Railroads

[McMonkey]

I was taking a look at my Balkan Wars scenario and realised that using railroads would mess up the balance of play by making the human player too powerful on the offensive. I have decided to get rid of them for the purpose of game play but I am a bit miffed as it took me ages to lay them accurately and they look really cool!

Destroying the RR will make minor back roads through remote mountain ranges the equal of the main transport routes. To resolve this I can rip up the minor roads, but this would mean that it is as quick for a 1 move unit to cross over mountains as it is to follow the valleys (where the roads were!). This is all a bit of a conundrum.

I did consider making some cuts in the RR lines but this would just look rubbish and would achieve little.

I have often thought it was a major flaw in the original CivII design that RR were not given a movement multiplier like roads that could be adjusted to suit a particular scenario.

In the past I have heard various solutions for this problem such as using the airlift command to represent train travel between major cities. I was wondering if there is a better way of representing the RR or if someone could alter the game to give the RR a movement multiplier. I guess to alter the game mechanics would require the source code! Anyway, this seems like a worthy topic to discuss and may throw up a few new ideas!?!

[Boco]

Take a look at Techumseh's Red October scenario. It contains one of the cleverest implementations of railroads that I can recall.

Roads = Single Track (multiplier = 4)
RRs = Double Track

The 'railways', then, are a mix of single and double track with the net effect that virtually all intercity rail movement has some cost. More often than not, Single Tracks are in Rail Bed 2 terrain, which has a movement cost of 3. Since the only settlers in the game, workers, do not have the engineer bonus, it takes a substantial effort to upgrade Single to Double track in these squares. All in all, it effectively gives RR's a movement cost less than the road bonus.

[McMonkey]

I have been intending to check out Red October for a while. This sounds like a very interesting solution!

It would be good if it was possible to limit the amount of traffic you could send down a line per turn. I suppose the airlift as RR is the best solution for this.

I may keep the RR graphics in my Balkans scenario and use them as roads and rip up all the other minor roads. Not sure how this will look but it would be more realistic.

[Michael Daumen]

I believe it is also possible to have a movement rate of 0 for terrain. If memory serves me, units lose 1/X of a move for entering a city or road terrain (depeding on road multiplier X) if it is placed on such land.

[McMonkey]

I will experiment with this. Should not take too long to convert a terrain type and place it in the RR squares. Will be worth the effort if it works!

[Boco]

0 mf cost terrains also cost 0 to enter from any square. MD, for ToT, your memory is correct about the road (and river I bet) but not the city.

[McMonkey]

I have had an idea about how to represent trains and railroads in ToT. This may well not be a new idea but I have not seen it before!

The idea is to use a terrain type as rail-bed. This would be placed along railway routes and all other terrain would be made impassable. All units except trains would be given the ability to ignore impassable terrain. This should confine Trains to the rail-bed corridors.

I am not sure how useful this would be as trains would not be able to attack units unless they were on the lines. I thought it would be an interesting theory to develop though.

I will need to experiment with unit abilities to see if trains could be given the Submarine or Carrier ability to allow them to carry artillery shell type units. I would imagine that the shells would be left behind when the Train moved.

Anyway, I thought it would be an interesting idea to discuss!

[Elensar]

It sounds fairly good. Are any of the units you're using "treat all as road", incidently? Its probably not going to upset this plan, but it -really- makes for mobility.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by McMonkey
I have had an idea about how to represent trains and railroads in ToT. This may well not be a new idea but I have not seen it before!

The idea is to use a terrain type as rail-bed. This would be placed along railway routes and all other terrain would be made impassable. All units except trains would be given the ability to ignore impassable terrain. This should confine Trains to the rail-bed corridors.

Take a look at Techumseh's Red October scenario. It contains one of the cleverest implementations of railroads that I can recall.

...Boco

All non-rail terrain is impassible and all non-rail units have the flag which overrides it. So non-rail units can travel on all terrain, but rail units must stick to the rails.

...Red October Readme (April 2002)

[McMonkey]

Ah, I'm just five years too late

[techumseh]

I'm bumping this thread for the benefit of Civ2Units.

[civ2units]

So I have to give all units the 'impassable terrain override' flag in the rules except the train units. This is no problem. But how make I the terrain unpassable for the units?
What have I to change in the rules, especially in the terrain rows?

[Boco]

;Name,      m, d,  f,s,t,   irr, f,#t,ai,   mine,s,#t, ai,xform,impassable 
@TERRAIN
Baadiyah,   2, 2,  0,0,0,   yes, 1, 4, 0,   yes, 4,99,  0,  no,   yes,

It's at the end of the each primary terrain line in @TERRAIN sections.