Railroad Move-Limit Conundrum...

[To_Serve_Man]

Have you ever heard about the Rules.txt files in Civ-1, Civ-2, CTP, CTP-2 and SMAC?

No I have never heard of these, and I think thats hersey. I shouldn't have to change a game after I buy it to make it worth my time. The game should be balanced. Why not make my own game if I'm going to have to change all the rules. I'm new to the Civilization series and want to play the game. I don't understand all these weird things that I need to edit before I play.

The reason why I dislike your idea of editing things in strange files is because your basically making a 'option' screen when your starting a new game, accept now I have to fart around in strange files, I'd wratehr have the easy interface windows before game start. I dont like games were the user has to 'fix' it. It seems that in many threads that ask for an idea about something, many people go with the 'Just make it an option' answer. Thats why I said that I didnt want huge Option Screens. I would like to play the game the way it is, based on a professional computer programers knowledge about the game.


I mearly want to take a stand on something, instead of throwing it in the option bin.

PS: I know there is a Rules.txt file, that whole first paragraph is just an example. We need to think of everyone, Novice player, Elite Scenario makers, Multi-players, Single Players, etc

[Ralf]

Originally posted by To_Serve_Man
I shouldn't have to change a game after I buy it to make it worth my time. The game should be balanced. Why not make my own game if I'm going to have to change all the rules. I'm new to the Civilization series and want to play the game. I don't understand all these weird things that I need to edit before I play.

OK, but you really dont have to. Firaxis is very well aware that perhaps the majority of all potential Civ-customers dont have the slightest interest to fool around with these files. Not to mention game-magazine reviewers, with deadline-considerations. The latter category are more or less obliged to review the games "out of the box", without taking game-file tweak-possibilities an/or any future bug-patches so much into account. So I believe that Firaxis priorities a pick-up-and-play Civ-game with well thought-out and well-balanced game-defaulted options, very high on their priority-list. Dont worry.

The reason why I dislike your idea of editing things in strange files is because your basically making a 'option' screen when your starting a new game, accept now I have to fart around in strange files, I'd wratehr have the easy interface windows before game start. I dont like games were the user has to 'fix' it. It seems that in many threads that ask for an idea about something, many people go with the 'Just make it an option' answer. Thats why I said that I didnt want huge Option Screens.

I expect the option-screens in Civ-3, to be just as extensive as they where in SMAC. These option-screens should be tucked away however, with well-balanced defaulted choices in them - so you dont have to change anything if you dont want to, in order to play a good game.

We need to think of everyone, Novice player, Elite Scenario makers, Multi-players, Single Players, etc

Yes, I agree.

[Theben]

Ralf-

OK, I get the idea, but I still dont like the part about unlimited moves for your own railroads. Unlimited RR-moves makes it more or less impossible for AI-civs to succesfully disembark armies on your huge railroaded end-game islands. Its just too easy to counteract such D-day style disembarkments, by mobilizing each and every tank- and howitzer-unit/army scattered across your huge island - then move them over unlimited distances - then attacking, with perhaps no decreased combat-values either.

Then I'd say it would depend on what Firaxis allows bombers to do and how well the AI uses them. In civ1 bombers were exceedingly effective at crippling rail lines and mine production (they could automatically pillage terrain). In civ2 it was removed (IMHO a bad idea) and brought back in SMAC, but w/o the 100% chance of pillaging. I think that's what we'll see bombers do in civ3, but the AI needs to know this.

[Lung]

Well, CTP had limited railroad movement, and it certainly altered strategy. You could not compensate for lack of foresight by throwing everything at your new defensive line. If you get flanked, you stay flanked!

It is certainly a better option, and worked because the goto actually works It seems that CivIII will incorporate this, but they should make it a bit more than the crappy 1/5 movement points that was applied in CTP. How many? 7? 10? More??

I think this deserves a poll

[Grumbold]

It will depend on the size of map the game is designed to work best on. 1/5 could be perfectly adequate - or even too much - if the Civ III world turns out to be significantly smaller than the Civ II one. The cost is certainly something that should be easily accessible in rules.txt if rail movement becomes quantified rather than infinite.

[Theben]

Alternate idea

Actually 2 ideas. The 1st is that, in addition to color-coded RR's, any unit that uses a rail line loses 1 mp for that turn, each time they use it. Thus an engineer could use the rail and then move to an off-rail location, or a tank could use rail, attack once, and redeploy again.

The other idea I got from the old boardgame 3rd Reich. It would replace rr movement with Strategic Redeployment, which would allow units to be moved anywhere within your empire, but then couldn't move later in the same turn.

This could be used in the early game. It would have 3 basic settings:

1. For a unit that is not on a road &/or in your territory, using SR would send the unit back to your nearest city. This would be essentially the same as when the AI tells you to scram from it's territory, except that when done in your turn it uses all movement of the unit. The unit MUST have a valid supply path to the city & ALL movement points or SR cannot be used (so no SR on the explorer who just opened a barb horde).
2. Units on a road within your territory &/or in the territory of an ally with road links to your territory may be moved to any city or fortress within your territory linked to the road. The unit also must have all its movement before using SR and SR consumes all its movement.
3. Units on a RR may move to any location linked by a rail for the cost of 1 mp.

ZOC's will block available SR paths.

[To_Serve_Man]

I cannot advance the conversation because I do not own SMAC nor have I ever played it. I've never played CivOne either... Only Civ2 and CTPOne. But I haven't played either of them in some time. Could you refresh my memory and tell me if there was a Rules.txt file specialy made for each Scenario?

I believe our arguments are not on the same topic. However my view might change when I understand were the Rules.txt file is because I disliked the idea of having One Rules.txt file that ran all the scenarios and main (random map type) game. I really dislike games like this (Europa Universalis comes to mind) were I have to edit these files and I have to save back ups of the MOD pack version and origanal, etc etc.. its tedious and can be complex. However, if my memory serves me correctly, each scenario got its own Rules.txt file. If this is the case, well... I have no argument!

[KrazyHorse]

I'm not sure, but I think that the Fantastic Worlds was what allowed you to run different MODpacks without having to save over the original files.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by To_Serve_Man
However, if my memory serves me correctly, each scenario got its own Rules.txt file.

Yes, thats correct. Each indevidual scenario has its very own unique Rules.txt files that you can tweak. And the main game also have a Rules.txt file (and other tweak-files to), completely separated from the ones in each indevidual scenario-map.

All you have to do, is to take a backup copy of the files you gonna tweak - wheter it is the ones related to the main game, or the ones related to each indevidual scenario. Tweaking these files are rather powerful stuff, and things can very well go horribly wrong - especially if one mess around to much the the main game tweak txt-files. If you have orginal backup-copies you can replace the faulty ones, without being forced to reinstall the entire game.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I'm not sure, but I think that the Fantastic Worlds was what allowed you to run different MODpacks without having to save over the original files.

Hmm! Maybe your right. Im not sure about modpacks.

[Captain]

Limited RR moves is more fun, more strategy.
Unlimited RR moves is tedium, no strategy.

While I normally advocate having options, this shouldn't be an option. It's too fundamental.

Why? 2 scenarios.

1) 2 large armies of enemy AI lands on my north and south shores.

->With unlimited RR moves, I take all the units from my cities, pound the crap out of the nearest enemy on one side, then using the same units RR across the continent and pound the other coast, cycling units so that each of my units has at least 1/3 of a mvt pt left, and then RR them all back to their cities where they're nice and safe from enemy counterattack. do the same the next turn until the enemy armies are completely destroyed.
Too easy, no strategy. No tough decisions. No use of distance to offset numerical inferiority.

->with limited RR moves, I need to choose how many of my units should defend north and how many the south, because I can't do both this time. Perhaps my north is more sparse, so I use just a few units to slow their advance in the north, sacrificing maybe 1 or 2 cities also, while I fight mainly in the south. Do I retreat and entice the enemy to leave the fortresses and follow me into the open where I can counterattack better? This is only possible with limited moves. With unlimited moves, you'd have to be an idiot to leave units in the open when it's so easy to fortify them in cities or forts. Since I must choose my battles, more strategy, more thinking, less automatic mobilisation of all units therefore less tedium.


2) I drive deep into enemy territory with my primary army. The cunning enemy surrounds my army in the newly captured cities.

->With unlimited RR moves, I just take all the newly produced units in my main mfg cities and plow through. No strategy. No thinking, just going thru the motions = tedium.

->With limited RR moves, I have to make strategic choices - do I try to hold out as long as possible in the cities, or pull back with a scorched earth policy until I meet up with my reinforcements, or some other strategy?


ANALOGY:
Having unlimited RR movement is like having unlimited gold.
Normally, you have to be careful what you want to build, whether a bank for more gold or a library for more science is more useful to you now, and whether your city can support both or either. But with unlimited gold, you can build anything you want without worrying about the above, so where is the strategy in what to build?