realistic railways?

[TheNiceOne]

There are two fifferent issues to solve regarding railroads. One is infinite movement, and the other is the "railroads everywhere" problem. I think the solutions to those two are independent, and here's my ideas for fixing them.

1: Railroads should have a movement cost of x/y, where x is the unit's total movement points (1/2/3), and where y is an arbitrary number, where 12 or 16 are most probable suggestions. It may start at 12, and later be upgraded to 16 by a tech. Assume for now that y = 12.
This will mean that a one-move unit will use 1/12 movement point (MP) for each square, thus being able to move 12 squares along rails. A cavalry unit will use 3/12 MP for each square, and be able to move 12 squares as well.
The nice thing about this solution is that a combination of rail and non-rail movement works perfectly. If a unit moves half of max on rails (6 squares), it will have half its total MP left (1/2 MP for a rifleman, 1 MP for a knight and 1+1/2 MP for a cavalry).
"y" should be adjustable in the editor, with 0 meaning infinite movement as today.

2: I think a very good way of avoiding railroads everywhere, is to remove the +1 shield/food bonus from railroads, and give those bonuses to advanced mines and advanced irrigation instead. Further, one square can only have one of these three terrain improvements, so you effectively give up one food or one shield for each square you have railroads. This will lead to railroads being built only where necessary for movement, and will come at a cost in shields/foods.

 

[yoshi]

"y" should be adjustable in the editor, with 0 meaning infinite movement as today.

...because 1 already means there's no bonus at all. It's odd that the CIV series has railroads with infinite movement. One would think they would just give a much bigger movement bonus than Roads; i.e. the Civ3 Editor would have a Railroad Movement caption right under the Road Movement caption.

A few alternatives concerning Railroads:

Alternative 1:
Railroads give equal movement rate to all units.
e.g. Railroads give units on that tile a movement of 4 (a little faster than a Tank). thus any unit that travels on Railroads can move 5 squares --as long as the tiles have the Railroad improvement. For example, Infantry (move 1) moves 5 on Railroads, Tanks (move 3) also move 5 on Railroads. The only exception is if a unit has more movement than the Railroads (faster than trains): there is no such land unit in Civ3 but if there were, the unit would be able to travel along Railroads just to avoid terrain movement penalties but could then continue moving after the Railroad's 5 movement no longer apply. Units getting off Railtiles and then getting on again in the same turn would recieve no extra movement (i.e. train is long gone --also saves having to give units 'rail-movement storage'). This might be a better alternative to giving units bonuses based on their own movement because it doesn't give faster units an advantage (it's assumed the units are being carried via train as freight thus they all move at the speed of the train).

Alternative 2:
Railroads move units in a similar manner to the way airports do.
Units can move between any two cities connected by Railroads. If the Railroad is blocked by an enemy unit or pillaged, units can no longer be 'rail-lifted'. A movement rate could be included which would mean that cities that are too far apart would require that units stay 'in-flight' for more than one turn. Units could also be 'dropped' anywhere along a Railroad connected to a single city. This alternative would require a slight change to the game engine.

Alternative 3:
Special 'Train' unit has 'Rail Only' flag.
Any unit with this flag can only travel on tiles with the Railroad improvement. The unit would have a hold in which to carry land units and unload them anywhere along the line.
This has a similar effect to the first alternative only it is unit-dependent.

In addition, even as Railroads function now, if a Railroad is severed at either end (i.e. not connected to any city), then the Railroad bonus is lost --as the trains cannot leave their stations.
This would do something to counter the effect of units 'riding' around even though they're cities have been destroyed. Secondly, if an enemy city is connected to your rail system, then its units should be able to travel along your Railroads --even in time of war (i.e. its trains are using your tracks).

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by yoshi

...because 1 already means there's no bonus at all.

No. I don't know if I weren't clear enough, or if you misread, but with my suggestion, 1 means that all units will move 1 square per turn on rails, regardless of their normal speed.
Note that in my suggestion, the cost of one square of railroad movement isn't 1/y (like one square of road movement is 1/3), but rather it is x/y, where x is the units total movement points (1, 2 or 3). The effect of this is that a units moving only by train for an turn will be able to move y squares regardless of its normal speed.
And the important side effect is that it blends realistically with non-railroad movement if a unit moves partly by railroad for one turn.

EX: Assume that y = 12 (meaning that a unit can move 12 squares per turn by railroad). An infantry unit and a MA moves 6 squares on the railroad.
The infantry will have used 6 * 1/12 = 1/2 of its single movement point, and will thus be able to move one non-roaded square or 2 roaded squares (1/2 * 3 rounde up).
The MA will have used 6 * 3/12 = 1 + 1/2 of its 3 movement points, and will be able to move 2 non-roaded squares or 5 roaded squares (3/2 * 3 rounded up).

In other words: If a unit moves half as far as it could per railroad, it will have used half its total movement points, which is very realistic: All units move at the same speed on railroads, but as soon as they leave the train, the faster units will be able to move faster again.

It's odd that the CIV series has railroads with infinite movement. One would think they would just give a much bigger movement bonus than Roads; i.e. the Civ3 Editor would have a Railroad Movement caption right under the Road Movement caption.

But then again, this solution would be really bad: There's no reason for cavalry to move three times as fast as infantry on a train.

A few alternatives concerning Railroads:

Alternative 1:
Railroads give equal movement rate to all units.

If you re-read my suggestion, which has the same effect if the entire turn is on railroad, and gives a realistic way of mixing the two movement types, I hope you agree that my suggestion is better
Your other suggestion adds unnessecary complication IMHO.

 

[yoshi]

If a unit moves half as far as it could per railroad, it will have used half its total movement points, which is very realistic: All units move at the same speed on railroads, but as soon as they leave the train, the faster units will be able to move faster again.

There seems to be a condradiction here.
The first part of the sentence says half the unit's MPs will be lost if it travels on Rail squares for 6 squares of the 12 square movement given by Railroads. Yet technically, they both should just use up 1 point (on Grassland for instance) getting onto another Grassland tile with the Railroad improvement on it; i.e. the Rail effect only applies when travelling from one Rail square to another. As I understand it, Tanks will use up half their movement when travelling by Rail and Inf. will also lose half. If it were realistic wouldn't they just lose 1 movement each, thus when the Tank gets off the Railroad (onto a Grassland square without Roads), it will have 2/3 MPs whereas the Infantry will have 0/1?
I obviously missed something...

A more algabreic example:

x = unit movement (3)
y = rail movement (12)
t = terrain movement (-1)

When does a unit consume movement points?
i.e. x = 3, x via y = 6, x via t = 1, x = 2
Unit travels along Railroad for 6/12 squares (having started on a square with Railroad, Unit has yet to consume any movement), Unit leaves Railroad square thus consuming 1/3 movement. Unit gets back on to Railroad square thus leaving it at 2/3 movement. What happens now? Does the unit continue along the Railroad for 6 more squares, or is it back to the full 12? That is does the game, 'remember' how many turns the unit has left, or is the unit's 'rail-movement' set back to full?

If I in fact didn't miss anything, then what happens when the units have moved all 12 squares via Railroad? What's to stop them from getting off and then getting on again thus allowing them to move another 12 squares in a turn --assuming they have enough MPs to move back onto the Railroad?

 

[EddyG17]

why don we make it a scale, each MP if 6 rail squares meanig the tank (3MP) would have 18 rail squares. A Horsman (2MP) 12 rail squares, AND NOW the a archer (1 MP) either move by rail 6 squares or it goes by foot, what happens if the rail line was destroyed and you have use all yours rail squares but one, well you stop there, next turn

 

[yoshi]

why don we make it a scale

Because that would be simply giving units a bonus based on their own movement rate; it would be the same effect as Roads only faster.
What I was talking about was givng all units the same movement when on tiles with the Railroad improvement. I was contemplating how this bonus would affect units getting back on to Railroaded tiles within the same turn.

the rail line was destroyed and you have use all yours rail squares but one, well you stop there, next turn

In the case I was talking about, your unit would begin consuming its MPs the moment the Railroad movement reached its limit. Then again it could be done your way so that a unit would consume all its MPs the moment it moved between two Railroaded tiles.

The fact that these complications come up is why the second alternative (railroads connect cities thus allowing units to be 'teleported' between those cities) seems to be the simplest solution (would require more alterations to the game engine than the other options), next to just giving Railroads a bigger movement bonus than Roads. Although the simplest solution is really the 'train' unit with the 'Rail Only' flag, civers seem to prefer the simplicity of not having to load a unit (although they do the same with ships) each time they want to use a Railroad --and in this case, the problems associated with Railroads giving the same bonus to all units still apply to that one 'train' unit.

 

[Pembroke]

IMO TheNiceOne's suggestion is the most fair. Think about it this way:

Unit A moves 20 miles per hour, Unit B moves 30 mph and the train moves 60 mph. Ignore time used for loading, eating, sleeping and other stuff. Assume they are already calculated into the above average speeds.

Unit A moves 1 hour on its own travelling 20 miles. Then it boards a train and travels 60 miles in an hour. It then leaves the train and travels yet another hour on its own going further 20 miles. Total movement is 100 miles in 3 hours.

Unit B does the same thing: 30 miles + 60 miles + 30 miles. Total movement is 120 miles in 3 hours.

In Civ3 movement terms unit A obviously used 1/3 of its movement rate on the train. Of the 3 hours it spent 1 hour on the train. OTOH unit B _also_ used 1/3 of its movement rate on the train as it spent 1 hour on the railroads, too.

Changing this entirely to the Civ3 world it would indeed go like TheNiceOne suggested:

The infantry unit moves one tile on road. It has .67 movement points left. Then it moves 4 tiles on the railroad which consumes (assuming the 1/12 ratio) another .33 points. The infantry has now .33 points left which it uses to go another tile on its own on a road.

The knight unit starts with 2 movement points. It first moves 2 tiles on the road leaving it with 1.33 points. Then it boards a train travelling the same 4 turns the infantry did. If we don't want the absurd result that a train loaded with knights goes faster than a train loaded with infantry then it has to be so, that the knight uses up 1/3 of their total movement points on their train trip because there are the same number of hours in a day for the knights as there are for the infantry and they use the same number of them on the train. Thus the knight will lose .67 points in that 4 tile railroad voyage leaving them with .67 points. The knight uses that to travel 2 tiles on their own on a road.

Summing up: Railroad movement costs 1/12 points for the infantry and 2/12 points for the knights, or if we generalize this we get that railroad movement costs M/12 points per tile where M is the movement rate of the unit.

 

[EddyG17]

i think the best solution is to give infinite movement or a fix number (trin unit) and lowering the time scale to months but that will mean the every thing will take more turns because if you build a road un two turns 4 years and we don't want that to become 2 moths.

 

[yoshi]

Summing up: Railroad movement costs 1/12 points for the infantry and 2/12 points for the knights, or if we generalize this we get that railroad movement costs M/12 points per tile where M is the movement rate of the unit.

If that is in fact what TheNiceOne meant, units would use up the same percentage (as opposed to a specific number) of their MPs. If this is the case, then this essentially means that all units take the same amount of time to 'get onto the train' regardless of movement; i.e. a unit of 3 takes just as long a a unit of 2 to board a 'train,' since unit speed has nothing to do with bording. Then when the units 'get off the train' they have lost the same percentage of MPs. In other words, units travelling this way will lose movement but still be proportionally the same thus faster units don't get an advantage. In this case, I have to agree, TheNiceOne's proposal is better from a gaming point of view because it essentially maintains the unit movment equality given by the present infinite movement given by Railroads, while at the same time limiting Railroad movement.

The other option of course is to just take away all a units MPs when travelling along Railroad squares, thus equality is also maintained. In Civ3, units use up all their MPs when loading onto, or unloading from a transport, regardless of the numebr of MPs.
Why not do the same here? Assume that it takes an entire turn to 'board the train.' Thus when a unit gets moves between two Rail squares, it can only move 12 squares via Rail but it cannot exit those squares until the next turn. If the next turn, instead of moving into a square without Railroads it continues to move along the Railroad, the same thing happens. The only problem with this is that unit moving between 2 Railraod squares has to wait 1 turn just like a unit that moves all 12 squares. But then again this happens with transports and no one complains. In this case you don't have to come up with a solution to the 'units getting back onto Railroad' problem that I mentioned in my previous posts.

 

[Pembroke]

But what about the case when you didn't want to go along the railroad? Consider the situation below where a railroad connects two cities.

          A
C------------------C
          B

The distance between A and B is two tiles. A mounted unit could move that in one turn except now it would be blocked by the railroad and it suddenly takes 2 turns as it has to board a train along the way.

Another problem is that if you surrounded your city with rail and boarding a train consumed all MPs then your tanks couldn't attack the enemy unit two tiles away from your city as they'd have to board a train to go there. While I approve of having less railroad cluttering the landscape this might be a little bit too drastic a way to achieve it...

These situations aren't a problem with transports as they are sea vessels and can't accidentally block the movement of land units.

 

[Roland Johansen]

A simple solution for this problem would be to implement to movement commands:
1) Move
2) Move using railroads

With the normal move command you wouldn't use the railroads.

 

[Highgeneral]

i like your ideas

 

[yoshi]

...if you surrounded your city with rail and boarding a train consumed all MPs then your tanks couldn't attack the enemy unit two tiles away from your city as they'd have to board a train to go there.

You're This would present quite a problem. The moment a unit passed between two Railroad squares, the Railroad would 'take over' thus units that just happen to be travelling in that direction would 'board the train' without wanting to. Additionally if the present rule of enemy civ not being able to use your Railroads still applied, fast enemy units would actually have an advantage because they could freely move between these squares without 'boarding.'

A simple solution for this problem would be to implement to movement commands:
1) Move
2) Move using railroads

Nice solution, but it would still complicate movement too much because players would now have to select this option each time they wanted to use a Railroad square.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Considering the obvious problems associated with messing with CIV's Railroad movement system and the fact that it is not acceptable the way it is, I think you should consider my 'airlift' idea. It would simplify things substantially.

 

[Symphony D.]

The movement system is simply messed up. In the early game, even with a group of barely organized nomads, it would not take people 50 years to move, as was stated earlier in the thread, roughly 127km.

So why, present day, should it take more than a single turn to get anywhere using railroads? We can go into space, move entire divisions by sea and air, and transport massive amounts of cargo across continents in weeks if not days. Why should it take, late game, more than a year for something to be moved by train?

It is obviously a game but it does not take one a year to get anywhere in modern society unless you do so on foot or horseback or some non-sense, which clearly few people do.

I'm frankly of the opinion that if you are more technologically advanced than your neighbor, you should be able to crush him without strenuous effort. Why? Cortez vs. Aztecs, Germany vs. Poland in WWII. Overwhelming technology equals overwhelming advantage (this is why instances of Knights beating Modern Armor seriously annoy me and why I think the values for units should be more exponential instead of linear). If you have put in the effort to research ahead to railroads, more power to you. Railroads reflect that by giving you a massive mobilzation advantage over those who don't have them.

I do, however, think the major sticking point of railroads is not that they give infinite movement, but instead that the boost mineral resources by +1 IIRC. That means there's no reason not to build them just to increase your industrial capacity.

If it weren't for that I'd simply lay thin lines of track between each city for aesthetic reasons and let my workers take a few more turns in polution clean-up.

 

[yoshi]

The movement system is simply messed up. In the early game, even with a group of barely organized nomads, it would not take people 50 years to move, as was stated earlier in the thread, roughly 127km.

From a programmer's point of view, the Railroad movement and time/movement ratio are the simplest solution considering the nature of CIV. I can't really think of any way to make time/movement more realistic without creating Monthly turn intervals (in which case the core game would be too long). I do have a way of limiting their range though if you check out my 'Unit Supply' thread.

So why, present day, should it take more than a single turn to get anywhere using railroads?

Again, it's the time/movement ratio problem. Assuming you could circumnavigate the world via train, it would not take you a year to do so --let alone a plane. In scenarios, though, infinite Rail movement actually interferes with the balance of the scenario (e.g. units can move from on front to another in the same turn).
But the fact that units are so limited in movement means that having infinite Rail movement is disproportionate to unit movement. If you were to give units movment that was more proportionate to that of Railways, it would mean that your Infantry could go from one end of asia to the other, no sweat. This would present a strategic problem for CIV as an invading army could potentailly capture all your cities in a turn without you having the chance to move units to intercept them (e.g. in WW2 scenario German U-Boats would never be able to stop Allied ships crossing the Atlantic because these ships would cross in 1 turn unless you used the Day-based turn increments).

That means there's no reason not to build them just to increase your industrial capacity.

This is a common complaint. Not having these bonuses would certainly take away the incentive to build Railroads for this purpose, but it wouldn't really provide an incentive not to. After all, if your Workers have nothing better to do, why not? If tile improvments were to incure a cost when built (see the 'Tile Improvments Cost Gold' thread) then that would be a good reason not to do so.

(aside)

...Cortez vs. Aztecs...

Not so. Spanish Cannons had an initial shock value but were almost useless, and Muskets were few and slow to reload (try repeated fire using one of those things with a thousand Aztec Warriors bearing down on you). The Spanish had certain advantages in hand-to-hand infantry and cavalry tactics, but it was the help of other Mezo-American city-states that they managed to beat the Aztecs --not to mention that they took the 'emperor' hostage and then strangled killed him to death (note: it was Cortez's second in command who had Moctezuma killed --Cortez was elsewhere).
And that's why infinite railroads don't work...

 

[Symphony D.]

Points taken. Admittedly though, you can set the game to run in intervals of months. Just plug in "600" for the initial units and so on so that the same intervals of time are done, and make the last 25 years of the game into months.

This doesn't at all solve the problem of railways though.

I'll acknowledge when I don't have a solution, and politely shut up, but I know from my play experience that the only reason I build railroads everywhere is for the mineral bonus.

If you give railroads a limit, it should be on the long side. Not 12 like apparently Civ had, but probably some multiple of 3 between 24-48.

With that I will bow out and watch from the sidelines.

 

[Roundman]

Great ideas Roland!

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by yoshi

There seems to be a condradiction here.
The first part of the sentence says half the unit's MPs will be lost if it travels on Rail squares for 6 squares of the 12 square movement given by Railroads. Yet technically, they both should just use up 1 point (on Grassland for instance) getting onto another Grassland tile with the Railroad improvement on it; i.e. the Rail effect only applies when travelling from one Rail square to another. As I understand it, Tanks will use up half their movement when travelling by Rail and Inf. will also lose half. If it were realistic wouldn't they just lose 1 movement each, thus when the Tank gets off the Railroad (onto a Grassland square without Roads), it will have 2/3 MPs whereas the Infantry will have 0/1?

No, losing 1 movement each is much less realistic. I think Padma explained it, but let me do it as well:0

Assume each turn symoblized one day's movement, and that one square is 50 km, and that a train can move 12 * 50 = 600 km per day.
If an infantry unit starts the day by moving 300km by train, it certainly not use the whole day as you seem to suggest (using 1 MP). Since it only moved 300km, it will reach the destination when half the day is gone, and therefore have half its movement left, which can be used to move 25km, or 75km by road.
If a cavalry unit does the same, it will necessaryily reach the destination at the same time, when half the day is gone. Since the cavalry has half the day left, it will have half its movement left as well.
Why should the inf not be able to move any further, and why should the cav be able to move more than half of its full day move when both have moved by rail for half of the day, as you suggest?

A more algabreic example:

x = unit movement (3)
y = rail movement (12)
t = terrain movement (-1)

When does a unit consume movement points?
i.e. x = 3, x via y = 6, x via t = 1, x = 2

I don't understand why you're making it so complicated. Assume your example here, but with my rule suggestion, and it becomes quite simple and logical:

Unit travels along Railroad for 6/12 squares

This will cost it: 3/12 (per railroad square) * 6 (number of squares moved) = 18/12 = 1.5 MP.

Unit leaves Railroad square thus consuming 1/3 movement

If it leaves by road, it will consume 0.33 MP for a total of 1.83 MP used, if leaving by non-road, it will consume 1MP for a total of 2.5 MP used.

Unit gets back on to Railroad square thus leaving it at 2/3 movement.

Again, if using road, it will use another 0.33 MP for a total of 2.16MP, if using non-road it will use 1 MP for a total of 3.5 MP which ends its movement.

What happens now? Does the unit continue along the Railroad for 6 more squares, or is it back to the full 12? That is does the game, 'remember' how many turns the unit has left, or is the unit's 'rail-movement' set back to full?

If it has only used 2.16MP, then it will simply be able to move another 4 squares by train, each costing 3/12 = 0.25MP. No need to remember anything except the number of MP used (as it already does now) or set anything back.

If I in fact didn't miss anything, then what happens when the units have moved all 12 squares via Railroad? What's to stop them from getting off and then getting on again thus allowing them to move another 12 squares in a turn --assuming they have enough MPs to move back onto the Railroad?

You obviously misunderstood me: After having moved 12 squares via railroad, it will have expened 0.25 * 12 = 3 MP, and therefore not have any move left to move off the railroad at all. This is like asking what will happen with a cavalry that moves 9 squares by road.

To restate it: Think of my railroad rule suggestion the same way as road functions. On road, the MP cost is x/y where x=1 and y=3. On railroad, the MP cost should be x/y, where x=(the unit's total movement; 1, 2 or 3) and y = 12.

Its as simple as that to get completely realistic railroad rules.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by yoshi
If that is in fact what TheNiceOne meant, units would use up the same percentage (as opposed to a specific number) of their MPs. If this is the case, then this essentially means that all units take the same amount of time to 'get onto the train' regardless of movement; i.e. a unit of 3 takes just as long a a unit of 2 to board a 'train,' since unit speed has nothing to do with bording.

Yes, my suggestion is that all units use the same percentage of their MP for each rail square moved. Look at the formula I suggested: x/y where x is the units total MP and y is the railroad speed, suggested to be 12. With that, one square will cost 8.3% of a unit's total move, regardless of speed.
And yes, the units essentially use the same amount of time to get onboard the train, which is zero. They use whatever MP they would normally use to enter the train square (1 MP from non-road and 1/3 MP from road) and nothing more.

Then when the units 'get off the train' they have lost the same percentage of MPs. In other words, units travelling this way will lose movement but still be proportionally the same thus faster units don't get an advantage. In this case, I have to agree, TheNiceOne's proposal is better from a gaming point of view because it essentially maintains the unit movment equality given by the present infinite movement given by Railroads, while at the same time limiting Railroad movement.

Good to hear you see my point. And yes, faster units don't get an advantage when moving by railroad, which is exactly how it should be, but they will have their normal advantage as soon as they leave the train, which is also how it should be.

The other option of course is to just take away all a units MPs when travelling along Railroad squares, thus equality is also maintained. In Civ3, units use up all their MPs when loading onto, or unloading from a transport, regardless of the numebr of MPs.
Why not do the same here?

I think why not has been explained by padma, but I will counter by asking why? Why make them expend all their MP and therefore complicate everything and thereby make railroad movement slower for medium to short distances? Why not blend it seamlessly with other land movement as I suggest?

 

[yoshi]

...but I will counter by asking why?

I only mentioned it as possible alternative. Just ignore it.
You cleared up the problem of 'getting back on the train,' so that pretty much covers it. If the Railroad movement system were ever to be changed, I should think that that's the way it would work.
I can't beleive the various designers that have worked on the CIV series over the years never thought of that --unless of course, they did but just figured that the infinite movement option would give them a longer coffee break.

Nevertheless, I still offer my 'airlift' concept as a viable alternative. (In part because if supplies or fuel were ever introduced to the unit stats --and even if they weren't--, a civ would have to pay to move its units by train.)