Railroading Legos

[vondrack]

OK, there is something I believe we should plan a bit in advance. Some time in the second half of our GA, we'll discover Steam Power - and consequently (unless we get really screwed and completely lack coal), acquire the ability to build railroads.

Considering how superior our production (and economy in general) is, we can afford the luxury of considering the railroads on Legos a purely strategic issue (as opposed to an issue of economy), at least for the foreseeable future. The railroad network should allow us to deploy troops where they might be needed fast (the preferred word would be instantly).

To this effect, I would very much appreciate if someone spent some time working our the very basic RR network for Legos Major. Something like a "railroad network backbone") that would be defined as:

- connecting all our cities
- taking as little time to build as possible
- as difficult to disconnect as possible

The second requirement actually translates to using as few railroaded tiles as possible and/or using tiles that are as easy to railroad as possible. The third one means: use inland tiles rather than shores.

Any volunteers?

[ZargonX]

I will gladly work on it if I can scrape together the time. I'll try to come up with something this weekend.

[vondrack]

Cool!

I believe even at the current fast pace, we have like 2-3 weeks minimum before we get to the point where RRs become the issue, so there is no real hurry.

I just thought it would be cool to start working on a plan.

[lmtoops]

Good idea!!!

I completely agree that we must first build the "backbone" and then worry about improving our economy.

[ZargonX]

Well, had some time at work...

[ZargonX]

And the second half...

[ZargonX]

And the hard info:

Red Line: 27 tiles
Grass: 17
Plains: 2
Desert: 3
Hills: 3
Forest: 1
Mountain: 1


Coast Accessable Tiles: 0
Cities Connected:
Legopolis
Panama
Jackson
Redbrick
Farmerville
Oasis
Karina
Tarzania
Camp David
Tiberium

Green Line: 22 tiles
Grass: 15
Hills: 3
Forest: 1
Desert: 3

Coast Accessable Tiles: 5 (3 on SW side)
Cities Connected:
AhhMyFoot
Logville
Abilene
Tipperary
Forkmouth
Sharpehaven
Kloreepville
Dye Fields
Zargonia
Crossing


Blue Line: 8 tiles
Grass: 4
Desert: 1
Plains: 2
Hills: 1

Coast Accessable Tiles: 6 (all in Legos Bay)
Cities Connected:
Port Hammer
Invoice
Horsefish


Yellow Line: 9 tiles
Grass: 1
Plains: 2
Desert: 4
Hills: 2

Coast Accessable Tiles: 4
Cities Connected:
Castlea
Nou Camp
Sandonorico
Quanto Mechanico

Purple Line: 5 tiles
Grass: 3
Forest: 2


Coast Accessable Tiles: 2

I will post my explanation of the plan when I have a few minutes...

[ZargonX]

Ok, some explanation:

Red Line - The Big T
The red line is the queso grande of the Legos railroad network. It is the backbone that will connect north and south, linking the two cores. Militarily, it connects our highest-production cities, and with no coastal access, it cannot be cut by a landing force without giving us plenty of time to react. 27 tiles may seem like a good bit, but the majority of it is flat terrain, which our industrious workers will plow through. There is one mountain (Gold Twin) on the course, but that can be handled with the proper worker investment.

Green Line - The East-Wester
The green line extensions would be phase two of the railroading project. Extending out to the East and West in several key locations, this would complete our access to main coastal cities for defensive deployment. With completion of the green line, there is no city that could not be reached in one turn by a mobile unit from anywhere else in the empire. The one weak spot in this line is in the SW corner by Abilene, where there are 3 exposed coastal access points. These would have to be blocked with units. Green line completion would also give us complete coverage of the East coast for 1-turn response (except for the Castlea mountains, which must be dealt with.)

Blue Line - The Isthmus Express
The blue line is a short addition of extensions to the red and green lines to connect our outlying isthmus cities: Invoice and Port Hammer. It also connects Horsefish, giving complete rapid response coverage on the Southern coast. Due to the nature of the geography, this line is more exposed to coastal landing, and I think the best way to deal with will be naval, though we could place a few cheap units to block the landing spots.

Yellow Line - The Badlands Zephyr
The yellow line is the completing step in defending the Western coast. Connecting some the cities located mostly in "rougher" areas, it may not be the prettiest train ride, but it's still important.

Purple Line - The Coastal Cruiser
The purple line is a less vital defense component, but would still be nice to have. With the completion of the purple line, we would have instant transport to almost all points on the Eastern coast. It can be made a lower priority, however, if there are more important projects at that point.

[redstar1]

Excellent analysis! I had a quick look at this today in work and I don't think I could have come up with anything better...

[vondrack]

Great work, Zargon!

Inspires me to think about a number of worker jobs we could do in the mean time (we should have 10-15 turns from the moment we finish terrain improvements for the GA setups to the discovery of steam power). Just quickly going through your map, it seems to me it would be a good idea to prepare the following tiles, e.g.:

1) clear & road the jungle NE-NE of Red Bricks - makes it possible to move the vertical part of the Red Line half a tile to the East there, avoiding the Rich Twin and the riverside jungle, going straight S to F'ville.

2) road the desert S of Oasis - allows moving the vertical part of Red Line half a tile to the West, avoiding the iron hill and using two cities as parts of the line.

ZaRRgon , could you make a small table showing how many turns it takes to road different terrain types? Or... hm, aha... looking into the editor - it's the same as to mine the tile, it seems. Means to railroad a hill takes as much time as to railroad two grasslands, right?

[vondrack]

OK, with our workers running out of "urgent" jobs, I thought I would revisit the railroading plan and put together a bit more detailed plan. Even if it does look like that, I used Zargon's ideas a lot, usually starting from his plan and pondering about possible refinements.

I was following a wee bit different goal than Zargon - I was trying to connect almost all our cities (except the outposts like Invoice, Port Hammer, and Tipperary) in one backbone network, trying to figure out how long it's going to take to build such a backbone. Well, about six turns. Yes, that's true. With 30 workers we have (I assume three will sail over to Bob), it will take less than 6 six turns to connect almost all our cities. Means we might be finished around the time our GA end or very shortly afterwards.

Here is the picture:



The red tiles represent the backbone connecting all our cities except the outposts (Port Hammer, Invoice, Tipperary) and horse cities (Nou Camp, and Quanto Mechanico). The blue tiles connect the horse cities, the magenta tiles connect the outposts.

There are 51 red tiles - 46 flatland and 5 hill tiles. RRs take 3 worker-turns on flatlands to build, 6 on hills. So, to create the red backbone, we will need 3*46+6*5=168 wt. With 30 workers, that's 5.6 turns (assuming we never waste worker-turns - but that's a correct assumption, as every single tile in the backbone shall be roaded by the time we are ready to RR). Even if we add the blue tiles connecting the horse cities, it's 3*48+6*6=180 wt... exactly six turns.

So... as far as bulding the RR backbone on Legos goes, we shall be fine with the workers we currently have. We can even afford to send 3 of them over to Bob, if we choose so.

There will be the following weak links:

NE of Tipperary - impossible to get rid of due to the geography of the area
S of Invoice - impossible to get rid of due to the geography of the area
Port Hammer - Panama link - impossible to get rid of due to the geography of the area
SW & S-SW of Castlea - can be fixed by RRing SE & S-SE of the city (6+12=18 wt)

As for the time frame:

Turn 179 (GA #3) ... now, starting ToG
Turn 183 (GA #7) ... ToG finished, starting Magnetism
Turn 187 (GA #11) ... Magnetism finished, techs sent to Vox

We might choose to gamble here a bit and start Steam Power immediately - should we get Steam Power as the free Voxian tech, we might consider the gold a sacrifice to the RNG Godz... or we simply halt the research for one turn, and continue as follows...

Turn 188 (GA #12) ... starting Steam Power
Turn 192 (GA #16) ... Steam Power finished, connecting coal
Turn 193 (GA #17) ... starting to railroad
Turn 198 (2t past our GA) ... backbone finished

As you can see... having our coal already connected (very likely) allows us to finish the backbone on the first turn after the GA. Getting Steam Power as the free Voxian tech would allow us to finish the backbone well before the end of our GA.

[ZargonX]

As we have RRs now... BUMP!

[vondrack]

If you check the orders and tiles already railroaded, you'll see I am closely following the plan. But it's a good idea to bump the thread - whoever spots something I missed, report, please!

Some of our workers were still busy finishing various terrain improvements at the moment we discovered Steam Power, so it's going to take ~7-8 turns to finish the RR backbone. We should be done within 3 turns of the end of our GA.