Can't use roads during invasion?

[Gramphos]

Now Dan has started to get a bad memory
IIRC he plays the game everyday, and he has hard to remember

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
Also, as was alluded to in another thread, a Right of Passage speeds up movement on roads through another Civ's territory. IIRC, without one, you can't get road or railroad movement bonuses in someone else's territory.

Dan

[Guest]

I think the invading player should get no rail bonuses and half of the road bonus.

Taking a rail line(including an engine and boxcars) would be a very difficult task, especially if it were to apply to all of your troops, each one (if not moved in a stack) would have to supply each(an engine & boxcar) fro each and every unit you had; that is very implausable!


What is plausable; is that you could use the enemies roads, albeit at some risk due to you being on 'foreign' ground. Maybe some locals could be hindering your efforts to travle the road by tearing up parts of the road or by creating certain types of road blocks. So if you cut the bonus in half for roads(instead of eliminating it), it just makes more sense.

[jdd2007]

YAY!!!

this is a very good feature. i like that you can make the right of passage pact...

ps finally firaxis does something that we all give

[Skanky Burns]

That just gave me a nasty thought. What if you've got right of passage with your 'friendly neighbour' civ, and decide that moving right next to their nice, plump city via their rail was a good idea. And then attacking I guess that models the bonus from surprise attacks nicely hehe

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
That just gave me a nasty thought. What if you've got right of passage with your 'friendly neighbour' civ, and decide that moving right next to their nice, plump city via their rail was a good idea. And then attacking I guess that models the bonus from surprise attacks nicely hehe

I guess that nobody will sign a Right of Passage pact with you for a long time then.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Gramphos
I guess that nobody will sign a Right of Passage pact with you for a long time then.

Its ok, ive put that aggressive behaviour behind me now. My massive army is only for defence. Its been three long years since I added the English to my glorious civilization. All i need is a Right of Passage through your territory to, erm, better protect my borders. Thats it, just sign on the dotted line.

Say, thats a nice capital you've got there.

[PGM]

Originally posted by jdd2007
finally firaxis does something that we all give

I'm pretty sure that once we actually will be able to talk about the game knowing for a fact what we're talking about (ie, after release date), there'll be much more reasons to give Firaxis .

[Bleyn]

Actually, as I think about it, I'm not sure why there should be any reduction of the road bonus in ancient times. My reasoning is thusly:

Mines did not exist. Explosives didn't exist. Delays would have to come in form of large scale destruction of the road bed itself, roadblocks, ambushes, or direct military assault.

In ancient civilizations, they tended to have fairly despotic governments. Under such a government, the sort of actions that the civilian population would have to take to damage the roadway itself, would have to come at orders of the government at some level. The general population knew better than to do such things on their own. And given the time it would take for the government to learn of the invasion, decide on such a course of action, and the amount of time and effort needed to do enough to be meaningful, it just wouldn't happen. Especially if the roadbed was of Roman construction. Those Romans knew how to build roads. IIRC, their techniques aren't that disimilar to modern ones, we've just improved on the materials. The government would be more likely to order their armies into the field than give any orders about the roadbeds.

I suppose roadblocks might happen without government orders, but to be significant delayers, they would have to be extensive, and backed by a certain amount of military force.

Ambushes would really be military action, and especially in ancient times that should be represented by battle between units, the same as with direct military assault.

Really, about the only thing I can see that would slow an army moving through enemy territory in ancient times would be pillaging, plundering, and raiding for supplies.

[Lordfluffers]

Argggghhhh!!! What a bad idea!!!!

Part of any attack in a war is capturing the main lines of communication. Germany invaded Russia and the West successfully by shooting down its roads with large numbers of tanks. It also used the railways effectively. What hindered German use of communication was heavy bombing in the West and massive partisan resistance in the East. If a road is there (or a railway for that matter) and it is not defended, either by border guards or a blocking force, then of course a civ should be able to stream down it regardless of whether they built it or it is in their cultural boundaries. All the activities mentioned previously can be done in the game through partisans, pillaging etc. Mines also rarely slow up roads for long periods and if you really want to mimic this then just pillage the rail/road in question and count that as mining it!!!! If you don't defend your lines of communication then that is your disadvantage, not that of an attacker!!!

This is a remarkably good idea...it gets my FULL support

Roads in invasions are closed off, mined and guarded not a conduit for an enemy invasion...bye, bye empires falling easily in 1 turn.
__________________
kOc

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France fell quickly as did Poland, Russia nearly did too in World War 2. Roads are always a conduit in an enemy invasion. Thats why you should guard them!!!

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Bleyn
Actually, as I think about it, I'm not sure why there should be any reduction of the road bonus in ancient times. My reasoning is thusly:

Mines did not exist. Explosives didn't exist. Delays would have to come in form of large scale destruction of the road bed itself, roadblocks, ambushes, or direct military assault.

Who gives a ****. The idea is good for gameplay anyway, because its reduces the inflationary "conquer an empire within one turn" problem. Hopefully they follow it up with fixed RR move-ranges, as well. Besides, once you have conquered an enemy-city, you can use the road/RR infrastructure again that this city controls (probably within city-indevidual culture-borders).

Really, about the only thing I can see that would slow an army moving through enemy territory in ancient times would be pillaging, plundering, and raiding for supplies.

Exactly. There you have your reasons for slowed down ancient invasions.

[Lordfluffers]

Originally posted by Ralf

quote:

Really, about the only thing I can see that would slow an army moving through enemy territory in ancient times would be pillaging, plundering, and raiding for supplies.

Exactly. There you have your reasons for slowed down ancient invasions.

Er the Vandals and Goths marched straight into Rome and sacked it because of the efficient Roman road system. In ancient times there were very few roads. When there were, civilisations were very vulnerable if the roads werent adequately fortified as enemies charged down them unhindered, burning and looting as they went!!!

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Lordfluffers
When there were, civilisations were very vulnerable if the roads werent adequately fortified as enemies charged down them unhindered, burning and looting as they went!!!

You can still use foreign roads built by the enemy. Its just that you must conquer the enemy-city, controlling the surrounding roads FIRST.

[Father Beast]

Wow! we seem to have hit a nerve here!

OK, we all seem to agree that something should be done to get rid of the "infinite howies" strategy and the like. We also seem to agree that use of enemy rails during invasions runs into problems and should be restricted.

It also seems to most of us, that the same doesn't, and maybe shouldn't, apply to roads. enemies seem able to use regular roads without difficulty or hindrance, historically.

Perhaps it should be noted that there wasn't an ancient version of infinite howies using only roads, was there? And so the same imbalance doesn't extend to ancient warfare, does it?

[Sirotnikov]

I think it's incorrect.

If anything, durnig ancient times road should be used for invasion, mainly since they don't provide unlimited movement but realistically speed up attacks.

That's why big cities which were near roads were fortified.

However, I agree that this is a good idea for modern time, where an enemy can't use my rail roads to advance into my territory, therefore I think an enemy should treat foreign rail as simple road.

[Immortal Wombat]

Its acceptable, perhaps even useful for railroads (though totally unnecessary if you just make the movement cost 1/5 or something, and make attacks end a unit's turn).

But a stupid thing if it applies to roads. There isn't much you can do to roads (especially in ancient times) that will render them no advantage to attacking troops, but still useful to defending troops.

Mines, blockades are great, but how do your defending troops avoid them with no loss of movement?