Strategic issue: bridges

[Trifna]

Yeah I know, they're not ready to make Civ IV yet but so what... I like it.

One little problem in Civ is that bridges don't exist. It's REALLY not minor. Barbarians had trouble passing the Rhin to attack Romans, frontiers were generally where a river was and could only be passed by bridges (or taking lot of time with raddles...), bridges are important objectives to destroy, influences the places you can go (river stops you), etc.

This of course implicates giving some more importance to rivers. What do you think about it? Ideas?

Someone wants to talk about the impact bridges should have in Civ?


EDIT: We're talking about bridges over river tiles here, not over oceans or where our Civ III boats go! Over ocean, it's something else...

[Skeeve]

Well,
I'm not totally sold on the bridge idea just yet since pre-engineering slows down movement across rivers.

However, I would love to see the ability to bridge ocean tiles someday. (Just one or two tiles - not the whole dang Ocean or maybe coast tiles only).

[Demerzel]

civ3 was a step in the right direction for rivers, i.e. movement bonuses removed and defensive bonuses for a unit defending across a river from the attacker

still a fair few things that could be added tho'. bridges across coastal waters would be nice too.

[vmxa1]

I do not know about the bridges, but I would not mind them making moutains much harder to cross. They have no real impact on 1 move units. It should take a lot longer to traverse a mountain than it does a plain (without roads).

[Alex]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I do not know about the bridges, but I would not mind them making moutains much harder to cross. They have no real impact on 1 move units. It should take a lot longer to traverse a mountain than it does a plain (without roads).

This is why I like the fungus in SMAC. They could really be in a pain in the a** w/ regards to expansion, but offered an interesting strategic element.

[vmxa1]

I have not played in years, but one race had a sort of affinity with the natives and could often capture them and use them as troops. I liked doing that, free troops.

[Trifna]

Passing water should normally take alot of moves... you don't pass 3000 men just like this! You need to build some little boat to cross since people don't swim!!

EXCEPT: Except if you built a nice little bridge. No problemo then. Pass the river as a road tile.

[Alex]

But if the rivers would become this kind of obstacle, then their commerce bonuses would have to go. I always look for river tiles in order to build cities, because of the commerce bonus.

Idea: bridges should be allowed since the start, but in a primitive way: you can only cross x units over them until you discover a more advanced tech.

[Jaybe]

Rivers without bridges should cost 1 extra movement point. Of course, this would only affect fast units. I mentioned this before, some months ago.

[Vercingetorix]

Of course, if we are talking about implementing new, more complex river rules, then we should include things such as fords. Many settlements grew up around accessible river fords, as they represented important crossroads.

Also, perhaps settlements (cities) located on rivers should provide some sort of pre-bridge river crossing bonus - i.e. less movement points required when crossing a river when starting from or ending in a city. This could represent the existence of the necessary crossing "infrastructure" - be it primitive bridges or boats.

[Ozymandias]

I think replacing river tiles wth rivers being between tilles was a mistake.

As mentioned earlier, they have been significant obstacles to cross -- yet they have always also been major transport routes, reasonably represented in earlier Civ games by basically allowing road movement rates along them.

I was hoping to see this expanded, so that riverine craft could be created -- major factors in the American Civil War, the British Khartoum campaign, Vikings raiding Paris via the Seine, Albany being a major port -- and note that the defensive bonus afforded by being attacked across a river can just as easily be achieved by diminishing a unit's attack strength when attacking from a river to a non-river tile.

-Oz.

[wrylachlan]

Out There Idea

OK. This one is out there, but bear with me.

We liked the old style where rivers represent a movement bonus so that early scouts used the river systems... but...

We also like having the rivers between tiles so that they can have a strategic bonus to defense when fighting across rivers.

Solution.

Offset the water "tiles" a half tile to the land tiles.
So when you are on land, rivers go between tiles. If you are standing on a tile bordering a river and you have a unit that is amphibious, you hit "Embark" and your unit gets in its boat on the river and the whole grid shifts so that the river is the center of the grid. You travel up the river a ways and then "Disembark" back onto land and the grid shifts back.

Embarking and Disembarking would cost movement points, but the increased movement along rivers would make it worthwhile. To make it less complicated for the player, the go-to function would automatically use river travel when it is faster, without any need for the player to manually Embark and Disembark units.

In order to cross a river without a bridge you would have to essentially Embark from one side and then Disemark to the other. This allows you to make bridges more important by simply being conservative with what units get the amphibious flag. Chariots can never cross rivers.

If you think this makes bridges TOO important you could also add fords. Places where the river is shallow and you don't need to embark/disembark to cross.

[Trifna]

But if the rivers would become this kind of obstacle, then their commerce bonuses would have to go. I always look for river tiles in order to build cities, because of the commerce bonus.

Commerce: For commerce, I guess commerce isn't stoped alot. Of course a little, but look in reality and you'll see it just takes a little more effort and it stil passes.

If you think this makes bridges TOO important you could also add fords. Places where the river is shallow and you don't need to embark/disembark to cross.

Well, where it is THAT shallow, I wonder if it shown on the map... We're talking about rivers such as Danube, Rhin, and all rivers that as a real effect on a map.


About the bridges, well even the first men could use some way to go over water, but I guess it took some time. The function of a bridge is only to pass easily. Look at Romans that had barbarians on the other side!!! They were blocked by the Rhin. Except this exceptional time where it was... FROZEN. Should we consider climate???? But river and bridges had a huge impact at roman time.

[Theodrik]

The English victory at Agincourt only happened because the Seine was high from recient rains, and the local forces held the bridges strongly. So strongly, King Henry V kept looking for someplace else to cross and got trapped at Agincourt. The rest is history. If crossing the Seine had been easy, He would have been warm and snug in Calais.

[Trifna]

Erm just an historical coment... if I'm right, the opponent, even if weaker in armament technology, were in greater number and got greater losses... So it's not ONLY the Seine. History is rarely less than conjunctions of factors