Rail Capacity - Version 2

[frekk]

Railroad Revenue and Production Bonuses

1. Revenue

All cities connected to the capitol by rail generate 5 gpt.

2. Production

All cities connected to the capitol by rail gain tile bonuses, as if they had civ3 railroads in every tile being used.

3. Gaining Bonuses

In order to gain either bonus, the city in question must be able to trace a route to the capitol just as resources do, however, only rails, harbours, or airports count: roads do not. In addition, a Rail Depot improvement must be constructed. Rail Depots which lose connection to the capitol, lose their bonuses until the connection has been restored. The capitol itself does not require a Rail Depot to gain the bonuses.

Railroad Maintenance Costs

1. Track Maintenance

Every tile of track costs 1 gpt maintenance.

2. Movement Costs

Moving a unit by rail costs 1 gp.

Railroad Capacity

1. Railroad Capacity Points - RCPs

Existing and new advances generate Railroad Capacity Points (RCPs). One RCP moves one unit by rail. The first advance, Steam Power, generates a very modest amount of RCPs, possibly 5. Succesive advances allow a total RCP of 15 by the end of the Industrial Age and 30 by the late Modern Age. The RCP score is replenished each round. RCPs remaining are displayed in the side panel, and are visible even when a unit is selected.

2. Moving Units by Rail

When a unit enters a tile with a rail, it may decide to Entrain, or it may decide to ignore the rail and move normally. A button appears with the rest of the Unit Functions (like the Fortify button, or where the worker actions are). It depicts a locomotive icon. The Entrain button allows the unit to ride the rails, at the cost of 1 RCP and 1gp. Movement is infinite along the tracks. Unloading occurs automatically as soon as a unit ventures onto a tile without tracks, or whenever the unit attacks. Units which are moving by train are distinguished from other units as their graphic changes to that of a locomotive after Entraining.

Minister of Transportation

A new Minister, the Minister of Transportation, gives information regarding the rail network:

-total number of connected cities versus total number of cities.
-cities with depots which have lost connection.
-cities which are connected, but have no depot to reap bonuses.
-a breakdown of costs and revenue

 

[tmarcl]

What is it that you people have against railroads? Granted, unlimited movement may be excessive (personally, I think movement should just be twice what a road's is and ignore terrain, not unlimited), but do we really want to have to start paying for them as well.

If you've got a huge empire, I'd think that ultimately the costs would be too prohibitive to even have a railroad if you a) pay for it's maintenance every turn, and b) have to pay for using it.

If you want to limit movement on railroads, that's one thing. But paying for it's a bit too much, imo.

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

Gold cost would not necessarily be excessive, if the game gold model were altered a bit, or you could build more gold enhancing improvements.

Right now as it stands, if you made each RR depot cost 5 gold per turn in maintenance, that should be enough for per turn costs, without charging for each RR tile. Maybe have it cost 5 gold for each unit you entrain and move instead, seems to me this is better, to make the player actually pay when he uses it, rather than pay for existing infrastructure.

One other thing I would suggest - units MUST be disembarked from rail before they can enter combat, if they are left embarked for some reason then any combat units attacking the train can destroy the unit, as with a worker or scout. Pretty hard to fight off enemy tanks when your own are strapped down on flatcars behind your coach car. There should be no penalty for disembarking, unit instantly goes to normal status. Gold fee should apply upon embarking any unit.

I would disallow the gpt bonus just for being hooked up, maybe give an extra gold bonus for any strategic or luxury resources within a railed city radius.

Other than these minor changes, this is a model I like and could live with.

 

[Spatula]

I like it all except the paying to use the railways - and especially the absurdly high maintenance costs suggested.

 

[frekk]

The maintenance costs are low enough that you should be able to break even, if you don't sprawl your rails all over the place (which this is intended to discourage) and instead build them in lines connecting cities.

Don't forget, you get a 5gpt bonus for every city you connect. If your cities are packed densely, you should be able to pay track maintenance and come out ahead 1 or 2 gpt per turn per city - which would easily pay the fee for moving units, as well as building yourself a little extra track for special purposes. Even with cities 4 squares apart on average, you'll still net 1 gpt per city after track maintenance. Unless you're building a unit every turn in every city, you should be able to make a small amount.

A big empire which builds track sparingly, could even make 50 or 100gpt from their rails.

 

[frekk]

Gold cost would not necessarily be excessive, if the game gold model were altered a bit, or you could build more gold enhancing improvements.

Yep - that is the reason for the 5 gpt bonus for all connected cities. You could raise that number perhaps, if gameplay proved that it wasn't enough to cover the maintenance cost of a reasonable amount of track.

Right now as it stands, if you made each RR depot cost 5 gold per turn in maintenance, that should be enough for per turn costs, without charging for each RR tile.

The point of charging for each tile is to reduce railroad sprawl. It is offset by a depot bonus, not penaly.

One other thing I would suggest - units MUST be disembarked from rail before they can enter combat, if they are left embarked for some reason then any combat units attacking the train can destroy the unit, as with a worker or scout. Pretty hard to fight off enemy tanks when your own are strapped down on flatcars behind your coach car. There should be no penalty for disembarking, unit instantly goes to normal status.

I actually thought long and hard about this, and decided against it. Possibly, if you had 'invisible guerillas' or something in the game, if you ran into one on a rail move you would suffer a severe combat penalty from the surprise attack. The reason I decided against it in general, though, was that it is already an added complexity to use the Entrain button at all. Some people complained that this would make moving units tedious. My thought is that loading units is only tedious when you do vast numbers of them at once, it is usually not a problem to load just a few units each round, it is when you've got 50 or 60 units to load into a fleet that it is tedious - and that is mostly because of the "which ship to load to" screen. So I don't think Entrain would be too much, but I think having to issue unloading commands would be pushing it a bit. Also, the current game system does not reflect unloading into combat - and there is only so much improvement and change you can make in a reasonably simplified system. And people will wonder why Riflemen can't just jump off the train and fight, as they did often in the Civil War. So I decided against included it.

If there was demand, however, I did think of a way it could be done without signifigantly adding any work to using the system. Here it is:

Unloading

Units which are entrained may not attack from a rail tile unless they are in a city. To attack while entrained, a unit moves to an adjacent tile (ending its rail move) and then attacks, provided it has sufficient movement remaining to do so.

I'm not in favor of including this, though, as I think it is not streamlined enough for gameplay.

I would disallow the gpt bonus just for being hooked up, maybe give an extra gold bonus for any strategic or luxury resources within a railed city radius.

The idea behind a straight gpt bonus per city, is so that it is easy to calculate the amount of rail maintenance each city offsets. If you know that each city can pay the maintenance for up to 5 tiles of rail, for instance, and break even, then it is simple to plan your rails.

 

[Spatula]

I can see how the maintenance would work now. But not charging gold every time you use the rails.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I'm with Spatula on this one. I like the majority of your ideas BTW, Frekk, but I really don't think that moving units on RR's should cost gold. You may not realise this but, as Civ currently stands, such a system would unfairly favour the larger empires you mentioned.
Instead, I think that it is best to simply rely on capacity as the true limiting factor-and have that capacity based on a combination of actual 'connective' RR's AND technology. Given that you lose the economic value of RR capacity for every unit you move in a turn (but still have to pay maintainance on the Rail infrastructure), this will act as a means of curtailing 'RR abuse' in wartime!
In addition, I kinda like Sir_Schwicks idea in the other thread, about possibly having trade with other nations take up RR capacity as well!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[frekk]

OK, how about a few modifications. It seems the idea of paying to move units is not popular, and in a way I have a few reservations about it myself.

Revisions

Connected cities with rail depots, generate no gpt bonus, but they do generate 1 RCP.

Moving 1 unit costs 1 RCP, no gp.

RCP bonuses for tech will be made smaller, instead of +5 or so for each relevant advance, it might be +1 or +2.

Unused RCP generate gold at the end of each round - possibly 10 gp per RCP. This replaces the gpt bonus for connected depots.


Example

You have 15 connected cities with rail depots, and an RCP bonus of 5 for tech, that gives you 20 RCP. In addition, you have 75 tiles of track throughout your empire. In this round, you produce 6 tanks and 3 infantry. You are having a minor skirmish at one end of your empire.

You decide to send up your new recruits to the border area - 9 units, using 9 RCP. In addition you decide you will need a little extra, and pull 2 other units from other locations - for a total of 11 RCP used.

At the end of the round, you have 9 RCP remaining, which generates 90gp. Your track maintenance costs are 75gp, so you make 15gp this round. If you choose to use up your full RCP, you will have to pay the track maintenance from regular funds, 75gp. Conversely, if you were short on cash, you could use no RCP and make 125gp.

In addition, I kinda like Sir_Schwicks idea in the other thread, about possibly having trade with other nations take up RR capacity as well!

The only problem here is generating a capacity model for harbours and roads too, since you can trade before you have RR's. I have a difficult time seeing how you could limit movement on roads.

 

[frekk]

This is a full rewrite to reflect the changes.

Railroad Effects on Cities and Production

1. Determining Rail Capacity Points - RCPs

All cities connected to the capitol by rail generate 1 RCP.

2. Production

All cities connected to the capitol by rail gain tile bonuses, as if they had civ3 railroads in every tile being used.

3. Gaining Bonuses

In order to gain either bonus, the city in question must be able to trace a route to the capitol just as resources do, however, only rails, harbours, or airports count: roads do not. In addition, a Rail Depot improvement must be constructed. Rail Depots which lose connection to the capitol, lose their bonuses until the connection has been restored. The capitol itself does not require a Rail Depot to gain the bonuses.

4. Unused Rail Capacity Points

The player gains a bonus for all RCP remaining at the end of a turn, equal to 10gp per remaining RCP.

Railroad Maintenance Costs

1. Track Maintenance

Every tile of track costs 1 gpt maintenance.

2. Movement Costs

Moving a unit by rail costs 1 RCP.

Railroad Capacity

1. Railroad Capacity Points - RCPs

Existing and new advances generate bonus Railroad Capacity Points (RCPs). In addition, each connected city with a Rail Depot generates 1 RCP. The RCP score is replenished each round. RCPs remaining are displayed in the side panel, and are visible even when a unit is selected.

2. Moving Units by Rail

When a unit enters a tile with a rail, it may decide to Entrain, or it may decide to ignore the rail and move normally. A button appears with the rest of the Unit Functions (like the Fortify button, or where the worker actions are). It depicts a locomotive icon. The Entrain button allows the unit to ride the rails, at the cost of 1 RCP. Movement is infinite along the tracks. Unloading occurs automatically as soon as a unit ventures onto a tile without tracks, or whenever the unit attacks. Units which are moving by train are distinguished from other units as their graphic changes to that of a locomotive after Entraining.

Minister of Transportation

A new Minister, the Minister of Transportation, gives information regarding the rail network:

-total number of connected cities versus total number of cities.
-cities with depots which have lost connection.
-cities which are connected, but have no depot to reap bonuses.
-a breakdown of costs and revenue[/QUOTE]

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, Frekk, on the surface it does look like a VERY good model (though I still prefer mine-but thats just bias talking !) The only thing I would say 'against' it is that the value of unused capacity should be based on the 'quality' of the cities within the rail network (population, wealth and culture!) Other than that, though, your model is simple and elegant-combatting the strategic disadvantages of Infinite RR movement WITHOUT eliminating it!
As for roads having capacity-why not? Sure the limits would not be nearly as tight as those for RR's, with perhaps each connected city generating around 2-5 Road CP's, with bonuses for techs and improvements. Unused road CP's, however, would produce much less revenue for the player than rail ones. The trade-off, though, would be that even the earliest roads would probably have to give much greater movement rates than is currently the case!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[frekk]

It's just that there's no real strategic problem with roads the way they are now; they're not perfect but they work pretty good.

Rail, otoh, has some problems, namely the ability to shift your entire army about instantly.

Speaking of which, I forgot to add something:

Editor Settings

Settings in the editor permits adjustments to RCP values, including a setting to switch RCP off or increase the RCP, to change the gp value of unused RCP, to implement non-infinite rail moves, and to change track maintenance fees (including switching them off).

A constant feature however, would be the Rail Depot system of determining tile bonuses. The practice of building tracks in every tile would end.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

That might be true, Frekk, but I still don't think it would hurt to have road capacity in the game too (whilst also increasing realism IMHO)-especially if it comes with a boost in the movement rate for roads in general!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I really think that roads ought to be usable by enemy forces. As it stands now, defending is rather easy because attackers are limited to a mere 1 tile per turn, while defenders get AT LEAST 3.

I don't think that there's anything wrong with the current road movement bonus. If anything, I'd make the bonus less early on, and you could increase it slightly later on with new techs (Engineering, for example).

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hey Trip. Just thought I should say that what you said about building up road movement rates over time is pretty much what I am on about, but that I also believe that it should start higher too (perhaps around the 1/4 to 1/5 mark). Then, you might have it 1/4, followed by 1/5, then 1/6, then 1/7 then 1/8 by the modern age! Road CAPACITY would also increase over the ages, in my model. As for using enemy roads, I do feel that there should be SOME penalty to using enemy roads (after all, they are in 'unknown' territory and have to go more slowly)-but that it probably shouldn't be as harsh as it is in Civ3 (its actually funny, though, that they went from ONE extreme to the other between civ2 and civ3 !) At the VERY least, an enemy road or RR should count as 1mp IRRESPECTIVE of the underlying terrain-that is, moving through a mountain, via an enemy road, should cost 1mp (not 2 or 3!) Ideally, though, I would allow units to use enemy roads at HALF that of a friendly unit (rounded down), and that enemy RR's only count as roads UNTIL you capture both ends of a single piece of track! So, from the examples I had above, units would move on enemy roads at a cost of 1/2, 1/2, 1/3, 1/3 then 1/4 movement points! How does that sound Trip?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

EDIT: Oh, and the reason why I want a higher starting movement rate is that movement in the early game just feels so DARNED SLOW-especially given the turn lengths!

 

[frekk]

@Trip:

Yes, I don't fully understand the current road model or the reasons for it. I think perhaps it was implemented with the idea that it would be easier to encircle invaders who didn't advance in a line, or whose line collapsed, and to make it more difficult to just make a break for the the enemy capitol and cut all its roads (because of the new resource system).

But I think probably it would be better to implement a supply model and bring back civ2 style ZOCs to deal with these problems. Under current rules, nobody advances in a line anyway, as there is no practical disadvantage to being encircled, and without ZOCs it is not realistic to try to use a solid front to prevent pincer maneuvers. It would take too many units who are better used just advancing on cities as columns. Supply rules would also help, as they would allow some advantage to encirclement, and also prevent the very things the current road model is supposed to deal with, such as pillaging the capitol too easily. I've seen some really simple supply models which would be easy to implement and easy in play.

Anyway I don't want to get too off-topic here. This is about rails, not roads.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I know you don't want to get off the subject too much, Frekk, but I am curious as to how you envisage Supply working?

In my model, there are TWO ways in which it can work:

1) Units within their cultural border (or any other 'friendly' territory) can move without penalty. However, if a unit moves beyond these boundries, then they have a limited 'range' of operation (their Operational Range or OR). If the unit wishes to go beyond this range, without penalty, then it must establish some form of 'supply point'-be it a captured city or a fort/supply depot terrain improvement. This 'supply point' acts as the new designation of where a units operational range starts from. In order to act as a supply point, however, the city/fort must be able to trace an unbroken line between itself and friendly territory-most likely as an actual road, but also possibly as an invisible line-as they do trade routes in civ3. If this line is broken, or if the supply point itself is lost, then the units are considered 'out of supply'. The further outside its OR a unit is, the more degraded its performance becomes (morale, Firepower, Attack Strength etc), and the more likely it is to lose HP's.

2) Units can operate in enemy territory pretty much as they like, but they MUST be able to draw a direct, unbroken line back to some kind of 'friendly' territory. If this line is at any time broken by an enemy unit, then the units performance becomes degraded according to how DEEP in enemy territory it is at the time (much like (1))

The good thing about either of these models is that they give special ops units, like Paratroops, a truly useful function-as they are now able to act deep within enemy territories-either because they have a very high OR, or because they don't need to draw a line back to friendly territory-depending on the model being used. Either way though, combined with stack limits and RCP's, it forces a player to think more tactically and strategically, rather than aiming to crush an opponent with 'stacks O' death' !

Anyway, I'd be intrigued to hear your own thoughts on this subject!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[frekk]

I started a supply thread with one idea (mostly gathered from other ppl)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=105674

no more off-topic stuff! comment there.

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

Hmm, I do like your latest model, frekk. I think the tedious aspect of the entrain/detrain order could be gotten around by a system similar to transports, i.e. if you have a stack of units and you click the Entrain button a box pops up listing the units to entrain, also with an "entrain all" button, this would take care of the problem. Same would go for disembarking them.

As far as track costing gpt per turn, there will be areas, especially if the AI is improved to really go for transportation infrastructure, where you may want to have multiple rail lines in an area to permit rapid reinforcement of a city, in case of destruction of another rail line, this would cost the player more.

One thing that has not been discussed is how ROP would effect rail capacity. If the AI signs ROP with you, they will definitely want to move units on your rails. How would you alter rail capacity to reflect this? I do like the idea of foreign luxury/resource trade affecting capacity, each import should cost one RCP per turn.

As far as roads, I would like to see a move bonus apply once you hit the late industrial age, maybe have new road graphics to reflect this, they could become paved roads.

Trip, IRL there are many more rivers with bridges than can be modeled in civ3. Take into account that the enemy will probably blow all of these and the road penalty in enemy territory makes sense.

 

[frekk]

One thing that has not been discussed is how ROP would effect rail capacity. If the AI signs ROP with you, they will definitely want to move units on your rails. How would you alter rail capacity to reflect this?

That is a really good question.

First off, I'd like to say I don't like the ROP system; you should be able to sign separate sea and land ROPs, maybe an air ROP too.

But that really has no bearing on the current problem. I'll have to really think about this and do a bit of research as to how such things actually worked in the real world. First thoughts come to 3 different areas to explore though:

(1) They use their own rail capacity. It mostly represents locomotives and rolling stock. I know that during the Cold War, the allied nations provided their own in Europe, even had their own railroads. Also this prevents nations without railroad tech from using your rails, which is pretty accurate: armed bands of independant native warriors were never ferried around by colonial powers as a rule, unless they were subjects.

(2) They pay you every time they use your rails. This has problems too like what if you can't afford to give up the RCPs?

(3) They can't use your rails. At first glance I would reject this because they might then get in the way all the time.

I think I would pretty much think about going with #1, but I'll have to give this alot of thought.

I'm not sure what to do about trade. It's beyond the parameters of a discussion about rails and gets into a wider transport model. Possibly you could get around this by saying that the population of a more advanced society is larger and/or wealthier, and requires greater volumes of the resource in question, necessitating the use of the rail network to transport it, where the smaller amounts transported in earlier times did not. But I think if you need to use RCP for trade, you should use it for internal resources as well.


The "Entrain all" function would be nice too ... it could come up, as you say, under the right click menu, alternately, Shift-E (or whatever).