1/3 Movement on Road == Evil

[sir_schwick]

The title was a rip-off of the thread title "Infinite Movement on RR" == Evil", so to whoever originally made that, sorry for not asking for usage rights.

Anyway, everyone complains that infinite RR movement is so unbalanced, espeically b/c roads are only 1/3 movment. The infinite RR movment makes sense, especially considering the scale of the turns(1 year). However, the fact roads only increase range by 200% is kinda silly. It can take 20+ turns for legionaires to go from the Middle East to England. In reality a Legion would take roughly 5 months, including R&R.

Here is the new movement system for roads. If two cities are connected by roads, a unit can be "transported" from the first city square to the second. This move costs no movement points. However, if they are just moving on raods, not directly from city to city. It would still be a 1/3 or maybe 1/5 movement cost. The new advantages of RRs would be increased production, infinite movement anywhere, and it adds a layer to be bombarded.

Non-roaded movmeent should stay the same, b/c early travel w/o roads was excruciatingly slow and dangerous. Roads were revolutionary b/c they took voyages of months and made them weeks or days.

 

[warpstorm]

Wow, infinite movement roads. Nobody will object to that.

 

[Arathorn]

Sounds like an idea that only stick-in-the-muds who like semi-interesting gameplay wouldn't like. Oh, wait. That's me.

Arathorn

 

[sir_schwick]

I never said infiinite movement along roads, I said ifinite movement between cities. The dicotomy between roads and railroads is ridiculous, slow to instant. It makes sense that w/o roads you explore really slowly, but if trade caravans(you don't see them in civ 3) can get between your capital and your trading partner's capital in one turn, why can't your military? Your units still could only go up to 3 squares from the city square in one turn. And they would lose fractionals from reentering the ciy square, if they were out.

Why does this reduce the fun invovled?

 

[warpstorm]

The problem is that you would still have the infinite defense at negligible cost that RRs give you now. Only you'd have it around 1 AD.

I'm a fan of infinite move RRs. While this proposal is somewhat realistic (the roads were one of the things that strengthened the Roman Empire and in the time scales of a turn it was near infinite movement), I think it would have the same gameplay problems that RRs have. (Just sooner).

 

[dh_epic]

I think timeline realism is the worst kind of realism that Civ can embrace. Civ simulates the passage of time by simplifying it. You can't get too hung up on how fast things should happen (for example, if it really takes 4 centuries to build your first temple).

I think road speed is good the way it is. In fact, I might even call it too FAST, not too slow.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Present road movement is about what it should.

But PLEASE bring back the CivII feature that showed fractional movement points remaining.

 

[Lennon]

But PLEASE bring back the CivII feature that showed fractional movement points remaining.

I was pretty sure that is there in Civ3.

I do, though, agree that road movement is fine. Sea movement, however, should be tweaked/increased somehow and RR should be restricted. I don't really object to the infinite movement, but you should have to pay some sort of cost for exceeding certain amounts of tiles moved and you should not be able to attack in the same turn as you rail, because that seems nothing but ridiculous to me and it overpowers the human player enormously.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I don't agree with infinite roads, but I do believe that you should get a bonus to road movement if travelling between friendly cities.
For my part, I always give roads a 1/4 or 1/5 movement rate!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

Why not have roads scale with new technology?
Early roads are pretty crappy, giving maybe letting you travel twice as fast.
Modern roads are significantly better, giving you the three times as fast thing.
And so forth...

And make way for a great wonder:
"Roman Infrastructure" or something
Which speeds up the rate of movement on your roads, and goes obsolete with, say, metalurgy or something.

 

[The Last Conformist]

@dh_epic: Good idea, actually.

 

[warpstorm]

I like that scalable roads idea.

 

[Arathorn]

Definitely a lot of potential to scalable roads. Very early roads are only 1/2 movement and then around construction or engineering (or so), it goes up to 1/3. Some great wonder (I like the Roman Roads idea -- Commercial and Militaristic traits fits too) makes it 1/4 or so and all roads go to 1/4 around the early IA period, with 1/5 in the Modern Age. I like this for a lot of reasons.

It would probably require some different trade-offs for RRs. I'd like to see a reason to NOT build RRs everywhere, for strategy, anyway, so that's not a problem. Different trade-offs and different values are good and scalable road movement varying across ages is, IMO, a good starting place.

Arathorn

 

[Ayatollah So]

Sea movement, however, should be tweaked/increased somehow and RR should be restricted. I don't really object to the infinite movement, but you should have to pay some sort of cost for exceeding certain amounts of tiles moved and you should not be able to attack in the same turn as you rail, because that seems nothing but ridiculous to me and it overpowers the human player enormously.

Bingo.

And along similar lines as your restriction on attacking after railing, I think it would be reasonable to add a movement cost for attacking after using road movement to enter the space from which you attack. About 1/2 the regular movement cost of the terrain type, would be good.

 

[Lennon]

Civ2 had this smart way of troops getting weary if they attacked with 2/3 or 1/3 road movement left. This obviously didn't apply to railroad, but it was a good thing. Could be developed further.

 

[Algernon Pondlife]

Oh no. I posted in the wrong thread. I've moved it now. Sorry

Algae

 

[sir_schwick]

Actually, scaled road movement would actually be really cool, especially if you added some nice graphics. Still, the primary problem of going from rabbit to speed of light in regards to roads has not been solved. What if the scaling went to something like 1/10 or 1/20 cost when you start getting close to automobiles(better road materials). Also, Roads should really get better once Motorized Transport is discovered.

On sea transport, what about being able to take an entire turn to transfer from one port to another, assuming you don't pass trhough any rough seas. Also, a couple more move points would be nice.

Tha's my thoughts, thanx for listening

 

[Khan Quest]

Automatic speed improvement wouldn’t work. When using unclaimed, road-ed areas or if an advanced civ started conquering cities, the advanced civ could move faster the other civs. This would unbalance the game.

If instead road improvement were a worker action (maybe color them grey, as cobble stones, make the line thicker or make parallel lines) this would be fair. It would add some difficulty for Firaxis who would have to track different fractions of movement.

I otherwise think this is an excellent idea.

I would like to see RR reduced to say 12 or 16. This would apply to all units foot-soldier and cavalry alike – Units are not moving under their own power, the train is doing the work. Remember, its not just the troops that are moving, its also logistic support, supplies, paperwork has to get done, civilian travel has to be worked in - you get the idea.
Later, at some advanced tech, bring back infinite travel on super highways.

 

[sir_schwick]

I would like to see RR reduced to say 12 or 16. This would apply to all units foot-soldier and cavalry alike – Units are not moving under their own power, the train is doing the work. Remember, its not just the troops that are moving, its also logistic support, supplies, paperwork has to get done, civilian travel has to be worked in - you get the idea.

If I remember my locomotive history right, this kind of logistical challenge would have only been insurmountable in the first couple decades of rail travel. Rail systems are designed to haul in quantity. The only suggestion that limits rail travel that I have seen and liked was designed to solve the "cavalry 2 front attack and fortify" exploit. The solution was to allow a one-way transfer from any city to another, and have road-like movement afte rthe transfer. Maybe it would be, all units get 9 free squares and one transfer, any non-rail movement would be normal.

 

[NP300]

I like that scalable roads idea.

Maybe they should scale from 1/2 to 1/3 when you get horseback riding and from 1/3 to 1/4 when you get motorized transportation?

By the way, I think railroads shouldn't have infinite movement. They should probably get like 1/10 or so. Combine this with the Civ2 weariness for fractional movement and you can still move your modern armor units pretty much in the same turn (except for gigantic empires), but have them have an attack penalty for attacking on the same turn.