Railroad As Navigable River Gfx Request

The idea struck me that, for certain pre-steam engine mods & scenarios, having river graphics for RRs could be quite useful, especially as most games would have turns long enough to realistically allow a unit to move from, say, Cairo to New Orleans or the first cataract of the Nile to the Mediterranean.

Obviously, any scenario/mod using such would perforce need to have all units without the "Pillage" flag checked (I mean, pillaging a river might be an interesting concept, but ... )

Specifically (and OK, somewhat selfishly) after the horrors of the 30 Years War in Europe, two specific ideas emerged in tandem: the "Balance Of Power" and the limitation of devastation armies would engage in (e.g., pillaging of crops and whatnot.) This held true - admittedly, Euro-centrically - from the War Of The Spanish Succession starting in 1701 CE through the American Revolution (and, even, then, it might extend through that war and beyond, but I am no expert on either that or the Napoleonic wars.)

So, if someone would make appropriately squiggly lines in blue for RRs, Your Humble Archivist would be most appreciative.


Cheers,

Oz

Oz said:

without the "Pillage" flag checked (I mean, pillaging a river might be an interesting concept

Click to expand...

This is interesting idea, Oz - I already implemented it in my scenario in development.
I left "pillage" flag for... Workers, special pillaging forces (legions, "Sabotage" SW auto-produced) only and, probably, some modern troops will have it.
My logical basis is - OK, we have swordsmen unit (it's not a single swordsman, but 10-50-100 men unit). How will they pillage road? Irrigation? They need special equipment and lots of time to complete this task (they will cut harvest with swords? Or burn a road?) - to make road unusable for notable distance, or to burn down the field (and not burn themselves, or not poison with smoke).
However, workers (for example) can do the task, since they primarily have equipment needed.

I second the request. I've actually thought about doing the same thing. I was also thinking that workers could build new canals, but they would have a very high cost and would require the work of many navvies (and perhaps the death of one of them).

the romans actually intended to build the rhine-main-donau canal two thousand years ago, and alexander the suez even before, and the chinese actually managed to build many more...

Interesting idea Oz!

A simple but not very elegant way to make said RR 'rivers' might be just to take the existing RR graphics and re-colour them blue.

I could do that, I'll post it in a bit.

how does this look.

I've posted them here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=535873.

pounder, please add some slope, even if it is 3 pixels wide to the river itself, or some vegetation beacause now it looks a little strange! and if you intend to create channels , they should be more straithforward !?

Jerry'sGoldfish said:

pounder, please add some slope, even if it is 3 pixels wide to the river itself, or some vegetation beacause now it looks a little strange! and if you intend to create channels , they should be more straithforward !?

Click to expand...

They are only 6 to 8 pixels wide to begin with, that would double the width and would cover most of the tile.

I was able to make these quickly because I made myself some tools for some earlier roads I made.

Adding pixels to 256 tiles by hand would take several months.

The thing with Civ3 is every element of this game is of different scale, cities are one scale, roads are another, forests are another, units are another, ......

I typically would not use an overlay like rails to make a water way, I would make a map that would have channels so naval units could traverse.

Oz's request I thought was to make blue rails, didn't request any concrete.

I did make functioning canals many years ago, link is here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=120985.



Never got posted.

It can be done without any mods, just make rivers that separate land masses.

2 pixels on each side - you can do it in photoshop with image-exposure...please try!

Jerry'sGoldfish said:

2 pixels on each side - you can do it in photoshop with image-exposure...please try!

Click to expand...

I don't have photoshop. I have posted the file, can you apply the image exposure and post the changed file.

You can get now older version of Photoshop for free:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-get-photoshop-for-free/

- z

How does one distinguish between a constructed river and a naturally-occurring one? I'm too addicted to random maps to not ask such a question. And it is my impression that this change affects irrigation ability, but it does free up river terrain features to become some other type of terrain feature, such as a ridge of interconnected hills, or a great wall (since it halts units without Engineering), or something of that nature.

The necessary elimination of Pillage firstly ignores the historical policy of salted earth tactics, and prohibits a common wartime tactic of mine: destroying the enemy's infrastructure.

Erebras said:

The necessary elimination of Pillage firstly ignores the historical policy of salted earth tactics, and prohibits a common wartime tactic of mine: destroying the enemy's infrastructure.

Click to expand...

... Which, BTW wasn't at all the case in Europe between the horrors of the 30 Years War and those of Napoleon.

18th Century soldiery was largely drawn from the dregs of society, so as not to disrupt the more "productive" members of society.

Infrastructure was considered valuable and thereby preserved; this sense of "civility" was even carried into the notion of the "honors of war," whereby a surrendering military force would be allowed to leave a besieged fortress with arms and colors.

... And, of course, that would just happen to be the century I'm working on modding


-z

Well, then, Ozy, removing the Pillage ability would greatly improve your modding options, as I hinted at in my post. How will you use your newfound superpowers, for good, or for evil? I am intrigued at the idea of using rivers as a movement barrier before the advance that bridges rivers is researched. If irrigating any square regardless of the availability of fresh water is okay, then players wouldn't even notice that the obstacle was somehow tied to the workers' ability to irrigate. But the implication is that ANY improvement on a square is permanent and unchangeable -- including fortresses and airstrips -- and the only way for it to go away is if the square terrain itself changed, either through climate change/global warming or, say, growing a forest and the improvements are not permitted in forest, or if one improvement replaced another, such as is the case between outposts and fortresses, among others.

Of course, if irrigation and bridging rivers is already possessed by all civs, then the river could become eye candy: a single river square could be a statue or monolith, or two squares could be a ruined and overgrown wall, or three squares could be...well, you get the idea.

But it is hardcoded that rivers increase trade. So on a custom map, a river overlay here and there could be equivalent to grassland shields, but giving a +1 trade bonus instead of a +1 production bonus.

And I don't even know how bombardment and craters work in this system. Is bombardment destruction of irrigation and whatnot considered pillaging, and therefore wouldn't happen? Craters I know reduce a square's productivity, but will they even show up if there are improvements remaining in the square the unit is bombarding?

Erebras said:

And I don't even know how bombardment and craters work in this system. Is bombardment destruction of irrigation and whatnot considered pillaging, and therefore wouldn't happen? Craters I know reduce a square's productivity, but will they even show up if there are improvements remaining in the square the unit is bombarding?

Click to expand...

Indeed: As I've posited this for an 18th Century Euro-centric scenario, not having units checked with either "Pillage" or "Collateral Damage" would be historically appropriate; I've not given thought to other eras.

-Oz