New RR model

[Dida]

RR with infinite movement like in previous civ games are lame.
To add more strategic deapth to the game, I suggest that it should not have infinite movement but cost maybe 1/6 or 1/10. To combat infinite railraod sprawl, RR would require gold per turn, per tile to maintain.

 

[superslug]

The infinite movement of railroads is disproportionate with other methods of transport within the game, but I'm not sure the answer is capping RR movement. I tend to think it's better to increase the movement power of naval vessels and possibly even some aircraft. Fixing other discrepancies might prove a more balanced answer than torching the rails of satan.

 

[thescaryworker]

Yes, the game shouldn't be dependant on rails in the modern age. Cmon, did the US only put one marine a year over in Iraq? Airlifting should be improved to remove the tendancy toward rails, and then we won't have these problems. I like superslug's idea of increased naval movement.
Don't remove something unless there will be something better to take its place.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, if you track down Frekks old Railroad Capacity thread, you will see that he came up with, what I feel, was an elegant solution to the problem.
You retain the infinite movement of RR's, but limit their CAPACITY. The capacity of your rail system was dependant on its tech level and the amount of viable track-with certain city improvements/wonders boosting capacity each turn. The idea was that, one Capacity point could be used to move one unit and, once your CP's were used up, you couldn't move anything more on your RR's until next turn.
An additional little kink in the system was that CP's generate revenue for your nation but, as you use them for military purposes, you lose that revenue. If coupled with a maintainance cost for RR's, then suddenly mass movement of units in wartime can become VERY costly. Anyway, that is just a very brief overview of his idea-if you can find his old thread, he has MUCH more detail.
Of course, a similar capacity system could be used for roads and airlifting, but in such a way that balance between land, air and sea movement was well and truly brought about.

Lastly, as for naval movement, I had two ways of making it more useful. First you could lift ALL naval movement rates considerably, but give certain marine tiles a higher movement cost-costs which are sequentially ignored by more modern units (and with modern age units being able to treat all marine terrain as road!) The second one was to have ships being able to instantly move from one friendly harbour to another-at the cost of one movement point-if no enemy ships are interdicting. If interdiction occurs, then there is still a % chance the vessel will slip by (but very small). Also, if you could have a 'naval base' terrain improvement, then you could have the same movement rule apply to these too.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aks K]

Thanks for reminding me, Aussie Lurker!

Additional to the idea of RR: There should be some sort of a threshold for the CP, where it should be cost free to move units. When the threshold is reached it should cost gold pr. unit moved.

As for naval movement i am also in favior of increasing thier movement - at least in ocean squares. But the same idea of a threshold could still hold for ports.
Say 1 free for harbours, 3 for c.docks just as an example. Again when the threshold is reached it should cost gold pr. unit moved.
Units would be treated as goods and will apear in the destinated port the next turn. If the trade route is blocked, there would be a certain risk of the units being lost at sea (as you also suggested, Aussie Lurker). If the units are lost, then the carrying capacity of the harbour/c.docks in question would decrease for a few turns.

This could even be implemented to airports. But when the threshold is reached the cost would be much higher pr. unit.

Aks K

 

[dh_epic]

Not to constantly look to other games...

But in RTSes, you'll have a soldier unit that will take 5 minutes to cross the map... and a jet unit that will take 1 minute to cross the same map. This is highly unrealistic -- even if the guy walks at 10 miles per hour, the jet is still going 50 miles per hour.

But if a jet could fly across the map in, say, 10 seconds, the game would suck. The designers know this. And very few people complain about it. Why? Because the overall FEEL of realism is maintained. When you create the sense of realism, you don't even call it realism at all. You call it verisimilitude.

With that in mind, I have no beef changing railroads and transportation. Truthfully, I think most units move too fast and spread too quickly in the game in some way or another. More variety in movement would definitely make war more strategic.

 

[Dida]

Making units more faster on RR than road (1/6 compare to 1/3) would still maintain the feel of realism you said, and yet improve the game strategy.
In CTP they have RR movement cost 1/5, which means a 1 movement unit can move 5 squares. A tank, which in CTP has 3 movements can go 15 tiles in one turn. I think that is quite fast enough. CTP has MagLev, which reduce movement cost to a further 1/10, and can go over some sea tiles. Which is really nice. I think Civ4 should adapt this model with some modification, rather than sticking with the easy, but however seriously flawed RR model with infinite movement.

 

[Jaybe]

I dislike the idea of RR-movement being affected by the speed of the unit being transported -- infantry and cavalry should move the same speed on RR.

 

[Dida]

That is a good point Jaybe, cus when an unit is being transported on rail cart, their own movement don't really matter. We can easily give RR a flat let say 10 movement to every unit.

 

[rhialto]

The problem with making rails have 1/6 (or whatever) move instead of roads' 1/3 is that rail movement is fundamentally different from roads. It doesn't depend on the speed of the unit moving on it, but on the speed of the locomotive on the tracks. If cavalry moves faster on rails, it will feel unrealistic.

And giving units a flat speed of 10 on rails encourages MM. Plus, what happens to movement once you've railed everywhere? What if you want to save those rail move points for the end of your move instead of the start? How do this prevent the civ2 style rail exploit where you overrun ridiculous numbers of cities in a single turn? 10 tiles is still 2 -3 cities deep, and with enough frontage, that will crush most civs.

In my road/rail/air model, you have...

tile improvements
road - move 1/3
highway - move 1/5
(nb no rails!)

city improvement
rail depot - provides the industry bonus normally given by rail tile improvement, allows airport style rapid transport.
airport - provides rapid transport. This improvement should also give a small gold/luxury bonus.

The rapid transport works as follows. For each unit moved this way, the player pays 2 gold (1 gold for rail transport). Rail transport has an extra requirement that a road/highway connection must exist between the two cities. Tracks are assumed to exist if both cities are connected by road and both have rail depots. Using the rapid transport network requires the unit's entire turn; it may not move normally or attack on the same turn.

One big advantage of this system is that it prevents you from using enemy rails, avoiding the rail blitz from civ2. It also forces an opportunity loss decision (spend gold getting my guys there fast, or move normally and hope the line will hold?), which makes for more exciting gameplay.

Advanced option:

When rails/air is first discovered, the appropriate rapid transport mode has a range limit of N tiles. As relevant techs are discovered (steel rails, diesel engine, bullet train // radar, jet engine, turbofan), this range limit gradually rises.

 

[Dida]

Your model of Rail movement would be the same as airdrop. So RR is now reduced to a less powerful version of airdrop that is available earlier to the player?
If we give RR flat movement of 1/10, it doesn't allow the player to blitz into enemy lands any easier than it is now with infinite move. Remember, the player cannot use rail or road in enemy lands.
This does have the problem that, for example, if a calvary with 3 move can move 9 squares on road, now he can only move 10 square on rail, only 1 additional move.

 

[rhialto]

Exactly why can't you use rail or road in enemy tiles? I know civ3 has that rule in there, but it is a rule that makes NO SENSE AT ALL. For roads, what is it about being physically in hostile territory that makes it impossible to use that road? Nothing!

For rails, the only argument ever used was different gauges. So suppose tomorrow France and Germany declare war, they have the same rail gauge. There's no physical reason they couldn't use the other guy's rails. I guess there are also track switches that need to be operated, many of which can only be done remotely these days, so there is some reason behind teh rails eing disabled in enemy territory.

The civ3 can't use enemy road/rail rule was completely unrealistic and should be abolished. With rails, I have manipulated the game design (by turning it into a city improvement) so that using enemy rails can't be used. But roads and highways should always be usable, because they don't rely on any hardware that isn't intrinsic to the ground itself.

Anyhow, my model is NOT the same as an airdrop. First, you can only move between friendly cities in my model. Second, there is a strategic decision with an opportunity cost in my model (gold per unit moved by rail).

 

[Dida]

You should never be able to use rail or road in enemy terrain, especailly not with super high movements on rail or any advanced transit system.
To use your enemy's road/rail is unrealistic as well. Before you defeat his army, he effectively control that tile of land, and to be abel to use it is ridiculous.
Civ3 model has worked pretty well, probably one of the best addition of civ3 on top of civ2. We do not need to change what is already working.

 

[rhialto]

I agree that using enemy rails should be impossible. I have yet to see a good reason you shouldn't be able to use roads in enemy territory.

If using that road depends on his army being defeated, then surely not having an enemy unit in that tile amounts to the same thing.

 

[Dida]

But not having an enemy unit in that tile does mean they don't have any resistence in that tile. The local population, the militias can prevent one from using the road as well. My idea is, to be able to use road, you will need to send in a unit to occupy it first. "Occupation" would be a new ability for your unit, it will take all the movement point from that unit, and once a tile has been occupied, it stays under your control as long as that unit (or some of your units) is on that tile.

 

[Tom_Bombadil]

I disagree with anything less than 1/50 th of a movement point, it would ruin the game and turn the modern wars into a bore match. It doesn't take 2 years for a unit of infantry to move the width of a city radius by train and i can't be botherred to move units to the outskirts of a contended area 50% of the time. I want to send my 20 or so newly produced units into defensive positions or on the offensive 90% of the time. It's more interesting.

If you're going to make railroads cost 1/5 of a movement point, you should also reduce the time per turn in the modern era. Right down to 2 months per turn and also increase the movement of modern infantry units to allow for the fact that logistics is less of a problem (preserved food, automobiles). You will still have to tell your troops to move towards the front line every time they are produced or healed.

BORING


"My idea is, to be able to use road, you will need to send in a unit to occupy it first."


PLAGIARIST!!!

ok.. You probably didn't plagiarize, everyone get's that 'why can't I move troops without teh penalty if there are troops in that territory already ' feeling.

 

[dh_epic]

I hate to break it to you, that modern wars ARE a bore match. And if you think slow movement makes wars boring, you must think that the game is a waste of time until the industrial age.

And "it doesn't take a unit 2 years to move a unit this far" is a justification I'd like to see people stop using, period.

But in RTSes, you'll have a soldier unit that will take 5 minutes to cross the map... and a jet unit that will take 1 minute to cross the same map. This is highly unrealistic -- even if the guy walks at 10 miles per hour, the jet is still going 50 miles per hour.

But if a jet could fly across the map in, say, 10 seconds, the game would suck. The designers know this. And very few people complain about it. Why? Because the overall FEEL of realism is maintained. When you create the sense of realism, you don't even call it realism at all. You call it verisimilitude.

With that in mind, I have no beef changing railroads and transportation.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but I'm open to anything. Right now infinite, unrestricted movement is making it possible to be completely thoughtless about your troops: it falls back into who's army is bigger, period.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I still say that Capacity is the best way to retain the speed of modern combat, whilst forcing players to be much more thoughtful about which units they move in a turn-and exactly how many, given the potential financial losses!
At least, thats how I see it!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Dida]

"it doesn't take a unit 2 years to move a unit this far" is a lame justification.
To move an unit from one city to the other in the ancient age will take about 2 to 3 turns . This means 100+ years in transit. By the time the unit reached the destination, the sons of the sons of the soliders would be dead. I should point out that given 100 years, an unit can easily go from one end of your empire to the other, base on this justification, any unit should be given infinite movement on all terrains in ancient age, because a turn is so long.
If we restrict our attention to the modern era along, to sail a ship half way across the world takes 10+ turns, which means it takes a ship 20+ years to sail across the world. Which is unrealistic as well. I can use this same justification to give all naval unit infinite movement, because any modern warship can sail around the world in 2 years.
And, please stop calling people a "PLAGIARIST", I am not particularly amused or deserving of being given such a title.

 

[Evie]

The thing with railroad is that you need some basic infrastructure to get on and off them. This isn't represented in civ.

I think the best way to have rails would be to simply make it so that, when on a city or fortress square which has rails, you can freely move to any other city or fortress which is connected by rail to your starting point. This uses up all of the unit's movement point.

Essentialy, it would work *pretty much* like airlift, except with the added restriction that the two airlift location must be linked by rail, and WITHOUT the once-per-turn restriction of airlifts (and it would be able to work off a fortress). There would also be no restrictions on which units can be used with railroads. (As opposed to airlifts).

That sounds about fair and balanced to me.

Oh, yes. If an enemy unit "blocks off" the railroad between you and your destination, then you can't go there, needless to say.