Railroads--your thoughts...

[Paddy]

I have been giving this thread a bit of thought during my games lately.

I am playing the Commonwealth in the WW2 C3C conquest.

There is a fair amount of water to traverse, and quite a bit of rail in Asia and Australia.

I am getting to be of the opinion that the rail should be slowed down a little. Possibly make it so that a unit can only travel 12 - 15 squares in one turn on the rails, and that ships get an extra space per vessel, try and even it out a little.

I understand that in a turn a rail network should be able to move something vast distances, yet so should ships, and they should be a bit more on par.

Especially as we live on a water planet and most of the games have a high level of water...

[The Mad Viking]

Well, at least CIV III takes away the travel bonus behind enemy lines that made CIV II too easy...

I think it would be very easy to fix the problems in ways that would improve gameplay.

Rail transport should be city to city only, and take all your movement points. That way you can rush reinforcements in time to defend the next turn attack, but not move onto a railway, traverse half the globe, then drive into the jungle and attack on the same turn!

Willem's idea of rebasing ships is brilliant. It solves the cross globe speed issue, without messing up the combat models. It would make blockading strategically important and worthwhile.

I see these changes as adding realism AND making gameplay smoother.

[Paddy]

Yeah, well said.

[CerberusIV]

The problem as I see it is that RR's are really a form of teleportation - that your unit can magically zoom from one end of a continent to the other and do whatever you want without penalty. If you have reasonably adjacent ports and a transport available you can ship several units to another continent where they can resume their RR teleportation.

The simplest answer I can see is to introduce a new condition for units so they have to "entrain" like they would fortify, sentry, etc. In this state they could benefit from the infinite RR movement but would have a reduced defence and no attack values. At some point they have to "detrain" before they can attack or load onto a transport or whatever. "Detraining" would use up the rest of the move so you can shift the unit by rail but not do anything with it for the rest of that turn.

If the unit is not "entrained" it moves as if on roads (which rate should increase after you discover the Motorized Transportation tech).

[Willem]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking


Willem's idea of rebasing ships is brilliant. It solves the cross globe speed issue, without messing up the combat models. It would make blockading strategically important and worthwhile.

Well thanks, but I can't claim credit for that idea. I was just repeating what someone else mentioned.