Are Railroads too powerful?

[CivFan91]

The fact that a Civ game has "years" is almost useless. It's an arbitrary aspect. You see the results instantly, so where's the time it takes? It would be a good idea to give them a movement rate. In Civ I, leaving a city with Rails cost you 1/3 movement point, but all Rails in between were 0 movement. This simulated the start/stop of train stations. would be nice to see that again. Oh, and in ToT, units became trains as they traversed Rails. wouldn't THAT be cool to see again!

 

[MaxArt]

In Civ I, leaving a city with Rails cost you 1/3 movement point, but all Rails in between were 0 movement. This simulated the start/stop of train stations. would be nice to see that again.

IIRC, in Civ1 if you build a road and a railroad on a tile before founding a city on that, leaving or reaching that city will cost you no movement points. This means that only cities founded after the development of Steam Power can exploit this trick.
We have to ask in the Civ1 forum to be sure, anyway.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Yeah I'm pretty sure cities Didn't have rails in Civ 1

 

[CivFan91]

Hmm. I have CivWin, maybe I'll try that out sometime.

 

[Depravo]

As long it can take centuries to circumnavigate the world in ships on a Gigantic map, then maybe rails should be scaled back. Otherwise I don't see the problem. Rails turned warfare on its head IRL too.

 

[Minesweeper]

Good points Gun. And yes the Viking window of oppurtunity is very dangerous.


Mathias

 

[Pentium]

You should need iron to build the tracks, but coal for them to be used.

And you shouldn't need Coal anymore when you discover Electricity or get Oil ...

 

[Willem]

For those who think rails give an unfair advantage to the defender: How realistic is it that a huge invasion fleet could arrive from overseas without being detected at all?

Does Pearl Harbour ring a bell?

 

[gunkulator]

Does Pearl Harbour ring a bell?

Sure, but Pearl Harbor was not an invasion. It was an air attack. See my previous post.

 

[CivFan91]

Not to mention, there is some speculation that the U.S intentionally provoked the Japanese attack by slapping the Japanese ambassador, a vile offense in their eyes. These people believe that FDR started that war to get people to work and out of the Great Depression, a tactic I admire.

 

[Willem]

Sure, but Pearl Harbor was not an invasion. It was an air attack. See my previous post.

That's just splitting hairs. There's very little difference in the logistics involved.

 

[gunkulator]

Not at all. Pearl Harbor was essentially just an air raid. What made it a novelty was that it was launched from sea. D-Day was an invasion. The logistics for the two were completely different. The former was a surprise attack with no intention to occupy Hawaii while the latter was a long expected attack that involved decoys and much intelligence trickery, not to mention coordinated air and sea bombardment plus long term issues like supply line planning.

 

[Padma]

Moderator Action: Okay, if you want to discuss Pearl Harbor, take it to World History. Otherwise, keep this thread on topic.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[CivFan91]

Much obliged, Padma.

The thing is, railroads and ships can't be synchronized. If they did, it would take you a while to go on rail, so just imagine what bare terrain would be like. The tiles would have to be the size of the space between quotation marks: " There has to be playability.

 

[IglooDame]

They're powerful enough. I don't think they're too powerful, given the aircraft coming in at the end of the same era.

 

[cpikey316_]

IIRC, in Civ1 if you build a road and a railroad on a tile before founding a city on that, leaving or reaching that city will cost you no movement points. This means that only cities founded after the development of Steam Power can exploit this trick.
We have to ask in the Civ1 forum to be sure, anyway.

Sorry for chipping in too late! But I think you are correct, as long as you built rails before founding a city you could move with no restrictions.

But for the oddest reason you could also build rails in the ocean, you couldn't move over tham but you got the bonus on the ocean tiles

 

[CivFan91]

You know, in Civ IV, there is no unlimited movement for rails. It's now 1/10 movement rate, not forever.

 

[Willem]

You know, in Civ IV, there is no unlimited movement for rails. It's now 1/10 movement rate, not forever.

Yes, that's good to hear! I don't like the unlimited moves, it takes away all the strategy of the late game. It makes it way to easy being able to move your troops anywhere in an instant. It doesn't require any strategic planning at all. I don't care if it's not "realistic", this is supposed to be a strategy game not a simulation.

 

[Marsden]

In Civ I, leaving a city with Rails cost you 1/3 movement point, but all Rails in between were 0 movement.

This is because the game did not update the road under the city when you got your railroads. This is why I would either try to make my main travel routes go around cities before Railroad, or I would wait until after the discovery of Railroad to found more of my cities.

 

[gunkulator]

Even if it's one 1/10 cost in Civ4, it still doesn't make sense that cavalry can travel on rails faster than infantry. Roads, yes, rails no. For simplicity, I would like rails to work like airports. Infinite movement but it costs you all your movement points to use them. Like FedEx, you can get anything anywhere in one day, but not instantaneously.

An alternative would be to have rails cost all your movement whenever you come to a rail junction, i.e. as long as you stay "on the line" you can go as far as you like. When you switch to another line, you have to wait for the next train (turn) to move again. All cities automatically would be rail junctions. Outside of cities, you'd have to build junctions to connect rails in adjacent tiles. Unlike roads then, rails would not automatically interconnect.