Keep infinite railroad movement?

[AeonOfTime]

You do realize that this whole idea of disembarking / embarking / depots etc. would be an entire subgame that adds absolutely nothing in terms of gameplay on the Civ level? We're heading towards Sim Train here...

[Addled Platypus]

que? AeonOfTime

we build harbors for our vessels why not a depot/station for land based transport?.

From my stale memory with all the civ units, has there been a ground transport for troops?

[AeonOfTime]

As far as I can recall, there have never been ground transports for troops. The closest thing is probably the Helicopter from Civ3

I can see the analogy you are making between harbors and depots, but then even in our real world everything sea related is a bit out of proportion compared to land-based transportation. Without a harbor, there's no point in having ships, as you can't load/unload them at all without a harbor. A car or a truck you can drive anywhere you like without needing a depot (or even a garage).

As for trains, it is true that there are train stations - but they are independent of normal road-based transportation, and as far as I can recall, most modern trains (electrical-powered) in principle do not have to stop at stations at all.

But all that is beside the point - adding that kind of complexity to land-based units would add a complete layer of micromanagement that would be hell to take care of.

[Proteus_MST]

My new Idea is something along this line:

Road = Movement-Costs/3 as normal.

Railroad: [Fixed Movement Points] * [Fraction of Movement the unit still has left]

Lets show the Idea by an example:
Lets assume [Fixed Movement Points] = 12
An Infantry Unit (MP = 1) walks one tile along a road until it gets to a RR-Tile (so it still has 2/3 of its MP left).
Now it can still move 2/3 * 12 = 8 Tiles by Railroad.
A modrn Artillery-Unit ( 2 MP) which moves 1 Tile along a road before getting to a Railroad-Track could still move 10 additional tiles by RR (5/6 * 12)

Why Do I think this Idea might be interesting?
Roads enhance the movements of all units by letting them move along a plain surface instead of moving over uneven ground and maybe thick underbrush.
But all units movion on roads do it by their own means of transportation, Foot-Soldiers march along the roads, tanks drive on the road.
So it makes sense to multiply the movement-Points of the units (or reduce the movements costs per tile to a fraction of the original MP-Costs).

Railroads on the other hand let you change your means of movement. Foot Soldiers as well as Tanks use the same means of transportation if they use a railroad.
But of course, a unit which already spent a fraction of the turn by moving on a road, won´t get as far by train as a unit, which embarks on a train at the beginning of the turn.
This is what is reflected by my multiplying the MP of the train by the Fraction of Movement the unit still has left.

You could also use it very well with multiple embarking/disembarking (for example a unit with 2 MP could move 6 Points per Train which costs it 1 MP, then move 1 tile of road (so it still has 2/3 MP = 2/6 of its former MP) and then could still embark another train and travel 4 tiles (2/6 * 12).

You could also implement Maglevs this way, which would use the same system as Railroads but just be faster (for example 15 or 18 MP instead of 12)

IMHO this system is still easy to use and yet reflects reality better than the previous systems used by Civ.

[AeonOfTime]

Foot Soldiers as well as Tanks use the same means of transportation if they use a railroad. But of course, a unit which already spent a fraction of the turn by moving on a road, won´t get as far by train as a unit, which embarks on a train at the beginning of the turn.

Errrmm, I like the idea but you aren't you contradicting yourself there? If a tank having spent nearly all his movement points gets on a train, how does this affect the movement of the train? On the contrary, shouldn't the tank be able to profit from the train's movement points now that he's on it?

[inca911]

In a theoretical sense, I agree that RRs should allow any unit to move up to a fixed number of tiles per turn. The unit needs to move on to the RR tile and still have movement left to "catch the train". After that, the train is moving, not the unit itself so accounting for fractional movement is unnecessary.

However in gameplay , I don't want to micromanage transportation. One solution would be to have RRs multiply the movement base of the unit. A Cavalry that moves 3 on flat ground, and 9 on roads (3x), should be able to move ~18 on RR (6x). The multiplier for railroads would need to be tuned by playtesting and would be an easy way to limit transportation.

Railroads should have some small upkeep cost to eliminate rail-sprawl. A method to keep the unit on the railway in the direction the player is giving should be implemented to facilitate gameplay, perhaps holding down a key while moving keeps the unit on the road/railway. I RR every square of my empire partly so I can move units quickly without worrying about losing movement. It's awful when you accidentally step off a road moving a critical unit to the front, as that is a three turn penalty (one turn penalty for stepping offm one to step on, and then one to move the squares you should have moved the first turn).

It's ridiculous that I can have a ship come into port, unload units, and they can be in the AI empire on the far side of the continent and involved in an attack on the same turn. Whatever the fix is, infinite movement is a broken concept and the game will be better with some limitation in place.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by AeonOfTime


Errrmm, I like the idea but you aren't you contradicting yourself there? If a tank having spent nearly all his movement points gets on a train, how does this affect the movement of the train? On the contrary, shouldn't the tank be able to profit from the train's movement points now that he's on it?

Thats only logical:
Lets take a game turn as a day.

If you have spent half of a day traveling along the streets,
and thenn embark a train, your train has only 12 hours left to move till 24 o´clock (i.e. till the day is over).

But if you Embark on a train at 00:01 your train has 23:59 to move till the day is over.

So in the second case you will be able to cover double the distance with the train as if you would in the first case (as your Train would run (24 hours * Speed) instead of just (12 hours * speed))

That´s all my Calculation does, i.e. calculating how much (what fraction) of the turn the unit has left to move by train.

[AeonOfTime]

If you have spent half of a day traveling along the streets, and thenn embark a train, your train has only 12 hours left to move till 24 o´clock (i.e. till the day is over).

Got it. I definitely like the idea...

[patcon]

Originally posted by AeonOfTime
aren't you contradicting yourself there? If a tank having spent nearly all his movement points gets on a train, how does this affect the movement of the train? On the contrary, shouldn't the tank be able to profit from the train's movement points now that he's on it?

As I understand Proteus' idea, a railroad system is essentially like a commuter system with trains running continuously at a set speed (range per turn) and units simply boarding the RR and riding as far as they can go in the remainder of their turn.

Example:
Imagine a (very quick) turn is from 8:00 until 9:00.
Trains move one (very small) tile every 5 minutes, giving 12 MP per turn.
A tank uses 1/4 of its MP to reach the RR, arriving 1/4 of the way though the turn at 8:15; the tank then boards the RR and rides from 8:15 until 9:00, which is 45 minutes or 9 tiles on the RR.
An infantry unit uses 1/2 of its MP to reach the RR, arrives at 8:30 and rides for 30 minutes or 6 tiles.
A cavalry troop uses 2/3 of its MP to reach the RR arrives at 8:40 and rides for 20 minutes or 4 tiles on the RR.
A cannon already at a RR boards at 8:00 and can ride for the full 60 minutes or 12 tiles.
This allows for the possibilty of embarking and disembarking on the same turn - The tank above boards the RR at 8:15 and rides only 6 tiles or 30 minutes, disembarking at 8:45 allowing the tank to use the remaining 1/4 of its MP in the rest of the turn.

If improvements to RR increase the range, "departure" times would be adjusted accordingly. So if steam trains have a range of 12, then the turn is divided into 12ths, if diesel trains have a range of 18, then the turn is divided into 18ths, etc.

How this works in the previous example. Let's use a range of 20 to keep things on even minutes.
So "trains" depart every 3 minutes (8:00,8:03,8:06,etc.) and travel 1 tile every 3 minutes.
The tank still arrives at 8:15, boards and can ride for 45 minutes or 15 tiles.
The infantry arrives at 8:30, boards and can ride for 30 minutes or 10 tiles.
The cavalry arrives at 8:40, missing the 8:39 departure and boarding at 8:42, and can ride for 18 minutes or 6 tiles. (Don't you just hate it when you miss one train and have to wait for the next one?)
The cannon is there at 8:00, boards and can ride for 60 minutes or 20 tiles.

One shortcoming is the immediate embarkation and disembarkation, but this could be handled by having these activities use up "time".

One question that would have to be answered is how to handle rounding. If any infantry unit has 1/3 MP, can it move 1 (non-roaded) tile, as is the current case?

I like this idea even better than my "train unit" idea, in that it takes into account the time element of movement. If a turn is 1 year and a tank takes 2 months to reach the RR, how can it ride the RR for a full year?

[color=dark-blue]Original source citation - sorry I'm a nerd[/color]
[color=royal blue]My idea on handling the time issue is based on the movement system of an old board game, Star Fleet Battles. This is a turn-based, simultaneous-movement game with ships that had different movement rates. All the details may not transfer to Civ, because SFB usually has one ship per player; it is possible to control multiple ships, but this is a major management issue. The way it works is that there is a planning phase between turns where you allocate your available resources for the coming turn and set ship speeds. A turn is then divided into "impulses" based on the fastest speed chosen. Depending on a ship's designated speed, it might or might not move in an impulse. Other actions, such as firing weapons, can be done in any impulse, whether you move or not.[/color]

[patcon]

Originally posted by inca911
In a theoretical sense, I agree that RRs should allow any unit to move up to a fixed number of tiles per turn.

However in gameplay , I don't want to micromanage transportation. One solution would be to have RRs multiply the movement base of the unit. A Cavalry that moves 3 on flat ground, and 9 on roads (3x), should be able to move ~18 on RR (6x).

But the multiplier effect produces the situation where tanks travel faster on rails than infantry, when in fact the opposite should probably be the case.

The idea proposed by Proteus doesn't introduce MM issues while making RR work the same for all units.

Sorry if my last post was redundant, given other repsonses. I try to make my posts thoughtful and complete, and I'm an incredibly slow and poor typist.

[Spiffor]

RR giving the same transportation speed to all kind of troops are an excellent idea . I don't see how it creates any more micromanagement than a mutiplier (to me, it makes no difference, MM-wise, if a unit has 6 or 18 moves), as long as the RR move is faster than any unit not using RR (if the previous Civs are anything to go by, the maximal speed on roads was 9 moves per turn - if RR gives everybody 10 mpt, then nobody will wonder whether it's more interesting to use RR or simple roads)

[patcon]

Originally posted by Spiffor
if the previous Civs are anything to go by, the maximal speed on roads was 9 moves per turn

Actually, a Modern Armor Army had a base movement of 4, so could travel 12 road tiles per turn, but your point is well-made. By the time MA is around, you should have been able to upgrade your rail system from steam to diesel-electric, so if steam came a 1/12 multiplier to movement on rails and diesel-electric increased (decreased actually) the multiplier to 1/18, then it would still be better to send MA Armies by rail than by road.

[Spiffor]

Indeed. The good thing with a Rail that grants the same speed to all units is that the discovery of a tech could increase your rail-speed without granting a huge bonus.
For example, let's say that the early RR grants 10 moves to every unit. After the discovery of "Diesel" (well, it's not like that tech will exist, but "combustion" might do ), RRs could immediately grant 12 moves. That's much less broken than raising the multiplier IMO, and it could give a nice but balanced tactical advantage to modern civs over lagging ones

[AeonOfTime]

@Spiffor: the discovery of a tech could increase your rail-speed

Now we're talking I like that solution as it is simple. And you could have wonders like the TGV (french high-speed train) that could give you a rail bonus too.

Actually, it's like the movement bonuses you get in the game for ships...

[patcon]

Did I say "multiplier"??? I'm against the concept of a "multiplier". What was I thinking? This what happens when I reply too quickly.

What I meant to say was what Spiffor said about a tech advance automatically giving rails more movement. Combustion is a good choice for diesel. Maybe Superconductor could bring Mag-lev?