Railroads, Take 1063.

I know there are numerous discussions about railroads and how they should be revamped into something less cheating. I certainly agree with the people that consider the railway movement to be too powerful. The problem in a different approach seems to be how to control the movements of units after the discovery of railroads without influencing gameplay too heavily.

It's important to make clear what the advantage of railroads over normal roads should be: increased movement rate for every land unit traveling a tile with railroad improvements. To achieve this you can specify a 'bonus factor' for railroads, a secondary movement value for units, a fixed movement capacity and what more. But why not look at an approach already in use in Civ3 for land units? With the discovery of Flight it becomes possible to airlift units bewteen cities with airports. A unit loses it's movement rate by being airlifted to a different city.

Why not introduce railroad stations as a city improvement and make units transportable between cities with railroad stations? If you let the unit keep it's normal movement rate after arriving at the other railroad station you could consider that 'saved movement rate' as the advantage over normal roads.

But how do you depict railroads if this approach is considered? The game should automaticly generate the shortest possible railroad connection between two cities with railroad stations. This is easy if you have 3 cities (A, B and C) and A and B both build a railroad station (Image 1). But what if city A and C both build a railroad station but station B doesn't (yet)? Then you could still create the shortest possible connection, this time between A and C, but not connect B (Image 2). But why would you not connect B if the shortest possible connection happens to go through B (Image 3)? Connecting B with railroads doesn't mean that land units can be transported to B by train, not until B constructs a railway station too.

Using railroad stations would also prevent players from building railroads in every single tile they cultivated. This saves alot of micromanagement for the player but also means no extra food, trade or production bonus in non-railroad tiles. You can prevent this loss by bringing back the good old supermarkets and possibly have hill, mountain and forest tiles produce extra shields upon construction of a factory within a town.

This is n interesting idea...

Yes it is...

I actually like it.

When i first played C2 i was very ignorant back then, but anyway when i finally layed down some railroads, it surprised the deleted outta me, that i could move one unit from one city, to another one halfway around the world in ONE turn.

Your idea, is very interesting...

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Just one suggestions. One of the huge advantages of rails is that you can transport your units to the front lines very efficiently, see any of the other rail posts. Anyway, with this advance, i had suggested the potential for workers to construct rail stations on open terrain, not just in cities. That way you can move to the front line efficiently, but not have to always put up a new city when you want to do so.

I prefer a different model for two reasons. First of all, trains are not aircraft. They should behave in substantially different ways so that you have reason to make use of both. Secondly, the scheme you describe doesn't give an enemy any way to damage your infrastructure. That strategic option should exist; I should be able to bombard the railroads leading to your city so that you cannot rush in reinforcements. My scheme for railroad can be found in this post: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=2894546#post2894546

Who says it can't be bombarded? If a railroad connection exists between 2 cities you can very well bombard that connection. It would take a worker to 'clear the damage' and your connection would be back to normal after it.

So you have a tile improvement that magically appears between two cities when you build train stations. Then someone bombards it, which somehow covers it with damage that a worker clears away. How is that better than the railroad being an ordinary improvement that can be destroyed? The only difference I see is that the railroad appears automatically. There's the advantage that the player doesn't have to build it explicitly, but there's an attendant disadvantage that the player can't determine where the railroad goes.

There are more bonuses, apatheist. It also means there won't be unrealistic countrysides with railroads on every tile, enabling you as a player to take advantage of railroads everywhere.

That automaticly adds an extra dimension to where you stack your units. When they leave the railroad track they can't roll into enemy territory without loosing movement points (thereby effectively wiping out Blitzkrieg warfare with Cavalry).

You call it a disadvantage that the player can't decide where the railroad goes but I dare challenge that view. If you can rely on a shortest possible railroad connection being established between two cities with railroad stations why would you need to determine where the railroad goes? Especially if a tile with railroads doesn't offer any bonus over a tile with just roads (because those bonuses are tied to city improvements or civilization advances/traits). The only reason why a player would need to determine the positioning of the track would then be to make profitable use of the fact that traveling over railroads saves movement points. To me it seems that thát was the reason why the railroad approach as is was challenged.

Hyronymus said:

There are more bonuses, apatheist. It also means there won't be unrealistic countrysides with railroads on every tile, enabling you as a player to take advantage of railroads everywhere.

Click to expand...

That's not necessarily unrealistic, as tiles of the real world work out to being some 160 km square. There are few settled areas of the world that size that do not have a rail line passing through.

Hyronymus said:

That automaticly adds an extra dimension to where you stack your units. When they leave the railroad track they can't roll into enemy territory without loosing movement points (thereby effectively wiping out Blitzkrieg warfare with Cavalry).

Click to expand...

That part I accept. That part can be incorporated without accepting the whole, though. The only parts of the model that I was concerned with were the automatic builds and the need for a train station.

Hyronymus said:

You call it a disadvantage that the player can't decide where the railroad goes but I dare challenge that view.

Click to expand...

Ooooh! Daring!

Hyronymus said:

If you can rely on a shortest possible railroad connection being established between two cities with railroad stations why would you need to determine where the railroad goes? Especially if a tile with railroads doesn't offer any bonus over a tile with just roads (because those bonuses are tied to city improvements or civilization advances/traits). The only reason why a player would need to determine the positioning of the track would then be to make profitable use of the fact that traveling over railroads saves movement points. To me it seems that thát was the reason why the railroad approach as is was challenged.

Click to expand...

I can think of at least a couple. Perhaps the shortest rail connection travels too close to enemy territory and I prefer to travel by a less vulnerable path. Perhaps I want to build redundant links so that it's harder to cut off one of my cities. Perhaps I wish to connect a resource or a fortress. Maybe I want to build rail out to the tip of my continent so that my ships don't have to travel an extra 3 tiles to load. Saving that 6 tile round trip may be the difference between fortifying a city under siege and losing it.

I am all for automation when the automation takes away tedium and does just as good a job as the player could do. This type of automation takes away tedium but also limits options and would lead to sub-optimal results in some common cases.

To start with your first reply: think Africa (and don't wave it away as if Africa is 'special', special or not it does have parts where 160 square km are trackless).

I fail to see why someone would make a railroad connection to resource when connecting it by road does the trick already. And your point that the shortest possible route could be too close to enemy territory is something you can worry about or not. As your smallest city radius is always 3x3 tiles I don't see a harmful threat there.

I'm not going to ignore Africa; the game already does that for me. The game is designed such that the whole world eventually looks like Western Europe or eastern China or the coastal areas of the United States. The game doesn't allow the existence of empty space by making it too profitable to eat up every last tile of territory and to build infrastructure there. The game doesn't model poverty or weak economies or ethnic strife or any of the other factors that have kept Africa in such bad shape.

You're right. Connecting a resource by railroad isn't important.

I guess my overall feeling is that the tedium can be reduced without sacrificing the control that a player currently has. Your suggestion reduces both tedium and control.

apatheist said:

That's not necessarily unrealistic, as tiles of the real world work out to being some 160 km square. There are few settled areas of the world that size that do not have a rail line passing through.

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True, but there is a big difference between a trunk line and a branch line in terms of how suitable it is for strategic redeployment of large amounts of military forces. IMO, branch lines should be assumed in some way, and the focus ought to be on building just the trunk lines.