Rail Road Revision Poll

[searcheagle]

Many people are unhappy with the current way that railroads are being run, being given unlimited movement. I am opposed to this system. I would like to see who all what alternatives are the most popular if a change is made.

Aussie_Lurker broke the changes into several catergories:

Restricted Access-RR 1) Units can only embark or disembark RR's at certain set points IF they want the benefit of infinite RR movement-these points would be at points where the RR connects with a city, outpost or fort. Otherwise, the RR counts only as an improved road (perhaps 1/4 or 1/5 mp).

Maximum Level Transportation 2) Give RR, and other terrain, squares a 'stack limit'-meaning that you can't have more than X units on one RR at any one time. This would force players to 'stagger' the movement of their forces (eg, bring 6 units into a city, then move them as a stack along the RR. Until they disembark, no other units can travel on that particular section of RR)

Disembarkation Penalty 3) Units which disembark and fight on the same turn will do so at a high penalty, to reflect the period of 'organisation' prior to battle. Also, after disembarking, all units have only 1mp irrespective!

Reduced movement penalty: 4) Possibly still have a movement cost associated if you pass through a city whilst travelling on RR, but perhaps have it as 1/4 of the movement points of the unit doing the travelling.

And One other:
5)Rail Cars: Actual Rail road cars which must be taken to give the benefits of unlimited movement. This will limit the amount of items that can be shipped by units.

 

[frekk]

On #2: Aussie had made a summary of an idea I proposed, but it doesn't quite work like that. There's no "per line" limit, it's a total limit for all rail capacity. So you move X number of units per turn, nationwide, and after that it's assumed you have no more locomotives available.

Here's a more complete description:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=125673

But I see that there could be a lot of different models for limited capacity, so maybe it should all just go under a single idea of "limited # units/turn".

Could the poll be changed so "Limited Rail Capacity" is an option? Maximum transportation sounds confusing - makes it sounds like you get maximum transportation when really you get limited transportation (but I do know what you meant).

It sort of resembles #5 as well, except that there are no actual "cars" just RR points. But I guess the graphic of the unit could change to a train when it decides to entrain.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I voted for the 'Rail Capacity' option, but I think it would work best with a limit to units which enter the RR from a city. This will prevent players (at least I hope it will) building vast amounts of RR's to nowhere-just so that they have LOTS of RR capacity in both peacetime and war. Instead, at least from a military perspective, the combination of these systems would mean that it would only makes sense to build RR's which join either one city to another, or a city to a colony, outpost or fort!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[frekk]

RR capacity probably wouldn't be based on the number of tiles you've put rails on. While realistic in terms of how it works in the real world, I'd like to see them getting away from RR sprawl.

It would be easier to tie it to technological advances - invent the diesel-electric engine, get +5 rail capacity - and to governments, eg anarchy, -10 rail, communism no bonus, democracy, +5. Or whatever.

Make rail take a long time to build and taking away tile bonuses is the ONLY way to prevent ppl building rails everywhere. Even if you make it so that they don't offer benefit to moving units, ppl will still build them everywhere for the tile bonuses. Limiting the number of troops boarding at a given city isn't necessary to stop railroad sprawl.

 

[AA-battery]

I like the rail cars option. Probably when you learn steam power you can build a rail car unit called steam engine and it can move about 9 squares. When you learn motorized transportation you can build a diesel engine which can move 15 squares. Steam engines would cost coal and diesel engines would cost oil. Military units may be loaded on an engine like a ship. Steam engines may contain three units while diesel engines may contain up to six. A unit on the railroad without a rail car may only use the railroad as a regular road. Trade on railroads will be the same. Both railcar units may only be built in a city with railroad access. Also, the action of loading and unloading onto a railcar will cost no movement points to the unit. There is only one problem with this system that I am suggesting. If you are on a huge world size how are you to efficiently automate workers? Not much would be achieved in places far unless you have hundreds of workers.

 

[Dida]

with Rail cars, we have to load units, move car, unload unit. How much would that be. NO, i don't like this idea. There is gotta be an easier model. Just make the RR give 9x or whatever movement solve the problem. No need for complicated idea or concepts.

 

[AA-battery]

Yeah but I still like the idea of railcars. I think they make the game more interesting. Maybe there is a way to make them simpler.

 

[frekk]

with Rail cars, we have to load units, move car, unload unit. How much would that be. NO, i don't like this idea. There is gotta be an easier model. Just make the RR give 9x or whatever movement solve the problem. No need for complicated idea or concepts.

The problem with that is, it will be more attractive to micromanage by airlifting all your units from huge banks of airfields built on unused land (plus airports in cities) than move them by rail. If you have a distant border city that you need to get your whole army to in one round to defend, you'll still be able to do it, it will just be alot of work. It might be more realistic, but it would actually not be simpler in gameplay. Complicated ideas and concepts aren't necessarily more complicated in play, just as simple concepts can often be more complicated in play. Although just keeping it the way it is, is both a simple idea and simple to play.

I don't like rail cars either. Abstract them, with a national limit for the number of units that can use rail in a round. A button entrains (no "Which car to load to" like with ships) and as soon as they come off the track, the rail move is over (no need for an unload button). Then limit that number to a low number, so you never have to do much of it in a round. 5 or 10 extra clicks in a round is, I think, tolerable, if there are no sub-menus.

Yeah but I still like the idea of railcars. I think they make the game more interesting. Maybe there is a way to make them simpler.

Yes there is! A simple graphic change for units using the rail. No need for an actual railcar unit. In the above model, when you entrained, the unit graphic changes to a locomotive (to show that unit is moving by train).

 

[doc mabuse]

I didn't vote yet, but i think there should be a penalty if you build railroad in certain tiles and certain era's (fi. you shouldn't be able to build rr through forest without getting a pop penalty, also, certain era's didn't adapt to rr that fast, since it was steam power and made the cattle go wild). Things like that. It's only to restrict myself actually, since i'm a perfectionist and i build rr EVERYWHERE and each and every tile. I think there should be a economy bonus for the shortest transportation line between cities but a penalty for most other tile rr occupance

 

[Zeekater]

Which one is the option if you want RR to be an upgrade of roads with 1/5 or 1/7 (settable in the editor) movement?

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

I like the max transport capacity idea. You can only move so many units by rail (though instantly, to anywhere) per turn. Need a good way to calculate max transport capacity though, maybe based on a building, like RR depot, each lets you move, say 5 units per turn. RR depot should cost a fair amount of gold per turn, to reflect locomotive, RR car, and general upkeep costs.
We'd need new graphics to represent both roads and RR in the same square, and an embark/disembark button for units.

I also think RR should cost maybe 5-10 gold per tile to build, then you could eliminate per tile upkeep. Have RR serve only as a quick transportation route between cities, for farms, go back to the civ2 model, and have ths done thru public works, this would save enormously on time spent moving workers about. Maybe new techs could increase unit capacity of RR depots, and RR could also affect luxury and food trade somehow as well, due to better freight shipping.

 

[EzInKy]

Though I wouldn't mind a change as a mod option, my preference is to leave it as is in the epic game. Instantaneous mass troop movement throughout your empire is no less logical than infinite distribution of goods and services. If these things weren't abstracted in a game covering 6000+ years of history it would simply become to tedious for most people to play.

 

[searcheagle]

Zeekater: That option would be reduced movement penalty. Reduced movement penalty would treat movement as a faster version of roads.

 

[eromrab]

i voted for Reduced movement penalty cause i was thinking it was the RR movement points option that we had talked about earlier in another topic... i like the idea of an unlimited amount of units being able to use the rails each turn but each unit can only travel a set amount on them... it shouldn't be determined by the unit type or the units movement points or anything like that cause that doesn't matter on a RR... and there should be no "delay" to get on or off.

the onboard/offboard idea of RR will not work with the "goto" function whereas the RR MP idea will work seemlessly and will automatically be calculated into the fastest movement path.

 

[Jon Shafer]

This should really be a multiple-choice poll...

 

[The Last Conformist]

Reduced movement penalty. Perhaps make it use up a fixed percentage of MPs rather than a fixed number (this would mean Riflemen move no slower than Cavalry on RR).

While infinite movement might make justifiable sense in a game on Civ's scale, it removes to much from the military strategy aspect in the later ages; you basically don't have to worry where the enemy will strike any longer, since you can instantly get your entire army there.

 

[eromrab]

it is multiple choice... i suppose you mean multiple answer?

 

[Spatula]

I voted for Restricted Access because it could tie in with a rail station.

 

[Doom]

i think it should be reduced movement like 1/10 movement so there could be more advancd things like highways

 

[Spatula]

About Restricted Access: I think that if you don't get on the rail then you shouldn't have ANY increased movement. How is walking on a rail different to walking on a road (apart from the greater chance of death thing)?