This is an idea to solve two problems I've heard alot about, as well as to preserve some of the things that make Civ, Civ. They don't represent massively radical changes, but at the same time should really reduce these problems.

The Ministry of Labour

The Labour Minister would replace workers (for the most part) and be responsible for tile development. It would be possible to partially, or fully, automate the Labour Minister. Through some means, a National Workforce would be determined for the purpose of working on terrain improvements. This could be either through spending gold, assigning citizens from cities to join the National Workforce, or perhaps simply an automatic function calculated from your overall population (10 citizens equals 1 workforce point, or something like that). I'll leave the determination of the total workforce points for later ideas, and simply lay down a basic idea here.

The Workforce would allow you to simply click on tile within your borders, and task an improvement, without having to move a worker there or do anything else of the sort. Each task would reduce the available workforce, so that there would be a limitation to the number of improvements you could do, determined by total workforce. Possibly, you could speed up tasks by assigning more workforce to the project.

Doing work outside your borders would require a Surveyor or Engineer unit. Three possible ideas here: a surveyor could go around surveying tiles as he moved over them, and any surveyed tile would be available for improvements just as if it were within your borders and until such time as it was occupied by an enemy unit. Or, the surveyor/engineer would be forced to remain on the tile until the job was complete. Or, the surveyor/engineer would be the same as a worker is now, but only available for building roads and a few other things (not mines or irrigation) outside your borders.

The end result of such a system would be no more stacks of workers. The only units you'd be using for tile improvements would be engineers, and the only thing they'd be doing is working on land outside your borders, so you probably would never have more than a dozen or so of them at the most. The only real thing they'd be doing is building roads (and maybe a few other assorted tasks like forts or airfields) for advancing units beyond your borders, and as such, their role would be alot like military engineers rather than civilian workers. The other option, is to simply do away with external improvements altogether, and only allow improvements to take place within one's borders.

The workforce itself, would make tile improvements within your borders quick, easy, and painless. Automated, you could pay virtually no attention and allow improvements to occur organically (much like automated workers, but without having to watch the units move about the screen). All unassigned workforce points could be set to be automated, so that you could partially direct some of it manually for key improvements, without having to worry about idle waste as automation would utilize it. This would all occur on the main map, as an option under a right click, under the menu that usually starts with "Terrain Info" and "Wake/Activate Unit".

The Labour Minister screen would be used for managing your Workforce itself - enlarging or reducing it. Also, parameters for automation could be set here to prioritize certain tasks (eg clean pollution first), restrict certain tasks (eg do not build any irrigation, or something), and also to turn automation on or off.

(Credit to eromrab for the majority of ideas with regards to this system)

The Ministry of Transportation

The Ministry of Transportation wouldn't have much of a role (in fact, no role) before the discovery of railroads and flight. Possibly it could be used in some manner for shipping, but I haven't thought about that too much.

The Ministry of Transportation would govern a National Infrastructure pool. Again, there a number of possible methods that could be implemented for determing the size of the National Infrastructure: you could spend gold and buy it, possibly you could assign workforce to build it, or perhaps it might be determined by a city improvement. Again, I'll leave that aside for future ideas and set out a function for the National Infrastructure.

National Infrastructure would limit the amount of units that could be transported via airports or rails, which would retain their current role otherwise. That is, if you had a National Infrastructure of 23, you could move 15 units by rail, and airlift 8 before all other units were limited to moving normally. You would still have to build railroad lines and airports, and other than implementing this limitation, there would be little change to those things. Rail lines could still be pillaged to stop rail movement, and cities without airports would be unavailable for airlifts.

Possibly, National Infrastructure might also be used to trade resources (just a thought - not sure if that would be fun or not). This would give it some functions before the discovery of rail, and relate it to shipping in a way.

I like the Labour Ministry idea, and as you might know I am in favour of the assigning method, and if not then the population method. I hate the idea of paying gold unless you ask to do work when you have exceeded your limit. I already pay too much gold per turn for basic things like workers (especially under Republic and Democracy).

The Transport Ministry.....I'm not so keen on really. It is a way to end the mass-moving of units by rail. But I would prefer to see you have to build train stations (and not necessarily in cities), which would be the only way to get on to the railroads. Making it so you can only have a certain number (perhaps 1 per city) without paying gpt for them, it would end the 'any square to any square' system we have now, because there's no way you could have a train station on every square.

You could either build the station in the city radius, through the Labour Ministry system, or in a city, as a city improvement, which would take longer to build but would give you some kind of bonus (+1 commerce maybe). So you could build a station outside of the city, and when you're finished building all you want in the city, demolish the old train station and build one in the city (and don't try to tell me transport-hub relocations are unrealistic! ;))

I like the ideas of rail depots too, but there is one major problem with them. That is that if it intends to act as a replacement for the actual rail lines, then you've done away with the strategy of cutting someone's rail infrastructure in half. If you keep the rail lines in addition to the depots, it seems sort of redundant and maybe a little more work than it has to be, building all that stuff.

As far as "any square to any square", that's easily rectified without worrying about either of these solutions: simply get rid of the terrain bonus for railroad, substituting a tech that gives +1 to all squares or perhaps a second layer of terrain improvements (farmland and deep core mines or something). Then make railroads take a very long time to build. People won't be building rails all over the place, but in lines, the way they are in the real world. Also, practically speaking, depots might take care of being able to move from any square to any square, *but* they don't really deal with the problem of a huge central army being able to counter attacks on any front by overwhelming response. They just delay it, very slightly. Limiting total rail capacity also limits the size of responses, but doesn't disallow or delay them. What you'd end up doing is create fair sized defensive forces along your borders and then have a central reserve force, but one of limited size.

Also, why couldn't you have a train station on every square? It might not look nice but ppl would do it, especially if you got a bonus. Limiting an improvement to 1/city radius would probably be difficult to program.

Other than all that, rail depots are definately very realistic and accurate as they were major strategic points in most major wars. But in terms of gameplay I think it would be easier to say, you can only move X number of units on the rail, and then limit the building of rail to lines (not sprawls) by getting rid of the terrain bonus.

One final thing about the Labour Ministry is that I don't like the idea of gpt per turn either. If you did buy workforce, then you'd buy it, not rent it. But I prefer workforce to be related to, well, workforce (ie population, food etc)

What I meant was thet for every city you have you can have a station that odesn't cost any money to maintain, but if you build any more then you pay the gpt penalty like with units.

I don't see what the problem is with a stations & rails system. You would have lines that can still be pillaged by enemies, and the only way to get onto these lines would be through stations. Pillaging just one rail square would cut off the whole route (trains need tracks to run on, they can't just go onto land), so in effect you could cut off a city from reinforcements by pillaging a few squares, getting rid of the option of moving forces up instantaneously. Getting into a station would cost one turn, and insteas of the 0 movement point change it to 1. That would seriously harm your response time, there are many times which I can capture 4 or 5 cities in just 1 turn. Think how a 2-turn delay would affect your defense. The war could practically be won or lost during those turns.

What you'd end up doing is create fair sized defensive forces along your borders and then have a central reserve force, but one of limited size.

a) You should do this anyway, if you care at all about defense
b) It's better than what can be done now, moving EVERY military unit to one space when a war breaks out, which requires no thinking or planning at all. At least in the new way you'd have to consider where exactly to put your defensive troops.

What I meant was thet for every city you have you can have a station that odesn't cost any money to maintain, but if you build any more then you pay the gpt penalty like with units.

I don't see what the problem is with a stations & rails system. You would have lines that can still be pillaged by enemies, and the only way to get onto these lines would be through stations. Pillaging just one rail square would cut off the whole route (trains need tracks to run on, they can't just go onto land), so in effect you could cut off a city from reinforcements by pillaging a few squares, getting rid of the option of moving forces up instantaneously. Getting into a station would cost one turn, and insteas of the 0 movement point change it to 1. That would seriously harm your response time, there are many times which I can capture 4 or 5 cities in just 1 turn. Think how a 2-turn delay would affect your defense. The war could practically be won or lost during those turns.



a) You should do this anyway, if you care at all about defense
b) It's better than what can be done now, moving EVERY military unit to one space when a war breaks out, which requires no thinking or planning at all. At least in the new way you'd have to consider where exactly to put your defensive troops.

When I said a small reserve force, that's only what happens with limited rail movement. With depots, you can still have all your units move to one spot ... just not attack in the same round, but they can still get to that front all at once and 2 or 3 rounds later, all be shifted to another front. What would end up happening, too, is everyone would load up their entire military onto the rails every round - or at least I would. That way if there was an unexpected attack along any front I could bear down on it with my whole military - and still in the same round I could bring it all to the city that's under attack, even if it takes another round to get off the rail (presumably I'll be in the city just not able to move that round). That's just like the problem with the workers, is that people will micromanage if it gets an advantage. So it has to be a system that is micromanagement-free. Imposing a turn limit to get on the track just means keeping your entire military on the tracks at all times, even if you have to move it around.

Well then, just make it so that you get none of the usual benefits if you keep units in stations. In fact, it should be a burden, because then you wouldn't be able to use it for trading and stuff (I think stations should act like marketplaces - look at all the shops in them) because of all the troops there who need to be able to move at a moment's notice. Also, a unit in a station should not contribute to the defense of the city. Then you could have an interesting situation where you could counter-attack from within the newly-captured city!

Here's my revised set of options for train stations:

-One turn to get in the station
-Remaining in the station for any extra turns will get rid of the commerce bonus and start draining your treasury (-1 for every unit)
-Getting off of train takes one turn, units that have not got off train do not count as defence but if city is captured then the next turn there will be an oppurtunity to counter-attack.
-After having held the city for one turn the enemy seizes control of it (unless there are troops there, in which case they have to fight them) and you can no longer use that particular line (the enemy can't use it to get to you either).
-If the station is out of the city then the enemy will have to pillage the rails (you could pillage the station but why do this if you're planning to keep the city? You're just making more work for you to do) to stop you from sending anymore troops.

So basically it will take you 3 turns to be able to do anything in which time you will probably have lost your city and the ability to send troops there quickly.

PS: I'm happy to scrap the whole 'fight back from the station' idea and just make it that you lose those troops, who die in the storming of the station. I just thought it would be an fun element to add.

There's still a basic principle which it violates, and that is that, unless there is some strategy to building something, I'd rather that it were assumed. I don't want to have to do more things, I'd rather that more things were assumed. If I'm probably going to build rail depots in all my cities anyway, why not just assume them, and say that you can only get on the rail from within the city, and assign movement penalties? It's just an extra thing to build.

Assigning penalty for remaining in the station also adds to extra micromanagement, since I will have to go around making sure I haven't got anyone idling on the track. If it comes up in queue so I don't have to do that, it will have to be designated somehow as being on the track, which means I'll have to check every unit that comes up to see that does not have the 'loaded' indicator. Though possibly, this could be remedied by having the graphic of the unit change to a locomotive.

Finally, though a 2-3 turn penalty does mean you'll have to keep bigger defenses on the frontier, it still doesn't prevent you from responding (or planning a massive attack) with almost your entire military, it just delays it a bit. In fact, it gives an advantage to the attacker, since he'll suddenly arrive with all his units and you'll have to wait 2-3 turns when historically, rails should be more defensive than aggressive in value.

A strict limit to the number of units being able to be railed per turn, if the limit is low enough, absolutely prevents these things from happening. Attackers cannot suddenly appear with their entire army at a common border, all popping out from a city with a depot and having a 2 or 3 turn advantage before you can respond in kind. Nor can you defend yourself primarily through the use of a massive central force. Also, it is *alot* less complex to manage than having depots and distinguishing between troops on trains (the gpt for ones idling on the tracks so you don't load your whole army) and troops on foot and all that.

Also, this just sounds unnecessarily complex and would probably be a nightmare to program:

Getting off of train takes one turn, units that have not got off train do not count as defence but if city is captured then the next turn there will be an oppurtunity to counter-attack.
-After having held the city for one turn the enemy seizes control of it (unless there are troops there, in which case they have to fight them) and you can no longer use that particular line (the enemy can't use it to get to you either).

But on the other hand, having all your troops die at the station - doesn't entirely make any sense as they would still fight, even if a bit disorganized, and isn't fair what with the attacker always having the advantage of time (he's off the rails and moving at you before you can even see him, with his entire army - so usually, you will lose the station, if he has cavalry or tanks). It takes away the defensive advantage that rails have.

Another post, just to give an example of what I mean by loading delays benefitting the attacker too much.

Two cities, 4 squares of open terrain between them, each civ owns 2 of those squares (the border is in the middle). Both have tracks and depots in the city.

Turn 1: I load almost my entire army onto the rails.

Turn 2: I move it to the city.

Turn 3: I unload all the units. I load all newly produced units that were made in Turn 2 and this turn, onto the rail.

Turn 4: I declare war. If I have cavalry or modern armour, all my attack units hit the city this round and I capture it. Rails to the newly captured city are rushed, and if the depot survives my attack, I move all the new units that got on the rails on turn 3 to the depot.

Turn 5: The defender now loads his forces. I unload the newly produced units and my entire army, now strikes the next city down the line and captures it too.

Turn 6: The defender moves his forces to the 3rd city in. However, I am repeating the process here, and again will be able to strike with full force at it too. Either we have the incredibly complex system of the counterattack thing or he loses all his forces when I capture this depot.

And so on. It makes rails too much of an advantage for attackers, when it should be an advantage for defenders. When units that can move past the border and right up to attack a city in one round appear, the defender *needs* some kind of rapid transit for his forces or it's too easy to conquer people. I'm just proposing to limit the total amount of rapid transit, so the defender keeps his ability to mobilize a defence, but only a limited defence rather than his entire army. I also expect that the AI will be able to use this system just as well as a human player. I can't see how depots would be easier for the AI to use than the current model (in fact, I can see the AI having half its army constantly stuck in loading and unloading).

A National Infrastructure rating is an easy, simple, low-management way of ending the problem of the big army instantly moving anywhere, without fundamentally changing the game too much. It's not complex, it's easy to figure out, management is kept to an absolute minimum, and it solves the problem. Incidentally, it also takes care of the same problem with Airports (where by use of many airports and airbases, an army of almost unlimited size can be transported to a single airport in rapid time) since they would be similarly limited. The thing I see is that, Civ4 is not going to be more complex than Civ3 and anything that's going to be implemented is going to have to be at least as simple and micromanagement-free as Civ3. The only way I can see getting rid of the problems associated with infinite rails without making the game more of a headache, is to limit their use in terms of the number of units.

I like the ideas of rail depots too, but there is one major problem with them. That is that if it intends to act as a replacement for the actual rail lines, then you've done away with the strategy of cutting someone's rail infrastructure in half.


Given that players will railroad every tile in sight anyway, the cut the rail line strategy is pretty meaningless anyway. You aren't losing any strategy with a rail depot city improvement model. Every such model I've seen has required a road connection to abstract the rails anyway, so it is still technically possibel to cut the lines.

True, as I mentioned in that post it's only if you intend to use rail depots in the same manner as airports. If you don't, what is the point of adding extra work to the game by building depots and looking to check which cities have them when you want to move troops? Why not just assume a loading/unloading sequence is available in any city connected to rail?

But there are still lots of problems no one's answered which I've outlined above. What is the problem with a cap on total numbers? It's simple and easy. You don't have to click anything when you want to move a unit, except where you want it to go. Not many extra decisions and an absolute minimum of management. The best scenario I can imagine for the depot system will be at least as complex as loading a large army up into a large transport fleet, which, if you have ever done it, is a bit of a pain in the arse, but at least you don't do it very often. I imagine you'll always be using rails alot, and it will be hell for big empires the more complex you make it. Civ4 is supposed to make it easier to manage a larger empire, not harder.

Also, the plain fact is that only civilians need depots. Here's a video reenactment of troops boarding a train from a field in the Civil War, a common practice:

http://www.wrightwood.com/Media/Civil%20War/A243-128.DEMO.mov

And also pertinent:

Due to the usual conservatism of the Federal Government, Federal Troops are seldom, if ever, called into action until conditions have gotten very seriously out of hand. Hence, when we arrive, force is the only alternative ... In order to stop a riot we must get to the scene of trouble, usually a city.

There are three methods of approach. By rail, by bus, or by marching.

In approaching by rail, be sure that there are no sympathizers at the entraining point who may attempt to interfere with your embarkation. If there is any possibility of this, entrain outside the railroad yards at some siding which may be easily guarded.

Upon arriving near your destination, stop in ample time to detrain outside the yards which, since they are invariably situated in the slums, will be hotbeds of disorder. When the train stops at the point selected by you, establish an outpost to cover the debarkation.

While the railroad officials are in theoretical charge of the train, have an officer located on the engine who will stop the train on signal from you. Have a pull cord, or else rig a buzzer for this purpose.

Bit from Federal Troops In Domestic Disturbances, by Major George S. Patton, Jr., Cavalry, November 1932.

http://www.pattonhq.com/textfiles/federal.html

i like the idea of the cities being the onload and offload points... and would recommend either a limit like frekk is suggesting of total AMOUNT of troops... or a limit on the amount of moves that you can do while on the tracks...

i don't like the delay ideas though... i agree with frekk that that would provide a serious advantage for the attackers and not the defenders, which is what it should provide the advantage for...

I'm satisfied with what you've said. I do however have one little query:

How and what exactly would determine the limit?

PS: How about a rail station is taken as given, but you can actually build one of you want to? This built station would have the +1 commerce benefit, and maybe it would raise the limit by 1 (like the Pentagon does with armies)?

I love trains, and I think that they are vastly underused in Civ, apart from the infinite movement, which just goes way too far.

I'm satisfied with what you've said. I do however have one little query:

How and what exactly would determine the limit?

PS: How about a rail station is taken as given, but you can actually build one of you want to? This built station would have the +1 commerce benefit, and maybe it would raise the limit by 1 (like the Pentagon does with armies)?

I love trains, and I think that they are vastly underused in Civ, apart from the infinite movement, which just goes way too far.

Well, that is one way you could do it, you build Switching Stations or Rail Depots and each one that you have, gives you a Rail Capacity of one. But I think personally that would be too high. So as a commerce thing, sure.

I'm thinking more along the lines of ... 1 Rail Capacity = 1000gp, if it was done that way. An alternative method that I personally like would dovetail nicely with the Ministry of Labour, and that is, you permanently transfer "workforce points" or whatever they are to be called to the National Infrastructure, eg 10 Workforce Points = 1 Rail Cap or some such formula.

My idea for Infrastructure Capacity is that it would be very limited. In the early days of your rail, it would start out at 0 (obviously) and you might get it up to around 5 or so by the time you've laid enough track to make much use of it. By the time you got Infantry it might be 10. By the time you got Tanks, it might be 12 or 15, and by the time you got Modern Armour you might get it up to 20. 30 would be about the maximum limit, and you'd probably be at the end of the game around then.

that just seems way more complicated than RR MPs... :-P

It takes roughly 6 hours to drive from London to Newcastle. It takes roughly 3 hours on the train. So you could say a rail has 0.5 movement points compared to the 1 a road does.

But I'm too attached to the idea of stations to support that ;)

that just seems way more complicated than RR MPs... :-P

It is a bit more complex as a system, I agree. But also, RR mps might be a bit more of a headache in actual play, if you've ever had lots and lots of units before you've got RR's you know what I mean. Also it isn't nearly as complex as it sounds. They do something like this in another turn based game (Imperialism) and even in alot of the old board wargames. If it can be done on a boardgame it's not hard at all to do in a computer game.

Boiled down, it sounds pretty simple altogether, eg:

- 1000gps = 1 RR point
- 1 RR point = 1 unlimited move
- small button to in unit functions to initiate Rail Move. Counter in display shows how many RR points are left.

RR mp's are slightly easier to describe but it doesn't mean they are less complex in play. Workers in Civ are easy to describe, but its hell managing them all.


I'm not totally against RR mp's either though. But if RR mp's are to be implemented I'd want changes made to the way airports and airlifts work.

no what i'm saying is that it seems like i'd have to do much more micromanagement under the RR point system... i'd have to say "okay, i have 5 RR points, which means i can mean 5 troops as far as i want... so i'd have to figure out the best 5 to move along the RR, and then move my other units manually...

and i'd have to do this every turn... figure out the best 5 to use on the RR and move the rest manually...

i would much rather just be able to click "goto" and have all my units get there ASAP...

no what i'm saying is that it seems like i'd have to do much more micromanagement under the RR point system... i'd have to say "okay, i have 5 RR points, which means i can mean 5 troops as far as i want... so i'd have to figure out the best 5 to move along the RR, and then move my other units manually...

and i'd have to do this every turn... figure out the best 5 to use on the RR and move the rest manually...


That's not micromanagement ... that's strategy.

i would much rather just be able to click "goto" and have all my units get there ASAP...

You can still do that, too.


The other great thing about using Rail Capacity over using RR mp's is that RR mp's do not and cannot reflect changing technologies. Moving troops by coal-powered trains in 1870 is alot different than moving troops by diesel powered locomotives in 1970. An expanding rail capacity reflects that, but RR mp's don't. This lack has been discussed before:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=59256

you could just increase the RR MP's as the techs are developed...

you could just increase the RR MP's as the techs are developed...

But the real revolution in diesel and such wasn't so much speed, it was the overall capacity of the rail networks. That's why maglevs and electric trains aren't yet widely used, because they don't offer any signifigant capacity increase and that's the biggest concern for rail lines.

If trains were quicker more people would use them since they're generally cheaper than planes for national travel. But the greedy companies won't spend any money making quicker trains. Bahh.

Ask any citizen of this country: the rail system sucks. I'm glad you can't privatise in Civ.

they suck in the US too... i looked up prices and such, and it is always cheaper and faster to fly...

Let me just summarise a little here on teh various models.


Vanilla infinite move. Everyone seems to agree this sucks.
Each unit gets N rail move points for use on railed tiles, with N increasing as technology advances.
Infinite move, but only N units per turn can use the rails, N increasing with either money spent (cumultive) or advancing technology.
Rail depot city improvements, rails assumed where a road is present. Move on rail is restricted either by a fee per unit or by various models of units/turn or units/city/turn.


Have I missed any models?

They wouldn't be cheap if they were faster, that's the whole point. Capacity. A rail network with high capacity is cheap because supply is high, demand is low. It's actually the increase in capacity that's responsible for rails being used primarily for freight nowadays ... it's cheap, and bulk capacity is huge.

Go back in time, and travelling by train wasn't cheap, but capacity was low and speed was ... well ... intense, compared to any other form of transportation available. That was why it was used primarily for passengers and cargoes that had to be delivered quickly (mail and perishables). With the invention of diesel, trains weren't a whole lot faster - but they could pull many, many more cars. This made them suitable for freight at a time when cars were becoming more and more affordable (the 50s) and airline passenger services were becoming more common and cheaper too.

@Rhialto:

Nope, I think that covers them all. I wouldn't say for certain that everyone disagrees with "vanilla" rail though, we'd have to do a poll or something.

5. a combination of the rail depot idea, but with actual rails linking cities so that they can be pillaged to stop traffic

I'd just like to throw in a small thing, for consideration. It doesn't apply to vanilla rails because rail happens instantaneously with a goto.

When a unit is moving on a track (RR mp's), loaded up at a depot, or has spent a Rail Capacity Point to move (all depending on which model you favour) the graphic of the unit changes to a locomotive. Just for fun. Also the locomotive could change depending on the assumed type of locomotives being used (determined by advances). Other than vanilla civ, this would incorporate well with all the models except vanilla (because the graphic could change, but you'd never see it) and for some of them it would even be of benefit to distinguish a normally moving unit and one moving by train (eg, rail capacity system or depot system).

Frekk, graphics wouldn't be a meaningful benefit for the rail depot system, because it is still infinite movement, just that the infinite movement is limited by 1) start/end location, and 2) a gold fee / unit per turn limit.

I forgot to add another rail solution, (CTP/civ-evo style) in which rails are essentially very fast roads, multiplying the base move.

Frekk, graphics wouldn't be a meaningful benefit for the rail depot system, because it is still infinite movement, just that the infinite movement is limited by 1) start/end location, and 2) a gold fee / unit per turn limit.

That isn't the only model that's been proposed for the depot system. One model proposes a turn penalty to load or unload, which would require units loaded onto the track to be distinguished in some manner from units merely in the same square as a depot.

I forgot to add another rail solution, (CTP/civ-evo style) in which rails are essentially very fast roads, multiplying the base move.

That's sort of #2 isn't it? With some slight variations but I think it falls under the general heading of the same idea. There's variant models for all 5.

They wouldn't be cheap if they were faster, that's the whole point.

I never said they'd be cheaper. I said they'd be better. Then more people would use them. More money for companies, as they could make the trains bigger as they were making them faster.

I never said they'd be cheaper. I said they'd be better. Then more people would use them. More money for companies, as they could make the trains bigger as they were making them faster.

In Britain, it would be a great idea.

In North America it couldn't work because of the distances involved. Trains here only make sense if they're cheap, for freight.

Why I put faith in trains is that they run on electric, meaning that they could be powered by renewable energies. If you rely on planes what happens when oil runs out? Electric planes? The risk of them short-circuting or something would be too great. Any way in extending the time we have to work with oil to come up with a long-term solution for aviation is a good thing.

In Britain, it would be a great idea.

In North America it couldn't work because of the distances involved. Trains here only make sense if they're cheap, for freight.

Not sure I folloow you there. Trains are the routine means of moving tanks around in North America. If it works for the US army...

Planes can run on fuel cells.

Also, Canada will never run out of oil, it will just get more expensive for us. We have the Athabasca Tar Sands, with about 20% of all the world's oil deposits. It is quite expensive to recover the oil, but not so expensive that we aren't already doing it on a mass scale.

Trains will never be primarily for passengers here. It's one thing to build a maglev from Birmingham to London, for hundreds of thousands of riders, quite another to build a maglev from Toronto to Vancouver.

Not sure I folloow you there. Trains are the routine means of moving tanks around in North America. If it works for the US army...

Tanks are freight.

We're talking about the difference here between using a high bulk but slow diesel-electric rail network, versus a maglev or electrified rail system, not getting rid of trains in North America. Maglev isn't practical just for freight. It's too expensive. But it would be great for passenger services in small countries like Britain, that's what I'm saying.

Comparitively small, thank you very much :P

Ok, I'll rephrase that.

Maglev would be great for perfect, gloriously formed nations like Britain, long live the Empire! But it would not be good for geographically obese colon ... I mean "nations" ... on the other side of the pond.

btw, someone missed my original point about rail depots, possibly because I forgot to type it.

Whn I first came up with rail depots, it was as a way to take the improved economic output away from the rail tile improvement, so that it would no longer be necessary to rail every tile to remain competitive. the depot itself would provide a 25% shield production bonus instead of rail tiles giving a production bonus.

Putting the rapid transport function was almost an after thought in my original model.

too bad we couldn't implement all these different ideas... play a game like that... and see which works out best eh?

too bad we couldn't implement all these different ideas... play a game like that... and see which works out best eh?

I actually don't see why the game couldn't have support for a bunch of different ideas.

I expect there's no real need to argue for a movement point cost for rails. Supposedly, all values will be easily customizable and I'd be really surprised if you couldn't set or remove (depending on what the default is) movement points/infinite move. I'm almost 100% certain that people will be able to choose their preference in that regard. There is certainly no need to railroad (pardon the pun) other ideas down just over movement points, because it is already pretty much guaranteed that the game will support them, regardless of other ideas.

But other rules like capacity, rail revenue or costs, etc, that will have to have support in the game from the outset. Even if it isn't default, the game will have to have some code and a setting for it, or you'll be left in the cold and not able to implement anything of the sort at all.

thats not what i'm talking about. i'm not talking about making RR like roads where they multiply your movement costs. i'm talking about making RR Movement Points (RRMP) that allow each unit to travel along a RR for that far.

for example. an infantry can move his normal 1 mp... but then will also get 20 RRMPs. so he can move from a road to an RR, move up to 20 moves on the RR, then move another 2 moves on a road.

a cavalry can do the same except he would be able to move 3 mps and his 20 RRMPs.

Isn't that just a slight variation on a theme though? I mean, ultimately, the developers (if they're even listening to all the ideas at this point) are going to look at support for things on a very basic level, not finely distinguished like this. Things that can be summarized in just a few words, like "units can only load at rail depots" or "movement points for rail" or "limited capacity for railroads" or whatever. Then, they're going to go over the ideas that they like and debate them like we are, and probably consider all the same things. So variations on a theme will, I'm sure, be considered.

What might *not* even be considered are whole ideas - like depots, or capacity - that don't get any attention from the fan base. One of the things they are *sure* to consider, though, is a movement point system for railroads and I'm positive that one of the things that will occur to them, during playtesting if not before, is that it is kind of weird that cavalry would move faster than riflemen on rails. So there's really no worry about this idea at all, the way I see it. They already know alot of people want some more options with regards to the rail system, and either they are going to implement a finely tuned and realistic variant like the one you've described, or they'll opt for a less realistic one for some reason - but not because they haven't considered the problem, surely.

Ok, I'll rephrase that.

Maglev would be great for perfect, gloriously formed nations like Britain, long live the Empire! But it would not be good for geographically obese colon ... I mean "nations" ... on the other side of the pond.

At leats more than 17% of our citizens can locate us on a map, and don't just point to Russia cos it's the biggest :P

At leats more than 17% of our citizens can locate us on a map, and don't just point to Russia cos it's the biggest :P

As a Canadian, its really not a concern for us. 99% of our citizens can easily locate the enormous neon pink mass at the top of most world maps.

I was of course referring to Americans. Interestingly, before the Iraq War only 11% could identify it even though they wanted to bomb the hell out of it. They did it again recently and now most Americans know because they see the maps on television.

The Americans get confused when they look for the biggest country in the world and see "Russia" written on it.

Canadians, on the other hand, have absolutely no difficulty with world geography. Witness the precision with which a member of our fearsome, enormous, awe-inspiring military identifies your puny island.

http://img129.exs.cx/img129/8739/Worldmap.jpg

The Americans get confused when they look for the biggest country in the world and see "Russia" written on it.[/IMG]

The map shown had the territories all coloured in but no country names.

Re: That map - I'm not even sure what island that is myself :lol:

Isn't it called Spitzbergen or something? No, I didn't look it up.