Roads give movement bonus and NOTHING else?

[TomVeil]

Originally posted by Willem


It's a "strategy" game, not a simulation!

It was not and and never has been meant to accurately reflect real life. There are numerous examples of how the game is not realistic, to the point that you shouldn't even play it if that's what you're after. This change just adds more strategy, which in turn is going to make it more interesting to play in the late game. To hell with whether it's "realistic" or not, the focus here is on gameplay.

Honestly, I admit that until the expansion pack for Spore 2 comes out in 2009 () , there won't be a game that combines the awesome scope of Civ with my desire for realism. Until then, I reserve the right to gripe at random intervals about the inevitable strategy/realism tradeoffs.

[alva]

Realism isn't fun, that's why games are so succesfull.

[Markgraf]

One thought to consider here is that in limiting rail movement to 10, it doesn't necessarily mean rails will function any differently than in Civ3. That is, you may be able to retain your regular movement in addition to 10 squares of rail movement.

It's possible that unlimited is reduced to 10, but otherwise rails function as before. I'd like that pretty much.

(Also, I recall that in WWI, partic. in the Tannenburg campaign in the East, German troops were moved by rail within the same front and unloaded practically right into battle. Thus moving by rail and quickly fighting is not so "unrealistic" as it might seem to some.)

Overall, I'm not terribly concerned about the change one way or the other.

[Joseph]

Originally posted by lodgey
Thinking about unlimited RR movement leaves me thinking about how troop movement would work in the real world. Note that I know very little about real military strategy, so this could all be way off.

I live in Australia, so lets imagine that a large armed invasion force landed on the north coast. Nobody noticed until they arrived (everone in the country was looking the other way for a few months it seems...).

1. Troops already in the area would obviously get straight into the action.

2. The RAAF (air force) would be overhead VERY quickly.

3. Extra forces from other parts of the country would get to the action by different means. I would expect the army to utilise both road and rail - large numbers of infantry would ride in trucks, so they wouldn't travel any slower than the other military vehicles.

I would expect that the troops to arrive fastest would have flown in with the RAAF in step 2, provided that Australia still controlled enough of the airspace to provide a reasonable chance of a troop carrier getting through. None of this, however would take very long, and the attackers would find themselves fighting a decent force before they could take much ground.

The whole thing gets more complex if you consider the time it would take to extract troops that are currently deployed elsewhere. Australia being an island, many of these would come by boat, but many would come by plane (again, depending on control of the airspace).

Thinking about this, removing unlimited RR movement would require more thought given to transporting troops via aeroplane and helicopter. If this is what Firaxis has done, then great, but they need to keep in mind that in modern warfare, I would expect a reasonable group of defenders to hold a city until reinforcements arrive. How many countries keep a couple of batalions of infantry and a few tanks in every city just in case? For that matter, how many modern cities are completely surrounded by a wall? That is, however, a completely different topic.

And how come a lurker such as myself always seems to post such a long message when I actually bother to post something somewhere? It gets longer each time I preview it.

Yes, but the US, UK, Canada, and just maybe NZ would be there as soon as we could to help you guys out.

[Joseph]

Originally posted by TomVeil


Agreed. If you play as France, the rails don't work because the conductor is on strike; as Britain, because a train derailed; as America, because the railroad company sold the rails as scrap metal.

The French don't need a reason to strike, it is in their blood to strike.

[alva]

It's much funnier if you include several nations as TomVeil did and don't just go for the cheap laugh by bashing the French.

[GeoModder]

Wouldn't you agree that there are advantages of ones' homecountry not being included in the game?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by TomVeil


Honestly, I admit that until the expansion pack for Spore 2 comes out in 2009 () , there won't be a game that combines the awesome scope of Civ with my desire for realism. Until then, I reserve the right to WHINE at random intervals about the inevitable strategy/realism tradeoffs.

[Willem]

Re: (OT) on defense strategy w/o infinite RR

Originally posted by Adm.Naismith

How can you support so many units without suffering on economics/research?

I just build Roads/Marketplaces etc. everywhere, eventually my empire can support it. I have to admit though, I seldom get up to 10 except for certain cities that the AI seems to like going after. 5 is not that unusual though on my borders. My inner cities only have one to three, the bare minimum, depending on my government at the time. Three if I'm in Monarchy because of the happiness I get from military police.

[Willem]

Originally posted by SpencerH
I'm not a proponent of infinite rail movement BTW. I simply disagree with the ability to disembark large scale units (~ napoleanic era and up) anywhere on a coastline.

That's always been one of my beefs about these games as well. In reality, not every inch of coast line is suitable for landing troops. There are many areas with cliffs, reefs, etc. that make it just to risky. IIRC, Julius Ceasar lost the chance to take Ireland because they made a bad choice for their landing site and lost many soldiers in the attempt.

I would really like to see only certain areas in the game where you can land forces, like with Normandy in the DDay invasion.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Joseph
Yes, but the US, UK, Canada, and just maybe NZ would be there as soon as we could to help you guys out.

Yeah, we have a couple of tug boats we can let you use for awhile.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Willem
That's always been one of my beefs about these games as well. In reality, not every inch of coast line is suitable for landing troops. There are many areas with cliffs, reefs, etc. that make it just to risky. IIRC, Julius Ceasar lost the chance to take Ireland because they made a bad choice for their landing site and lost many soldiers in the attempt.

I would really like to see only certain areas in the game where you can land forces, like with Normandy in the DDay invasion.

Did I just read the word reality from you?

It's usually a no-no when discussing strategy games. However in this case I have to concur, it would make the game more interesting. Perhaps it can be modded in (would have to be in the map generator).

A completely different question is, of course, if the AI can handle it.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


Did I just read the word reality from you?

It's usually a no-no when discussing strategy games. However in this case I have to concur, it would make the game more interesting. Perhaps it can be modded in (would have to be in the map generator).

A completely different question is, of course, if the AI can handle it.

If reality and game strategy can be combined effectively, then I'm all for it. Though strategy has to be the main focus. I'm all for realism provided that adding it will make the game more interesting and challenging.

In this case however, I think they can both be well served in the game. It would add some strategic elements if there were only certain areas that you could land troops on a shoreline. You'd have to plan both your attack and defence accordingly.

[nbarclay]

If invasions were possible only in particular places, it would probably take serious modding to the AI to have it focus its coastal defense specifically on places that are vulnerable. There would also likely be problems where until amphibious assault units are available, players could stop invasions merely by parking units on all the invadable tiles. (As things stand now, there are generally too many invadable tiles for it to be practical to park units on all of them.)

[snoopy369]

I wouldn't mind seeing a bit of different types of coastline, maybe 2 - Cliffs and Beaches. Cliffs give +100% defensive bonus (or identical to mountains) and some Coastal Fortress type bonus against naval bombardment ...