Railroads are just ****

[vondrack]

Originally posted by M. le Comte
There could be several versions of trains, from "boiling water" (i don't know how to say that in english) trains to high speed electric trains, just as there are several types of transports, from sails to troop transports, including galions.

You mean a train with a STEAM engine.

[Blake]

Why not a train unit ?

Click click clickity clickity click.
Thats the sound of the tedious micromanagment of loading units onto and from trains and moving the trains around.

Now shush. Firaxis may notice your idea and pounce on it and make us all suffer increased tedium and pointless micromanagment.

[David Murray]

Okay, fair enough if three thousand people all agreed with the consensus. But are Firaxis going to change the game because 20 or 30 Apolytoners think it should be changed? I bloody hope not! If anything Firaxis should make it something in the preferences to appease all of the grumpy gamers in this thread...

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

There are a lot of good ideas, but I doubt Firaxis will actually rewrite their code for our suggestions.

Personally I'd be happy with a HIGH maintenance cost per tile that has the railroad improvement. That way I'd still have unlimited mobility on the railroad (realistic) but I would have to be real cautious on where I built it having to plot out the minimum number of tiles to achieve the maximum mobility.

[Fosse]

In favor of trains

[size=1] originally posted by The Puny Celt[/size=1]

The main users of railroads, even for the wargamers, are the Worker units. To me, it's a real relief to build railroads because it lessens the micromanagement nightmare of shifting workers from one place to another. Imagine restricted railway movement in any new version: there's a hill you want your workers to mine 20 spaces away, a railroad connects your workers to the hill but under the movement restriction it takes 2-3 moves to get there (move your half a dozen workers 8 spaces, end of turn, move your workers 8 spaces, end of turn, move...getting tedious?). Then when you get to the hill, pollution has sprung up back where the workers started from, it's causing a food shortage in that city so back your workers go again).

To begin with, I see no reason that people would be moving their workers eight tiles at a time every turn. Click and drag your workers to their destination, and then wait a few turns while they get thier. There are lots of ways to avoid current opportunities for clickfests, and I don't see that changing railroads would make us ignore this one.

I understand the main argument against a train unit: increased tedium with loading/unloading constantly.

If these train units were implelented properly though, then there would be no call for constant loading and unloading. Remember, this suggestion comes also with the understand that rail tiles themselves would cost upkeep and provide no food or production bonus. The idea is to eliminate the ugly and unrealistic railroad spider. The ideas are not seperable, in my opinion.

So, first of all, we would have a situation where rails don't go everywhere anyway, and you won't be loading workers onto trains because it's doubtful that their destination is along a rail anyhow. (for the record, I support an all terrain as roads Engineer unit with two or three movement points)

Now, this will make the primary use of railroads for the player military (we can model all the economic effects that we want, but they will still be used by us as mlitary transport). Knowing that we can't teleport our armies will lead to us putting some thought about where our troops are stationed to begin with, so we won't be caught with our pants down. This will lead to requiring thought about where to lay rails, to maximize its benefits. So we wind up with more strategy, less thoughtless building.

Train units themselves should be able to hold a vast number of units. one train can represent more than one boxcar, so I have no problem with 12 or 15 units on board.

We would use the trains to move our forces up to enemy territory (I think with these changes that trains should even work in enemy territory, with a one turn "layover" when crossing the borders) and to bring supports to provide extra defense and coutner attacks on our homeland.

The fact that this proposal would break the "Cover Everything with Rail" syndrome, and add layers of strategy to consider, makes it a worthwhile one, I believe.

The problem with simply adding a flat movement rate to railroads is this: Almost no point in cutting the enemies rail liines, and a dilution of the realism and strategy. Units can move to the end of the rail, get off, and get back on one tile over, losing a turn of movement to your cut. If we're using railcars, however, they won't be able to move anywhere without rails, so the lines will have to be repaired. Sure, someone might be able to repair in one turn, but only if they are prepared.
And by dilution of strategy I mean this: the fact that effectivly using train units means organizing units BEFORE deploying them means that you can't just start zipping them in the direction they are needed as soon as they are ready. You have to begin preparing invasion or reinforcement forces ahead of time. You have to plan them out. Players who employ strategy are rewarded, those who fail to see ahead get their cities taken (Reward strategy in a strategy game? WHAT?).

[Capt Dizle]

Seriously, I remember someone from Firaxis saying that there was some sort of technical issue that made it more or less unlikely that railroad movement would be changed. Closed issue folks.

Then again, the board is full of discussion that amounts to hot air because its way too late.

[star mouse]

Railroads should give production bonuses for a city by connecting it to another city.

[M. le Comte]

Originally posted by star mouse
Railroads should give production bonuses for a city by connecting it to another city.

Right. But not "production bonuses", trade bonuses ! It seems much more logical. So only railroads connecting two different cities should generate trade.

[Zizka]

How about this .. lets institute a maintenance cost for railroads.. keeping these humungous rail networks covering every tile would be insane; especially those outside of city radii.
As for movement i like the idea of reducing the movement base of units that use rail, but not infinite. Moreover, when a tech is discovered (one that modfied movement. wheel, rail, automobile, warp engine (LOL) a movement base of x is given to units, and x increases as techs are discovered until it reaches y max for that unit (same for naval units too).

I tend to side with those that feel that it makes late game war just silly; especially on the defensive. a costly railway network with limited movement (but with increasing movement rates) is my solution.

Z

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

I agree on the high maintenance cost but still believe movement should be infinite. The idea that it takes 2-3 years to ship a cargo from Atlanta, GA to Los Angeles, CA just isn't very realistic.

[YC4B4U]

I like what Zizka is saying regarding the technological impact on Transport. It is not currently taken into account very well.

The Horseman unit moving as far as Mech Inf? I don't think so! Steam Engine allows rail transport, Combustion increases movement by 1 on road and rail, Motorised Transport increases movement by another 1. etc etc. This way a MI could move (say) 12 squares by road after Motorised Transport. Twice as far as a Horseman.

Something to think about anyway.

BTW - GhengisFarb - for my sanity, please don't use the word realistic in relation to Civilization 3!

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Both Zizka and YC4B4U make some excellent points! I think, though, that initial railroads could grant units on them a 1/10 MP bonus then, as YC4B4U then, as YC4B4U points out, each new tech should increase the movement bonus, for roads and rails, to the next level. So combustion would give 1/4 MP and 1/12 MP bonus for Road and RR respectively, then motorized transport would give 1/5 and 1/15 bonus respectively (Though motorized transport refers to automobiles, I also like to think that it refers to the development of the modern, diesel locomotive!) You could even have a Modern Age tech which grants you a 1/6 and 1/18 bonus!
Anyway, just a thought! This is all probably just speculative anyway!!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Jaybe]

As a hypothetical, let's say that RRs allowed a flat movement of 20 tiles. In many instances, especially on a less than Large/Huge world or on a non-pangea continent, that would allow for movement most anywhere you wanted to go. Therefore, infinite movement is a great simplification.

OTOH, vondrack's idea of "I believe that one possible solution would be to allow units either move along RRs, or attack, but not both in a given turn" would be a great addition, though unlikely to be implemented.

[Conqueror]

If railroad infinite movement is no way restricted, then patch makers should atleast increase modern ships movement points pretty much.

Ofcourse trains are faster then ships, but it sucks when it takes 10 turns to cross an ocean with transport and you can travel the same distance in one turn + attack if you somehow have rails around the big ocean what is in the middle of this fictious map.

[Zizka]

The problem i have with infinite movement isnt so much the "realism" aspect as to what it does for defence; it makes the human player essentially invicible, especially on an island/continent. Thsi would make for pretty sucky multiplayer. in SP modern wars for me are rare as invasions are an excercise in blood letting.

Whiel some realists would say "it should not take year to move from paris to moscow"; i dont think it the wholesale re-location of an entire military in one turn should be that easy. Here's a historical example.. WWII 1944, under civ rules the germans would just pull everything out of russia and pound the allies in normady and move back; all in the same turn without Russia being none the wiser.

One idea that hit me was tying movement.unit production to resources in the modern age. IF you have x coal/oil/uranium sources your units (based on that fuel source) would give you base+x movement points +tech bonus. I woudl also eliminat eteh need for coal/oil to BUILD these units. Nothing would stop a nation from building a battleship; but with limited oil supply it wouldnt move very far. Rail would have flat rate +bonuses (resources plus tech)
for example lets a civ has 2 coal + 1 post coal tech
their riflemen would move 1+2+1 =4
on rail adding 5:1 (as an example) the rifleman could move up to 20 areas (and more with better tech..automobile etc)

Z