Keep infinite railroad movement?

[Toby Rowe]

Hi all.

Until the AI has no clue of exactly how many units you have in each city, (In Civ 3 they do know, and where all are located), instant railway movement is a good counter balance to the instant AI cheating.

It is the only sop us players have been given.

I can go, by train, from London to Siberia in a week: the game turns on a yearly basis, so it works on that basis also.

Toby!

[sophist]

Toby, I'm content with infinite rail, but the reason you state only justifies it as long as the AI works the way it does. If they make the AI better in other ways, they'll be able to drop the blatant cheating. Besides, I hate the idea that the game rules might be dictated by the AI's limitations. After all, if you're playing an MP game, there could be no AI involved at all, but you're still held down by its limitations.

[Xorbon]

Originally posted by AeonOfTime
(...)
I like railroads and the unlimited movement because it simplifies keeping track of your army a lot. This is how I normally proceed:

I gather and stack all units in one place, with one stack for each unit type. That way I know how many cavaleries, infantry, tanks etc. I have at my disposal for that turn - a great help for deciding what I will be able to do... destroy those attackers at spot x, then add some defense to city x, if I have enough units left, maybe even attack city x.

The next turn, I regroup all units that are able to fight, add any newly built units to these stacks and move all units that need healing to a city near the gathering spot and I start all over.

That would be impossible to do without unlimited movement - I would have to take into account how far I can go with each unit, keep track of where units are built, and in case there are several battle fronts, manage each one separately.
(...)

I do that too! It can be so difficult, especially in the later eras, to keep track of all your units.

If they took away infinite rails, it would be nice to have an interface that allows for easier large-scale unit deployment. I'm thinking of something where you could use filters to allow you to quickly find what units are available in a given area. For example, in a certain area, you may want to know where all your 'fully-healed, unfortified tanks with all their movement points remaining' are. Right now, gathering all your units into a single area is the easiest way to sort them out.

[Dis]

I just thought it would be cool in order to find your units, is perhaps there could be a way to remove all the cities from the map and just show your units (and the visible enemy units).

In civ3 I often group all my offensive units in a center city. Because of the movement penalties, I generally don't have to worry about getting a city taken over in 1 turn, before I get a chance to counter attack. So I can keep my cities relatively undefended except for 1 or 2 defenders. Aircraft I may spread around a little more depending on the size of my empire.

[AeonOfTime]

@Xorbon: If they took away infinite rails, it would be nice to have an interface that allows for easier large-scale unit deployment.

That would be nice... Maybe the filter you mentioned could be combined with what Dis mentioned about being able to remove all cities from the map: have a filter that displays all units matching certain criteria and hiding everything else so you can see where they are in one glance.

@Dis: what happened to your nice avatar?

[patcon]

Originally posted by Dis
I just thought it would be cool in order to find your units, is perhaps there could be a way to remove all the cities from the map and just show your units (and the visible enemy units).

This is possible in Civ3, so I'm guessing it'll still be there in cIV. Under map, you can select from a variety of features to hide or show, then "clean" the map. Recleaning brings everything back. I often use this in the later game when I'm looking for newly-available resources or playing whack-a-mole with pollution.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by sophist
Ok, sure, whatever. I don't care about the mods. I want the official game as released to be good.

Well, looking at the polls, it is clear that something needs to be changed.
Total votes for retaining rails 'as is' - (89)
Total votes to alter it in some way - (261)
That works out to approx. 25% for status quo vs 75% against status quo.

What does that say about the majority - that they do not want the game to be good and it is only you that have that desire?

Breaking it down further, you basically have these different options from the polls...
Unlimited movement/Unlimited units (139)
Unlimited movement/Limited units (70)
Limited movement/Unlimited units (138)

Note: I gave the benefit of the doubt to Railroad maintenance (50) and put it in unlimited movement/unlimited units. It does not affect movement in a substantial way other than possibly reducing the number of railed tiles on the map. I'm in favor of this feature for limited movement/unlimited units too, which could be used to change limited movement/unlimited units from (138) to (188)

All of the other new features, (with the exception of maintenance cost), put some sort of limit on either the number of units that can move by rail or the number of tiles that units can move. That is a clear indication that most fans want something different - and they realize that the game can be better because of it.

I am not against having an unlimited movement feature for units in the game. The game already provides an unlimited movement feature through the use of airports - which I think is a good setup. You can move units anywhere on the map with them - and used correctly, you can actually move a lot of units with that feature. Heck, I could even live with rails that provide unlimited movement - provided that there is some sort of limit on the number of units that can be moved in this fashion

I am, like the clear majority who voted in this poll, against unlimited movement for unlimited units. It is too much of a good thing and kills the need to preplan and use strategic thinking.

Originally posted by sophist
I think most of the people who say that the solution is to mod the game will do so and then play about 10 turns before changing it back.

So, what you are saying is that players, after attempting to mod the game, will suddenly realize that their opinions about gameplay issues will be faulty and they will go back to the default setup, because Firaxis knows what is best for them.

I give players a lot more credit than that...

Originally posted by sophist
Incidentally, your suggestion is quite likely unnecessary. It's a way of making infinite railroads work in the official game while allowing mods that change that, assuming that the only way to do it is by changing a number in some data file somewhere. That's not really a good assumption to make. For one thing, they've been emphasizing the customizability of the game. For another, that only would enable one of the proposed alternatives. It leads proponents of maintenance or capacity out in the cold. In theory, Firaxis could make those settable parameters as well, but there are other ones that wouldn't be so easy, and there's a limit to how much you can reasonably parameterize things. They might as well just expose the implementation code and let people have at it directly, which is what I expect they'll do. It's just far easier for them and for us.

Firaxis has already said that civ4 will be the most moddable civ game available - and I believe it. I also know that there are different levels of moddability in the game - from simple txtfile alts to complex scripting features and even source code alterations. Some of these editing features are beyond the ability of the regular gamer - for some, these complex features are a piece of cake.

My suggestion works on the premise that since rails are a tile improvement like a road, it should have been set up in the same format as a tile improvement on all levels. It is the easiest way to allow players to modify the feature. With my proposal, you could keep the clear majority of players happy because you are providing them the means to easily alter the feature that will not be tied into complex coding issues.
Infinite movement - (89)
No infinite movement - (103)
Maintenance - (50)

Setting up the feature allows 70% of the players the means to EASILY achieve what they say they want. In the current civ3 setup, this is not possible at all because of the way the game coders set up railroads with infinity movement - something that was unchangeable in civ3's textfile, because there is no number that represents infinity.

My point is that for this particular gameplay feature, Firaxis should make sure that rails can be easily edited for a personal setup. Unlike you, I see and present a solution that would easily address the majority of the issues while retaining the feature that allows infinite movement.

If it was clear from polling that unlimited movement/unlimited units was clearly preferred, I wouldn't be griping as much. But that is not the case....

[sophist]

Originally posted by hexagonian

Well, looking at the polls, it is clear that something needs to be changed.
Total votes for retaining rails 'as is' - (89)
Total votes to alter it in some way - (261)
That works out to approx. 25% for status quo vs 75% against status quo.

Are you familiar with selection bias? The people who are on this board are not a representative sample. Furthermore, the unhappy people in a group will always be louder than the content ones, so the people who responded to the poll are going to be even more unrepresentative. Finally, the phrasing of the poll question deters anyone who supports the status quo. It doesn't ask if you support a limit, but rather how you would limit it. It's not unlikely that someone content with the status quo will just skip the optional responses and not vote at all, especially when the only option corresponding to the status quo isn't obviously for the status quo.

In other words, this poll is flawed on multiple levels and using its results as a justification for anything is ridiculous.

Originally posted by hexagonian
So, what you are saying is that players, after attempting to mod the game, will suddenly realize that their opinions about gameplay issues will be faulty and they will go back to the default setup, because Firaxis knows what is best for them.

I give players a lot more credit than that...

Basically, yeah. Firaxis usually does know best because they've spent orders of magnitude more time than any of us thinking about this. It's their job. It's our hobby. They'll still get things wrong, of course, but the odds of them getting it right are far higher than the odds of you, me, or anyone else around here getting it right. This stuff is hard. I would bet money that they've play-tested some, if not all, of the alternatives suggested here and elsewhere, and they found them lacking.

Supposing for the sake of argument that a majority of players do believe something should be changed, there's no consensus on how it should be changed. There are several popular options, but those options haven't been explored or considered as thoroughly as we've all explored and considered the status quo. Hypothetical alternatives will always sound better than they are because they've never been examined under the cold light of day. People just aren't used to taking ideas to the nth degree and figuring out every single implication and the interdependencies and ripple effects etc. There are obvious holes in some of the ideas presented. There are equally significant, but less obvious holes in the others, but they're only the sort of thing that you can ferret out if you're used to this kind of analysis or just by implementing it, playing it, and seeing what happens.

Originally posted by hexagonian
Firaxis has already said that civ4 will be the most moddable civ game available - and I believe it. I also know that there are different levels of moddability in the game - from simple txtfile alts to complex scripting features and even source code alterations. Some of these editing features are beyond the ability of the regular gamer - for some, these complex features are a piece of cake.

Making it easily modded doesn't mean that everyone will mod it, no matter how easy it is. Even if it's just changing a number in a file somewhere, people would be far more likely to download an already edited version of that file rather than do it themselves and risk breaking the game.

Originally posted by hexagonian
My suggestion works on the premise that since rails are a tile improvement like a road, it should have been set up in the same format as a tile improvement on all levels.

I have no idea what that even means. How is the rail format like a mine?

Originally posted by hexagonian
Unlike you, I see and present a solution that would easily address the majority of the issues while retaining the feature that allows infinite movement.

Oooh, you just have to feel superior, don't you? I've had two ideas that I really liked for railroad alternatives.

I shelved them because when I looked at them honestly, I realized they weren't an improvement.

[Harovan]

I have very little hope, that Firaxis will abstain from infinite RR movement. I put all my hope at modability of this game and at our modders. Maybe even hexagonian, which would be awesome, I am sure. If he weren't so occupied with all these CtP2 mods all the time...

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by sophist
The people who are on this board are not a representative sample...
...Basically, yeah. Firaxis usually does know best because they've spent orders of magnitude more time than any of us thinking about this....

Again we are all idiots and should happily embrace to the vision of Firaxis in every aspect of the game as it is presented by them because we do not know any better.

You do not realize how many people you've just insulted here...

Originally posted by sophist
...Furthermore, the unhappy people in a group will always be louder than the content ones, so the people who responded to the poll are going to be even more unrepresentative.
...Finally, the phrasing of the poll question deters anyone who supports the status quo.

Then all polls are worthless. And who decides what to do then? Firaxis should just continually release civ1 every few years in a new box.
The poll allowed an option to keep the status quo as a clear selection. If the status quo is so heavily favored, the poll would reflect that fact. And this is not the first poll here that is unhappy with the status quo of infinite rails...

Originally posted by sophist
It's their job. It's our hobby. They'll still get things wrong, of course, but the odds of them getting it right are far higher than the odds of you, me, or anyone else around here getting it right. This stuff is hard. I would bet money that they've play-tested some, if not all, of the alternatives suggested here and elsewhere, and they found them lacking.

And the sheer weight of time that we players invest in playing the game counts for nothing????
Another insult directed at us poor, stupid fans...

Originally posted by sophist
There are several popular options, but those options haven't been explored or considered as thoroughly as we've all explored and considered the status quo.

Oh, but they have been tested...they have indeed...
Many - if not most other TBS games do not have an instant teleport feature that allows for infinite movement for every unit on the board.

Originally posted by sophist
Hypothetical alternatives will always sound better than they are because they've never been examined under the cold light of day.

Again, these concepts have been playtested in other games in different forms. A smart company is willing to explore gameplay mechanics of different games to see how they work - and the weight of evidence, based not only on TBS computer games, but on tabletop board games, and as SR mentioned earlier, chess, supports limited movement overwhelmingly as the valid choice for movement.

Originally posted by sophist
I have no idea what that even means. How is the rail format like a mine?

Allow me to educate...
Both are Tile improvements. Tile improvements are those things created by workers on the map. Rails are like roads (another tile improvement, by the way) in that they both enhance movement. As such, coding the abilities of rails can be done the same way as it is for roads.

Ever bother to look at the civ3 editor? Rails are in the ( you guessed it...) tile improvement section...Road movement is editable because it is a number - Rails are not editable because infinity is not a number. Giving rails infinite movement was done in another coding process, that in civ3, is locked into the source code.

Originally posted by sophist
Oooh, you just have to feel superior, don't you?

No, your own attitude puts your feelings about us 'poor uneducated gamers' out in plain view. I'm just making sure the picture is clear to everyone.

Hey Sir Ralph, ever think we'd be in agreement??? (I'd even attempt on recommending you giving the AOM mod a shot - and would even send you a CD copy of the mod if I knew you'd put aside your anti-CTP2 bias)

My gut tells me that when civ4 comes out, I'll be shelving CTP2...

[Peter Triggs]

Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/bill_cosby.html

There's another guy who has the foresight to see that you may have to mod the game to make it fit your tastes.

[Boris Godunov]

I'd definitely like to see a change in RR movement. I think making them, essentially, more powerful roads would be good enough.

Maintenance costs for RRs is interesting, but nonsensical if they don't exist for all other tile improvements. Not that that is such a bad idea, though.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by hexagonian
Hey Sir Ralph, ever think we'd be in agreement??? (I'd even attempt on recommending you giving the AOM mod a shot - and would even send you a CD copy of the mod if I knew you'd put aside your anti-CTP2 bias)

My gut tells me that when civ4 comes out, I'll be shelving CTP2...

Believe it or not, but I don't have an anti-CTP2 bias. And had you and your crowd not invaded "our" forum so often, trying to prove, that "your" game is so much better, so that I felt obliged to defend "my" game, I would have never said a word against it.

What concerns AOM, to be honest, I don't have much fun with any TBS game at the moment. After Conquests turned out a disappointment and a huge step back compared with PtW, I dropped all TBS games whatsoever and started to participate in MMO games. Civ4 has to be pretty darn good to drag me back from that corner.

At the moment it looks as if it might be indeed.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/bill_cosby.html

There's another guy who has the foresight to see that you may have to mod the game to make it fit your tastes.

"With the moving of the units and the building and the research"

[sophist]

Originally posted by hexagonian

Again we are all idiots and should happily embrace to the vision of Firaxis in every aspect of the game as it is presented by them because we do not know any better.

You do not realize how many people you've just insulted here...

I realize exactly how many: zero. What you allege I said and what I actually said are two different things.

Originally posted by hexagonian
Then all polls are worthless.

That's a ridiculous statement. Are you trying to reduce your own credibility? That does not logically follow from what I said.

Originally posted by hexagonian
And who decides what to do then?

Are you saying that Firaxis can't develop the game the way they see fit? They don't have to listen to any of us. They're better off if they do, but that doesn't mean that the players are going to come up with better ideas most of the time.

Originally posted by hexagonian
The poll allowed an option to keep the status quo as a clear selection. If the status quo is so heavily favored, the poll would reflect that fact.

Asserting that will not make it so. The poll was about how, not if. The option for the status quo didn't say "leave it alone," it was about enemy rails. It's also in the web. It's also on a site devoted to Civilization, in a forum that at least partly has the goal as serving as a forum for criticisms of previous versions of the game. If you cannot see the bias in that, that is unfortunate.

Originally posted by hexagonian
And the sheer weight of time that we players invest in playing the game counts for nothing????

That is a non sequitur.

Originally posted by hexagonian
Another insult directed at us poor, stupid fans...

If you're that insistent on reading insults into my words, I guess it doesn't matter what I write.

Originally posted by hexagonian
Oh, but they have been tested...they have indeed...
Many - if not most other TBS games do not have an instant teleport feature that allows for infinite movement for every unit on the board.

Do you think these features can just be dropped in with no effect on anything else? Those features were tested in games that were not Civ. That certainly should pique people's interest, but it's not the same thing as being tested in Civ itself. It's a different game.

Originally posted by hexagonian
Allow me to educate...

....

No, your own attitude puts your feelings about us 'poor uneducated gamers' out in plain view. I'm just making sure the picture is clear to everyone.

You can paint whatever picture you want. It's not going to accomplish anything. My language has been measured and civil, yours has been dismissive and insulting. You've gotten all in a lather over things I didn't say. I thought my point was clear, but maybe I ought to rephrase it so you understand exactly what I am saying.

The Firaxis developers are by no means perfect, and feedback from fans is an integral part of developing an improved game. Railroads are a core feature of the game. Changing the way they work in a balanced fashion is hard. In the face of all the criticism of railroads over the years, the people at Firaxis have undoubtedly attempted alternative models. For one reason or another, they have chosen not to use those models, though numerous other failings in the Civ games have been addressed. I'm going to assume they had good reasons for that. I'll take their design choices over those of some random people encountered only through the web. Those players can of course alter the game to their hearts' content to address flaws they perceive in the game, but I expect that most real gameplay changes will result in a lesser game or one that is too different to be considered the same game.