The curse of railroads

[Moonsinger]

Also, keep in mind that 1 turn in Civ3 could be equal up to 50 years in our earth standard time. I would image that it doesn't take the train more than a year to travel from the east coast to the west coast. Even with my car, I could drive from NY to California within a week.

 

[Sic_Berserker]

somebody has already said this, but id like to repeat:
its just game balance, relative movement cost of different means of transport AND years are just numbers, so we could say: "-eeh! I have tanks in 1890!, what about you? -MA in 1810"

 

[tomart109]

Originally posted by kaslks75
..but I do agree with those who say that it gives the 'defender' an unrealistic edge by allowing ALL of their military to basically 'teleport' to one spot instantly. Trains do not get from one edge of a continent to the other immediately.

Well, with every turn in the game covering AT LEAST a YEAR*, that "instantaneous" move to the other coast becomes the only reasonable solution. Anything less would be stupid, and intolerable.

*the only turns less than a year are in the WWII Pacific Conquest.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Didn't read the WHOLE thread, so please forgive me if I'm repeating what's already been said!

I have three suggestions which could effectively retain the infinite RR movement, but at the same time making it much less powerful and, better still, eliminating RR sprawl!

1) Maintainance costs for tile improvements: The more tile improvements you have, the more they will cost per turn! Also, make the costs variable, so that RR's are more expensive than roads. This way, I think you'll see RR sprawl vanish in an instant.

2) Base the commerce/food/production bonus of railroads NOT on the number of railroaded squares in your city radius, but on the total number of cities which are connected, by rail, to your trade network. Also grant a lesser bonus for road connections! This way, it building 5 RR's from a city will gain you no greater benefit than just building ONE! Again, this will reduce the tendancy for sprawl!

3) Make RR's only give unlimited movement IF you move onto it from a city! In all other circumstances, you'll simply get a 1/4 or 1/5 movement benefit (Assumes the 'underlying' road network still exists, but in a much more advanced form!) In addition, every city that you pass through, as you move to your final destination, deducts 1 from your movement allowance!

A possible 3a is to make it impossible to attack from a RR square or, if you can, that you lose all of your movement allowance straight afterwards. Plus, your defence strength will be reduced to reflect the fact that you're travelling in rail cars!

I think that these three alterations would make the placement, and use, of RR's much more strategic in nature, and eliminate sprawl FOREVER!!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Another thing that might help without destroying overall balance is to give a hefty increase to the build time of rails (as in, x3 to x5) but also give more benefit (perhaps +1 trade for the general connected nature that rails provide a civ). Thus, you would naturally want to connect the net sooner than local cities.

I think there are three camps here where a lot of you see only two. There's the camp that wants rails basically left alone (for various reaons) and the camp that wants rails heavily restricted (for various reasons). But there's also the camp that would like to see rails simply slowed down a great deal. I can buy the "rails as also representing highways and improved infrastructure" if it takes longer for the complete net to come around.

Part of the problem is that the Steam Power/Hospital gambit is just so productive and easy that it's practically required. (Go straight for SP, build a couple of hundred works with all those cities stuck at 12 population just as you get the tech, rail the whole empire within 20 turns, build hospitals, merge the workers back into the cities for obscene city growth.) Talk about something being a pain to manage!

That's why my original suggestion to limit rail laying to a special unit that isn't a worker. Don't let it merge back into cities. Then it becomes more reasonable to simply build a healthy does of them (like workers in ancient/medieval ages) and start on the rails. Sure, the rails will be ubiquitious by the modern age, but that's easier to swallow. Thus the industrial age (including early tanks) becomes the great era of strategic interdiction of railroads.

I'm all for play balance and fun at the expense of realism. But 20 turns of strategic rails is as unfun as the age of sail in CIV.

 

[Longasc]

I think the idea of roads/railroads costing money is a good solution. It is hard to change it now however... I do not think they will change a lot in Civ3 anymore. But for Civ4... good idea.

People would then less cluster the landscape with roads everywhere to get extra money because it WOULD cost them money...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think that many people here are also making a very valid point about the fact that the infinite RR's debate isn't just about 'historical accuracy' but is much more about 'Internal consistency' and, most of all-BALANCE!! I'm all for keeping some kind of infinite RR's, but for the sake of balance it must be limited in SOME WAY (and, IMHO, my 3rd point is the best way to achieve this outcome!) At the same time, however, naval movement MUST be improved-especially in the industrial/modern era but, again, without upsetting game balance! If it isn't fixed, then the naval component of the game will forever remain underpowered!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Greyhawk1]

If only somebody could invent a way of having rails or roads in every square but they dont show up on the map. Instead they are represented by something else. As it is, rails & roads on every tile look awful.

 

[Sic_Berserker]

rail manteinance cost??? rails are actually a great income source!

i prefer stations

 

[IglooDame]

I think of rails as being a representation of electrical, telegraph/telephone, paved roads, firefighting and other city services as well as the railroad itself. Yes, it's absolutely ugly though, can anyone recommend a graphics mod that tones it down a bit?

 

[Gargantutron]

UGLY??! wth! i find railroads BEAUTIFUL!! i love to see rails everywhere! in civ 2, you didnt need to build rails all over, since it didnt affect irrgated lands anyway. well, i hated that...

rails are cool. i love the industrial age, because it really IS an industrial revolution. within a few turns, your empire goes from being rather slow and poor, to be fast growing and rich! just the way it was in the real world. the rails all over the map to represents this; the modern society is everywhere, today there is practically NO AREA at all that hasnt been in contact with humans...

and besides that, IRL, i love trains. heheheh! and highways.

 

[storealex]

Well, I totally agree with Crazy Jerome... if you don't remember what he wrote, please read it again
________
LovelyWendie

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Of course RR's produce income, as is represented by the bonus commerce they generate for cities which are connected by them! The system I'm proposing would still leave this bonus in place but, IMHO, would work in a more 'realistic' fashion (i.e., the more cities connected by your rail network, the more extra commerce you recieve). In real-terms, though, RR networks also cost money to maintain-and should be reflected by a maintainance cost! Maybe the cost per turn could be based on a per x-tiles basis, with x being between about 5-10: as defined by both map size, and further defined in the editor! Then it is a balancing act for the player between the cost of maintaining an extensive rail network for it's commerce benefits vs the cost of maintaining it!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[yoshi]

All this is fine and good but what is to come of it?

Here's a thread that was posted in the C3C requests forum (i.e. before Conquests came out). Nothing came of it. In fact, ABSOLUTELY NO ASPECT of Railroads was changed in C3C.

My point is that clearly there is a reason for not complying with our RR-realted requests.

The main reason that I can think of is that solutions to this problem, like the one put forward by TheNiceOne in the thread I linked, are more difficult to incorperate into the program than we think. There is also another thing some fail to take into account: marketing. Civ1 had infinite RR movement (minus when passing though cities ), Civ2 had infinite RR movement, Civ3 has infinite RR movement...see a pattern? People in marketing know that this concept works and don't want to mess with it.

...But then again, people wouldn't complain if they at least had the option of toggling unlimited RR movement on/off and settign the multiplier as they do with roads --a far more primitive solution than those put forward in this thread and elsewhere but it's still better than nothing.


Now the fun part: My personal opinion is that people who think the RR system as it is is fine are lacking more than a few brain cells or just have a drone-like incapacity to say anything that questions Sid's creation in even the friendliest way and that the game's marketing reps. can come up with all the lame excuses they want but the truth is that they know the game will not suffer any sales whatsoever (we all bought it) and are bunch of lazy bums for it. Remember, that's just my opinion.

There, I feel better already.

 

[Harrier]

Originally posted by mihoshi
Railroads don't need changes. It works very realistically. In yearly times of railroads you just build skeleton roadnet, then connect everithing with rails and highways.

BTW, I think Civ's railroads represent not just literally railroads, but also highways for motorized transports.

The year per turn argument eventually appears - and is a good point. But as the original poster states RailRoads with infinite movement destroy game play. Having a fixed number of tiles that can be moved per turn (variable according to map size, is far more realistic.) The default value can always be infinite - for those that do not like the change.

Also using the 1 turn is a year argument - then why can not modern naval units have infinite sea movement. If I could afford it, I could go on an around the world cruise that took less than three months (including all the day long ports of call).

 

[Harrier]

Originally posted by Renfield
I think railroads are fine as they are.

The unlimited movement is realistic. Each turn is equal to one year. Do you think it's realistic that it would take longer than a year to move a combat unit from one end of a country to the other end with railroads? Even huge countries like Russian can move units within days. Nothing approaching a year.

To the point of RR'ing every tile; I look at it as if I am building highwyas as well as railroads. Not every tile would have a railroad but the balance would certainly have highway access. Again this allows industrial and post-industrial societies to travel an unlimited distance in under a year.

To use the US as an example; If say California were invaded by... Japan, would it take a year for troops from Texas or North Carolina a year to reach the front? No. Why? Because they could be rail'ed or trucked there without using any aircraft in a matter of days.

Your missing the point - if I land troops on a foreign country - I would usually have the opportunity of attacking the local forces - before re-enforcements are deployed. ( Even if that took 1 month never mid one year).
This is not the case in Civ3 with railroads (except for amphibious attacks). I land my units (they can not attack that turn) - Suprise- suprise before my next turn (when I am about to start the attack) all the AI units are attacking me (assuming we are at war).

That is what is wrong with infinite railroads.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

If we assume changes in Civ4 or the like, I can come up with 20+ suggestions for rail improvements (and probably have at various times, though I don't know that I remember them all). Some of the suggestions are mutally exclusive, though.

My suggestion can be done in the editor as it is right now. If I were trying to find the best way to make rails get produced slower and could change anything in the game to accomplish it, a second type of worker would not be my first choice.

 

[KaNick]

I don't see why people are so against the "railroad sprawl" the game was designed to take the extra food and shields of railroads into account. That's why cost are so high and the food box so large.

Your missing the point - if I land troops on a foreign country - I would usually have the opportunity of attacking the local forces - before re-enforcements are deployed. ( Even if that took 1 month never mid one year).

I have an easy solution for you. Play a RTS.

 

[player1 fanatic]

The reasons why railroads are not changed in exansion are:
-It's hardcoded
-it can decrease efficiency of AI workers

It is more a thing to be wary for Civ4.

 

[ChickenHawk]

Harrier

What if u used Marines to attack on the invasion turn. Also, a lot of plane a few carriers could bombard the railways leading to the invasion site. Makes me think of of Normandy (with England being the aircraft carriers). The Allies would have had a lot harder time attacking at the Pas de Calais partly because they couldn't isolate that area as well at Normandy.

An enemy's continent should be invaded at a location that can be isolated from the rail network.