Railroads?

[lajzar]

Originally posted by Drachasor

4. Rails like Airports would have its own difficulty. Programing it would be a bit annoying, and you'd get unrealistic issues. If two cities have a rail building, then how come you can't get off near one of the cities en route. Also, how come you can go to that fairly new city which is unconnected by road to anything, and in the middle of a jungle, surrounded by enemy troops? Too many issues.

This was my proposal, and while "railroads like airports" is the blurb, the devil is in the details. Specifically:

- The rail depot city improvement represents major high capacity transport links that can handle the large numbers of troops and vehicles the military would tranport, and handle them in a way that does not dirupt civilian traffic. This explains why that city in the middle which does not have the depot can't use the rail network for transport. Rail is more than just tracks - it is having high capacity loading/unloading points in militarily convenient locations within the "city".
- Each unit moved would have a gold cost associated with it. This replaces the "one unit only" limit of the civ2 airport.
- You can only go between cities that have a continuous road connection. This abstracts the rail infrastructure between the cities.
- You cannot reach a city by rail if it would mean entering a hostile unit's zoc.

I believe this fixes your issues. I proposed a similar idea for sea movement too at the same time as my original rail depot proposal.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
Well, this is certainly Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon meets cIV

I don't like the movement penalty ideas for utilizing railroads. Do I need to leave my tanks idling on the superhighways or railroad cars to avoid paying the movement penalties?

Instead of trying to only utilize the railroad angle to solve the massive-automovement defense issue, why not the concept of supply for military units?

Military units are either active duty or inactive duty. Higher maintenance cost for "active duty", but can move immediately and defend normally. Inactive duty units are more vulnerable, cannot move immediately, but don't cost the same amount in maintenance.

This would solve the problem of immediate massing of all defensive units to thwart an attack -- unless someone was willing to pay for such a capability.

This sound remarkably like the CtP system - except since you can do in on the individual level, it may not be as useless...

[tcb221]

Solution

There are railroads everywhere and we can all order products from the other side of the continent and get them the next day.
In WWII, the us moved million of men every year by rail as well as used them to move the raw materials that allowed the US to manufacture more war material than the rest of the world combined.

I use rails to organize my units.
I place them in stacks in areas so that I can find them when I need them. It allows me to keep the map cleaner.

I do think that the amount of iron always, coal at first, then oil later, should impact how good your rail lines work.
ie. I have 2 coal resources and 200 sqaures of rail, so that means I have unlimited movement. If I lose a coal, it will cost me 1 movement point per 10 squares to move units. if I lose my other coal my railroads turn into roads UNTIL I get a coal resource and then turn back into railsroads.

Perhaps the rails could be color coded so that everyone knows how well a powers rail is working.

I would like to see an option to stockpile resources AT A PHYSICAL LOCATION, so that they could be captured or destroyed.

How about so many coal/oil can move X numbers of units X numbers of squares before it is consumed for that turn?

[darthx86]

Sorry if this has been posted (it's late, so I just skimmed through this thread). An idea I had to help balance out the idea of RR in every square is to require an upkeep cost for all your rail. For instance, every 12 sections of track should cost 1gp/turn to maintain. Of course, IMHO, roads should incur maintenance costs, too...