Railroads--your thoughts...

[kserra11]

I really wish there was a way for me to edit the movement values of railroads...

Personally, I don't like the unlimited movement of RR's...and would love the option of changing it to 1/10 or 1/15....

I think it takes away from some of the strategic value of the game, since you no longer really need to worry about troop placement since you can respond to an attack within one turn...

Have there been any changes or ideas that you've come up with to alter or re-balance the effects of Railroads?

I'm at the point now where I might just eliminate railroads and increase roads movement to 1/5 or something...

Thoughts???

Kevin

[Jaybe]

Rails as they are are probably here to stay because of core-engine coding and the substantial simplification it lends to AI military decisions. AI units can stay hunkered in their cities and come out to strike at will.

An alternative to reduced movement of RR is to disallow rail movement adjacent to an enemy unit. This would involve moving by rail, then additional movement to come adjacent to the enemy. For slow-movers, this becomes a 2-turn process for an attack. It also (again) complicates AI programming considerably.

--
If you eliminate rails, you will also be removing RR's effects on irrigation/mine production.

[mrmitchell]

If you increase roads, remember that affect lasts through the entire game, even in the Ancient ages.

But doesn't an army going across the country in 5 years (game time) make sense?

[Sarxis]

Railroads as they are have been a hallmark of CIV since the beginning.

[MrWhereItsAt]

A difficult question as ever, kserra. Modern countries can strike at each other within a matter of hours, and how do we reflect this in Civ? As it is, it takes years if not decades of gametime for this. The problem is less about having RRs confer infinite movement as it is about the decision on how fast to have turns progress. When each turn is a year or more, you want land troops in the modern era to get anywhere accessible to RRs (or roads, really) within a turn. But at the same time if you have Ships with enormous numbers of moves you can strike and sail to safety before your opponent can even get a look in. This will always be impossible to resolve with a TBS.

I think that RRs as they have been implemented in all Civs are the best way of going about it - they preserve gameplay and balance ahead of maintaining the reality. If you have a better way please by all means tell us, as we'd be dying to hear.

And I am sure Firaxis and Breakaway (plus every other TBS company) would be just as interested.

[Peter Triggs]

From the Civilization Games General/Future Forum:

Originally posted by Torkkeli
Also do not forget that the hardcoded value for railroad movement must be removed. It would be optimal if it could be customized in the editor, say, from infinite to increasing with technologies (steam, electricity, maglev).

Originally posted by hexagonian
Infinite movement - Another one of those gameplay elements that need to be removed or made editable. Geez if Firaxis is so in love with this 'feature' they could make rail movement 1000 tiles - at least it would then be editable

An obvious solution and if they did this you might find that you prefer to play without infinite rail movement.

[Plotinus]

There's something wrong with the movement in Civilization anyway. I mean, if George Bush wants a ship somewhere, he doesn't have to wait five years for it to get there (although things might be interesting if he did). And it's not just in modern times - it didn't take Hannibal decades to travel from Spain to Italy with his army. To be realistic, all units should have massively increased movement. The problem is that this would make the game unplayable, because one player could send all his units crusading into the enemy's territory and wipe him out in a single fell swoop before he has a chance to respond. And that's because Civilization is turn-based. If (shocking heresy) it were *not* turn-based, then it might be possible to make movement and so on make a lot more sense without screwing everything off.

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Plotinus
There's something wrong with the movement in Civilization anyway. I mean, if George Bush wants a ship somewhere, he doesn't have to wait five years for it to get there (although things might be interesting if he did). And it's not just in modern times - it didn't take Hannibal decades to travel from Spain to Italy with his army. To be realistic, all units should have massively increased movement. The problem is that this would make the game unplayable, because one player could send all his units crusading into the enemy's territory and wipe him out in a single fell swoop before he has a chance to respond. And that's because Civilization is turn-based. If (shocking heresy) it were *not* turn-based, then it might be possible to make movement and so on make a lot more sense without screwing everything off.

hahaha interesting, would what ol' Hannibal would have thought of G.W.

As to myself, I love the rail systems, and think of them more as something my local government could really use.

[Space05us]

If (shocking heresy) it were *not* turn-based, then it might be possible to make movement and so on make a lot more sense without screwing everything off.

leave now and dont come back...

Civ is turn based because thats how its been, that is Civ, change that and its no longer Civ, its just another one of billions of RTS.

Personally, I don't like the unlimited movement of RR's...

and just like Civ being turn based is because it is Civ, railroads provide infinite movement, for that is Civ. Although having a way to change the movement values for RR would be nice for scenarios and for people like yourself who want to change that aspect of the game.

[kserra11]

The key would be to just have the option of changing the value...then people can edit it and perhaps find a happy medium for their styles...

Personally, I don't really pay attention to the length of years that go by per turn...one turn is one turn in my mind...

As stated before...while everyone is saying that in the modern age, an army would be able to move cross-continent within a year is true...but if you use that logic...so should a ship or plane...

What has happened is that the very mobility of these vehicles which makes them the striking force of modern militaries has been downgraded by the "blitzkrieg" abilities of land forces and the inabilities of air and sea units to match that speed...

Kevin

[Willem]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt


I think that RRs as they have been implemented in all Civs are the best way of going about it - they preserve gameplay and balance ahead of maintaining the reality. If you have a better way please by all means tell us, as we'd be dying to hear.

One of the issues that keeps coming up is the discrepancy between land movement and sea movement. And awhile ago someone brought up the idea of having a rebase option similar to aircraft, which I thought was a good idea. That way ships could be relocated very quickly, but once they arrive at a port, they revert to their limited movement rates for local manueveres/patrols.

[UnityScoutChopper]

Willem, that's a fantastic idea! Two thumbs up to the person who came up with it.

[Tall Stranger]

Interesting.

Off the top of my head, my only concern would be to limit such a capability to modern, non-transport ships or somehow prevent it from being used as a way to dump massive numbers of ground units into a city. If we can have this capability arrive around the time of airfields, it might work. Otherwise, building a single harbor on another continent and having a good number of transports could let you land huge numbers of knights or cav and crush the AI.

[YC4B4U]

It isn't the first time this has been discussed and it won't be the last time...

The unlimited movement of railroad does reduce the strategy in the game with respect to placement of units and the creation of strategic reserves. But this would only effect the users as the computer doesn't have a strategy to speak of anyway.

I personally don't like the re-base option. In my current game I moved a Carrier to the opposite side of my enemy then re-based a bomber onto it (on the other side of the earth and straight across the enemies land). The same idea applies to ships - it would take the strategy out because it allows the quick relocation of naval power. Although I don't like the re-base ships idea, I am sure the Russians would have like it in 1904...

Basically it is a turn based game and you live with its limitations.

[geniemalin]

I would like to see a re-base ships option. The problem of unit-dumping can be solved by allowing only empty ships to re-base.