GRAPHICS: Tidier railroads

This is a minor modification to the railroads.pcx file which will tidy up the extensive rail networks that are a feature of any modern empire. Although the graphics changes may seem subtle, the impact on the overall feel of the game as you play is quite significant, and there is much more sense of order in seeing an empire grow through the modern ages.

The pcx file is organised so that the bottom row of 16 tiles are graphics for railroad tiles which are connected to railroads in all 8 directions, and it's these graphics which are responsible for the messy railroads you've complained of. What I've done is to replace 12 of those 16 tiles with copies of the remaining 4 - which were chosen on the basis of their geometry and level of simplicity. Less confusing looping of railroads should hopefully mean less chance of sending your mech infantry off into the hills when they're needed vitally on the front line. Furthermore, the game seems to use a map coordinate algorithm to choose which of the 16 map tiles go where, so what I've also done is to figure out an arrangement of these new tiles which will give the most aesthetically pleasing graphics.

Note that rail tiles which are not connected in ALL directions will not be affected, so the changes will not be evident in "undeveloped" rail networks, or in rail tiles at the edge of a network. The graphics for these seem fine to me, and do not need to be modified.

Before:

"What's different?" you might ask. The changes may seem minor at first, but the new tesselation puts much more emphasis on horizontals and interleaving diagonals, so that when viewed from a wider perspective there is greater coherency and structure to multiple-city sprawls. Many of the tiles which were replaced had sections where east and west would not meet (see above), and had unnecessary meandering and curling which made the railroads look more like spaghetti. Now there is less tendency to meander, and curves have been limited to simpler, less angulated geometric arcs.

This screenshot doesn't do the mod any justice. The best way for you to assess it is to load up an old saved game (preferably well into the modern era) and look at the changes for yourself.

After:

thanks for the goodwork I would like to see more civ2 type railroads though.

Good work finding out how all those tiles connect to each other! However, it doesn´t get rid of the main problem: having railroads in every bloody tile! I mean, it looks ridiculous. Civ2 was much better in this aspect, since you didn´t have to build railroads in every tile because of some boost in production.

yeah, true hurricane, it really annoys and uglys the map that you have to stick a fudging railroad in every fudging tile in the game.

With huge city-railroad networks, I always envisage those huge sprawls you see in science fiction such as Mega City 1 (Judge Dredd) or the planet Coruscant (in Star Wars).

i like to imagine the railroads as sprawling superhighways

looks great, nice subtle changes are sometimes the best

would this "mod" work with thunderfall's lessyellow mod? i mean did you only change the railroad image file? thanks

Wow this one is great, glad to see someone noticed how sloppy the railroads were! Very tidy and clean looking Thanks for the upgrade.
I always wondered why they just didnt make them straight lines, originally the were looking like a drunk engineer made them This looks alot more to the point, I mean the closest distance between two points is a straight line. Not a wiggly line... heh Learn a lil something here Fraxis...
I think alot of the mods should team up together and make an ultimate mod! Maybe you should talk to Plutarck(LWC mod)? Seems he has a team up going on with Il Mafioso already for unit icons, a tider railroad would be good to. Just an idea

I will have to take a look at this again...

EDIT

LOL!

With that great explanation, there is only one thing to do: Download now!

this mod is AWESOME!!! I LOVE YOU NOW!!!! I would father your children, but I'm a guy ,sorry :0

LoL well after scavengers scary yet funny remark... i love this mod pack and i just cant get over it, i dont get dizzy and sick when seeing my railroads anymore .(cause they were all over and basically i cant think of a reason for so many loops all over, it made the map messy ) once again thank you so much

this is... indeed... a good graphics mod...

thank you...


RoY

Aye this mod is sweet for my eyes. I cant help wondering why one would have to put railroads in every square. A railroad should affect 7 squares so that we might design neater looking maps.

Excellent mod, good job!

cool

Great!!! Highly needed and respected and appreciated by me too!

Is there anyway to make railroads look like in civ2? There's always the option of turning off the railroad production bonus too. Civ3 railroads look so bad!

Ukas, who's that ugly guy in your avatar?