Railroads

[Aussie_Lurker]

Apatheist, the Capacity points are generated not based on the number of RR tiles-but on the number-and size-of the cities your RR connect. That way, if you have a RR connecting two cities, it will ALWAYS generate 1CP-say-whether the RR is 20 tiles long or 5 tiles long. However, the main boost to CP's comes not from the underlying connections, but from tech improvements and city-based improvements and wonders.
Also, the movement is as it has always been for RR-unlimited. That is why I suggested Capacity in the first place, because it maintains the realism of unlimited movement (given what a turn supposedly represents in years, months etc) whilst making RR more strategic (i.e. keeping your cities connected by rail becomes vital for large scale unit movements, you have to think about what units you are going to move to your frontline, and it properly recognises the economic impacts-on your infrastructure-of going to war).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[apatheist]

That doesn't answer the questions I had above. Do you have 1 capacity budget if you have 5 rail networks or 5 separate capacity budgets? Do I use my capacity if I cross railroads in no-man's-land? What about railroads in allied territory? If I build a train station in Perth, the implication is that I have more rail capacity between Sydney and Melbourne. That's weird.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Sorry Apatheist, I tried to answer as many of your questions as I could in a short space of time (I was running late at the time OK?!)
Anyway, to answer the rest of your questions:

You would have 1 Capacity budget, regardless of how many RR systems you have, but any improvements/Wonders that you build would only boost the Capacity contribution of that one connection. As an example-lets say that you have a RR from Adelaide to Perth (to use your own suggestion), if both Perth and Adelaide had a population of 6, then this RR would contribute 1.2 Capacity points to the system at the lowest tech level (the final combined capacity would be rounded to the nearest whole number). Now, lets say that Perth builds a train station, this might boost the capacity of that RR connection by 25%, or from 1.2 to 1.5. If Adelaide built one as well, then it might boost it to 1.9 (25% of 1.5, rounded up). The big issue, though, is that an improvement like a RR station is best built for higher tech RRs-and then only in higher population cities, as they will give the greatest boost to Capacity for your investment.
As I said above, I know it sounds wierd of realism is your only benchmark, but how realistic is it to have it take years for a battleship to cross an ocean, or decades to travel by road-yet we know that they implemented these restrictions for gameplay/strategic purposes. The problem with RRs as they stand, though, is that they offend both the realists and the strategists. The point of my idea is to retain the realism of railroads via unlimited movement, whilst making the decision to use RR movement more of a strategic exercise-and in a way which does not overly tax the mind of the player with needless MM-and which doesn't require the player to radically overhaul their gameplaying style in order to maximise the benefits of RR.
As for allied RR-that depends on where your unit 'got on'. If you travel straight from your RR to his RR without a break, then the cost in capacity is borne by you. If, however, you travel from an allied city along his RR, then the cost is borne by him (though a warning should appear asking if you really want to do that !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[apatheist]

Are you saying improvements in Brisbane and Adelaide boost the capacity of Brisbane to/from Adelaide only? They don't boost capacity from Sydney to Darwin? If all tiles are railroaded, how can you say that one tile is part of Brisbane <-> Adelaide and not Sydney <-> Darwin?

The ally thing seems pretty slippery.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

For the simple reason that it is only each City----->City connection that gives you the capacity. So 2 size 10 cities connected by a RR might grant you 2 capacity points, but if both of these cities are also connected to a 3rd and 4th city respectively (each with population 5), then you might only get 1.5 capacity points for each. This way, if you build a rail-related city improvement in a HUB city, then it will benefit all of the rail-capacities which it has created. Do you see where I am coming from?
Also, I am not sure what you mean about using allied RR as 'slippery"!?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[apatheist]

Er... that confused me even more. I went back and reread all your posts in this thread and it's kind of a muddle. Previous posts made it sound like all that mattered was being connected to the overall network, but the couple above make it sound like there's some mechanism to count each pair of connections, calculate capacity for that pair, and then add together all the pairs of connections to get the total.

I also reread the parts about money. If I understand that correctly, your capacity limits your ability to move at all. If you've used up your capacity, then you can't move anything else via rail. Furthermore, you have to pay to move a unit because using capacity takes your money.

The slippery thing is the allocation of capacity when travelling on someone else's rails. Being able to subtract from your ally's capacity is a problem. Having to subtract from your own is counter-intuitive. Being able to choose doesn't improve it, and probably makes it worse.

Actually... instead of capacity points, how about we call them "invisible rail cars?" Seems to describe what you want without getting too abstract. Thinking of them as being a limited number of automatic railcars that attach to a unit whenever you ride the rails makes sense to me. Kind of like roller skates that attach to shoes. Then there's no question of whose "capacity" gets used when moving on allied rail; of course, it's the moving civ's. Then, rather than building improvements or relying on population to generate capacity points, your cities can build "invisible rail cars." That's sort of like improvements, in that you devote production and get a permanent tool, and it's sort of like the population generation, in that bigger cities tend to have greater production. I'd ditch the paying to move, though; I don't think anyone likes that one. A flaw with "invisible rail cars" is how the enemy can destroy them. An advantage is that you could trade it with other civs.

 

[ilgross]

... it is a very basic, simple system that I would say even a 6 y.o could understand.

Obviously not...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, I admit that I allowed myself to get sidetracked, and didn't explain things as well as I should.
How can I put this, succinctly?? At its most basic, a city's contribution to RR capacity is based on this formula: Rail Tech Factor (RTF)*City Size Factor (CSF), or CP=(RTF)*(CSF). Transport-based Techs will, almost without exception, boost the RTF component, whilst Wonders and Improvements will boost the CPF component-either of every city, or an individual city respectively.
So, how to illustrate this (noting that numbers are to illustrate only).

At the most basic tech level of Rail (Steam Power), each RR connection contributes a RTF of 0.1. Cities contribute based on ((Pop-2)/2) (rounded up). So, for instance, anything less than a size 3 city won't provide any benefit to your overall Rail Capacity, but a city of population 12 would multiply the RTF by (12-2/2) or 5. So, if you connect a size 12 city to your rail network-at base tech level-it will contribute 0.5 Capacity points in total. If you get the next Rail-based technology, this will boost the RTF to 0.2, meaning the aforementioned city now contributes 1 Capacity point to the system. If this city were then to build a Rail-specific city improvement-one which boosted its CP contribution by 25%-then this would boost its CSF, from 5 to 6.25. Therefore, this city would now provide (0.2*6.25)=1.25 points to your RR capacity.

As I said above, I realise that combining each city's capacity into a single pool is not realistic, but it would significantly aid gameplay by not requiring players to become accountants, and keep track of multiple Capacities. Also, when you run out of capacity, one of two things could occur (depending on gameplay balance) either all subsequent unit movement occurs at ROAD RATES, or you still get RR movement, merely at double the cost of Rail movement. As I said, I am sorry if I overcomplicated matters, and I hope that this finally puts things into better perspective. As I said in previous posts, the benefit of the system is that it would not radically alter the way players currently build their RR's (thats more a job for maintainance costs), but would make the placement of RR's a more strategic decision, and favour the quality of your rail connections over the sheer size (abundance).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Hyronymus]

Can I distract attention and ask you guys what you think of this suggestion? It seems to me that the Ideas & Suggestion section is more fitting to discuss railroads anyway.

 

[apatheist]

Careful, Hyronymus; we may just put aside our differences and turn on you ;-). I posted in that thread instead of here.

As I said above, I realise that combining each city's capacity into a single pool is not realistic, but it would significantly aid gameplay by not requiring players to become accountants, and keep track of multiple Capacities. Also, when you run out of capacity, one of two things could occur (depending on gameplay balance) either all subsequent unit movement occurs at ROAD RATES, or you still get RR movement, merely at double the cost of Rail movement. As I said, I am sorry if I overcomplicated matters, and I hope that this finally puts things into better perspective. As I said in previous posts, the benefit of the system is that it would not radically alter the way players currently build their RR's (thats more a job for maintainance costs), but would make the placement of RR's a more strategic decision, and favour the quality of your rail connections over the sheer size (abundance).

Hopefully, you can appreciate that this model may be a bit too complex (or you can appreciate that I am an idiot). I think calling them "invisible trains" gets the point across more effectively. I see a little bit of benefit from the overall model, but not enough to justify applying a model that is this complicated and unrealistic. I've suggested tweaks above, such as calling them "invisible trains," being able to build capacity through direct production rather than indirectly through city size and improvements, etc. I still prefer my own model, because I am an unashamed chauvinist. It's also because I can explain it in 3 simple sentences and nobody seemed to have problems understanding it.

There are three levels with realism. There's realistic, there's artificial, and there's anti-realistic. I think the above is anti-realistic. I think the game should aim for realism if practical. If not, it's ok to invent something that is artificial, but you must avoid at all costs something that clashes with reality. That will just confused and confound people. Mechanisms should obey the principle of least surprise. I think the effects of the capacity model you suggest, on the other hand, will surprise many people with the effects they have. Players need to be able to instantly predict the results of their actions so they can choose what to do intelligently. Being able to think it through isn't enough for a game fundamental like railroad; you should be able to know what precisely effect your action will have without having to think about it at all. By that metric, I just don't see this model working.

 

[Hyronymus]

Careful, Hyronymus; we may just put aside our differences and turn on you ;-). I posted in that thread instead of here.

I can handle it and critical reviews foster the mind, isn't it?!

 

[10Seven]

actual trains could be interesting - such as to simulate the armoured trains of past - such as WW2.

But, ultimately, I think a non unit based transport would be better, such as suggestions above.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Wow, it sounds to me-Apatheist-that you have lost any further grounds for criticising my model, and have now just turned to 'criticism for its own sake'. You say my model is 'anti-realistic', yet you provide not one shred of evidence to back it up, and instead simply suggest a nice bit of eye-candy to distract people from how bad an infinite capacity system really is!!! The reality is that from a game-play perspective, limiting movement of RR will add to the MM of the game, wheras leaving it infinite-without further change-is simply unstrategic. I have suggested a model which solves both concerns, is fairly simple in its implementation, and is a reasonable approximation of reality (though not perfect, I accept). If you have a genuinely better model, then by all means suggest it-rather than merely trying to poke holes in mine!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[mitsho]

As I get it, he's critizing the point that capacity point is not realistic and it is not logical how they are achieved. That's correct (at least for me - but you model is good, you just need to make it a bit more 'transparent').
for me, that effect - and the effect of realism - gets a lot more clear if you exchange the word "capacity point" with "train", although it may not be 'realistic', it seems to be 'artificial' ... .

m

 

[apatheist]

Wow, it sounds to me-Apatheist-that you have lost any further grounds for criticising my model, and have now just turned to 'criticism for its own sake'. You say my model is 'anti-realistic', yet you provide not one shred of evidence to back it up, and instead simply suggest a nice bit of eye-candy to distract people from how bad an infinite capacity system really is!!! The reality is that from a game-play perspective, limiting movement of RR will add to the MM of the game, wheras leaving it infinite-without further change-is simply unstrategic. I have suggested a model which solves both concerns, is fairly simple in its implementation, and is a reasonable approximation of reality (though not perfect, I accept). If you have a genuinely better model, then by all means suggest it-rather than merely trying to poke holes in mine!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Your anger is misplaced. I'm not poking holes in your model; they were already there. I'm just taking your ideas to their logical conclusion and seeing where I end up. If you think I'm wrong, tell me where my logic is flawed, or where I've failed to understand the model. Criticizing me won't achieve anything, no matter how many exclamation points you use.

I didn't restate the realism issue because I didn't want to spam the thread by saying the same thing repeatedly. It's unrealistic that building train station in Darwin increases my ability to move units between Sydney and Canberra. Railroad capacity is a local phenomenon, not a global one. It's unrealistic that doubling the number of people in Brisbane should automatically increase the capacity of my rail network. Increasing rail capacity requires an investment in rail infrastructure. It's unrealistic to limit capacity of rail lines at all; most of the time, most of the rail segments in the world are unoccupied. Railroad capacity in the real world dwarfs the demand for it in most locations.

"Invisible trains" was just a different terminology for "capacity points" that I suggested as an aid to understanding. I didn't actually mean there would be little toy trains that you moved around on the map. It was an attempt to help you to describe your model in a more intuitive fashion.

I have repeatedly suggested an alternative model . I have described it here and I have linked it more than once from this thread. I cannot explain why you haven't seen it.

The mechanism that you have suggested is not as simple as you think it is. It may seem simple to you, but you understand it innately because you devised it. Try to express it in a few simple sentences. Mine takes 5: A railroad is a terrain improvement that workers with access to iron can build on any land tile. Units can only get on the railroad at a city. Railroads cannot split or merge between cities. Units expend 1/3 MP travelling on the railroad through a city and 0 MP everywhere else. Units must have access to either coal or oil to travel on the railroad.

Before I responded to your suggestions, I went back and re-read your posts in this thread on your capacity model. I wanted to make sure I didn't ask you to explain things you had already explained satisfactorily, and that I didn't assume things about your model that you had not specified. I ask that you give me the same courtesy.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, so how do you respond to critics who might say your model is unfair because it unduly harms those who have large nations? (which it will, btw) It will also encourage people to build ridiculous 'railroads to nowhere' (or right out to peoples borders, to be precise) because they know this is a
de-facto unlimited movement system! i.e. your system is open to some major-league abuse right from the get-go. It will also require players to keep track of how many cities they have been through-in order to make certain that they have sufficient movement points left if they want to make any attacks-thus increasing MM. So, essentially, if I have this correct, your model retains all of the worst flaws of the current RR system (de-facto unlimited movement for 'rules rapists', RR sprawl and a non-strategic RR system where a player can effectively move his entire military from one end of his nation to the other) whilst adding a whole new layer of MM to it. I don't see how this is any better, or more realistic, than the system which I have proposed.
The fact is that there is only a single point at which my system is unrealistic, and it is the one which I have freely and readily admitted, and have explained its neccessity from a gameplay point of view. However, in the area of the effect of population and technology on RR capacity, I am actually pretty close to the mark in realism terms. Plus, it is not very complex (it has two, very simple components that make it all up-with the rest just no more than window dressing), it adds almost no new MM, it will reduce RR sprawl (particularly if combined with maintainance costs) and it will make RR movement truly strategic whilst not hampering a players realistic attempts to defend his/her nation. Now, I am not going to claim its a perfect solution, but short of removing unlimited RR (which polls have shown most people don't want) I think it will remove the bulk of their exploit value.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[apatheist]

OK, so how do you respond to critics who might say your model is unfair because it unduly harms those who have large nations? (which it will, btw)

That's not a bug, it's a feature. The original complaint was that infinite movement is too powerful. Logically, infinite movement helps large empires more than small ones. Restricting infinite movement, by whatever means, will thus harm large nations more than small ones.

It will also encourage people to build ridiculous 'railroads to nowhere' (or right out to peoples borders, to be precise) because they know this is a
de-facto unlimited movement system!

The status quo is railroads to nowhere. If a player wants to devote the worker time to building railroads out into the middle of nowhere, they can. We already do in Civ3. The utility of doing that is limited, however, as the trip is one-way. You have to walk back. I note that the system you suggested had the same "flaw." Regardless, this could be solved by a rule that units could not get on or off railroads except in cities. You can build a railroad to nowhere, but you can't do anything once you get there. If the original model does suffer from that problem in actual game play, that's an easy fix that leaves the fundamentals unchanged.

It isn't an unlimited movement system because it takes 1/3 MP to transit a city. There is limited space to build railroads and limited worker time to build them, so it is highly unlikely that a player will build express connections between every single pair of cities. Getting on the railroad in the first city will take 1/3 MP off the top, and every subsequent city takes another 1/3. There will be no unlimited movement. An alternative suggestion someone made was that there be no per-city move cost, just that riding the rails ends the unit's turn. That would also be acceptable to me.

It will also require players to keep track of how many cities they have been through-in order to make certain that they have sufficient movement points left if they want to make any attacks-thus increasing MM.

No more so than moving through roads or any other kind of terrain. The MP would be displayed the exact same way as with other movement. I expect that most players would use a GO TO command for long-distance trips anyway, which in Civ3 calculates for you how many turns are necessary. Failing that, there's the alternative mentioned above with railroad trips always taking a full turn.

So, essentially, if I have this correct, your model retains all of the worst flaws of the current RR system (de-facto unlimited movement for 'rules rapists', RR sprawl and a non-strategic RR system where a player can effectively move his entire military from one end of his nation to the other) whilst adding a whole new layer of MM to it.

Asserting this does not make it true. You do have a point, though it is a little hidden by the anger. It is possible to move a nation's entire military from one point to another. However, wouldn't that be possible in a capacity-based system as well, if you had sufficient population and improvements for the requisite capacity points? To avoid that, you would have to tune the capacity implementation such that the railroad's capacity in a given turn would only be enough to move part of the army, which is a tricky balancing act.

I don't see how this is any better, or more realistic, than the system which I have proposed.

A railroad's effects are not dependent on any distant actions. If I have a railroad west of Paris, it behaves the same regardless of what size Marseilles is or whether Brest has a train station. Trains slow down when passing through cities, but, otherwise, rail lines have very high capacity. Railroads lack the flexibility that roads have in moving from one arbitrary point to another; they tend to be more like spokes connecting cities than omnipresent infrastructure. Railroads are for movement of goods and units up to but not including the "last mile." Players would not be able to use railroads to deploy military units to fight; nor would it be easy for a unit to fight, get on the railroad, and go to the other side of the continent. Railroads have a high cost to construct, but a low cost to use in comparison to ordinary roads.

The fact is that there is only a single point at which my system is unrealistic, and it is the one which I have freely and readily admitted, and have explained its neccessity from a gameplay point of view. However, in the area of the effect of population and technology on RR capacity, I am actually pretty close to the mark in realism terms.

I counted three:

1) Capacity is common throughout the empire
2) Capacity increases automatically with population
3) Building a rail-related improvement increases capacity

Maybe you counted those as a single one.

I think, if nothing else, this conversation tells me that infinite movement may be the least of all evils.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I believe that higher population cities can support a larger railway network, in terms of both infrastructure and rolling stock, which is what the CSF represents. The RTF represents both the speed and frequency at which rolling stock can be moved along the underlying infrastructure. Therefore, the TSF and CSF are based on fairly realistic principles-its just lumping them into a national pool which isn't realistic-as I have freely admitted.
As for Capacity allowing you to move your entire army from one end of your nation to the other-only if you have a fairly small army and, even then, only if you are prepared to cripple yourself economically for at least the following turn. The important thing about my model, though, is that it doesn't punish people for merely being large. Instead, it rewards the 'quality' of an empire rather than the number of cities. After all, if you have 10 cities with an average population of 20, then each of these cities will contribute 0.9CP's each at base tech level-or 9CP's in total. A nation with 40 cities with an average population of 10, OTOH, will only contribute 0.4CP's at base tech level, which gives him 16CP's in total. So though the second civ is 4 times larger-in city number-he has less than double the CP's of his much smaller rival. Why? Because this rival has chosen to build up rather than out . More to the point, if we assume that the first civ-with the fewer cities-is spread out over a smaller distance, then the cost of maintaining its RR infrastructure is going to be less than the larger, more spread out civ. To me, this represents a crucial element in curbing the EEJ/'Snowball Effect' of the game, without automatically hamstringing the larger player, as your model does, because the CP model allows the larger player to boost his CP's by focusing more on the quality of his cities and the tech level of the infrastructure connecting them.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[joethreeblah]

The day Civ is shipped with something called "Capacity Points" is the day I stop buying them. I'm sick of it already

 

[frekk]

The day Civ is shipped with something called "Capacity Points" is the day I stop buying them. I'm sick of it already

It's not really all that complex. In fact, the idea of limited rail redeployment would go back to the roots of turn based games, that is back to some of the rules often seen in Avalon Hill - style board wargames (usually termed "Strategic Redeployment Points", but essentially meaning rail capacity points). If it could be managed in a board game it can certainly be managed in a computer game.

The key I think is to make the system VERY simple.

Complex paramaters for generating rail capacity are not good, especially those that generate capacity on the basis of number of cities etc. While in some senses realistic, no matter how you defined the numbers it wouldn't model the real world terribly well - Russia or China would always have much higher rail capacity than Germany or Japan and this simply wasn't so. Having many cities with large industrial bases can, actually, eat up rail capacity rather than generate it. The biggest single factor in the real world relevant to the ability to conduct strategic redeployment by rail, is technological development.

The easiest way to make a simple system, to my way of thinking, is simply to give a fixed number of rail capacity/strategic redeployment points based on tech advances. In this way, transport capacity would be based on technological development, not size or population or manufacturing capacity - and this has been true in the real world as well. I favour a capacity model, but only if it's kept very very simple with little or no management, and if it is an optional difficulty setting at game start (like barbarians or victory conditions) - default should not have capacity points.