2.8/ModMod Suggestion - "Require Roads"

I remembered a while ago, playing someone elses mod, where they had made it so that certain unit types required routes to be able to move into a tile.

This had lots of interesting effects on gameplay.

It meant that building and pillaging roads (and by association bridges) had a noticeable effect on the military side of the game.

It was quite customisable -

- Obviously INFANTRY can move anywhere.
- Tracked and bigger units required a route to enter certain features (forest, jungle)
- Horses couldn't enter forests (technically they can in real life, but they can't CHARGE in forests)
- In later era, units could be restricted to other route types (Railroad artillery for example)

The tactical effects were excellent on game play -

- you had to bring infantry with you
- you had to bring units that could build roads/repair bridges (as in real life!)
- infantry could retreat into forests and jungles and be immune to being wiped out by superior wheeled/horse units
- you had to pound the forests with artillery or bombers to try to get them out
- you could stop a stack of catapults advancing on your capital by taking out the only road over a bridge
- real bottlenecks occurred where you would make "the only road into your kingdom" a chokepoint
- forts became more used, as chokepoints added purpose to them
- small foot units could still walk around the road, but at a much greater cost in movement points

All of these "effects" of route restriction are REALISTIC and FUN.

Along with the Movement Point addon that Vincentz kindly knocked together - it doubles the "speed up" effect of roads, I'd like to suggest that this might not be a bad addition to ROM 2.8.

Particularly with the addition of Vincentz's Sea Lanes as well, it may be the solution to the Ocean/Galley debate. Perhaps allow "Sea Charting" a bit earlier in game, and then allow ships to cross oceans along "Chartered Sea Lanes" but not allow them to wander on Oceans without them?



Anyway, I've found the following SDK mod-component:

Route Restrictor SDK Mod Component, by Shqype
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=267632

With commented source for implementing this feature.



I'd like to humbly suggest it might make an excellent addition to ROM 2.8 and/or possible into a Mod Component by one of our C++ people (*looks nervously at Jooyo*).

Cheers,



Sarkyn

I'd love to see this implemented. It would add to the strategy and make you use tactics very similar to that in real life.

Love this idea! I agree that it would be a great modmod or addition to 2.8.

Any takers?

some units may need roads o ther rail roads...but why dont let mountains be useful too just restraining wheled units from pass...mountains are a hard place to develop but are surely useful for mines , grazing, windmill...etc

betto said:

some units may need roads o ther rail roads...but why dont let mountains be useful too just restraining wheled units from pass...mountains are a hard place to develop but are surely useful for mines , grazing, windmill...etc

Click to expand...

Sounds like you want this modcomp too

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=311211

Afforess said:

Sounds like you want this modcomp too

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=311211

Click to expand...

this mod is for vanilla civ4 ... how to use this with ROM ?

betto said:

this mod is for vanilla civ4 ... how to use this with ROM ?

Click to expand...

I realize, I meant that what you were asking for was similar to that mod. It could be merged with RoM.

sorry I probaly was impolite in the last comment ,but a new mod would bring more bugs...in the "vanilla" ROM would be perfect the mountains return...

I thought about this road system as well. I'm not sure it needs a coredll change though, but a lot of work on the unitinfo.xml instead. I'll have a look at it after I finish my guilds.

I like this idea!

This would be a great add-on. One more step to making this mod super realistic...

I'm on leave from work for the next week, so I would be happy to have a crack at this if it only involves modifying the unitinfo.xml file. I'm not sure what parameters need changing though. I guess if there was an easy way to modify the unit classes that would be the easiest method, e.g. change the Tracked Vehicle class to require roads in forest or jungle. Bet it's not as simple as that though!

One more thing to mention having thought about it for a bit; I'm not sure how well the AI would cope with this mod. For example if the AI declared war on someone and there was a lot of undeveloped forest or jungle in between them, it may prevent the AI actually doing anything (perhaps units would just bunch up next to the impassable trees?). I don't know if the AI is smart enough to know that it would have to build roads towards its enemies in order to gain access with its wheeled/tracked vehicles.

Edit: Sarkyn, do you have a link to the original version of this mod that you mention in your first post?

If my reading of the mod is correct, it requires two things:

1) that the SDK be modified so as to enable the tags
2) that the tags be added to the unit xmls

I've only got the link that I put above, I can't actually recall what mod it was that I used to play, and it may have even been Civ3

I also want to play this badly. Could be called tactical mod...

This mod does sound like it could be a lot of fun, but with how drastically it changes gameplay from standard BTS/RoM, it might be best implemented as a modmod, if it's possible to do that. I can see how some people, particularly players who are new to RoM, would be overwhelmed just by what's already in RoM. Adding something that completely changes the military system might turn them off from the mod, unless it was a feature that could be turned on/off.

Again, not saying I'm against the idea. It sounds like a lot of fun. Someone invading your territory with a large number of siege engines? Cut your own roads to stall their advance!

If you guys want, I'll incorporate the Route Limiter into the SDK, but it won't be available for a week or so, I'm working on another SDK change. If not, Jooyo or someone else can do it.

Nightguard said:

Again, not saying I'm against the idea. It sounds like a lot of fun. Someone invading your territory with a large number of siege engines? Cut your own roads to stall their advance!

Click to expand...

Yeah thats the "russian" tactic, as I would say.
I think to give the "stupid" AI the possibility to attack anyway (after leaving "burned earth" behind and falling back, as they usually dont have workers(pioneers) in their stacks to build new roads in the newly occupied but still enemy cultural territory, the infantry/melee units should be enabled to get a newly designed road-building-ability "pioneer" promotion or even have this ability as a prequisite by the time of mediaval warfare units. How to implement the AI to use it then I don't know yet, though---

If a infantry/melee builds a road, its defensive modifier should then be -30% up to -50%, btw....

I agree, this would be great. Ive always thought workers should be able to build roads across mountains (that take a long time to build) at some stage of the game. Then later in the game have a dedicated military engineer unit that has double movement points, can buld roads and tank traps (meaning wheeled units cant cross until other engineers or units can destroy them).

A lot of this was done in Civ 3, I really enjoyed it. I don't know any more if that was vanilla Civ 3 or RaR, which is what I played mostly.

There seems to be quite a bit of agreement that this could be a lot of tactical fun

@ Afforess - will you include this in your latest set of changes to go to Jooyo for his incoporation to 1.18 ?

If so, I can test it and see how large the xml changes will be, and what defaults can be set. It may be as simple as one entry per unit category, but may end up being one entry per unit...