Things to Borrow From Other Games

[Lorizael]

I've thought for a very long time that railroads shouldn't give units a movement multiplier. Units should move along rails at a constant pace (very fast, but not infinite) that is independent of their move characteristic.

And I'd also like to see rails needing maintenance in the form of money. I want them to still create a bonus to production, but not the way they currently do. Rails that connect to cities would give production bonuses to those cities, or something.

[Shogun Gunner]

Lorizael, what about unlimited movement between rail connected cities within your own terrority (or ally)? Someone posted that somewhere and I liked that idea...

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by hexagonian
Economic rail bonuses is realistic, but having a tile benefit that gives you both guns and butter will assure that rails would be built on every tile.

...Guns being incredible military mobility - butter being economic benefit

Good point Lorizael - after all, its the train that is doing all the moving - the unit is just along for the ride.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
Lorizael, what about unlimited movement between rail connected cities within your own terrority (or ally)? Someone posted that somewhere and I liked that idea...

That seems too much like what airports do, except that air lifting can cross the sea. But I think I would like to see more of a jump between rail movement and air movement because, well, planes go really fast.

And I also think that this discussion might want to be continued in the movement/supply thread.

[marcthornton]

Originally posted by hexagonian
As long as you did ALL of the following...

2. Make the labor cost of building rails very high (timewise or shield cost)

The labor cost for building rail improvements within the city limits should go up as you build each square within that cities limits. In between city limits, the cost should remain the same for these tiles.

Originally posted by hexagonian
3. eliminate infinite rail movement

Rail travel should be point to point, you can't just get off wherever you want. Cities shold be a natural hub, and you should move your armies, workers, etc. City to city with some movement penaly to "changing trains" to go on to the next city.

For a Non City destination, you would need to build a special rail juncture or station that would cost more labor than the rail line. You could put a juncture inbetween 2 cities with a split in the line designating one bidirectional path as the primary with a minor juncture cost for travle that uses the juncture in another direction. There should be a cost to changing this primary route designation as well.

There should also still be an movement cost for traveling the rail. It should not be possible to travel 40 tiles at the same cost of 80 tiles on the rail.

Now to go a little off subject:
You should also note that having all of the land around you developed like this does not make people happy. (borrowing from SimCity) Why would people in your city be happy that they are all living near the railroad. Your citizens want tiles in the city to be Open Spaces later in the development of your culture. You could also tie in small city improvements, i.e. the ball park, the Roman Baths, These could lose their effect after their time-frame as well. So in effect, I agree with the multi-tiered tile improvements Basic Mine, Strip mine, Mechanized Mine. Along with the addition of these entertainment / quality of life tile improvements. The different mines/irrigation etc. should also effect the people in your city, i.e. I would much rather work in a strip mine than in a hole in the ground coal mine that catches on fire or floods not to mention it being a much cleaner form of mining.

now totally off subject and please tell me where to put this:

Automating of workers!
Each worker should have his/her own queue just like the city can have a production queue this way you could automate your worker to build a road from your city, following your set path to your strategic resource. Or you could tell him go put a mine here, and then irrigate over there, and then build a road over there.

Let me know what you think...

marc.

[Shogun Gunner]

Automating of workers!
Each worker should have his/her own queue just like the city can have a production queue this way you could automate your worker to build a road from your city, following your set path to your strategic resource. Or you could tell him go put a mine here, and then irrigate over there, and then build a road over there.

I like the objective of this idea, but instead of a queue, I would repeat what I read elsewhere about "tagging" a tile for what improvements you want on it. Use a CTRL-key type combination (like CTRL-G to see gridlines) to show the tagging you enter. Then automation of workers would follow a set of priorities.

1. Closest tagged tile I perform that action
2. If two tags are on one tile, I do road first, then irrigate/mine
3. When all tagged tiles are finished, I work untagged tiles in city radius.
4. I do my best to not screw up the human's worker strategy inevitably bringing down the wrath on us poor automated workers.

Okay, 1 through 3 are good, 4 needs work . Anyway, two slightly different ideas with the same objective. One of the two should be implemented.

[marcthornton]

I like your tagged idea a lot, it solves many things however it could use the following.
1. A limit on the number of tiles a worker will move to find a tagged tile automatically. This could be configurable for your preference.
2. Also, I would still like the ability to tell a worker or a group of workers to build a road from point X to point Y without confusion.

Govenor entry for workers within city limits.
You kind of elude to this with your 2 tags on a tile comment, this should be configurable on a city level, You should set your production priorities for workers within city limits. (Say early game I prefer mines and then roads, and late game I prefer railroads then pollution cleanup.) Say 3 preferences or so, it would need to be based on the number of options for workers, if they add 14 options, maybe you need more than 3 preferences. That is if it is not configurable through each individual worker.

Can someone please direct which list we should take this worker automation thread to please. Should this be in the terrain / terrain improvements list?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by hexagonian
Eliminating infinite rail movement would not downplay its importance to military operations, but it would merely force you to plan ahead for situations. After all, even if it gives you a 4x movement bonus, that is a powerful weapon

I don't think railways should give a movement bonus, since military units are basically moved as cargo when on railways. So, railways should have some sort of intrinsic movement value and capacity, which can be upgraded by new technology.

A unit that begins movement on a railway hex can use the special railway movement mode, while a unit moves on a railway hex just moves normally. Railway movement can be interdicted by an enemy unit sitting on a railway hex.