Railways?

[agonistes]

Having railroads impact military unit movement and industry/commerce would be nice.

Maybe a bonus yield of hammers and/or gold to the city center if connected by rail to a city with a harbor? And +3 (or so) movement to military units?

At some point it would be neat if they could implement some sort of 'supply' cost to military units, so supply trains would become a necessity. Like, say, units in addition to a health bar also have a movement bar, and a supply wagon needs to 'tag' them to refresh their movement points, or they can 'heal' movement points by standing on a railroad or in a city, or pillaging of course.

 

[bkn42]

Having railroads impact military unit movement and industry/commerce would be nice.

Maybe a bonus yield of hammers and/or gold to the city center if connected by rail to a city with a harbor? And +3 (or so) movement to military units?

At some point it would be neat if they could implement some sort of 'supply' cost to military units, so supply trains would become a necessity. Like, say, units in addition to a health bar also have a movement bar, and a supply wagon needs to 'tag' them to refresh their movement points, or they can 'heal' movement points by standing on a railroad or in a city, or pillaging of course.

Maybe have a civic card called "Intermodal Transport" with bonuses for connecting industry, harbors and airports somehow?

 

[agonistes]

If they ever represented that correctly in the game, then quite simply all your 'city radius' calculations would go right out the window as soon as you had a railroad connection.

That is an interesting thought. Connect a city to your rail network, and now you can have it work any tile in your empire? Kinda cool.

 

[Sic]

This seems like the smart way to do it. Your military engineer can build railway stations at certain intervals allowing you to quickly move troops there. The longer the railway, the costlier the build, the cost is calculated from start location but cities that the railroad pass through can contribute to the project.

Tying it into my idea of a diplomacy expansion, maybe you can build railroads in other civs territory to get tourism and gold and diplo boost but you can demand "station" concessions, allowing only your troops to move on their railroads. Would be cool, kinda exploitative game play wise but in an interesting way.

Yeah, I've been thinking about a similar solution myself.

I agree with the decision to remove the overly time-consuming management of workers, but railroads could be implemented outside of that.

I like the idea of railroad station as "waypoints", but I think they should rather be the only points you could build to. In other words, a railroad station would be an additional structure/improvement the worker could build (after the salient research was finished), then any city that wanted to start construction in a direct line (or as direct as possible) towards the station could do so. If any part (tile) of the railway is pillaged, a worker or military engineer can fix it (with workers spending one of their charges doing it).

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Maybe have a civic card called "Intermodal Transport" with bonuses for connecting industry, harbors and airports somehow?

It's called Containerized Shipping or, for an Improvement/Building, a Container Terminal, started coming into service historically in the 1950s (Atomic Era) and increases the Gold from shipping for each different type of transportation meeting in the city: railroads, roads, seaport, airpot, etc. Justifiable that it would also increase Production in the city. And yes, the game has needed it for a long time as a Late Game Technology or Development.

That is an interesting thought. Connect a city to your rail network, and now you can have it work any tile in your empire? Kinda cool.

- Which is exactly what happened historically when railroads were introduced, and why there are railroads that don't go to cities at all, but to major Resource Points like copper, iron or coal mines. Require a Railroad Station/Yard/Terminal Improvement (buildable outside your borders) on or adjacent to a Resource, get the benefits of the resource.
Another thought: add a Diplomatic Option after Railroads: Transit Rights, where you can use the other Civ's railroads for movement or to access Resources on the other side of his borders.
A really minor but Neat Point: add a Civic of 'Prestige Trains' which allows you to implement luxury passenger trains between two cities - including, with Transit Rights, cities in another Civ: bring on the Orient Express and Flying Scotsman! Would add Tourism and Amenity to cities at either end of the route (so, No, these would not run to a Coal Mine!)

 

[bkn42]

It's called Containerized Shipping or, for an Improvement/Building, a Container Terminal, started coming into service historically in the 1950s (Atomic Era) and increases the Gold from shipping for each different type of transportation meeting in the city: railroads, roads, seaport, airpot, etc. Justifiable that it would also increase Production in the city. And yes, the game has needed it for a long time as a Late Game Technology or Development.

We're talking about different sides of the same coin here, but there are two parts to it: containerization started to really pick up steam in the 1930's, then there is the standardization of containers in 1950's to work across the various modes of transportation, hence why I specifically called it "Intermodal Transport" so as to refer to that part of transport history.

But again, we're not far off, tomatoh, tomahto.

 

[nokmirt]

That's really why they are NOT in Civ6 - the Worker and road building mechanic changed.

Still they should upgrade to what looks like railroads, graphic wise, in the later eras. People should understand there are two expansions and more DLCs coming out. They cannot cram everything into one game. Just because railroads are out of the picture now does not mean they won't be added later on in some form. Maybe later you can build a strategic rail system in your territory and neighboring territory, using builders or something to increase movement and production between cities and neighbors. Maybe they will add in highways, who knows?

 

[bkn42]

Still they should upgrade to what looks like railroads, graphic wise, in the later eras. People should understand there are two expansions and more DLCs coming out. They cannot cram everything into one game. Just because railroads are out of the picture now does not mean they won't be added later on in some form. Maybe later you can build a strategic rail system in your territory and neighboring territory, using builders or something to increase movement and production between cities and neighbors. Maybe they will add in highways, who knows?

Certainly could be, and I hope it is. But my gut feeling is that it was eliminated as part of the road system overhaul to eliminate micromanaging, and they just decided to avoid railroads to keep the road system simple.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I hope they save it for an x-pack and make it a whole big deal. Like you build a Rail Line national wonder in a city... then you build the first stop in another city, etc.

 

[rreebb]

Seeing how slow unit movement is even into the later eras, railways could be a big deal for an expansion (ala Civ4 corporations). They're automatically attractive to warmongers, and if they give an equally attractive bonus to culture/gold/production, they will be YUGE.

 

[Manifold]

I am sure we get an huge expansion about the Machine War with Railways, Gatling Gun, the Trenches Infantry, Torpedo Boat, Armoured Train, Steamtanks, Airships, the UAVs, the Giant Death Robots and a Jule Verne Scenario as DLC soon

Otherwise, the leave out of railways simply can not be explained

 

[Zenstrive]

Why don't we just have a Railstation building that can be built in economic district? Two railstation will be connected automatically with a straight railroads that even goes through mountains and lakes. Each segments of railroads add +1 hammer or +1 gold or +1 food to the tile it is on, whichever is already +3 or bigger (representing small railstations along the way). The cost of the railstation should be huge. There should be a national wonder of Central Station that give +1 culture, +3 gold, +1 science, and +1 food to the city and +1 gold to All railstation. It's cost should be enormous.

 

[Sic]

Railway stations seems like micromanagement hell, especially with 1UPT. I dont see how it could work.

I don't see how creating a railway station is "micromanagement hell".

 

[Sic]

Its units only being able to get on/off at railway stations that would be hell.
What would you do if that are units blocking the path? What if you want to "walk along" the railway station? Does a unit teleport from one station to the next? If not what happens if it takes more than one turn to get there? What happen if a station get pillaged? Do you see where I'm going with this?

Not really.

How is that more demanding than moving those very same units without railways?

 

[Sic]

If you have railways that act as roads, it's the same. If they act as roads that you can only get on or off at certain points it's different. I don't know how I can explain that to you if you don't get it. Draw a map which has a few railways+stations and try and figure out how to move them.

Or, for starters, clarify exactly what the movement rules would be. How do units that haven't "embarked" at a station treat railways? How many units can you embark per turn per station? Does an embarked unit have to disembark on the same turn? Can a unit move after embarking/disembarking? How do you keep track in a visible way of which units have embarked and which are just crossing the railroad?

It would be a very different system from normal movement, and one with much more micromanagement for virtually no gain.

You're not reading what I'm writing.

I'll try again.

How is having railway stations "micromanagement hell" or "more demanding"? I.e. how is it more time consuming than if the stations weren't there? I haven't talked about any system with units embarking. I get that you're having issues with how the rules of movement would be implemented, but that was not the basis of this conversation. The basis was that you were framing this as if there would be an inherent problem with railway stations.

As a suggestion for movement rules: railways have a set movement speed for all units, no matter the terrain. No embarking or disembarking.

 

[ProMeTheus112]

If there would be railway stations, units that move from one station to another could just calculate their movement and use that path if it is the shortest, rest of time ignore rails. So basically you would just target the destination for the movement with the unit as usual, and in case there is a railway path that makes the shortest trip that's where the unit will go. If it's already on a railway station tile, you'd just make a move order to someplace on the map near a railway station that its connected to (or move order on that other railway station) and it would just move there using the rails. I think that's not a problem at all for the movement calculation system (what happens when you are selecting a destination to move to), it would just also check for a train station near start of movement and near end of movement and compare that path length to other land paths. It's not CPU heavy. Just an example.

 

[Sic]

So what do the railway stations do then?

Act as waypoints that cities can build railroads to.

 

[Sic]

If there would be railway stations, units that move from one station to another could just calculate their movement and use that path if it is the shortest, rest of time ignore rails. So basically you would just target the destination for the movement with the unit as usual, and in case there is a railway path that makes the shortest trip that's where the unit will go. If it's already on a railway station tile, you'd just make a move order to someplace on the map near a railway station that its connected to (or move order on that other railway station) and it would just move there using the rails. I think that's not a problem at all for the movement calculation system (what happens when you are selecting a destination to move to), it would just also check for a train station near start of movement and near end of movement and compare that path length to other land paths. It's not CPU heavy. Just an example.

Exactly.

 

[ProMeTheus112]

Yeah that makes sense. Well I think the pros of train station is the associated cost/constraint of using the rails, which allows to give them a stronger bonus, also further differenciating them from roads. You could just have the possibility to disembark anywhere. Or, the travelling could be instant, such as if you start turn on station you can end it in another connected station (unless thats redundant with how airports would also function, or just break the balance of movement mechanics & constraints, not sure I like instant travel myself). I don't think it's hard to decide whether using them is quicker than a land path, unless in ambiguous cases where it doesn't matter that much anyway. Of course there would be pros of not having to use stations.. and if the cost of building the rails themselves then is high enough, the value of the railways can still be strong. I think it really always needs to be a choice to add rails or not, with multiple factors, not a managing no brainer. Otherwise it's another layer of stuff to always lay out on your territory, adding management for little gameplay value and also visual clutter/not interesting visually. That's why imo if it brings nice perks it needs to be rather costly/constraining.

If no station and you build rails tile by tile, what if it collected minor adjacency bonuses from things along the way and provided these to the connected cities?

 

[Sic]

OK, I completely misread ProMeTheus.

I don't want the stations to have any other function than as waypoints for construction.