Transportation Flaw

[RiotForSoul]

I bought civ 3 the day it came out last fall. I even bought it in the 10-dollar-more tin. Why? I don't know. I loved Civ2. I love Civ3. The patches have been forthcoming and Firaxis seems to be taking our gripes seriously. It's good to see they didn't abuse the franchise like the call to power series (blech!).
Civ3 seems to be the perfect balance in so many ways. They figured out a way to add a more in-depth and realistic trading/resource system without making it too complex. Aircraft are much more realistic as compared to their usage in Civ2, but again, the system is streamlined.
Firaxis, I give you my commendations. It's a great game. But there is one thing that bothers me. This one thing, thought seemingly minor, has a huge impact on combat in Civ3. And it bugs me. Like an itch you can't reach or when Al Gore is on the Tv and you can't find the remote, this one thing is simply too annoying!
Units cannot use roads in other civs' territories without a right-of-passage agreement. Even when you are invading them.
What!? This is unrealistic and unbalancing. Realism-wise, if a road is on the ground, it is going to help tanks or infantry or whatever move faster. It just is. The road is there, so the units should be able to move over it.
I understand and agree with the rule prohibiting railroad use without a right-of-passage agreement. Realism-wise, railroads have to have water and fuel stations. Different guages of railroad track exist. Engineers need to be able to communicate with switching stations, etc. So railroads could not be used without some sort of agreement. Furthermore, railroads would allow far too much movement for an invading army. That was a major problem in Civ2--once you got behind enemy lines you could rampage around using their railroads to move anywhere you pleased.
But roads should be allowed. Yes, not only is it realistic, but would be balancing. Right now, infantry can outrun your tanks. It is all but impossible to catch a retreating army. Blitzkrieg? Hah! Forget about it, you ain't moving at the speed of lightning. More like molassas.
Personally, this is the ONLY major flaw I find in the game. It's affect on combat is huge, as it slows down invasions considerably and removes the mobility even of faster units.
So why write about this in the forum? Well A) If any of you know how this could be modded or fixed by us users, please let me know(!) B) If enough of you agreed with me, we could send an email to Firaxis about it. I am sure if they thought enough of us were pissed about it, they would consider releasing its fix in a patch. (I did not see its fix in the readme for the 1.21f patch). So if you agree with me, say so hear. We can start talking about it and possible solutions. C) If you don't agree that roads should be usable by any unit at any time, let me know too. Maybe there are good reasons for keeping this rule this way. Let me know here.
Ok, this entry is getting too long. Thanks for reading it and be sure to leave your thoughts/suggestions.

 

[chaucer]

Yeah, the road thing caught me off gaurd too. Not being able to use enemy roads is realistic. I brought this questionup right after I bought the game. I thought that it was a bug. I think Fraxis really thought this out. If you search using my user name you should find the thread. Any how the ideas put forth were these.
1 Tanks and troops need suplies. Tanks need gas, and troops need food and rest. Armies and invasion forces have run into these problems from the begining of time. If you look at the most successful armies/generals of history you will find that they were also brilliant at logistics. So basically the not being able to use roads is in part to not being able to get too far ahead of you supply train. The second part to the non use of enemy roads is sabotage. A retreating force will make sure that movement on roads is as leathal and slow as possible.

Hope that help. I will look for that link.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17435

 

[maddskillz]

Ask Germany about using their opponents roads, remember the failed invasion of Russia?

When you traverse enemy roads you are suspect to mines, pillaged areas, traps and plain lack of direction as you do not have a map of the roads.

Maybe you should be penalized 1/2 movement for enemy roads, but my assumption has always been that they pillaged the roads and such in order to impede your progress.

I am happy as it stands. I do think railroads SHOULD NOT allow movement as fast as they do. It is impossible for the AI to attack a human player with railroads at his service.

You can move an entire army in one turn to cover your backside making it possible to keep few units at home and more in the field. I don't think the AI is nearly as adept at the use of the railways.

Just a thought.

 

[sealman]

I remember this discussion. I think I changed sides after each post as well. So here we go again.

Railroads should not be used. I think that we are all in agreement.

I do think that invading should get some sort of movement bonus across enemy roads, but not the full value. When a road cross a river, then there should never be a movement bonus because we all would assume that the retreating amry destroyed the river crossings.

 

[Nevermind97]

I agree 100% that we should be able to use enemy roads but definitely not railroads. If the enemy surely destoyed the roads then they can pillage the roads as they retreat as the Soviets did in World War II. If a road is there, any army will use it. I understand the supply logistics argument, but there is almost no use of logistics in other aspects of the game so why slow down an advancing army. It really makes it much too difficult to keep up an advance especially with infantry.

 

[simwiz2]

well if units could use enemy roads you would have enemy cav/MA moving 9 squares thru your land, so goodbye resources, workers, etc ON THE FIRST TURN of combat, when you could not retaliate. Wars would almost ALWAYS go to whoever strikes first, making declaring war necessary because "if i dont they will". One of civ2's biggest mistakes was giving the attacker an advantage over the defender in the modern age. It turned the late game into a blitz-fest. The advantage should rest with the defense, if the attacker wants war he should have to have to prepare for it effectively. And lets not forget artillery. Move an unlimited number of artillery along RR's, onto enemy roads, move into range of city, fire that turn, take city that turn, repeat. it would make first strikes necessary. Mech inf would be useless, it would be just pump radar artillery and modern armor. So we need to ask ourselves, do we want a repeat of the civ2 endgame, where whoever struck first almost ALWAYS won?

 

[RiotForSoul]

first off, thanks everyone so far for your comments; they've all been intelligent and helpful.
I think the best compromise would be the 1/2 point value for roads in enemy lands. This would allow faster units to retain their speedy status and also to move over difficult terrain (hills, etc.) without any extra penalty. I think this 1/2 movement penalty would represent the fact that an invading army would not know the direction to take, local road conditions, etc.
As for the logistics argument, I don't think that supply trains are *that* slow. Certainly armies in history have moved beyond them and found themselves in trouble, but again the 1/2 movement idea would help to represent that as well.
Any other ideas, questions, or comments? Please continue the discussion, this is a good start. Hopefully if we get enough of a response we can contact firaxis about adding some sort of fix (it seems 1/2 movement penalty for roads in enemy territory would be the best compromise) to this issue.
As to the post lamenting about how civ 2 suffered from a "first strike wins" condition--modern warfare has shown that the first strike is indeed important. Blitzkrieg tactics; that is, rushing on an unexpected enemy, is a valid and realistic strategy that i think should be represented in the game.
Again, I am liking the 1/2 penalty, with no extra advantage for RR.

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by chaucer
Yeah, the road thing caught me off gaurd too. Not being able to use enemy roads is realistic. I brought this questionup right after I bought the game. I thought that it was a bug. I think Fraxis really thought this out. . . A retreating force will make sure that movement on roads is as leathal and slow as possible.

Dead wrong.

Firaxis "thought this out?? Sort of an oxymoron, Firaxis and thought. Or perhaps just a contradiction in terms.

All Firaxis wanted to do was push its stupid concept of Culture (which should have been the actual name of Civ 3) and play down warfare.

Invading armies always travel on roads, which is why the defender in history is obliged to PILLAGE roads to prevent that movement. This is also why the Russians always kept their road network underdeveloped - to discourage invaders. Poor, and muddy, roads in October 1941 did indeed slow down the Germans. It was NOT the supply train that slowed down panzer movement on roads; it was the scarcity of roads and the fact that they were unpaved. Pre-Industrial invaders didn't even have gas to worry about.

AT MOST, Firaxis should have given us TWO moves per enemy unpillaged road. But no, we get only ONE slowing invasions to a crawl, and thus encouraging this Culture crap Civ 3 pushes at us.

There must be at least SOME bonus for road movement in enemy territory.

 

[simwiz2]

Originally posted by RiotForSoul
As to the post lamenting about how civ 2 suffered from a "first strike wins" condition--modern warfare has shown that the first strike is indeed important. Blitzkrieg tactics; that is, rushing on an unexpected enemy, is a valid and realistic strategy that i think should be represented in the game.

Ok, a few things. First, in RL, you can respond to a first strike, albiet not always with 100% force, but you are not forced to sit by and watch. In civ, if a first strike is the way to win it will make the gameplay unbalanced. Would you rather have a fun war where you use tactics, cities change hands a few times, hard fighting, or just a boring, tedious blitz where you conquer the world in one turn? Maybe you just want to roll over the AI, but remember that whatever you can do to the AI a human can do to you in MP. Are you saying you LIKED the civ2 endgame? It was completely botched - modern age was NOTHING but pump howies. There was NO defense to the first strike, and the same would happen in civ3 if this were implemented. I dont know how you can call those 1-turn blitzes "strategies", theres no decisions, just produce 500 of one unit, kill all cities, wait a few turns, repeat on another AI. A drunken monkey could do it and win. And artillery would just make it worse - you could do the blitz with almost no casualties.

Btw "lamenting"? I was stating a few facts about the civ2 endgame, and how i dont want civ3 to regress to that level - i was not whining/complaining about anything.

If firaxis includes this at all it should be an editor OPTION. They should NOT stick this in a patch because it will completely change how the game is played, and for the worse IMO. Having it in the editor could please everyone, since you can do what you want with it.

 

[RiotForSoul]

ok, we got some more ideas. first off, no need to get mad or frusterated. i'm not attacking anyone's opinions, so let's just try to keep it nice and civil
in response to the "blitz" problem, a rule could be implimented that captured railroads could not be used until your next turn. this would keep one-turn blitzs short but would still allow us to improve the movement ability of enemy roads.
what do you all think of this?