Railroads too good?

[The Pioneer]

Well, since it is a fact for everybody it still makes for an interesting game as you are never sure where or who will attack you. As your neighbors, friends and foes alike, can move their armies as fast as yourself. Same goes for production bonus.

So long...

[alva]

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

Another thing I hope tey do away with and abstract into turn numbers instead of years, even though it idoes add to the general atmosphere.
The trouble with IMO is that people take it far to literal.

As far as RR are concerned, pfff, to me it's a gamebreaker, the moment rail roads start to come on line I start to loose interest.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by alva
As far as RR are concerned, pfff, to me it's a gamebreaker, the moment rail roads start to come on line I start to loose interest.

Same here.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I do agree that RR's are WAAAAY to powerful, but not just from a combat perspective. The way that they grant bonuses to commerce, production and food is not only VERY unrealistic but also encourages RR sprawl ! In order to combat this element, then, I think the following should be done:

1) A city connected to the trade network, by a road, should recieve a bonus equal to +5% of the current commerce/production/food produced by all cities in the trade network, which are on the same land mass.

2) A city connected to the trade network, by a RR, should recieve a bonus equal to +10% of the current commerce/production/food produced by all cities in the trade network, which are on the same landmass.

The thing about these bonuses is that the city gets it if you build 1, 3 or even 10 railroads (or roads) to that city. i.e. It doesn't matter HOW many roads/RR's you build from that city, it won't alter the level of bonus the city recieves.

3) Both RR's and roads (and all other terrain improvements, btw) should have a maintainance cost. Roads should have a cost of 1gpt/X tiles, and RR's could have a cost of 2 gpt/X tiles (with X being editable, but initially based on map size).

The combination of these factors may well force players to be much more....'strategic' in their placement of RR's as the benefits would now have to outweigh the costs. This might help balance the strategic (read: combat) side of the game too!
To further balance RR's for combat, the following could apply (any or all of the suggestions could be utilized):

1) Give RR's a 1/6 or 1/10 move bonus.

2) Allow unlimited movement, but only if the square was entered from a city or tile improvement (like a fort). Otherwise the RR will only count as a road for movement purposes.

3) Again, allow unlimited movement, but every city your unit passes through will cost that unit 1mp!

4) Give tiles a 'support value'-i.e. the number of units it can hold for more than 1 turn without suffering from 'degredation' (lost attack/defense strength, hp etc) This way, you will have to stagger the movement of your forces, rather than moving SoD's! This could be further helped if you gave units variable 'support costs', say 1 for infantry and other foot units, 2 for artillery and mounted units, and a 3 for mechanized units! This would force players to adopt a 'combined arms' strategy in order to move larger stacks along the road/rail network, rather than just stacks of tanks for instance!!

Anyway, those are my ideas. Hopefully the next XP pack will contain a few (if not ALL) of the suggested changes !

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Rasputin]

i love railroads but do see that they make the rest of movement unrealistic, ships planes etc.

i think a 1/10 movement cost would be better.

[mesut]

Railroads in real life are different! in Civ3 your railroad is not only able to overcome an infinite distance but also you can transport an infinite amount of units. In reality you would have to provide the capicity fo every single unit in terms of waggons and engines. Limiting railroads is therefore "a must have"-feature.

Mesut

[Allemand]

I think the worst thing about railroads in CivIII is that a unit can attack three or four times at different ends of a continent, without worrying about a counterattack.

Absurd!

[vmxa1]

IIRC it was done to make the pathfinding easier for the AI. As the game gets later, it is harder to check all the possible paths. So it is just a crutch for the programmers and give a bobus of saving some processing power. It goes way back before CivIII.

[Aeson]

One thing good about infinite rails is that it allows the AI to bring all their units to bear somewhere. In earlier ages it's possible to just avoid the AI SOD completely while taking out their entire civ. Doesn't work so well with rails, you eventually have to face their unless you've built up to a 1 turn blitz (and then it's not going to matter anyways).

Given that infinite rails give an advantage to the player, they give a bigger advantage to the AI. If you want to see how pitiful AI Industrial/Modern warfare requiring logistics is, play some archipelago maps to that point. I'd rather not see the AI deal with land warfare more like they do seaborne invasions.

[vmxa1]

Yup and the way they work does not bother me as it has been around forever.

[vmxa1]

I do miss the little locomotive graphics once in a while though.

[alva]

Locomotive graphic?

Is that from Civ1 (never played it)

[vmxa1]

CivII. when you sent someone down the tracks it played an engine graphic.

[The Pioneer]

Really, the standard graphics or was it a mod? I played that game for years and I do not remember that .

So long...

[vmxa1]

I never used any mods. It was the gold version though, IIRC.