I hate Railroads...

[kserra]

Is there any way to change the movement bonus of railroads? I rarely play the game once RR's become common...the ability to move EVERY unit takes a large part of the strategy out of the game...I'd like to limit it to 1/10 or 1/8...is there a way to do so?

If not, I'm seriously considering removing Railroads as an option to build and perhaps increase road movement to 1/5...

what do you all think? any ideas?


edit...I'm playing Conquests...if that matters...but not any of the scenarios...just the regular game...

Kevin

 

[dreadknought]

Yes, I have always felt rr needed to have limits but as of yet its not possible so in many games I dont allow them at all or make it take so long to build them that very hard to do.

They also (through my own tests) are proven to slow the game turns as the ai considrs every possible spot if it has them and sometimes will move back and forth over and over. Too many ai cities though is the number 1 reason turns slow down.

 

[LULA CANIBALL]

Well, as I believe, if will enter a limit, my tactics on a gain for 1 course completely will fail (

 

[FenrysWulf]

You're crazy. Railroads are one of my favorite parts of the game.

 

[Crowpocalyptic1]

You also have to think about it this way... Movement would be nowhere near realistic if railroads were not like this. Even in the end of the game, 2050 AD, turns are 2 years. It doesn't take 2 years to get ANYWHERE in the world... Even back around 4000 BC, it wouldnt have taken a unit 400 years (8 turns) to get from NY to LA (or where they would have been on a map)

 

[Turner]

Actually, Crowpocalyptic1, turns are 1 year by 1950ad, I believe it is.

But I do agree with the rest of what you're saying.

This is an old arguement here. . . just like the creation vs evolution threads in OT.

 

[Crowpocalyptic1]

heh... Well, I haven't had a game go that far in a while, Turner

 

[Chauliodus]

Aswell, Modern wars, historicly short, would be long and drawn out.

 

[Theoden]

They are overpowered. Railroads allow you to conquer an entire nation in just a single turn

 

[Master Shake]

How long did it take to conquer Iraq and Afghanistan?

Of course, rail wasn't involved, but modern methods of transportation were. So I hope you see my point...

-mS

 

[YNCS]

I like railroads because they show up about the same time that pollution becomes a problem. Sending a gang of workers to clean up pollution would be impossible without railroads. Either that, or have four or six workers hanging around each city doing nothing but wait for pollution to strike.

 

[padlock]

Yes, but it also wouldn't take an attacking force several years to move whereever it didn't have access to rails.

Let's be honest, due to the scale of the game, there is simply no way to reconcile the amount of time it takes to move forces around with the supposed elapsed time in years. This is true even (especially) in the ancient era.

Given that, I believe it's far more important to properly balance the game with respect to how units with access to rails move relative to those without access. I therefore agree with the original poster that rails are far too unbalancing. Also, they remove much of the strategy required in troop placement and defense planning.

 

[kserra]

I've heard people continue to cite the fact that it is unrealistic to think that an army could not move across a continent in a years span...true...

However, using that same logic, what is up with air and sea movement? If a tank or an infantry division can basically move from one end of the earth to another...shouldn't a plane or ship have the same mobility?

In the "real world" it is the mobility of sea and air units that make them the striking force of militaries. In the game, it's just the other way around...

All I'd really like is the OPTION of altering this...once railroads are available, there is no need to worry about which cities to fortify, what key strategic areas to buildup in...etc...etc...

Kevin

 

[Lumin]

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Railroads. I like the whole thing with the workers killing all the polution really fast. That is what i use railroads for mostly.

 

[Goober]

I think railroads are very realistic. They are MUCH faster in real (or reel...?) life, especially the new "bullet" trains in Japan and France. Maybe they should be slightly modified so you can only move 20 tiles per turn, but all in all I find them very realistic.

 

[kb2tvl]

In a historical perspective, railroads created industrial warfare. Railroads, as given, are pretty close to reality but sea power and air power are not good refections. More importantly, the difference between WWI, WWII and post WWII are huge leaps in air power that is not well reflected in civ. I think this is due to computation limitations. I think some computers would become very laggy if the ai had to figure out where to use each bomber and ship.

I do agree that a 20 tile limit might be ok for railroads.

 

[valamas]

railroads are too powerful. like you build one in every square! they definitely make defence of you civ to hard to break. no surprise attacks can suceed.

how can a single railroad transport an unlimited number of troops in zero turns and allowing them to attack straight away, then jump back on and go somewhere else.

maybe we need to have a locomotive unit in the game which is like a transport, and does take a whole turn to load and unload etc. Railroad TyCiv (tycoon), here we come.

just taking that idea futher. airbourne units could bomb trains. Adds a whole WW2 feeling to it.

I think this is why i like the conquests scenarios so much .. must ensure remote areas are well defended as it does take a while to get there.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I once tinkered with a mod where I took out railroads and moved roads to take their place. Then I bumped the road movement up to 1/5 or something like that. To compensate, I gave all the units extra movement. I gave up on it as being not worth the hassle, but a dedicated person could probably get something pretty nice doing that (especially mixed with changing the terrain movement penalties). Of course, if you want things to stay mostly the same, you have to provide extra commerce somehow.

What would be really nice is if you could set the road bonus based on technology (or even age). If one could, say, have 1/2 in ancient, 1/3 in medieval, 1/5 in industrial, and 1/10 in modern--that would work pretty well. Then if you could keep the production of railroads but have the option to turn off the movement bonuses, the rail image could be replaced with some kind of "industrial development" image.

 

[Turner]

The fact of the matter is that in RL (and I know that Civ is not RL) you can load up a tank regiment in a couple of days, move them across country in a couple of days, unload them in a couple of days, and have them ready to attack almost immediately. So within a week you have them from one end of the country ready to fight on the other end of the country. That's 1/52 of a turn. Or even 1/104 of a turn, if you're in the early years.

Railroads are a quick way to move a large body of military units very quickly from one end to the other. Are they overpowered in Civ3? Compared to Civ1 and Civ2, I would say no, they are toned down. Before Civ3 you could use your enemies railroads against them. Talk about unbalanced! Those were way to powerful.

I say leave them as it is, or at worst give us the ability to edit them in the editor. I, for one, will not edit them. Unlimited movements from railroads has been a basic civ concept since the beginning, and I would sorely miss it if it was taken out.

It's also about technology. In this game, technology takes a big part on who controls the world. This is just another aspect of it, like having modern armor units or stealth bombers.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by Turner_727
The fact of the matter is that in RL (and I know that Civ is not RL) you can load up a tank regiment in a couple of days, move them across country in a couple of days, unload them in a couple of days, and have them ready to attack almost immediately. So within a week you have them from one end of the country ready to fight on the other end of the country. That's 1/52 of a turn. Or even 1/104 of a turn, if you're in the early years.

...but the fact is also that within that week, your poorly defended towns would have been taken by suprise attacks that you didn't know about until they landed on the shores adjacent to your city.

Yes, you're right that realistically, a unit should be able to move along the entire continet by railroad in one turn - if you look at this issue apart from the rest of the game. But everything else in that game moves much slower than this, so having railroads "realistically" fast breaks it compared to the rest of the game.
Ex: In civ it takes several turns (aka several years) to build one unit, a tank can move at most 6 squares a year, it takes one whole year to land the attackers on the shore before they can attack. etc.