Can't use roads during invasion?

[kittenOFchaos]

I am pretty sure I'm right in saying that fast units like armour (or the babylonian running archer!) can move to intercept enemy units/armies in a certain range?

YES: from civfanatics infocenter

In Civ2, all units had zone of control, which made for some weird situations, like a phalanx fortified in the mountains stopping tanks going by. Now only the fast (2 or more movement points), big units have them.
Zones of control will be a factor of the defending unit's mobility and firepower. It will, therefore, be much easier to maneuver around a phalanx than a tank. Maneuver speed will also affect the ability of your units to retreat from combat. This means fast, mobile units like mechanized infantry will be able to exert more influence on the zones around them than slower ones.

While in civ2 a warrior could exert the same ZOC as an armour unit THAT is laughable!

[kittenOFchaos]

As for the Spanish invasion of Incaland...What you have to take into account is that fact the Incas were a bunch of Lhamas whose military was not one that had done much research on how to fight a war...at least they realised from spying on the Spainards that they weren't gods...but they thought the barber was a magician and they planned to capture heem alive!

The Incas never contested the roads...projectile weapons have allowed that to a greater extent...while other combatants target only the supply trains! How SANE!

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
I am pretty sure I'm right in saying that fast units like armour (or the babylonian running archer!) can move to intercept enemy units/armies in a certain range?

YES: from civfanatics infocenter

In Civ2, all units had zone of control, which made for some weird situations, like a phalanx fortified in the mountains stopping tanks going by. Now only the fast (2 or more movement points), big units have them.
Zones of control will be a factor of the defending unit's mobility and firepower. It will, therefore, be much easier to maneuver around a phalanx than a tank. Maneuver speed will also affect the ability of your units to retreat from combat. This means fast, mobile units like mechanized infantry will be able to exert more influence on the zones around them than slower ones.

While in civ2 a warrior could exert the same ZOC as an armour unit THAT is laughable!

Tell that to the rather topical Afghan warrors who immobilized whole Russian tank divisions by constantly destroying their fuel and supplies. Not many of them had better than a rifle and knife to fight with. Zones of Control are about the ability to ambush, not the ability to engage in open battle. Anyone can kill tank crews when they are sleeping in their tents at night.

I know Civ is not a pure wargame, but every game that has Zones of Control as a concept has them for all units, not just the powerful or fast ones. If Civ III improved the Ai's ability to stud its territory with fortifications and garrison them effectively then there would be no need for these strange rules that no one else has needed to invent.

[Lordfluffers]

I think People are approaching this through the wrong angle. Yes eliminate infinite howie problem but not by affecting the road system but by changing the howie itself. I always fortified my connections with other civs and road crossings of strategic importance!!

A slight reduction in movementt is fine but 1mp/turn on roads for an attacker is ridiculous. Dont forget that each turn represents the minimum of a year. Secondly, ignoring that fact, in practice roads are easily utilised by attackers and thus communications are extremely important. Thus Fortifications are always placed near and around major communication lines and nodal points. The Germans advanced 400 miles deep into Soviet territory in WW2, cutting off and surrounding millions of Soviet soldiers by shooting up the Russian roads before defences could be prepared or troops moved to block them. That is how modern war works. Even in previous times, with far fewer and lower quality roads, attacks were often formed along the axis of a road.

The effects of a hostile population and mines is minimal in actuality. For a start you need troops in the location to place mines. When the Germans broke through in France 1940, the French did not have time to deploy mines along the German advance because it was so swift and completely outflanked them.

Take away the use of roads and strategical attacks become impossible. Instead a situation arises where predictably, the largest army launchs a frontal attack. Tactics become no more varied than this. Roads needed to be fortified and guarded. People here who dont understand military logistics dont understand how hard it is to block a road without prior planning. All those for this idea are making absurd suggestions such as 'it represents mines, ambushes, local resistance'.

1.) Mines cant be deployed if there arent soldiers to transport and place them. In Civ, if the road on the map is empty, then clearly there arent any soldiers to place mines. Mines arent usually deployed in peacetime either. In any case it takes a few days at most to clear a minefield that is isolated and without military support. In a civ turn, this is negliable. Germans shot through heavy minefileds in Russia and were within a few days 50 miles to the Red Army's rear.

2. Wheres the units that are ambushing. All military capability in Civ is represented through units. If they are not on the map or near the road how such an ambush or counter-attack occur???? If an enemy attacks up a major artery then that is your fault for not protecting you lines of communication. If there are no counter-attack reserves, that too is you problem.

3.) Resistance is part of Civ 2 in the partisan unit. Resistance, a phenomenon on really at a large scale in WW2 only occured due to the ability of local populations being supplied with weapons from the combatants. No weapons=no resistance. I agree that local populations rarely co-operate with an invading force but their miniscule attempts to change sign-posts and commit tiny acts of sabotage are largely irrelevent in the overall picture of a civ 3 turn.

Ultimately, roads are valuable assets to both defender and attacker and thus Civ 3 ( a game incidentally supposed to at least partially mimic reality) should at least allow for the wealth of strategies that involve the use of lines of communication.

If you really want to delay an advance, start destroying roads and railways, blow up bridges etc, like in real life. Maybe there should be a small penalty but if there is it should be small.

[Triped]

What I suggested is that Civ3 could have an option to destroy any roads at will...without any units there or anything...it would deny the enemies use of roads, and pacify these historically scrupulous guys.

[kittenOFchaos]

In France the Germans used armour which doesn't need roads...THAT is one of the reasons armour is so bloody useful it can outflank quickly as it doen't rely on roads...

Roads and railways are defended in war as tey are the main routes that an invasion follows and they are essential for supply. They are easy to defend properly as you concentrate force astride a road rather than man heavily the whole front!



I don't see peoples problem...roads/rail are yours to exploit to the full once you capture the land...so supply isn't a problem once you control the land. First you have to make it yours. THE ROADS/RAIL remian important as these will be the arteries to supply the front line with troops from your interior ONCE you control the land...is that so hard to handle?


Howwies have already been changed Lord F...they are support units rather than units in their own right? GO TO THE civfanatics infocenter!

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
In France the Germans used armour which doesn't need roads...THAT is one of the reasons armour is so bloody useful it can outflank quickly as it doen't rely on roads...

In perfect weather some forms of terrain can be traversed by tracked vehicles but none at the same speed as roads. You don't find nice gaps in the hedgerows between fields in straight lines for miles either. The French Bocage hedges were notoriously dense and renowned for fouling vehicles. The minute it rains heavy vehicles churn non road surfaces into seas of mud. All of this means it is essential to use roads (and railroads as flat roadbeds if not for trains) as the primary routes of any advance.

Waiting until the city falls to enable roads to be used is akin to first world war trench warfare. There is even the opposite problem that the defender, once they lose, will be penalised moving their units in a counterattack over territory they still hold. That can't possibly be invisible partisans, saboteurs or mines because the enemy hasn't yet set foot on those tiles!

If each tile had to be separately captured by an advancing unit and was then normal cost for following units then I would be quite content. Systems of that nature have been advanced before as sensible approaches to countering the infinite railroad movement. Recon units would fan out to capture key paths toward the objectives and then the main combat armies would advance at a good but not infinite speed. Having all the tiles keyed to the city itself - potentially up to 5 tiles distant - makes the whole approach far to slow and any element of surprise impossible. Like in WW I any thrust will be immediately countered because the opponent will have ample time to reinforce weak locations and fortify.

[Jaybe]

One of the side effects of having no movement benefits on 'enemy' roads, hopefully, will be that the AI might come out of its cities and there will actually be "front lines." During the 20th century this would be much better (well, at least more familiar).

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK, Here is my take on the situation:

1) We don't have ALL the information about how enemy roads/RR will work, aside from the knowledge that movement on Roads/RR within an enemies borders will not be 1/3mp/infinite.

2) If enemy Roads/Rail do NOT negate terrain effects on movement, then I'll agree with all the nay-sayers that this is a STUPID system!

3) From what I have heard, all units will still possess ZOC's, it's just that mobility and weapon range of the units will determine the effectiveness of it.

4) I agree that this is not the best solution to the "Infinite Howie" concept, and that a Unit Range/Supply Line system would have been more effective (and would have allowed Grumbolds scenario of Afghan fighters immobilizing tank columns!!-see my earlier post!)

5) With this rule in effect, I hope that their will be a FEW more "Special Operations" units that treat all terrain as roads (1/3mp cost), making the construction of such units much more important.

6) Lastly, as I've stated before, it's just an abstraction! Not an ideal one I admit, but few abstractions of multiple phenomena are!!! If you don't like the rule, then edit it out of the Rules.txt file!!!!!!!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Father Beast]

I just thought of something.

If you are invading a civ, with immediate goal of taking a small city with another high culture city nearby. you cannot use the roads in their culture radius, until you finally take the city.

Now suppose that the next city has such high culture that its borders would envelop the city you just took. the city you just took has no cultural radius (culture doesn't transfer between civs), so you still can't use the roads ON 3 SIDES OF THE CITY!!!!

I realize this takes some special circumstances, but since firaxis isn't doing a public beta, I have to bug hunt in any way I can

I hope I explained this well enough.

[Ozymandous]

This wouldn't be a bug, IMHO, this would be exactly like a FOP.

A city that has low culture wouldn't be the end of your conquest typically if you had already massed the forces to go to war, typically such a city would be simply a staging point for further offensive action.

Thing that will slow down rapid military expansion (at least a little) will be the fact that existing culture generating buildings will not generate culture if captured (if I read that correctly earlier). I gues this means that an invader will need to tear down and sell old culture buildings and build new one's in their image so the city can actually gain borders.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Jaybe
One of the side effects of having no movement benefits on 'enemy' roads, hopefully, will be that the AI might come out of its cities and there will actually be "front lines."

Good point. Completely overtake huge empires within just 1-3 turns, killing offensive city-fortified AI-units becomes a little boring and unchallenging after a while.

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
2) If enemy Roads/Rail do NOT negate terrain effects on movement, then I'll agree with all the nay-sayers that this is a STUPID system!

Hey - I think you struck something there. Lets say Firaxis stands firm behind the idea of NO road-bonus until enemy-city is conquered (which I really hope). What if moving on uncontrolled enemy-roads (regardless if these roads go through slow terrains, like forests & mountains) always gave you one and the same roadless easy terrain movement-potential? This would give the player an incentive to keep using the roads, without selling out this otherwise great idea.

[Rakki]

I've already said this before, but I think the best way to treat it would be to make roads/railway bonus available in enemy territories only if you have a unit stationed on it already (one that expended 1 mp or whatever to move into that square). Even if it's just a cheap partisan or a rifleman unit. Maybe even remove the rail bonus until the enemy city is captured.

It's simply unrealistic to say partisans/mines/kids on the rail/whatever will make the roads unusable - we don't SEE any partisans on the map, and to simply say a road is unusable is BS particularly if you've decided to dump a division of soldiers on the road to keep it clear.

There's a few examples in history where surprise was achieved through the non use of main roads (German invasion of France through the Ardennes Forest, Hannibal & elephants over the Alps) but the reason why generals love roads is because they can use them to move reinforcements and supplies quickly.

Tracked vehicles may go offroad but it increases wear and tear (meaning more tanks break down) and what about the trucks bringing up their fuel and ammo ?

Even in ancient times ox carts used to carry the luggage needed roads - otherwise they'll get bogged down (particularly in bad weather).

Armies love roads. That's why defenders love to build fortresses where they can watch roads. It's simply historically inaccurate and probably DUMB (ie counter-intuitive) game wise to say a city arbitrarily makes roads useless.

Maybe Firaxis decided to simply make the road/rail bonus unavailable because it's "simple". (the idea of stationing units on roads to make them "secure" being too complicated for the average guy) but by god it irritates me.....

If you don't want people using roads to come up to your city then build a damn fort to stop them ! Or just destroy the road yourself !

[HalfLotus]

I suspect that the new road rules are for game balancing, and not for realism or continuity with Civ 2. Nobody on these boards knows how the gameplay or game balance works at this point. We have only been given a few tidbits about the game. Until we play the game, any attempt at strategy discussion is mere speculation.
Again, I’m almost sure that this is a game balancing issue and takes precedence over realism.

[Rakki]

I'm afraid of it turning into something like the No Man's Land in World War I. Every defender city would have like a moat around it the site of its cultural border, while the defenders can still just do inifinite howie on the ATTACKERS because they have full use of the railway !