that's absurd. Are you saying there's no strategy to the later phases of the game??!!??!!? Then try playing at a higher difficulty level!

In Civ none of that stuff exists, and the game must be abstracted. If you abstract it to the level it's at now and then throw in something like infinite movement, it basically eliminates all strategy - enemy army attacks, move your entire army to that point, kill the enemy. That's all. That's certainly not now war in real life has worked the past 150 years, and particularly today.

That's only how it works with 1pt-movement troops and incidentally, that is *exactly* how it worked before the advent of independant armoured forces and deep battle theory. I mean, how else would you like it? The majority of forces being behind the front line, waiting to get to the front, in a modern war? That's not how it worked, except perhaps for the US which had to cross the Atlantic. When Germany and France fought, for instance, almost *all* of their forces came right up to the front. The German penetration behind the lines by going through the Ardennes was only succesful, because there were no troops in the hinterlands, so their advance was completely unimpeded and they could cut off the British and French from their supplies from behind the lines. If most of the army was in transit, they would have encountered too much resistance to do this and would have been stuck making a frontal assault along the Maginot, a la WW1.


Because of this you end up with the requirement of using exploits like fort cities and stuff like that in order to make any advance against a non-AI enemy.

You mean almost like huge troop buildups and very slowly advancing trench fortifications? Incidentally, this phenomena tends to disappear in the game with the advent of armour, and undergoes further reduction with the advent of mobile infantry (APC's) and modern armour, not to mention airpower (at least in C3C with lethal land bombardment).

Wars in the Industrial and Modern eras become COMPLETELY dependent on the number of troops you have. That is not what makes fighting wars fun.

Since the advent of the locomotive and the rifled barrel, and until the advent of mechanized forces, wars WERE completely dependant on huge masses of troops. First you don't like the inaccuracy, and say you want to worry about "morale, logisitics and supply" and now you want it to be fun but not accurate because it takes too long. Think about this too: if your empire is so big that it covers the entire map, and thus makes the infinite move seem unrealistic, do you really want to have to move all those troops to the front line manually? Is that "more fun?" If you get to a point in a game where rail movement is unrealistic, it's also going to be a huge drag not to have it.

But Civ isn't a wargame. Do you want to do supply lines too? For all your units? Should we calculate how much ammunition they have? The generals do worry about these things, but the leaders do not. They tell the generals what they want done, and if its possible, the general worries about all the details like logistics. Breakthroughs, envelopments, and surrendering troops are abstracted and further, not really affected by the difference between infinite rail and 20 points rail. If you want to play a game that explores these elements in depth, you want a wargame, eg TOAW or something like that.
I never said it was a wargame, nor did I say I wanted supply, logistics, etc. included. Maybe you misunderstood my point?

Not including things like breakthroughs and such makes it into a race to build the most troops, which is not fun. Whoever gets the best start wins. Whoever gets the best land wins.

A game like Civ should strive to require the victors to think and win on skill, not on dumb luck in getting the best start that allows them to build the most Cavalry or the most Tanks.

Infinite movement does not "completely ruin all strategy" that's absurd. Are you saying there's no strategy to the later phases of the game??!!??!!? Then try playing at a higher difficulty level!
It certainly does ruin strategy. Build the biggest army and you win. No thinking involved at all. Once the war is started its already over. There is no strategy and there is no fun in that.

With regards to playing a higher difficulty level, I regularly play on Demigod and have beaten Sid before a few times. Playing on higher difficulty levels ruins the strategy of the game even more. All that needs to be done is overcoming the AI production and unit advantages, which is done by war. Win a few wars early on and the rest is smooth sailing, except on Sid, which isn't even like playing normal Civ.

That's only how it works with 1pt-movement troops and incidentally, that is *exactly* how it worked before the advent of independant armoured forces and deep battle theory. I mean, how else would you like it? The majority of forces being behind the front line, waiting to get to the front, in a modern war? That's not how it worked, except perhaps for the US which had to cross the Atlantic. When Germany and France fought, for instance, almost *all* of their forces came right up to the front. The German penetration behind the lines by going through the Ardennes was only succesful, because there were no troops in the hinterlands, so their advance was completely unimpeded and they could cut off the British and French from their supplies from behind the lines. If most of the army was in transit, they would have encountered too much resistance to do this and would have been stuck making a frontal assault along the Maginot, a la WW1.
Every front is a Maginot line in Civ when RRs get put up. Try to make a breakthrough? Impossible. RRs allow units to get anywhere instantly. Ardenne-like offensive aren't even possible because every front is covered by every unit in a civ's empire.

That's what I mean by removing the strategy from the game. You take a single city on the offensive and the enemy can INSTANTLY relocate its troops anywhere to stop you from getting any further. Battles like Germany vs France in 1940 or the USSR vs. Germany in late 1942 at Stalingrad are impossible because there's no way to trap or encircle opponents without them being magically whisked away at the slightest hint of danger. That is what I mean by there being no strategy.

There is no risk of leaving a front underdefended to protect certain cities more, because they're all equally protected with everything a civ has because of infinite movement. It makes intercontinental invasions almost impossible because the turn you get ashore is the turn the enemy can bring its entire army to bear on you.

Sounds a lot like June 1944? Actually, no, it doesn't, because if Germany could do that then D-Day would have failed. More historical inaccuracy.

You mean almost like huge troop buildups and very slowly advancing trench fortifications? Incidentally, this phenomena tends to disappear in the game with the advent of armour, and undergoes further reduction with the advent of mobile infantry (APC's) and modern armour, not to mention airpower (at least in C3C with lethal land bombardment).
Armor and Modern Armor can only move 2 tiles. With culture involved that's usually not even enough to reach the first border city before the enemy can magically summon 60 Artillery and the entireity of his Tank Corps from the boonies of his empire to crush that invasion.

You try to invade and your army is smashed by everything the enemy can bring to the front. It's impossible to win without more troops. That is not historical, and that is not fun.

The only way to avoid this outcome is either A) to build more troops than the enemy can kill or B) to exploit the use of Settlers to steal culture and RRs from the enemy and "creep" up to his cities and penetrate into his rear. Both the reason for the exploit and the massive potential success from the exploit are due to infinite RR movement.

Since the advent of the locomotive and the rifled barrel, and until the advent of mechanized forces, wars WERE completely dependant on huge masses of troops.
Completely? So after RRs came into use every war was decided by the number of troops?

I guess my history professors and all the books I've written about strategy are all wrong.

First you don't like the inaccuracy, and say you want to worry about "morale, logisitics and supply" and now you want it to be fun but not accurate because it takes too long.
You need to read what I write more carefully.

I never said I wanted to include morale, logistics and supply. I said that Civ abstracted those, and therefore it has to compensate in other areas in order to make the game fun to play.

There is a balance to be struck between historical accuracy and good gameplay. Something like infinite movement ruins them both for the reasons I've cited elsewhere.

Think about this too: if your empire is so big that it covers the entire map, and thus makes the infinite move seem unrealistic, do you really want to have to move all those troops to the front line manually? Is that "more fun?" If you get to a point in a game where rail movement is unrealistic, it's also going to be a huge drag not to have it.
What about playing on huge pangaeas? With only 4 civs of equal strength remaining, the number of troops and the size of the landmass are so immense that even if you do control enough territory to make infinite RR movement "unrealistic" its still a balanced game between equal powers - and infinite movement messes this up.

There are better ways to organize units and armies than via infinite movement. Putting them in large stacks is easy enough already, and I imagine that it will be even easier in Civ 4.

Do not cover up the wound, heal it. Infinite Movement is a bandaid for the problem, not a cure. If you have problems with how long it takes to move large numbers of units, then address that problem - do not add in new factors which disrupt the nature of gameplay in other areas.

ok, most people don't like infinite move rails because it leads to the strateguy of pooling a huge rapid response force in the centre of your territory, able to smash anything on any border at a moment's notice. While realistic, this is also not fun, as it effectively removes the need for any forward planning beyond the need to have troops around in the first place.

otoh, Having finite-move rails (aka very fast roads) doesn't make sense, as there is no good reason why a cavalry unit should move faster than riflemen on rails.

otth, Slowly moving entire armies across the entire map is not fun.

So...

Take rails off the map entirely. Have "roads" and "highways" as tile improvements, and "rail depot" as a city improvement. Assume an abstracted rail line exists between any pair of cities in the same nation that have rail depots. A rail depot can do a civ2 style airlift on any unit. This action uses the unit's entire move, and costs a small gold fee. This allows for quick troop movements, avoids the realism problem of the enemy using your rails, makes all units move on rail at the same speed, and makes an opportunity cost (the rail-lift fee) for usng the central reserve force strategy.

i think you may be on to something... i don't know that i like the cost factor though... if it's free to airlift, i don't wanna pay to train my troops... and i don't want airlift to have a price either :-P

what if, instead... you just placed a limit on the amount of troops that could leave and come to each city? say... 5 troops can enter any train station per turn, and 2 can leave each? or any combination of numbers... those are just random examples

the "pile up" strategy would still be able to retain SOME effectiveness, but it would require more REAL strategy as well...

Take rails off the map entirely. Have "roads" and "highways" as tile improvements, and "rail depot" as a city improvement. Assume an abstracted rail line exists between any pair of cities in the same nation that have rail depots. A rail depot can do a civ2 style airlift on any unit. This action uses the unit's entire move, and costs a small gold fee. This allows for quick troop movements, avoids the realism problem of the enemy using your rails, makes all units move on rail at the same speed, and makes an opportunity cost (the rail-lift fee) for usng the central reserve force strategy.
:thumbsup: There's a good idea. I also don't think the small fee would be a good thing, but apart from that it's a great idea.

road gives 3x movement, highway can give 9x movement, and maybe maglev can give 27x movement or infinite movement but in the modern era?

I didn't mention it in my first post, but I think airports should also have a transportation fee just like the rail depots. It would be more expensive that rail (jet fuel ain't cheap!), but have the advantage that it requires neither road connection (ie an abstracted railway) nor even be on the same continent.

Maglevs should NOT be a tile improvement. In terms of the way things move on them, they are an advanced rail, not a better road. Perhaps once maglev tech is discovered, the rail transit fee gets reduced instead.

In terms of rail transit fee, I was thinking that it would be 1 gold for standard infantry, 2 for heavy vehicles, zero for 'small' units (spies, covert special forces). Airlift would cost 1 extra on top of that, maglev would reduce gold cost by 1 for rail transit. Until you get oil, cost would be raised by 1 (coal isn't as efficient) for rails.

One interesting thing about this movement issue is that Civ assumes all units to be the same as far as transportation goes, but this is clearly a deviation from reality. For example, someone mentioned that cavalry should not have an advantage on finite-move RR over infantry since the cavalry would be packed onto train cars anyway, like the infantry. This is a reasonable concern, and a possible fix mentioned is having the RR give "RR movement points" that are essentially added onto a unit's normal cache of movement points, and have the unit expend the RR points while on the RR. This would fix the cavalry problem, but what about more modern units like tanks? I doubt that a reasonable way to transport them would be to load them onto trains and speed them to the front. How would RRs help in that situation? And if tanks are simply not allowed to move on RR at all, then they will be at a major disadvantage and much less useful than they are now.

A possible way to fix this is to allow the construction of highways, which would truly be "advanced roads" in that they allow for a multiplier of movement (perhaps 6x or 9x) since their purpose is to facilitate movement but not actually provide it.

Therefore, a road system will work well until the Industrial Age, when RR would greatly ease transportation in time for WWI-type wars involving a lot of infantry, and eventually the introduction of more motorized units will prompt more widespread construction of highways to transport the motorized units more effectively. Note, however, that RR have not become obselete, because it should still be faster to transport infantry by railroad compared to highway (since railroad adds a certain number of RR movement points to infantry's one normal movement point, while highway multiplies the number of normal movement points, which infantry have only one of). This is fairly realistic--a train can probably carry more troops than a hum-vee, and therefore on a larger scale, the train is faster than using a large number of hum-vees to carry the same number of troops.

Perhaps a strategic element could be introduced by the fact that RR and highways cannot occupy the same square (although they can cross each other), and therefore some planning will be necessary to ensure the most efficient troop deployment.

... but what about more modern units like tanks? I doubt that a reasonable way to transport them would be to load them onto trains and speed them to the front. How would RRs help in that situation? And if tanks are simply not allowed to move on RR at all, then they will be at a major disadvantage and much less useful than they are now.


Why not transport tanks on a railway line?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank

Since an immobilized tank is an easy target for mortars, artillery, and the specialized tank hunting units of the enemy forces, speed is normally kept to a minimum, and every opportunity is seized upon to move tanks on wheeled tank transporters and on railways instead of under their own power. Tanks invariably end up on railcars in any country with a rail infrastructure, because no army has enough wheeled transporters to carry all its tanks. Planning for railcar loading and unloading is crucial staff work, and rail bridges and railyards are prime targets for enemy forces wishing to slow a tank advance.

It makes perfect sense for tanks to move on a rail line.

Read the first few posts; skimmed the rest, so skin me if this has been said:

Why not make it 1/2 of a movement point to do ANY rail travel to ANYWHERE? One movement could be considered any movement made between other actions by the unit(or selection of other units), so if you moved to somewhere, then picked another unit, then picked the first one again and decided to move it again, that'd count as two moves totalling 1 movement point. Or anything beyond a certain distance would also take up extra halves of movement points(40 tiles?).

How interesting! I never knew that tanks were transported in such a manner...well, in that case, the highways would be redundant (at least as far as transporting tanks).

In any case, I would like RR benefits to be in the form of "RR movement points"--the unit might expend some number or fraction of movement points to get onto the rail, but while traveling on the rail, use only the RR movement points. Getting off would then also expend some amount of movement, perhaps the same amount expended to get on. This way, transporting infantry, cavalry, tanks, or any other land unit by rail would go the same distance, which would make sense since the RR is doing the work, not the unit itself, so the unit's movement capabilities should be irrelevant.

OK, first up I would like to say that you and I ARE on the same page this time Trip (guess there had to be a first time eh? :lol: ;) !) We just didn't see eye-to-eye on the possible solution (though your criticism of my idea was completely valid, as I hadn't considered it thoroughly!)
How about these possibilities?

1) Units can only embark or disembark RR's at certain set points IF they want the benefit of infinite RR movement-these points would be at points where the RR connects with a city, outpost or fort. Otherwise, the RR counts only as an improved road (perhaps 1/4 or 1/5 mp).

2) Give RR, and other terrain, squares a 'stack limit'-meaning that you can't have more than X units on one RR at any one time. This would force players to 'stagger' the movement of their forces (eg, bring 6 units into a city, then move them as a stack along the RR. Until they disembark, no other units can travel on that particular section of RR)

3) Units which disembark and fight on the same turn will do so at a high penalty, to reflect the period of 'organisation' prior to battle. Also, after disembarking, all units have only 1mp irrespective!

4) Possibly still have a movement cost associated if you pass through a city whilst travelling on RR, but perhaps have it as 1/4 of the movement points of the unit doing the travelling.

Anyway, I really am just bandying ideas around on the 'assumption' that infinite RR's will still be in Civ4. I do like Rhialto's idea, though, and I can see how it could retain the historical importance of rail, but without the strategic problems which infinite RR's produce. Another possibility under Rhialto's system might be to tie the cost of the RR 'lift' to the unit type. The reason being that tanks and cavalry take up more ROOM on rail stock than a similar sized infantry unit. Therefore, it should cost more to move one tank unit than to move 1 cavalry unit which, in turn, would be more costly than moving infantry. Additionally, perhaps if each city could send and/or recieve x units per turn based on the city's size? This could prevent the exploit of a wealthy nation sending 100's of units to the 'arse-end of the empire', when said recipient city only has a population of 2!!!! If this idea were combined with one that a tank=3 units and cavalry=2 units, then it might push players away from the 'stack o tanks' approach to war which is currently being used in civ3 :(!
Anyway, like I said, I'm just really throwing random ideas out there. Please feel free to tell me what you like, and what you hate, so that I can work on creating an overall MODEL for RR movement :)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Glad to see we're on the same page for once, AL. ;)

I don't mean to sound condescending or to talk down on people, I'm just a very opinionated person... a game designer in the making, as well. ;)

There are a number of things I'd like to see added to the Civ series for my own personal enjoyment that I recognize would be bad for the series as a whole. One has to keep in mind the key points in the series and push those forward while trying to eliminate current weaknesses. I see the weaknesses as the excess of micromanagement, the lack of peaceful options and things like infinite movement that imbalance things in some situations.

Anyways, enough of my ranting for today. ;)

Well, thats two for two Trip :)! I also HATE excessive MM, infinite RR movement and the imbalance of the game towards warmongering (though they HAVE improved this element between civ2 and civ3!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Well, I can think of one way to make railways highly realistic and true to history, at the same time as preserving infinite moves but limiting the ability to mobilize the massive central army to any point.

That is, to have some sort of infrastructure rating that limits the amount of units that can use the railways in a round. That's very much historically true - as any rail network always had a maximum capacity that limited the total amount of troops that could be moved by rail. One way would be to have actual trains in the game, which would limit the capacity of the tracks to the carrying capacity of the train units, but I fear this would be too much micromanagement. So, the other way is to do something in the style of Imperialism, and that is to have a national infrastructure rating, which could move only so much per round. Beyond that everything would be forced to move on the hoof. And you could implement the kinds of limitations where it costs more rail points to move a tank than an infantry, though in a way I disagree with this, because independant tank and cavalry forces are typically organized in units which are far fewer in number than infantry forces, and so take up about the same amount of space. Also, its just less simple to have different costs.

Other than defining a limitation to the number of units able to use the rail network, this wouldn't change the rail rules all that much, but it would still solve what some seem to see as a 'problem' while preserving some measure of realism.

I don't like the idea of paying for transportation, because then you're going to get into people asking why you don't pay for normal transportation: gas, or massive supply caravans for foot armies, or what have you. In the real world it always costs alot to move stuff no matter how you do it. In Civ, its just assumed, and frankly, I like that - it gets too complex otherwise. Perhaps you could spend money to build your national rail points. And again, paid movement is an added layer of complexity, and the key is always to keep things simple.

The problem I see with rail depots is that if they work like airports, it takes away the essential strategy of building and protecting your rail lines and makes it impossible to cut them off. If you keep rail lines, then why bother with the depots: it just adds an extra bit of micromanagement. A national limit would work better, prevent a surfeit of depots everywhere, and be very very simple to manage.

You take a single city on the offensive and the enemy can INSTANTLY relocate its troops anywhere to stop you from getting any further. Battles like Germany vs France in 1940 or the USSR vs. Germany in late 1942 at Stalingrad are impossible because there's no way to trap or encircle opponents without them being magically whisked away at the slightest hint of danger. That is what I mean by there being no strategy.

Hold on a minute here. If you have them encircled and pillage their rail lines, how are they going to be whisked away?

There is no risk of leaving a front underdefended to protect certain cities more, because they're all equally protected with everything a civ has because of infinite movement. It makes intercontinental invasions almost impossible because the turn you get ashore is the turn the enemy can bring its entire army to bear on you.

Sounds a lot like June 1944? Actually, no, it doesn't, because if Germany could do that then D-Day would have failed. More historical inaccuracy.

Actually, no. It's quite accurate. If Germany didn't have to worry about the Eastern Front, they could have responded to D-Day with overwhelming power. The problem wasn't getting troops there, it was a lack of overall units, just like what happens in Civ when a nation is getting overwhelmed on multiple fronts by more numerous opponents.

Anyone who has played C-evo would recognize this system.

First, take current movement points and multiply them by 100.
Moving into flat terrain cardinally costs 100 MP and orthogonally 150 MP. Rougher terrain had additional costs, of course.

With roads and RR, the cost was a percentage of the original cost of the terrain. 40/60 for Roads, 8/12 for RR.

Its a simple system to understand and those numbers could easil be fixed to wherever they needed to be.

I agree that it's a simple solution to understand, but practically speaking when you've got a massive empire with lots of units, it's harder to play. It's difficult to remember how much force you've got enroute to any given area, but infinite move is a feature of civ precisely because it alleviates this at the same time you need it most, when your units have grown to an unmanageable number. If you like playing small civs, it is probably not that big of a deal, but as Firaxis has said, they want more support for taking over the world (something that is currently a headache in Civ3).

It's still a heck of alot simpler than rail depots though, when all the factors are considered. And it doesn't have the drawback of favouring the aggressor which rail depots do, especially when a turn penalty is assigned to load and unload. The other reason I would prefer it over a depot system is that because, like an infrastructure rating, it's simpler. I want a Civ4 that reduces the number of decisions and clicks and picking things from lists and "ok/no not nows" to a minimum amount, to reduce all this to just the most important and vital and fun things. Depots have to be built, remembered or located when you want to plan movements, and then the boarding business - click another button to load and one to unload, and all that. I realize altogether it is not alot but it is cumulative with all the other things in the game, which is already too much for ease of play in big empires. Either a simpler system of movement (like just an MP cost) or a total limit of units that can be railed in a round is going to be infinitely simpler and easier to cope with than a rail depot system.

Also, I think past a certain number of units, and also once units which can reach and take a city from outside the border in one round (eg cavalry) appear, it becomes necessary to have *some* measure of infinite rail, both for ease of play and also to give defenders a chance to make at least a limited response in time. That's why I would simply propose capping it with either a fixed number, or a number that could be raised by some means.

hmmm... i was thinking that rail depots sounded good at first... but i must admit that one thing i really don't like about airports is figuring out which ones i already sent someone from and then all the clicking... but more than that is the fact that there are no "rail lines" that the enemy can block/break to stop it from happening...

but at the same time... i'm not sure how you would implement this "limit" on the amount of people that could travel on a RR that is being proposed, unless you actually used a rail depot...

so i guess the best suggestion would be to give every unit a set amount of "rail movement points" that they could use per turn... those points are used on railroads only and the unit still gets it's full move points when done...

so, an example: i have a cavalry and an infantry. they both go from a road square to a RR square... 1/3 of a move is used... they are then assigned 20 RR mp's (random number) and move 18 squares on the RR... they get off the RR and onto a road... another 1/3 move is used... they then move 1 more space onto another road, the infantry can no longer move and the cavalry has 2 moves left, which he can use to engage in combat or keep moving... or he could go back to the RR and move 2 more squares on it.

i think that would be a feasible plan. the rail depots would work, but would be too much of a bother with clicking and such... the "max units" on a RR track might work, but seems like way too much MM and remembering how many units you already sent on it... i like the RR mp idea...

but at the same time... i'm not sure how you would implement this "limit" on the amount of people that could travel on a RR that is being proposed, unless you actually used a rail depot...


Simple. First, there are a number of methods to calculate the score that could be used. I'll give them later, because it's not really relevant to how the system itself is used.

Then, you've got just a button on all your units (like Fortify). You also have in your display window, a display of "national infrastructure points remaining". Whenever you want to have a unit use the rail, you just click on the Entrain button just as you would click on Fortify. The graphic changes to a locomotive, and you move the unit to its destination. You don't need to click any detrain button because as soon as the unit moves off the track or ends its turn, its rail move is considered over and it changes back to a normal graphic. The move is infinite, but costs you 1 Infrastructure Point. Possibly, different units might cost more, same thing with Airlifts. When you've used up all your IP's you no longer have the Entrain option. I would also suggest that no unit may Entrain twice in the same turn, but that's totally optional. So really it is just a one-click process.

There's a number of ways you could arrive at an IP score, everything from a fixed amount, to an amount based on the discovery of certain advances, to a slider on the Domestic Advisor (allocate funds to infrastructure same as science or luxuries) to paying a set amount to buy each IP permanently to permanently transferring workers from a 'national labour pool' (under that model)... etc etc, lots of different ways there.

I like RR mp's as a second choice because it too is simple, but, I still think it would be a headache for really big empires. You've still got to remember how many troops you sent enroute to this spot or that spot especially if you're fighting on multiple fronts and there is no easy way of being sure how much 'flow' is going to each front. You've still got more or less the same problem with National Infrastructure, but, at least, if you severely miscalculate, you can do something about it.

well the reason i like the RR mp's... is cause i can click "goto" and it'll automatically figure out the quickest route, taking into account the rails and such...

if i have to click a button and such to get on a RR, then it would be difficult (i believe) to do that...

i personally like the idea of getting onto the RR from anywhere and going to anywhere along it... i don't think it should be limited to cities, as the military can say to stop anywhere they want and get off (as your payton article showed).

also, i think the RR mp idea would not give the defender too much of an advantage, nor would it give the attacker too much of one either... they would both be required to use strategy to make sure they had enough troops towards each front to quickly respond to a battle with enough trooops.

well the reason i like the RR mp's... is cause i can click "goto" and it'll automatically figure out the quickest route, taking into account the rails and such...

Yeah, but, sometimes before railroads, if I have alot of units, I've noticed it's hell trying to remember what and how much I sent where, so I never know if I've got enough reinforcements coming or not on a particular front. Same thing with settlers ... if you've got a dozen of them going every which way it is hard to remember if you sent 2, 3, or 6 to the region where you were going to build 4 cities.

if i have to click a button and such to get on a RR, then it would be difficult (i believe) to do that...

No more difficult than telling a unit to fortify.

also, i think the RR mp idea would not give the defender too much of an advantage, nor would it give the attacker too much of one either... they would both be required to use strategy to make sure they had enough troops towards each front to quickly respond to a battle with enough trooops.

RR mp's are for me, my alternate choice, if infinite rail must go. It's fairly simple, mostly easy to manage, and doesn't favor either the attacker or defender.

i didn't mean it would be difficult for me to click the button (like fortify)... i meant, that the goto command would have to be tweaked to include the "load/unload" function automatically when it's figuring out how to get somewhere the quickest way...

and i agree with you about the forgetting how many people i sent to a certain place... i do it often with workers, settlers, and units in the pre-train era... but that's part of the "realism" i think of managing an empire... trying to remember what you did and plan accordingly...

i didn't mean it would be difficult for me to click the button (like fortify)... i meant, that the goto command would have to be tweaked to include the "load/unload" function automatically when it's figuring out how to get somewhere the quickest way...

Well, you would never issue a goto for a unit that you wanted to rail. It would get where it's going in the same round. If you issued a goto it would be assumed you're not using rail. Most of the time you'd be moving them onto a rail line and then waiting for available space, or selecting fortified units for rail transfer. So in truth, it would be a bit more complex than RR mp in some ways, easier in others.

hmmm... i like the RR MP idea more then cause i can just "goto and forget it"...

i wouldn't mind what you're proposing, but i just think (knowing the way i play) that the RR MP idea would be more suitable... i like to do what Solomon of the Bible did... have "groups" of chariots (or cavalry or tanks) stationed in "sectors" of my country that can respond quickly to any war/crisis...

it's similar to the idea of one "react force" but it's much more realistic and possible in the real world... well, i'd like to be able to move each react force to the hot spot in case of a war... and i'd wanna move the whole thing, or at least as much as was needed...

so the 10 or 20 RR MPs would allow me to move as many troops as needed, but only a certain distance... so you couldn't do what some people do and have one "continental react force"... you'd have to use strategy and place many react forces in strategic locations...

sure you would get that with your plan, but it just seems more difficult having to load all these troops manually and not being able to move the whole group... that would make me split my react forces even more, AND have to deal with the clicking the "load/unload" button alot...

I have to say, I do like the sounds of dispersed reserves.

But I'd also like a small central reserve, a rapid deployment force of some sort. The combination of the two is actually more or less precisely what they do today.

So, how about this, because I've never liked the current system for airports.

First, RR mp's. Probably 15-20 I think, no penalty for forests jungles or swamps (once the rail is built none of that matters) but some penalty for hills and deserts (sand) and a high penalty for mountains (slopes really affect trains).

Second, change airlifts. No more "one unit to load at airport, unlimited number to land at airport." This usually just makes me build a billion airstrips (the terrain improvement) so I can take advantage of the unlimited landings. And I hate the one unit takeoff. It's a pain in the butt figuring out which airports you used, and which you haven't. So, implement a national limit - based on what techs you've got (eg, if you have Advanced Flight you get to move more) - and the "Airlift Points Remaining" is displayed at the side bar. You have to check that score sometimes, but in return, you don't have to build tons of airstrips and you can keep your rapid response team all in one city. Also you cannot transport unlimited troops to the destination, but only so many as the limit allows.

The end result would be awfully realistic I think - you'd have your local garrisons at the border cities, just enough to discourage small attacks and delay big ones. Behind that, you'd have regional reserves, which could respond to incursions by rail. And then you'd have on top of that, a rapid response capability via airports.

Hm, also I had this idea in a dream last night:

Change the worker costs of building railroads. If building a railroad on tile X would connect any two cities, make it something like 8 base turns. If there are no adjacent RR tiles, make it 12 base turns. Otherwise, 24 base turns. Now, the easy way around this is just to make tons more workers, but it would make people think a little more about where they build RRs, and prioritise more. (Also, even in Demo after Replaceable Parts with an industrious civ, it'd still take at least 2-3 turns for a single worker to build one. More if it falls into one of the other categories.)

Also, to prevent your workforce from building up all RRs on the first turn after steam power, don't make them act as RRs until THE TURN AFTER they are built. They'd still act as roads, but wouldn't provide infinite movement until the next full turn.

My point with having a gold cost for the rail move order instead of a #/turn limit was precisely that you tended to forget which cities had used their airlift for the turn. The gold cost doesn't represent the direct cost of moving the unit on rails so much as the knock-on cost of temporarily closing down the line to passenger and commerical traffic, refitting rail cars if necessary, and the obvious effect the temprary lack of rail traffic has on the local economy.

I don't like implementing gold costs for doing basic things like moving or doing terrain improvements. The game then shut downs during those times you are at peace and have low funds. You're just clicking through turns, but not really able to do much.

As far as the #/turn thing, if its a national point score displayed in the side panel, you don't have to remember anything about which cities did what; its universal.

ok, rail depots with #/turn as a ntional limit seems to be the way to go. Airports would have a similar cap. Now, how to define that cap? How about...

rail:
1 free at start
+1 per 500 gold spent on trains
getting diesel, and again with maglev, will double your existing built capacity and halve the cost of new capacity.

air:
1 free at start
+1 per 1000 gold spent.
getting advanced flight will work similarly to rail's later techs.

oh, rail depots would give a production bonus of 25%, which is roughly equal to what civ2/3 rails give. Similarly, airports could give a 25% commerce bonus.

so then at the end of the game it would only cost 125 gp to buy a new capacity... heck i make more than that each round near the end... when i have a massive empire... we'd just end up back at problem 1... where i have one central army that is huge and can act as a reactionary force to anywhere in my kingdom...

i'm sorry but i think we need to stick with rail movement points for this.

Hold on a minute here. If you have them encircled and pillage their rail lines, how are they going to be whisked away?
Armor and Modern Armor can only move 2 tiles per turn in enemy territory. With only 2 moves its impossible to cut off areas from rail access with the rest of the empire in a turn or even two in most cases. If an enemy sees you're trying to cut him off you have plenty of time for your units to escape from the trap.

Actually, no. It's quite accurate. If Germany didn't have to worry about the Eastern Front, they could have responded to D-Day with overwhelming power. The problem wasn't getting troops there, it was a lack of overall units, just like what happens in Civ when a nation is getting overwhelmed on multiple fronts by more numerous opponents.
The Atlantic Wall had quite a few divisions guarding it. Why didn't they assist in defending the beaches at Normanday, or especially after the breakthrough and the disaster at Falaise?

I think depots are more or less redundant and add an unnecessary element to the game. I want civ4 to be *much* simpler to manage. Practically speaking, the rail system as it is, represents the easiest and simplest method, both as a system and in play. But it has its problems from a game balance point of view. So I'd like to deviate from it only as much as necessary to correct the game balance issues, and no more.

Rail capacity should come down to a single, simple factor. You either spend money to build it or get it free with specific advances.

Air should work in a similar way, and for ease of gameplay, you could tie the two together to come up with a single stat for all strategic movement.

The other thing I don't like about depots, even if you work it in the way that you just have each city act as gateway onto the rail system, is that (a) its not historically correct because armies can load or unload wherever they please and (b) it makes it impossible to rail into unclaimed land which is important for world conquest (sometimes you want to raze cities, build new rail or takeover the rail in that area, and bring in reinforcements to keep up a pace). All aggressive wars would stagnate eventually and it should be possible to conquer a nation in the industrial or modern era or its equivalents, sometime before the game ends. I don't mind making cultural and diplomatic victories more appealing, but not at the expense of making conquest impossible.

Armor and Modern Armor can only move 2 tiles per turn in enemy territory. With only 2 moves its impossible to cut off areas from rail access with the rest of the empire in a turn or even two in most cases. If an enemy sees you're trying to cut him off you have plenty of time for your units to escape from the trap.

Indeed, but that's the way it works in real life too. If the enemy sees you executing a pincer move and isn't capable of crushing the pincers, he may well retreat. It happened all the time. Envelopment only occured due to miscalculation on the part of the defender, and in matter of fact, was more prone to happen to an attacker, than a defender, for obvious reasons. Also, armour units and cavalry move 3 squares, not two. Envelopment of a defending line is always impossible because you can't flank it to begin a pincer, only when there is a salient in the line can an envelopment be considered. So, if the salient is in a city, it would have to have cultural borders extending 4 squares in all directions to prevent envelopment, rather unlikely except in the heartland.

Also, the solution to this problem has nothing to do with rails, unless you are going to strip them of all advantage over roads - if the enemy can move more than 3 or 4 squares, he can probably escape. What you need to do to allow such an envelopment, is bring back the ZOC style used in Civ2 which prevented movement in the ZOC rather than the silly, "1 in 100 times you get a potshot" system used now.


The Atlantic Wall had quite a few divisions guarding it. Why didn't they assist in defending the beaches at Normanday, or especially after the breakthrough and the disaster at Falaise?

They couldn't assist in defending the beaches for the same reason you couldn't rush units in civ to defend a tile against a surprise attack on the attacker's turn. You'd have to wait, and make a counterattack on your own turn. In the war, the Germans did make a counterattack (Army Group B eg, the forces of the Atlantic Wall) and it was a disastrous failure that left the German forces weak and dispersed, allowing Canadian First Army to execute a breakthrough at Falaise (Operation Totalise). Also: don't forget about the air interdiction (Allies had a frightening command of the air) and airborne landings which were designed specifically to retard German response. Without them, who knows what would have happened. Finally, if you read the histories, you'll see they all note the same thing: Germany could have responded much better than they did, it wasn't a lack of transportation but command difficulties.

so then at the end of the game it would only cost 125 gp to buy a new capacity... heck i make more than that each round near the end... when i have a massive empire... we'd just end up back at problem 1... where i have one central army that is huge and can act as a reactionary force to anywhere in my kingdom...

Nah, only if you adopt that idea for building Rail Points, there are alot of different tweaking you could do to that idea. It could be a static limit based on advances (5 pts for steam engine, 10 pts for diesel-electric engine etc etc) or you could straight pay a tweaked number (say, 1000gp per point) and fix that number through playtesting to something that would work. My idea is that rail capacity would be about 30 by the time you're on future tech. It would be no higher than 15 when you got tanks.

Indeed, but that's the way it works in real life too. If the enemy sees you executing a pincer move and isn't capable of crushing the pincers, he may well retreat. It happened all the time. Envelopment only occured due to miscalculation on the part of the defender, and in matter of fact, was more prone to happen to an attacker, than a defender, for obvious reasons. Also, armour units and cavalry move 3 squares, not two. Envelopment of a defending line is always impossible because you can't flank it to begin a pincer, only when there is a salient in the line can an envelopment be considered. So, if the salient is in a city, it would have to have cultural borders extending 4 squares in all directions to prevent envelopment, rather unlikely except in the heartland.
There is no margin of error to even allow for miscalcuation with infinite movement.

The Stalingrad front was quite wide, and it was the poor condition of the troops on the 6th Army's flank and the massive amount of Soviets involved that caused the encirclement to take place. There wasn't really a salient to surround - the problem was that the Soviets advanced so quickly there was no way the 6th Army could escape. There is no way to model that in Civ because you cannot possibly surround a group of troops as large as the 6th Army on a front as large as Stalingrad with infinite movement.

An encirclement has to take place in a single turn in order for an army to become trapped. And that encirclement requires you to either pillage ALL of the tiles behind the city in question, or to capture a city or two behind the city to prevent the usage of rails to get out. That is essentially impossible to do in a single turn, even if you are only considering a single city being surrounded.

They couldn't assist in defending the beaches for the same reason you couldn't rush units in civ to defend a tile against a surprise attack on the attacker's turn. You'd have to wait, and make a counterattack on your own turn. In the war, the Germans did make a counterattack (Army Group B eg, the forces of the Atlantic Wall) and it was a disastrous failure that left the German forces weak and dispersed, allowing Canadian First Army to execute a breakthrough at Falaise (Operation Totalise).
It wasn't until late July - almost a month and a half - that the Normandy campaign was complete. That would have been plenty of time to zip all available divisions to counterattack "during the landings." After all, the Allies landed on the beach, which would have made them susceptible to all German units which could use rail (aka every single unit) while they were still wallowing up shore.

There is no margin of error to even allow for miscalcuation with infinite movement.

The Stalingrad front was quite wide, and it was the poor condition of the troops on the 6th Army's flank and the massive amount of Soviets involved that caused the encirclement to take place. There wasn't really a salient to surround - the problem was that the Soviets advanced so quickly there was no way the 6th Army could escape. There is no way to model that in Civ because you cannot possibly surround a group of troops as large as the 6th Army on a front as large as Stalingrad with infinite movement.

Yes, there is a great way to model exactly that: cultural borders and the fact enemies can't use roads or rails within them. The German forces were besieging Stalingrad but hadn't captured it. In Civ, this would mean they couldn't use roads or rails to retreat, but the Soviets could use them to surround. Presumably, the Germans would be next to the Stalingrad square in the game, meaning they'd have to travel at least 2 squares (probably 3) to even reach the border, another one to get on a road (if one was available).

Also note that the entire battle took place not along a "quite wide" front, but a 100 mile wide front in the immediate vicinity of the city. In civ, this would only represent a couple of squares, 4 at most. Units could punch through and surrround quite easily.

An encirclement has to take place in a single turn in order for an army to become trapped. And that encirclement requires you to either pillage ALL of the tiles behind the city in question, or to capture a city or two behind the city to prevent the usage of rails to get out. That is essentially impossible to do in a single turn, even if you are only considering a single city being surrounded.

You don't have to pillage anything to encircle, you just have to surround the retreat with units. That isn't impossible, if you have enough forces - particularly Cavalry and Armour which can move 3 squares. And again, how does changing rail change this at all? As I mentioned before, unless rail is *really* slow - as in no benefit better than roads - then they can still escape. If rail even allows double movement, a foot unit can move 6 squares, plenty enough to get away. Most people are talking about rail allowing 10-20 moves, even if it is limited.


It wasn't until late July - almost a month and a half - that the Normandy campaign was complete. That would have been plenty of time to zip all available divisions to counterattack "during the landings." After all, the Allies landed on the beach, which would have made them susceptible to all German units which could use rail (aka every single unit) while they were still wallowing up shore.

They didn't take a month and a half to land on the beaches, and therefore, you couldn't zip all available division to attack during the landings. Don't forget this was an amphibious assault. In civ that would happen in the same round as the crossing and the attacker would pick the square, so nobody could do any railing unless they could guess what square would be hit. The beaches were what, a quarter or a half mile wide? A tile represents 10 miles (officially, though in practice it seems to be alot more) and so an attack on a coastal square represents an attack not just onto the beaches but some distance inland as well. This happened in the real world, they made some advance before the counterattack.

The Normandy campaign took a month and a half, during which time several counterattacks were made with the defenders Germany chose to assign to the task. The only units that weren't used, weren't used because Hitler refused to attach them to the groups used in the counterattacks, not because they couldn't get there. In a month and a half, every soldier in Germany could have got to Normandy! Walking! Did they - no! Because it would have been a strategic error to do so.


No change in rail movement can accurately reflect either of these phenomena, other than eliminating rails, highways, or anything else better than roads entirely. Envelopment in particular cannot. For envelopment to be modelled correctly would require other solutions. Things I can think of include better unit movement offroad, ZOC's which allow no passage, and some effect to encirclement. I see units encircled in Civ all the time, every game, but it has little strategic importance. If supplies were implemented in the game, that might change, but it would be excessively complex imho.

Yes, there is a great way to model exactly that: cultural borders and the fact enemies can't use roads or rails within them. The German forces were besieging Stalingrad but hadn't captured it. In Civ, this would mean they couldn't use roads or rails to retreat, but the Soviets could use them to surround. Presumably, the Germans would be next to the Stalingrad square in the game, meaning they'd have to travel at least 2 squares (probably 3) to even reach the border, another one to get on a road (if one was available).

Also note that the entire battle took place not along a "quite wide" front, but a 100 mile wide front in the immediate vicinity of the city. In civ, this would only represent a couple of squares, 4 at most. Units could punch through and surrround quite easily.
Actually Operation Uranus covered a front about 250 miles long. You said yourself that each tile is "officially" 10 miles, which would make that a 25 tile front. The Germans actually had captured most of Stalingrad when it occurred, so if you had to decide who the city belonged to, you'd have to say Germany, which by extension, means that they would have the "cultural control" over the transportation network of the region...

You don't have to pillage anything to encircle, you just have to surround the retreat with units. That isn't impossible, if you have enough forces - particularly Cavalry and Armour which can move 3 squares. And again, how does changing rail change this at all? As I mentioned before, unless rail is *really* slow - as in no benefit better than roads - then they can still escape. If rail even allows double movement, a foot unit can move 6 squares, plenty enough to get away. Most people are talking about rail allowing 10-20 moves, even if it is limited.
"Encircling" forces is pointless unless you can prevent their escape. Modern Armor and Cavalry are rather weak on defense, meaning any counterattacks against these units will almost certainly destroy them, making the breakout easy - especially when you consider that in order to block a retreat you have to cover and and then HOLD every single rail tile. If the enemy has any sort of offensive forces, they can easily open up a SINGLE tile to squeeze their entire army through.

Rail movement should be limited, and ZoC ala Civ 2 re-implimented. With both of these, an encirclement could actually be successfully enacted with some skill. As of now, doing so isn't possible.

They didn't take a month and a half to land on the beaches, and therefore, you couldn't zip all available division to attack during the landings. Don't forget this was an amphibious assault. In civ that would happen in the same round as the crossing and the attacker would pick the square, so nobody could do any railing unless they could guess what square would be hit. The beaches were what, a quarter or a half mile wide? A tile represents 10 miles (officially, though in practice it seems to be alot more) and so an attack on a coastal square represents an attack not just onto the beaches but some distance inland as well. This happened in the real world, they made some advance before the counterattack.

The Normandy campaign took a month and a half, during which time several counterattacks were made with the defenders Germany chose to assign to the task. The only units that weren't used, weren't used because Hitler refused to attach them to the groups used in the counterattacks, not because they couldn't get there. In a month and a half, every soldier in Germany could have got to Normandy! Walking! Did they - no! Because it would have been a strategic error to do so.

The entire strip of land where all 5 beaches were present was approximately 50 miles long.

Explain to me why this ahistorical situation is impossible in Civ, because it's a major concern of mine...

On June 6, 1944 the Americans, Canadians and British land on 5 different tiles in Normandy. Each tile has 8 Infantry and 1 Tank, for a total of 9 units on each tile and 45 total - a rather large invasion. At the end of this turn, Germany sees what is going on, and makes plans to stop it. They use their infinite rails to take all of the Tanks and all of the Artillery in their vast empire to this zone. They realize that they will probably lose ground to the Soviets on the following turn or two, but the maximum damage won't be much, and crushing the beachhead is much more important. They have 42 Tanks available and 52 Artillery. They use the Artillery to weaken all of the units on the beach units down to half strength or less, and then send in the 42 Tanks. They lose a few of them, but all of the Allied troops which landed are wiped out. The Germans are also helped by their Tanks' blitz ability, which when combined with infinite rail movement allows them 2 attacks on every unit on the tile. The Germans lose 3 cities to the Soviets the following turn, but with no second front to worry about, 38 Tanks and 52 Artillery head back to the East and the Soviets are stopped/slowed for little gain. The end result is that the (first attempt at a) second front is defeated and the war goes on until 1947.

There is a serious problem with that situation, don't you agree? It CAN happen, and it DOES in most wars in Civ.

Like I've said elsewhere, perhaps allowing infinite rail movement would be allowable if the rest of the Civ engine properly modelled actual warfare. But it doesn't and therefore some things have to be done in order to bring actual occurances back into the realm of reality and balance.

Actually Operation Uranus covered a front about 250 miles long. You said yourself that each tile is "officially" 10 miles, which would make that a 25 tile front. The Germans actually had captured most of Stalingrad when it occurred, so if you had to decide who the city belonged to, you'd have to say Germany, which by extension, means that they would have the "cultural control" over the transportation network of the region...

Sure, but the encirclement itself occurred only in a 100 mile strip where a salient formed during the German retreat. A map:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stalingrad_map.jpg

Also, although 10 miles per tile is the official (derived from the 'square miles' figures given on the F11 screen) there's no way it's accurate. Check out any Earth map or even one limited to the European theatre of WW2 and a tile is more like 50-100 miles. So in essence, you have only 1 square encircled.


"Encircling" forces is pointless unless you can prevent their escape.Modern Armor and Cavalry are rather weak on defense, meaning any counterattacks against these units will almost certainly destroy them, making the breakout easy

Modern Armour isn't that weak on defense. Neither is Cavalry in its own era. They are slightly weak, but that is why you would need a very large force to encircle an enemy effectively.

If the enemy has any sort of offensive forces, they can easily open up a SINGLE tile to squeeze their entire army through.

ZOC is a better solution to this problem than limiting rail. Also, you haven't answered how much you intend to limit rail. In fact, I posit that to prevent this, you won't just have to limit rail - you'll have to scrap it entirely, as anything better than roads will still allow an escape. There is one rail model which will prevent it, but it's isn't finite movement. If you can limit the number of units that can be transported by rail, then you can force the enemy to choose between an evacuation, or allowing the rest of his front to collapse because he hasn't sent up any reinforcements.

On June 6, 1944 the Americans, Canadians and British land on 5 different tiles in Normandy. Each tile has 8 Infantry and 1 Tank, for a total of 9 units on each tile and 45 total - a rather large invasion. At the end of this turn, Germany sees what is going on, and makes plans to stop it. They use their infinite rails to take all of the Tanks and all of the Artillery in their vast empire to this zone. They realize that they will probably lose ground to the Soviets on the following turn or two, but the maximum damage won't be much, and crushing the beachhead is much more important. They have 42 Tanks available and 52 Artillery. They use the Artillery to weaken all of the units on the beach units down to half strength or less, and then send in the 42 Tanks. They lose a few of them, but all of the Allied troops which landed are wiped out. The Germans are also helped by their Tanks' blitz ability, which when combined with infinite rail movement allows them 2 attacks on every unit on the tile. The Germans lose 3 cities to the Soviets the following turn, but with no second front to worry about, 38 Tanks and 52 Artillery head back to the East and the Soviets are stopped/slowed for little gain. The end result is that the (first attempt at a) second front is defeated and the war goes on until 1947.

There is a serious problem with that situation, don't you agree?


Yes, there is, you haven't accounted for either the paratrooper landings which would block rail (entirely, if ZOC is implemented) or air power which was extremely signifigant during the Normandy campaign (without doubt, it would be lost without it). I've used massive stacks of bombers to take out stacks of up to 20 infantry in a single round in C3C. Also I disagree with the concept that Germany could afford to rail all of its forces to Normandy anyway. What about Italy? Or did you forget the "soft underbelly"? The Allies didn't. And I dispute the notion that they could afford to take everything from the Eastern Front. If there were 45 Allied units at Normandy, there would have been 60 or 70 Soviet units positioned along the Eastern Front.

Like I've said elsewhere, perhaps allowing infinite rail movement would be allowable if the rest of the Civ engine properly modelled actual warfare. But it doesn't and therefore some things have to be done in order to bring actual occurances back into the realm of reality and balance.

Infinite rail is another matter from the problems you have with the game, and to be honest, I don't think a Civ which models the detail you want is going to sell. Look at grand strategy wargames - how many are popular with the general public? I can only think of two that have come in the same category of being a household name as Civ, and those are Risk and Axis and Allies (the board game versions of both). Don't even mention Hearts of Iron - its not nearly as well known, and will be forgotten in a few years. Plus it's got an awfully mixed reaction even from fans of the genre. Both of the others are oversimplified, much more so than Civilization. Look at the list of units, for instance. Risk has one type of unit, Axis and Allies has about a dozen, and doesn't have destroyers, cruisers, guerillas, or a bunch of other things that would be present in a civ game set in WW2. Movement is simplified. Combat, even, is simpler than in Civ, and I'm not even going to get into production or any of that.

The buying public and civ fans in general don't want a civ that is more complex, and that's a fact. I agree that some modifications need to be made to the combat system, but if you try to extrapolate real world events onto any game it isn't going to match, unless you use your imagination and allow it some room (such as assuming an encirclement occurs within the space and time of a battle on a single tile) and for a game that is of such a scale of civ - in space and time - it's really going to be far beyond the realm of possiblity to inject more than a set amount of realism into the game before micromanagement becomes truly staggering. To "properly model actual warfare" is something that very, very, very few wargames achieve to everyone's content, and yet you expect it from Civ? A little demanding don't you think?

One of the key elements of Civ that makes a worldwide game spanning all of history playable is the amorphous nature of the scale of time and space in the game. It is warped beyond any "reality" and nothing can bring it "back into the realm of reality and balance" and still have a playable game that the public will enjoy. Your whole argument is based on fixed interpretations of time and space - earlier, someone noted that a turn was a year in the modern age and you blew that off, saying that the time scales in the game didn't mean anything. And you're perfectly right: you have to let go of them or imagine them as you will, to enjoy the game. Is a unit a division, a squadron, a battalion, a whole army group? Is a turn 1 year, a day, a month? Officially, its a year, but ... Is a square 10 miles, 500 miles? Officially, its 10 miles, but .... All of your perceptions about the inaccuracies of the game depend on such things. If a square is 500 miles for instance, and a turn is a week or two, the Battle of Stalingrad happens in one turn on one square. If you want the game to have any semblence of reality, it has to have fixed values of time and space. If it has fixed values of time and space, it will no longer be playable at all, by anyone who is sane. Say you set a turn as being 2 weeks in the modern age - you might wait 200 to 1000 turns for every tech in the modern age. If you set a turn as being a year so you can wait much less for tech, all your units move pretty much infinite, regardless of roads or anything. The disconnect that you see with some parts of the game, and reality, all rests entirely on perceptions of space and time, which is deliberately amorphous in order to make the game playable. Assume a certain scale, and all your battles fit within the context of the game. Stalingrad and the Soviet counterattack all happens on one or two squares because Civ is too amorphous to make distinctions as fine as you want, take that away and Civ is a game no one in their right mind would or could play.

Sure, but the encirclement itself occurred only in a 100 mile strip where a salient formed during the German retreat. A map:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stalingrad_map.jpg

Also, although 10 miles per tile is the official (derived from the 'square miles' figures given on the F11 screen) there's no way it's accurate. Check out any Earth map or even one limited to the European theatre of WW2 and a tile is more like 50-100 miles. So in essence, you have only 1 square encircled.
You dare defy official figures? ;)

The relation between the size of map and the number of tiles depends on the creator. There is a world map that is 20 tiles by 20 tiles - that doesn't mean every tile is 500x500 miles.

All we have to go on is what official numbers say. If they say 10 miles, then it's 10 miles. Everything else people can claim is merely what they have come up with and has no factual or official basis.

Modern Armour isn't that weak on defense. Neither is Cavalry in its own era. They are slightly weak, but that is why you would need a very large force to encircle an enemy effectively.
Assuming you're fighting an enemy with a force of equal technology level, the enemy will also have Modern Armor and Cavalry. Modern Armor has an attack of 24 and defense of 16. Cavalry is 6 and 3. That gives Modern Armor a 67% shot at killing another one that is defending, and Cavalry an 80% chance at killing another Cav.

If you're EVER able to conduct an effective encirclement with those kinds of figures and keep your army alive, I'd like to see it... :p

ZOC is a better solution to this problem than limiting rail. Also, you haven't answered how much you intend to limit rail. In fact, I posit that to prevent this, you won't just have to limit rail - you'll have to scrap it entirely, as anything better than roads will still allow an escape. There is one rail model which will prevent it, but it's isn't finite movement. If you can limit the number of units that can be transported by rail, then you can force the enemy to choose between an evacuation, or allowing the rest of his front to collapse because he hasn't sent up any reinforcements.
I would like to see rails reduced to 10 moves for all units and then allow attacking armies to use enemy roads. That would allow enemy units using roads to be almost as fast as a civ using rails, allowing for much more movement and possible maneuver. Add ZoC into the mix and you end up with a much more interesting situation...

Yes, there is, you haven't accounted for either the paratrooper landings which would block rail (entirely, if ZOC is implemented)
Paratroops are weak, and even with ZoC it would only take ~5 or so Tanks to destroy all of them, unless you are using an ahistorical number of Paratroops in the invasion. Note that I'm not suggesting that ZoC completely end all units' movement if they get nearby, I think it should remove 1 move from units which try to pass by, which still allows units like Tanks and Cavalry to deal with them. Add in air power (as limited as it would be, even a few Bombers would wreak havoc on a few units) and there's no way that a few Paratroops could stop a major army.

or air power which was extremely signifigant during the Normandy campaign (without doubt, it would be lost without it). I've used massive stacks of bombers to take out stacks of up to 20 infantry in a single round in C3C.
Air power only comes into play after the invasion has already been destroyed. The Germans could move their Tanks back into cities which contain quite a few Infantry and AA guns and unless the Allies have a HUUUUUGE number of aircraft the Tanks won't even be touched.

Also I disagree with the concept that Germany could afford to rail all of its forces to Normandy anyway. What about Italy? Or did you forget the "soft underbelly"? The Allies didn't. And I dispute the notion that they could afford to take everything from the Eastern Front. If there were 45 Allied units at Normandy, there would have been 60 or 70 Soviet units positioned along the Eastern Front.
Artillery and especially Tanks are bested used offensively, that is, attacking, rather than defending. A German player could afford to have no Tanks and no Artillery present on both the eastern and Italian fronts for a single turn in order to destroy what would have otherwise been a very dangerous new threat. I already admitted that the Germans would likely lose a few cities because of this, but its easily worth the cost to prevent the Allies from liberating France and opening up yet another front.

What would you do, split up all of your Tanks and Artillery between all fronts? Or concentrate everything on a single foe and try to knock them out to allow an easier time on all of the other fronts thereafter? Because of Civ infinite movement, you really CAN muster pretty much ALL of your offensive forces to bear on a single foe, then do the same to another on the next turn, the same the one after, and so on...

Infinite rail is another matter from the problems you have with the game, and to be honest, I don't think a Civ which models the detail you want is going to sell. Look at grand strategy wargames - how many are popular with the general public? I can only think of two that have come in the same category of being a household name as Civ, and those are Risk and Axis and Allies (the board game versions of both). Don't even mention Hearts of Iron - its not nearly as well known, and will be forgotten in a few years. Plus it's got an awfully mixed reaction even from fans of the genre. Both of the others are oversimplified, much more so than Civilization. Look at the list of units, for instance. Risk has one type of unit, Axis and Allies has about a dozen, and doesn't have destroyers, cruisers, guerillas, or a bunch of other things that would be present in a civ game set in WW2. Movement is simplified. Combat, even, is simpler than in Civ, and I'm not even going to get into production or any of that.

The buying public and civ fans in general don't want a civ that is more complex, and that's a fact. I agree that some modifications need to be made to the combat system, but if you try to extrapolate real world events onto any game it isn't going to match, unless you use your imagination and allow it some room (such as assuming an encirclement occurs within the space and time of a battle on a single tile) and for a game that is of such a scale of civ - in space and time - it's really going to be far beyond the realm of possiblity to inject more than a set amount of realism into the game before micromanagement becomes truly staggering. To "properly model actual warfare" is something that very, very, very few wargames achieve to everyone's content, and yet you expect it from Civ? A little demanding don't you think?
It's not adding complexity, it's trying to restore balance. Do you really think limiting the number of tiles units can move instead of having infinite movement adds an unbearable amount of detail to the game? Have you seen some of the others suggestions on this board? The amount of complexity involved in this pales in comparison to what others are offering. And I already said prior to this that if you and others really think that moving around a bunch of units is such a pain and hard to do, find a way to address that with armies and stacks and such - there's no need to add something like infinite RR movement to attempt to cover it up. No bandaids, only fixes.

Why do you think most people - warmongers especially - cite the Ancient and Medieval Eras as their favorite over Industrial and Modern Age? The majority of people here dislike infinite RR movement. Even outside of online communities there are obviously not mobs of people crying out about how the Ancient and Medieval Ages aren't any fun to play, because most of the playing time is actually SPENT on those eras, and not the ones with infinite movement as a possibility.

Even if you say that there's not as many units to have to deal with earlier, I again argue that there are better ways to deal with that than alter something which completely affects the dynamics of war. Improve the automated Worker AI, come up with a new system to manage units, add in a type of army system ala CTP, ANYTHING. There are numerous ways to deal with this problem within the confines of the problem's borders. If the problem is unit management, then make it so that units are easier to manage - don't do something which changes how the rest of the game is played.

As I've said before, there are both gameplay and historical reasons to eliminate infinite movement. My primary concern is gameplay, but there are also historical issues to address as well. I've already talked about how the game shouldn't require infinite movement to allow the organization of a lot of units, and what other issues do you think would make the game so much more complex as to make it unplayable for normal gamers? Infinite RR movement makes it so that every war is a war of attrition, a slug-fest determined by who has the largest army.

People play Civ to engage their brain and try to out-general and out-think their opponents, be they AI or human. They do not play Civ in order to see who gets the best land which allows them to build up the biggest army and then win because of that. As much as you say "abstract!" there is quite a bit of strategic thinking that goes on in major wars on entire fronts. It is certainly much more than "whoever has the biggest army wins," even with the largest campaigns.

You edit your posts too much. :p

One of the key elements of Civ that makes a worldwide game spanning all of history playable is the amorphous nature of the scale of time and space in the game. It is warped beyond any "reality" and nothing can bring it "back into the realm of reality and balance" and still have a playable game that the public will enjoy. Your whole argument is based on fixed interpretations of time and space - earlier, someone noted that a turn was a year in the modern age and you blew that off, saying that the time scales in the game didn't mean anything. And you're perfectly right: you have to let go of them or imagine them as you will, to enjoy the game. Is a unit a division, a squadron, a battalion, a whole army group? Is a turn 1 year, a day, a month? Officially, its a year, but ... Is a square 10 miles, 500 miles? Officially, its 10 miles, but .... All of your perceptions about the inaccuracies of the game depend on such things. If a square is 500 miles for instance, and a turn is a week or two, the Battle of Stalingrad happens in one turn on one square. If you want the game to have any semblence of reality, it has to have fixed values of time and space. If it has fixed values of time and space, it will no longer be playable at all, by anyone who is sane. Say you set a turn as being 2 weeks in the modern age - you might wait 200 to 1000 turns for every tech in the modern age. If you set a turn as being a year so you can wait much less for tech, all your units move pretty much infinite, regardless of roads or anything. The disconnect that you see with some parts of the game, and reality, all rests entirely on perceptions of space and time, which is deliberately amorphous in order to make the game playable. Assume a certain scale, and all your battles fit within the context of the game. Stalingrad and the Soviet counterattack all happens on one or two squares because Civ is too amorphous to make distinctions as fine as you want, take that away and Civ is a game no one in their right mind would or could play.
I fully recognize the fact that turn dates and milages and such mean nothing. But you have to have some base to work with. Completely cut out all of the historical arguments we've been throwing around lately. Then what? You're left with gameplay. I think I've already argued effectively why infinite movement is bad for gameplay and how the issues which it tries to address (unit management) can be dealt with in a way that doesn't completely alter the dynamic of warfare.

The ability to destroy the Allied Invasion of Normandy by sucking away all of your Tanks and Artillery from other fronts is not good for gameplay, historical issues aside. You should NOT be able to warp entire armies around the map from turn-to-turn, because it means you don't have to think about where to station units any more. As I said in my last post, people play Civ to try and out-think their opponents. If you make everything based on the amount of material a civ has, then the game is no longer as much fun to play.

I believe in creating a game that is simple enough to understand, but also allows the player to conduct complex and interesting strategies like encirclements. That opens up new game possibilities and is more engaging for players than simply playing a WWI-type slug fest where the winner is the one who has the most Infantry.

Assuming you're fighting an enemy with a force of equal technology level, the enemy will also have Modern Armor and Cavalry. Modern Armor has an attack of 24 and defense of 16. Cavalry is 6 and 3. That gives Modern Armor a 67% shot at killing another one that is defending, and Cavalry an 80% chance at killing another Cav.

If you're EVER able to conduct an effective encirclement with those kinds of figures and keep your army alive, I'd like to see it...

I'll send you a screenshot sometime. It's happened more times than I can remember. What you're discounting here is the power of overwhelming force. 50 units can *easily* encircle and trap 10 units. It can't be a one-to-one battle, either in the real world or in the game. You need a good 4 to 1, or 5 to 1 advantage. And one thing you've forgotten: Armies. A Cavalry army can quite easily defend against a few attacking Cavalry. It also gets an extra move. Having 5 or 6 Cavalry armies is not outside the realm of possibility at all (not to mention you can use infantry or something to block the first squares). So it is not at all impossible; it is just a question of correct planning and use of all the elements of the game, as well as a bit of luck. Same thing with the Normandy example. I land 11 Armies of infantry (4 inf ea) in Normandy, and use some paratroopers in addition to slow down the opposition, 40 tanks is NOT going to cut it. Even if it does, my second wave of reinforcements is going to land succesfully in a country with, for all practical purposes, no military at all, a looming Soviet threat, and a third front in Italy. 11 Armies is far from being impossible for 2 powerful civs in the late Industrial era to muster.

It's not adding complexity, it's trying to restore balance. Do you really think limiting the number of tiles units can move instead of having infinite movement adds an unbearable amount of detail to the game?

Limiting the number of tiles units can move deals with the problem of the Normandy inaccuracies (to some degrees - 10 tiles is probably still too much on most maps though) but it doesn't cope with encirclement very well, since already, all units with more than 1 move point could escape a city using just roads. And what is the point of trapping a bunch of defensive units in a city? None. The only way I can see solving the encirclement problem, is to limit the *number* of units a civ can move by rail. That way he could rescue his forces through a single tile still, but, not all of them and he would be forced to give up the possibility of bringing in any reinforcements anywhere by rail that turn. It also copes well with the Normandy scenario, since the German response to the invasion would of necessity be a limited one.

And I already said prior to this that if you and others really think that moving around a bunch of units is such a pain and hard to do, find a way to address that with armies and stacks and such - there's no need to add something like infinite RR movement to attempt to cover it up. No bandaids, only fixes.

First up, army stacks *are* a bandaid. We already have stack movement. Second, infinite rail is not an addition to the game - rail has been infinite in the game ever since the beginning, and it is probably the most popular strategy game of all time.

Why do you think most people - warmongers especially - cite the Ancient and Medieval Eras as their favorite over Industrial and Modern Age?

You're resting your argument here on the unfounded assumption that the popularity of these areas is due to a single feature they lack, when in fact, they lack alot of features. High unit count, for one. Lots of cities and overall micromanagement, for two. The plain fact is that a turn in the later part of the game takes a long time, with alot of waiting and pointless clicking, and it probably more than sufficiently accounts for the disinterest in these eras. Retarding unit movement to a comparitive crawl isn't going to help that at all.

Even if you say that there's not as many units to have to deal with earlier, I again argue that there are better ways to deal with that than alter something which completely affects the dynamics of war. Improve the automated Worker AI, come up with a new system to manage units, add in a type of army system ala CTP, ANYTHING. There are numerous ways to deal with this problem within the confines of the problem's borders. If the problem is unit management, then make it so that units are easier to manage - don't do something which changes how the rest of the game is played.

But these *are* all changes to how the game is played. The game is not played that way now. The game as it is now, as it has been throughout its highly popular history, has infinite rail movement. Keeping it isn't a change. To change it, it has to be a system that will be proven to be equally popular as the game is now. I'm saying that the complete elimination of all infinite rail movement is going to make unit management harder. Infinite rail makes large amounts of units easier to handle, and it doesn't "change how the rest of the game is played" because that's how it's always been played. I can abide some limitations to the rail system, limiting its total capacity for instance, or a movement cost which still allows some measure of rapid long-distance transit, 20 squares or something. 10 tiles is ridiculous - cavalry can ride on a road that fast almost.

As I've said before, there are both gameplay and historical reasons to eliminate infinite movement. My primary concern is gameplay, but there are also historical issues to address as well. I've already talked about how the game shouldn't require infinite movement to allow the organization of a lot of units, and what other issues do you think would make the game so much more complex as to make it unplayable for normal gamers? Infinite RR movement makes it so that every war is a war of attrition, a slug-fest determined by who has the largest army

It seems to be a popular formula, actually. But I agree there could be some changes made. What I'm essentially saying though, is that you'll NEVER be able to model Normandy or Stalingrad perfectly in Civ, not even close. It's hard enough to do in a game specifically dedicated to modern war, let alone Civ, which is dedicated to alot of other things. I don't see anything concrete you've suggested to manage alot of units - stack movement (we have that already since PTW), worker automation (have it already and even with all workers fortified and doing nothing, a modern turn is still alot of management), etc. I only see a proposal to make it harder to manage alot of units, without any real ideas about how to compensate and make it easier that we don't already have. I've seen very very few proposals that will signifigantly reduce the workload of the game, the only one that comes to mind is the idea of getting rid of worker units. And I don't think that will reduce management all that much.

People play Civ to engage their brain and try to out-general and out-think their opponents, be they AI or human. They do not play Civ in order to see who gets the best land which allows them to build up the biggest army and then win because of that. As much as you say "abstract!" there is quite a bit of strategic thinking that goes on in major wars on entire fronts. It is certainly much more than "whoever has the biggest army wins," even with the largest campaigns.

Are you saying people play Civ now, and they do so with "quite a bit of strategic thinking" and it is "certainly much more than whoever has the biggest army wins, even with the largest campaigns" ???

Because they're doing it with infinite rail right now.

Anything else is just a supposition as to how it would be played without it, since nobody has.

Plus, I don't see how sending all your units by goto to the front and slowly waiting for them to arrive is fundamentally going to change anything. It will still be 'who has the biggest army wins', you're only adding a waiting game to the process. There isn't any additional strategy involved - you send them off, and wait for them to arrive. You're still faced with the same old problem, biggest army wins. Again I can think of a rail solution to this - limiting total rail capacity per turn - that would require you to use your movement strategically, carefully, and selectively. To make choices and sacrifices, rather than just issuing a pile of gotos to the same general location, round after round. To me, its just a proposition that adds complexity, and an assumption that somebody else can or will make the game simpler to m