The game is so much more enjoyable ...

[zyelmyrada]

Originally posted by Trip

If an AI ship runs into one of your subs they will automatically declare war on you irregardless of any other concerns.

Actually . . . that may not be such a bad thing. Declaring war causes you to get a bad reputation. If u use your subs as war-bait to draw a neutral into a war with you, it damages his rep and you're the hapless victim.

Make mutual protection pacts between yourself and his neighbours, then blockade one of his ports with your subs. Poof - instant war and he's surrounded by enemies!

"Why die for your country? Get the other b@stard to die for his country!" - G. Patton

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by DrSpike
These are the kind of tweaks that will surely have to be made if the current system is to be kept. Balance must dominate all realism arguments.

Which is the main problem with RRs having infinite movement.

Yes, yes, if you count how far x unit can move in x number of years, you could probably circle the globe a few times, but that doesn't lead to good gameplay. Ships could do the same time... send them off from one port to a continent halfway across the world, take a city with Marines, land Cavalry to use the RRs to take inland cities... bam, enemy empire 1/2 gone in a single turn. Ahhh, the realism! The fun!

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by zyelmyrada
Actually . . . that may not be such a bad thing. Declaring war causes you to get a bad reputation. If u use your subs as war-bait to draw a neutral into a war with you, it damages his rep and you're the hapless victim.

Make mutual protection pacts between yourself and his neighbours, then blockade one of his ports with your subs. Poof - instant war and he's surrounded by enemies!

"Why die for your country? Get the other b@stard to die for his country!" - G. Patton

Of course, as you fight the war, killing units and taking cities, that also detracts from your reputation.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Trip

Which is the main problem with RRs having infinite movement.

Yes, yes, if you count how far x unit can move in x number of years, you could probably circle the globe a few times, but that doesn't lead to good gameplay. Ships could do the same time... send them off from one port to a continent halfway across the world, take a city with Marines, land Cavalry to use the RRs to take inland cities... bam, enemy empire 1/2 gone in a single turn. Ahhh, the realism! The fun!

You realise I said balance must dominate realism right? Just making sure.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by DrSpike
You realise I said balance must dominate realism right? Just making sure.

I know, I was simply building further on what you had said.

[DrSpike]

Hehe good. It was just your post looks like a semi-annoyed response to people who insist reality is more important, and you quoted my post.

[Jon Shafer]

I've just played Civ 3 too long and seen the kind of crap that RRs can cause...

[MattPilot]

here's an idea as to how this could be handled in Civ4:

Railroads shouldn't multiply your movement points, but rather railroads should only give you a given number of movement points free per turn.


The train doesn't move any faster just because you got a vehicle loaded instead of infantry. So perhaps each unit could get 2, or 3, free movement points when moving from one railroad square to the next. After said number of movement points is used up, the rest of the movements points get deducted as if it were on roads (even if its moving on railroads).

Shouldn't be to hard to implent code wise. Just add an additional Byte (or bit?), with a number to each unit.

[Kuciwalker]

One stipulation about all of these - workers should still get free movement. Otherwise the Industrial era would be hell.

[Jon Shafer]

I have a better idea.

You have a system where you can designate certain tiles which need certain improvements by a certain date or have a certain priority. That way the AI can then manage your Workers for you to get the jobs done. With a little work on the AI it could do jobs just as well as humans, and with a lot less work for the player. Just click on a bunch of tiles to tell which ones need mines, etc. and the Workers do it.

[binyo66]

Originally posted by Dissident
I seem to be the only one who likes it

SMAC had it as well- and that's the greatest TBS of all time.


I know from a strategic standpoint it isn't that great. But it speeds up the game. Late game tedium is already bad enough as it is. I don't want more.

perhaps there should be a limit to how many troops you can transport accross country. It's not like you have infinite number of trains.

I thought I am the only one who is crazy. With the current rr, I dont even have much time to finish most of the game (never finisih conqest, always UN, cultural, at most domi). With limited rr, I dont even have time to play on modern time

[DrSpike]

Trip any automation like that is doomed to failure in my opinion. Plus improving tiles doesn't really get to the heart of the railroad issue, which isn't about building the network but using it.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by binyo66
I thought I am the only one who is crazy. With the current rr, I dont even have much time to finish most of the game (never finisih conqest, always UN, cultural, at most domi). With limited rr, I dont even have time to play on modern time

Remove infinite movement, take away the commerce bonus for rails, and add a commerce-style Tile Improvement to replace the lost gold, tweak the cost of unit upkeep and tech costs, and your problem would be fixed.

Unfortunately, Firaxis locked themselves into this flawed system in civ3 by hardcoding rail movement and limiting the creation of multi-tiered tile improvements. Short-sighted and foolish...

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by hexagonian

...take away the commerce bonus for rails, and add a commerce-style Tile Improvement to replace the lost gold...

Have I been missing out on the railroad trade bonus all this time?

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Trip any automation like that is doomed to failure in my opinion. Plus improving tiles doesn't really get to the heart of the railroad issue, which isn't about building the network but using it.

They're different sides of the same coin, IMO.

The main reason people argue in favor of infinite RR movement is having to deal with all the Workers later on in the game.

I think the automation would work fine as long as the human has control over what goes on. He determines what gets done and what the priority is for it to get done (higher priority means more Workers devoted to the task).