Editor ->Movement Rate for RR option

[Captain]

I notice in the Editor that there's an option to change to movement rate along roads. (currently 3x)

AFAIK, there's currently no option for the railroad. How many of you would like to see this as an option in the Editor? You don't have to use it but those of us who want RR's less infinite (so navy and air become more useful, and distance still means something) would be able to toggle that to something like 9x or 12x.

I assume this wouldn't be particularly difficult to add in. Let me know if there's some deep-rooted problem I'm not seeing.

[Dida]

As it is right now, a warrior can go around the globe a billion times in one single turn on RR, running faster than the speed of light, which is ridiculous.
RR is too damn overpowered, it makes the defender's job too easy, and invasion totally impossible. As soon as the invader lands his troops on the shore, the defender can gather every single artillery pieces he has on the continent, and bomb the crap out of the invader. After that, his tanks can gather, and promptly wipe out the enemy, and return to their original cities at the same turn.

[Lemmy]

what Dida said, and this:

This is one of the few things that where done better in CtP, and yes, Firaxis should take that as an insult

[davidttm]

Same problem, different approach

Yep. Railroads (and Airlifts and Airplane Re-basing Missions) seem unbalancing.

Each turn represents at least a year so it makes sense, on the one hand, that you could get around the world in that time. On the other hand, how come the USS Enterprise can only sail from San Diego to San Francisco during that same year? How come the foot soldier and worker can only walk from New York to New Jersey if they are on a road? How come it takes several turns to sail over, unload and attack a new continent, but once you've got a city with an airport you can pile in the units?

Limiting RR movement would be tricky though. Why should infantry go 12 squares, while the modern armor (riding on the same train) goes 36 during the same turn?


I would suggest having the sea and road movement values change at about the same time that RR is introduced (I'm not editor savvy, so maybe this is already possible).

An example would be to triple the road movement from 3 to 9 and increase the sea movement from 1 to 3 with the discovery of Steam Power. This would only be fair if it was triggered for all civs when the first civ discovers it (similar to the manhattan project in CIV II, which allowed all civs to build atomic weapons).

This seems like a pretty big change so I wouldn't really expect Firaxis to try it in a patch, but it seems like it would get at the crux of the RR and Naval movement complaints.

[Captain]

Re: Same problem, different approach

Originally posted by davidttm

Limiting RR movement would be tricky though. Why should infantry go 12 squares, while the modern armor (riding on the same train) goes 36 during the same turn?

They've got to drive to the train station.

[Captain]

Re: Same problem, different approach

Originally posted by davidttm

I would suggest having the sea and road movement values change at about the same time that RR is introduced (I'm not editor savvy, so maybe this is already possible).

An example would be to triple the road movement from 3 to 9 and increase the sea movement from 1 to 3 with the discovery of Steam Power. This would only be fair if it was triggered for all civs when the first civ discovers it (similar to the manhattan project in CIV II, which allowed all civs to build atomic weapons).

This seems like a pretty big change so I wouldn't really expect Firaxis to try it in a patch, but it seems like it would get at the crux of the RR and Naval movement complaints.

Okay, seriously now, you've got an idea there that's worth considering. You could boost road/sea movement for the modern era but wouldn't it be simpler just to give modern units MORE movement points? And how does that solve the unlimited RR problem?

Others have suggested a "locomotive unit" that is the only unit that can use RR's. You then load and unload other units onto it like a transport. This wouldn't be any more tedious than a sea invasion. If we cut down on the # of units overall (decreases tedium too!), this would make it very appealing. Plus, if the AI knows how to use transports already, it should be able to use locomotives too.

But, I think those are all harder than adding the simple option of editing RR movement rate.

I just want a simple way for now, to rebalance unlimited movement thing. There's some strangeness to having armour travel 36 while infantry travels only 12, but that's ok compared to having infinite travel! At least, in my mind.

Voters seem to agree, this should be part of the next Editor patch!

[0bsidi0n]

I think this is a pretty valid point, but the complaint that it makes invasions impossible doesn't really make sense to me. Can't the invaders use the railroads for the exact same purposes? And what's wrong with rebasing missions? I don't think its odd that an airplane can fly around the world in a year. Or a ship, for that matter. But that's not really mentioned.

[Ming]

Originally posted by 0bsidi0n
Can't the invaders use the railroads for the exact same purposes?

Uhhh.... NO. You can't get the RR movement bonus on rails in other people's territory

[Captain]

Originally posted by 0bsidi0n
I think this is a pretty valid point, but the complaint that it makes invasions impossible doesn't really make sense to me. Can't the invaders use the railroads for the exact same purposes?

No, you can't use the roads or railroads that are within a rival's territory (ie: cultural boundaries).

-edit-
Ming beat me too it!

I think you can use them if you have RoP though. But someone you're at war with isn't going to give you RoP!

And what's wrong with rebasing missions? I don't think its odd that an airplane can fly around the world in a year. Or a ship, for that matter. But that's not really mentioned.

Sorry, what do you mean? Are you saying you think ship movement is ok or not? If we cut out unlimited RR movement, that makes ship & air movement less impotent.

[Gramphos]

If it sohould be an option, the easiest way would make it to be based on to road multiplier (or the savegame format would need a big reworking) Which means that if the road multiplier were 3 you and a new RR multiplier were 3 that would mean that you could walk 9 times on a railroad.

[Immortal Wombat]

You don't have that option?

[davidttm]

Re: Re: Same problem, different approach

Originally posted by Captain
You could boost road/sea movement for the modern era but wouldn't it be simpler just to give modern units MORE movement points?

I was thinking about the infamous 'game balance', of course. Giving the benefit only to modern units hands them an even bigger advantage than they already have. I don't really want to be stuck with horsies when Herr Bismarck shows up with his 9 movement Panzers.

And yes I do know the air units should be able to rebase around the world, but I think that gives them an unnecessary advantage over naval units, which would also be able to rebase anywhere in the world during a one-year long move. So another two cents worth from me might be to add toggles to sea movement (to increase naval unit speed) and rebase range (to decrease air unit speed).

I do agree that allowing modification of the RR movement is probably the most direct way to handle this (Even in the infantry and modern armor example I used above the prudent general would probably keep the stack of offensive and defensive units together).

I was just trying to (hijack the thread?) address movement by all units including air and sea units.

[davidttm]

Re: Re: Re: Same problem, different approach

oops

[notyoueither]

Tanks on flat-beds don't move faster than men in passenger cars, so a movement multipler would not make things better, IMO.

The way to fix rail movement might be to introduce an old board game concept. Rail Cap (capacity). Only so many units per turn can move on the rails. There are only so many trains. Maybe 1 or 2 units per city on any given continent?

Salve

PS. Option 4 all the way!

[lockstep]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Tanks on flat-beds don't move faster than men in passenger cars, so a movement mutipler would not make things better, IMO.

Rule suggestion: On rails, any unit may move a certain number of tiles (say, 9) per turn regardless of the unit's movement rate.