Railroads too good?

[Lewsir]

The more I play C3C the more I'm begining to find railroads too powerful now - the +1 shield/commerce is nice, but the fact that you can get your entire army from one end of your continent to the other makes certain things just too easy.

I would vote for reducing it to 1/6 or 1/10 movement cost (compared to roads at 1/3). Come to think of it, is this modifiable? I've never checked.

The other thing that would be good is that if something is stopped on the railroad (between turns), other things can't pass. And perhaps that any segment of the railroad only works if it is fully connected between cities. Would make it properly vulnerable to attack.

Thoughts?

[Donegeal]

You might want to check out THIS thread for discussion on limiting RR movement.

I, however, feel that unlimited movement on RR is the correct way to go. By the time RR come around, the year indicator for the turn will go some where between 10 and 2 years per turn (even 1 year per turn in the later game).

Now in the US (once the railroads were in place), did it still take 2-10 years to cross a continent? Not a chance.

Yes they are powerful, but they were in RL also. Good representation.

[dannubis]

then perhaps it should take a loooooong time to build them

so that only super critical routes can be railed.

[hexagonian]

Infinite Rails suck...They are a crutch.

They eliminate the need for any strategic thinking - they foster the creation of stacks of doom.

Fighting a war with them allows a player to take ALL of his forces and deploy them against a single target - and if another civ suddenly declares war on him on a distant front, he can redeploy against that threat instantly.

How hard is that????

Without infinite rails (especially with a large empire), you cannot deploy as many troops on a hot front because you cannot neglect other fronts if another civ suddenly jumps on you. Or you can take the chance and risk being caught with your pants down.

I changed the enable advance for Rails to 'Stealth' to eliminate this crutch - and it makes the game bearable to play in the Modern age.

[Lewsir]

I agree with Hexagonian - this takes a way a lot of the strategic aspect.

Sorry Donegeal, that link is not taking me to a specific thread - which particular thread do you mean?

Another thing (CIV IV-ish) would be to have dirt roads, then paved roads, than railroads, then highways, maybe even two separate systems in the modern age...

[Harovan]

Wow, hexagonian managed to reply to a topic in a Civ3 forum, without spamming about mentioning you-know-what? Even though the mentioning would be even on-topic? How did you resist the temptation?

Seriously, I agree with you on this issue. The infinite railroad movement may be historically correct, but is a strategic killjoy. Historic accuracy is not the goal of a 4X game, anyway. Why would we have infinite RR movement, if we don't have infinite naval movement? Does a modern carrier really need many years to circumnavigate the world?

But it has always been a part of Civ (the real one) and probably will remain so even in Civ4. It makes the AI more competitive, just like the lack of real ZoC, since it can't think strategically. Less fun and depth for multiplayer games is not an argument, because Civ is mainly a single player game. Sadly but true. Who doesn't like it, can always play CtP2 (there, I did it).

[asleepathewheel]

Civ3 rr

[jomateix]

The main problem is the fact that build any improvement doesn't need a mantainment posteriorly, ad -1 G per road and -2 per railroad and resolved.

[Plotinus]

Originally posted by Donegeal
Now in the US (once the railroads were in place), did it still take 2-10 years to cross a continent? Not a chance.

And did it take the Romans several decades to travel from one end of their empire to the other by road? The problem here is that rails as they stand are realistic, but nothing else about movement is.

[player1]

Relative movment is important.

I just hope that Civ4 removes some of these "relics of the past".

[vmxa1]

I am not a big fan of unlimited movement, but it does not bother me. IIRC they said it was done to aid the AI. That is fine, but does it really?

You don't see the AI use the tricks that player do to RR up to the next target with a rr gang.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Even though the mentioning would be even on-topic? How did you resist the temptation?

OK, I'll mention it...CTP1/CTP2 does not have infinite movement/gold bonus RR (Rails are 1/5 movement cost in CTP2) as as such, present a better implimentation of this 'feature' from a strategic gameplay standpoint than civ3...

With a 1/5 movement cost modifier, you still have the ability to quickly deploy forces, but in a war where a loss of a couple of turns may mean the difference between holding and losing a city, you still have to be careful.

And eliminate the gold bonus - make RR and roads strictly movement-based and create an additional set of gold-bonus enhancements to remove the blight that RR/Roads create on the map

I think this is the first time Ralph and I see eye-to-eye...

I agree that this 'feature' is more for the benefit of the AI too, since it provides it a way to mount instant defense while the player is limited on movement when he is attacking. (If a player makes a move toward a particular city, the AI can more easily fill that city with defenders if it has unlimited movement.)

A way to offset the need for this 'infinite movement feature' for the AI would be to create a greater priority for the AI to quickly create alliances with other civs when it it is attacked by an human aggressor. This would lessen the need for it to need infinite movement as a stopgap when it could count on other civs to provide military relief. Players would then have no choice but to manage troop deployment too.

Actually Ralph, I do find a lot to like about civ3 - sure, its a game with its own set of flaws, but it has good features too...

[Lewsir]

Agree with most, but I must admit I really like getting the production bonus with railroads. This is perhaps a reflection of just generally needing more production enhancements (e.g. terraforming) from mid-game on...

[TheArsenal]

For a long time I was against infinite movement of RR. I guess I still am. But I have come to enjoy the challenge of using bombers, naval craft and artillery to isolate cities or pockets of land from their connections before attacking. I also find by the time I get to say, Synthetic Fibers, on a Large or Huge map I like the convenience of being able to use both Continental Rally Point and the RR unlimited movement to ease the burden of moving literally hundreds of units around the map.

[Donegeal]

Sorry Lewsir, I was being lazy when I made the link. Its just to the forum for this discussion, not a specific thread. Its in there somewhere, probably multiple times too. Just look around. Its a good read.