Railroad instant movement bonus is silly

[Moonsinger]

Get rid of it. It is unrealistic. Make it free movement for the first 5 or 10 tiles, but no more railroad move that turn.

Keep the free movement for the railroad! Civ will be extremely boring if we have to take forever to move our workers from one end of the continent to the other to clean up pollution or whatever.

The reason why StarTrek is so popular is because they have the technology to travel at warp speed! If we take away warp speed, StarTrek will be boring like hell. It's the same reason why we have Town Portal or Dimenional Gate spell/technology in D&D and sci-fi games.

 

[stormbind]

Don't you find workers to be boring anyway? Especially in the modern era... *yawn*

That is when I generally restart the game

 

[.Shane.]

You could have base railroad at, say 6 tiles per move, and "high-speed rail" as a later advancement and that allows say, ~12-infinite rail movement.

I also agree w/ those who think that there should be something to make railroading every tile unnecessary. Maybe a "depot" building. "A train depot in a city gives X benefit for every city it is connected by rail to. If the connected city also has a depot, then the benefit is X times Y (where Y is most likely a fractal)." And give no bonus for a tile having a rail. Therefore, you have incentive to connect cities by rail, but not tile every damned tile in existance.

 

[hclass]

Since Civ2-3's railroads have instant movement, I find it very unrealistic.

What is the point of being so realistic in a game?
Does that creates more fun in the game?

I find it that having railroads granting 1/5th movement points seems fair .

Either 1/5th movement or unlimted movement is just a game setting, it shouldn't be a matter of "fair". In turn-base game there will be no reasonable type of movement which look realistic or fair (if you really want to compare it to real life situation). How can all unit move the same distance each turn, does that mean realistic?

IMO, the only way to make unit movement a little bit real or closer to the real world situation is to turn Civ game into real time strategy game...

 

[bkwrm79]

Railroad teleportation is annoying. I don't find it realistic, but that's secondary anyway. It isn't as much fun, but it obviates a lot of strategy. You can switch troops between fronts instantly. You don't need to worry about invasion, except Marines. High movement, sure. Twice, even three times as fast as roads - although it shouldn't be too much higher than naval transport. But not instantaneous, please! At least make it an option.

Oh, and I'd really like it if the 'Alpine' ability was separated from roads. What if I want Alpine units to move at 1/3 mp, but roads to be 1/4 mp?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Capacity Points, IMO, give the best of both worlds. It gives you the ease of being able to move units on a RR an infinite distance-within your own nation-whilst forcing the player to make tough strategic decisions, something largely missing from the modern/industrial age.
For instance, the decision of WHAT units will I move by rail this turn and the decision of how much of your domestic and foreign economy are you prepared to sacrifice in order to get your troops to the front line (which has the double effect of reducing warmongering as a 'win-win' strategy, and curbing the Snowball Effect caused by military expansion).
At least, thats how I see it!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Quebec Patriote]

Good idea. A bit like the airport capacity that is one per turn per airport.

 

[civzombie]

"I agree - I hope that the infinite movement for rail is gone (or if its not, its moddable)."


You know, as a deity player I can definitely say that removing infinite rails would make the game more challanging - and I am all for that. As it currently is, I massively exploit the AI b/c I don't have to bother with defenders in some of my city. This can be helpful when going for a diplo/space/culture victory. Actually, it can even be helpful for a military victory.

The bottom line is that players have the brain to take full advantage of infinite rails: the AI doesn't.

 

[Commander Bello]

[...]

The bottom line is that players have the brain to take full advantage of infinite rails: the AI doesn't.

From a principle point of view, I cannot agree to this. Unlimited movement should make it easier for the AI to react, as it would have to handle less restrictions and could just shift around it's units as needed. Therefore, unlimited movement and rail-cluttered maps should be an advantage for the AI.

Unfortunately, the AI seems not to be able to perform proper "threat analyses". Often enough you can spot workers heading to the very town, where your SOD of cannons, muskets and cavalries just showed up.

But this is less the problem of the (un-)limitation of movements, but of the inner mechanics of the current engine.

I for my part am fine with the unlimited movement, I would yet prefer to have a concept where there is not benefit for covering each and every tile with railroads.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

High Patriote. Its similar, but not the same.
The idea is that every time you connect a city to your transport network-for the first time-you get x Capacity Points, with x=0.1 to 1, depending on your tech level. This base number of CP's is then boosted by the presence of certain city improvements, specific transport technologies and the population of the cities which are hooked up to the transport network (quality being better than quantity). The base number of CP's determines the maximum number of troops, shields/food and/or trade routes your nation can have overland. Every troop you move via rail reduces the number of CP's available, which reduces your per turn income-as well as making the CP's unavailable for shields, food or trade purposes. As RR's would come with a maintainance cost, this would be a double whammy, and make combat a difficult undertaking from an economic perspective.
CP's would exist, seperately, for roads and airports as well-and possibly for harbours/commercial ports as well.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[ainwood]

Keep the free movement for the railroad! Civ will be extremely boring if we have to take forever to move our workers from one end of the continent to the other to clean up pollution or whatever.

Attack the root cause - get rid of the need for infinite movement (that isn't strategy-related).

Eg: Need to move workers to clean-up pollution? Get rid of pollution (they're already doing that, aren't they?)
Need to move troops to defend your empire? Well, that's more a strategic issue.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Keep the free movement for the railroad! Civ will be extremely boring if we have to take forever to move our workers from one end of the continent to the other to clean up pollution or whatever.

That's why there is no pollution in Civ4 (at least in form as in prevuis sequels).

It is booooooring as hell.

 

[civzombie]

"From a principle point of view, I cannot agree to this. Unlimited movement should make it easier for the AI to react, as it would have to handle less restrictions and could just shift around it's units as needed. Therefore, unlimited movement and rail-cluttered maps should be an advantage for the AI."

You raise a tangential point. However, the question is not whether the AI will be able to easily react, the question is whether the player is able to do it better than the AI to the point of exploitation.

Surely the infinite movement also allows the player to also react - much better than the AI. The player is better at making a threat analysis than the AI will ever be. I can move ALL my units to the threat and defeat it. The AI will be programmed conservatively so that it keeps 3-4 defenders in one town that is not at all threatened, while a threatened town is about to be taken.

 

[Commander Bello]

[...] The AI will be programmed conservatively so that it keeps 3-4 defenders in one town that is not at all threatened, while a threatened town is about to be taken.

And this is exactly the point, where a proper threat analysis will come in.
Say, the AI would have 25 cities. For each of those cities, the thread analysis will be run at the beginning of the turn. Cities A will have a result of 0.9, B will have a result of 0.5 and M....Z will have an result of 0 (for simplicity reasons here, we will not take units "in the field" into coderation).

In that case, it would be "easy" (of course, still a matter of the programming) to relocate some of the defenders from M to A, N to A, O to B and so on).
This has almost nothing to do with strategical decisions, which I agree will be out of reach for an AI. This would be just tactical reaction, and therefore should be possible for the AI - under the assumption of unlimited movement.

 

[Quebec Patriote]

High Patriote. Its similar, but not the same.
The idea is that every time you connect a city to your transport network-for the first time-you get x Capacity Points, with x=0.1 to 1, depending on your tech level. This base number of CP's is then boosted by the presence of certain city improvements, specific transport technologies and the population of the cities which are hooked up to the transport network (quality being better than quantity). The base number of CP's determines the maximum number of troops, shields/food and/or trade routes your nation can have overland. Every troop you move via rail reduces the number of CP's available, which reduces your per turn income-as well as making the CP's unavailable for shields, food or trade purposes. As RR's would come with a maintainance cost, this would be a double whammy, and make combat a difficult undertaking from an economic perspective.
CP's would exist, seperately, for roads and airports as well-and possibly for harbours/commercial ports as well.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I know it's not the same has the airports. I'd really like if something like this or similar was introduced. Great suggestion.

 

[sengfossil]

hi,
I'm part of the people who don't like the railroad-solution of Civ I-III. On the other side, there would be a need for a simple solution which can fit in the known Civ-concept.
My suggestion:
1. No area bonusses, to prevent automated worker to build railroads everywere. Instead a city gets a trade- bonus for every connected city in the railroad-network. Perhaps a shield bonus too once the city is connected. (Single Bonus)
2. Every unit on the railroad gets a movement-Bonus of +10/turn, but only on the railroad. the normal unit movement is necessary to enter or leave the railroad.
3. Entering a railrod is only possible in cities, leaving (perhaps) at any location. Crossing a railroad is possible, by using a railroad starting outside a city it works just as plain road.

I believe, that would add some stragegy to the gameplay. And I believe, that that way is easy for realisation.

 

[civzombie]

"In that case, it would be "easy" (of course, still a matter of the programming) to relocate some of the defenders from M to A, N to A, O to B and so on). "

I'll believe it when I see it. I don't think this would be easy, and I think that is why the AI currently is unable to exploit rails. If infite movement is used in civ4 again, I believe we will once again see an AI that cannot utilize infinite rails well.

 

[Moonsinger]

Attack the root cause - get rid of the need for infinite movement (that isn't strategy-related).

Eg: Need to move workers to clean-up pollution? Get rid of pollution (they're already doing that, aren't they?)
Need to move troops to defend your empire? Well, that's more a strategic issue.

True! I already knew that. Pollution clean up was just an example. I suspect they will come up with something far worst in Civ4; instead of clean up pollution, we will be babysitting something far worst. Anyway, I really don't see a problem with infinite rail movement.

1. Is it boring? No! Well, at least not for me.

2. Is bad for the AI? No!

3. Is it unrealistic? No! Since each turn in Civ is really equal to a period of one or more years in real life, it would be unrealistic if we can't move unit from one side of the world to another within one or more years.

4. Is it anoying? May be to those who have failed to establish a beach head.

The bottom line, if they limit the rail movement like in the Call To Power, that will be fine too. Rail movement in CTP costs 1/10 of a movement point, IIRC. Of course, in CTP, they also have the technology to increase the power of the rail to super/hyper rail once the civilization reach the space age. My point is simple: Once the civ has advance far enough, instant transportation must be a posibility! Take our human civilization in real life as an example, in our future, I have no doubt that we will discover technology to travel almost instantly from NY to Paris. Of course, I could see why that may be a boring thing to a lot of people because it would take away the fun of waiting in line at the airport or something.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Instant transport kills strategic logistics in moder era.

 

[Kosez]

Units are too slow in the start of the game and too fast at the end of the game. Minimum for a slowest unit should be at least two moves/per turn. Three is even better.
RR's should have different effects than roads. Loads of people have come up with some great ideas, some of them are splendid.