Rail Capacity - Version 2

[Ivan the Kulak]

Hmmm, maybe allow them to use perhaps 1/4 of your rail capacity automatically, after that, they cannot move any more entrained units into your lands. The same applies to you. Hmm, this might be good in forestalling ROP rape, as well, if the AI is coded to ask you to leave if your units are stacking up next to their cities, you certainly wouldn't be able to position your entire army around their key cities in one turn, as you can now.

It would also be desirable under this model to make sure the AI does NOT leave any units on your rails, which would cause an impromptu blockade. I suppose the engine could be coded so ROP units can pass right through each other, though.

One other thing about this model: In civ, roads have ALWAYS been a prerequisite for RR, if you had rails, then you had road underneath, always. I submit it might be more interesting if RR can stand alone, and be built by itself. If preexisting roads run along the route, they can be modeled by a road graphic running alongside the rails. Under combat conditions, you may want to build a combat rail system into an enemy civ, where there are no roads, why make the workers have to build a road first? This does fit in with some real life historical situations.

 

[frekk]

if the AI is coded to ask you to leave if your units are stacking up next to their cities, you certainly wouldn't be able to position your entire army around their key cities in one turn, as you can now.

Personally every time I've tried this they declare war on me. There does seem to be some limit to doing that.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Love the idea. Details of maintenance costs and unused RCP bonuses are easily tweaked. I like Aussie's point, though, that the bonus should depend on city sizes and qualities in the rail network - but whatever, gotta draw the complexity line somewhere.

 

[Deep_Blue]

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.

I like your system , but I think it will increase micromangement exponentially .
I have one question:
If you run out of RCPs can you use the RR as a road?

 

[Atrebates]

Very nice... I'd suggest that the 'railway' retains the capacity of the road it is bulit over, to facilitate a decent movement rates without the use of RCP (otherwise upgrading to rail might seem a step backwards, esp. as you can't have roads everywhere and because of land bottlenecks where only 1 form of transport can exist)

 

[frekk]

Yes, roads would remain beneath the rail (that's why you have the Entrain thing, to distinguish between a unit which has spent an RCP versus one that's just moving along the roads there).

Does anyone have any idea whether or not it would be possible to mod this in with the new scripting/editing features? And how difficult it would be? The thing I think might be a problem (having no idea of Python etc) is getting the program to recognize cities connected by rail, which is sort of necessary for this model.

 

[Atrebates]

Hijack the Resource Trading System, that recognises connections, the coding is there in part. The city bonus of (essentially) extra production could be handled by a building customisation option?

 

[Stormfalcon1970]

I don't agree with a few of the more extreme sugestions, but limiting the movement effects of rail a bit is an interesting idea. Don't get me wrong. Rails are cool. But maybe they should just be triple road movement. 9 squares per turn for everything on a rail is still friggin fast.

Ya gotta admit. Rails are more like transporters right now. Hey! Maybe that can put the Future tech idea to better use? Percentage bonuses to movement and production and so on, for each FT? Just an idea....hey, it worked for MoO2!

 

[frekk]

Hijack the Resource Trading System, that recognises connections, the coding is there in part. The city bonus of (essentially) extra production could be handled by a building customisation option?

Sure ... the depot could just give a 50% prod. bonus or something, just make it dependant on a recognized connection.

But maybe they should just be triple road movement. 9 squares per turn for everything on a rail is still friggin fast.

That would not be very accurate though. Cavalry on roads just don't go as fast as trains do. And then in the modern age, you'd have heavy armour redeploying over the roads - never happens, it would tear up all the highways real fast. They only move on roads and highways in actual battle (or at least war), not to get to the battle. Eg, if you wanted to pull an armour unit from the west coast and send it to the east coast to be shipped to Iraq, it would NOT be moving by road - although it might once it gets to Iraq.

Any sort of realistic figure leaves essentially the same problem, you can move your whole military from one front across to another. Even if the fronts are only say 12 or 15 tiles apart, this just shouldn't be possible in a single turn. Plus not having 0 move rail of some sort would make a big empire really, really tedious, much more than it is already - I think essentially you could just get rid of conquest victory if you did that because it would be far too boring, far too much MM to achieve (as if it is not bad enough already).

 

[Stormfalcon1970]

Ok. Just read the rest of the posts. I like the Rail Depot idea. Then all you'd have to build is one track network to connect all your cities in order to get the benefits of rail. The board would be a lot less cluttered that way.

I e-mailed this thread to a buddy of mine and he reminded me of a fact that gave me a real D'OH moment. Each turn is 2 or 5 years (can't remember exactly) by the time you get Railroads right? So....Rails aren't so unrealistic to me anymore. Stratigically speaking, yeah, instantaneous travel unbalances gameplay in a lot of ways. It's an advantage to those able to survive into the industrial age. I'm more advanced? GOOD! Iv'e earned the right to roll over your puny @#% But how realistic is it to say it's going to take 5 years to move my stack of Cavs or a couple of Infantry across a continent to protect a beleaguered city? If Canada decided to invade Buffalo, all it would take is one phone call from the Pres and a AZ (Arizona) National Guard unit could be there to help defend faster than Fed Ex. Not that it'd be necessary, with all the other states nearby and inbetween