fixing railroads: realistic mod suggestions

[MiloMilo]

Okay. I've seen a lot of posts wishing that Firaxis would change the infinite-movement railroad thing. Since it's not gonna happen, I put the question to the modders out there, as well as anyone who knows their way around the editor: What can we do to fix this right now?

Here's what I've come up with so far:

1) Don't allow worker to build railroads at all. There you are, no infinite movement. Also, no horrifically ugly RR sprawl. Of course, this would also mean some big sacrifices. Here are some supplemental ideas to deal with them.

2) To compensate for slowing down workers, make a new unit like civ2's engineer, to wit, a worker with movement of 3. This way, with 9 moves over roads, automated workers would still be fairly useful for clearing pollution etc. in the modern age.

3) To allow other units to get around faster than on roads, turn the currently useless helicopter into a train, a land unit that can load and unload some number of units (say five for argument's sake) and has a high movement rate: say, six (thus 18 on roads). A side benefit of this is that the train units would need to be supported, reflecting some posters' idea that rail travel should cost money. (Question: would the AI be able to make use of this?)

So far so good; I could do this stuff with the editor in 15 minutes. But it still leaves the rather large problem that without railroads cities would be hard-pressed to grow beyond size 15 or so. To counter this, I'm at a loss. I'm not sure it can be done with the editor alone. So, any creative ideas?

[TacticalGrace]

your engineers would still have 3 movement on unroaded plains etc, and your train unit would have an outrageous 6 movement on unroaded plains etc.

loading units on and off trains would be enough to make the mod unplayable for anyone with normal levels of patience (do you enjoy micromanagement?)

[Mad Bomber]

And if you alter the tile production to compensate for the RR's loss then you completely destabilize the ancient and midieval periods of the game. I hate to say this but in order to 'fix' RR sprawl it will have to come from Firaxis (unless they are willing to reveal the game engine code, not bloody likely IMO)

[Adagio]

Wouldn't it be possible somehow to make RR's have a fee per turn, so the more RR's you have, the more expensive it gets to keep them up? Of course, this doesn't help on the infinitive movement problem...

[theNiceOne]

Originally posted by ADG
Wouldn't it be possible somehow to make RR's have a fee per turn, so the more RR's you have, the more expensive it gets to keep them up? Of course, this doesn't help on the infinitive movement problem...

And it will throw the late game off balance, letting you choose between having less money (due to the rails) or less food/production where you don't build rails.

A goos solution must come from Firaxis. I would prefer one which gave a constant, but limited move on rails,
remove the food/production bonus for rail, and add an improved mine and irrigation instead.

Then improved mine/irrigation and railroads should be mutually exclusive in a square - forcing us to only build rails where we need them for movement purposes, but with a food/production penalty. Or if the rail could exist together with these, the rail should cost upkeep money, forcing you to pay for the movement.

[Carver]

I don't mind the rails too much but...

What about a limited ratio of cities to rail tiles, like 1:14 or so. Yes, income and production would be reduced but not a whole lot, and all civs would face the same difficulties. This would help eliminate the rail clutter while still allowing for networks around, and between, cities.

Of course, the AI would have to be programmed to build its rails judiciously.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I agree that a solution must come from Firaxis, preferably in the form of an ability to edit and add new terrain improvements. Ideally, I'd like to give a maintainance cost for RR's (and roads), but still allow these improvements to give bonuses to commerce, production and food (to reflect the movement of raw and manufactured goods on the rail/road network). However, having a maintanence cost will help end RR/road "sprawl" by making it too costly to have more than the minimum # of tiles occupied by these terrain improvements.
I'd also like to say, though, that MiloMilo's suggestion would be excellent for a scenario, but probably would make for too much micromanagement for a standard game!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[MiloMilo]

Originally posted by TacticalGrace
your engineers would still have 3 movement on unroaded plains etc, and your train unit would have an outrageous 6 movement on unroaded plains etc.

loading units on and off trains would be enough to make the mod unplayable for anyone with normal levels of patience (do you enjoy micromanagement?)

Don't criticize the numbers; they were chosen arbitrarily for the sake of argument. Make the engineer move 2, and the train move 3--who cares? If a viable idea gets implemented in a modded .bic, playtesting will determine the best numbers.

I don't think a unit with very fast overland movement is so outrageous. Remember, there will be no railroads on the map. Conceptually, the train will be on rails wherever it goes. In the much-roaded metropolitan areas near cities, there will be more trains with better tracks etc--thus triple movement. But even out in the boonies it will still be on small rail lines (not unrealistic given the proliferation of railways in this century). To prevent abuse, such as unloading a bunch of tanks deep in enemy territory, give the train a very low defense value. Ever lose a transport full of tanks? It sucks.

Finally, yes there might be more micromanagement, but the point is we want to limit infinite movement, and people's aversion to micromanaging will provide incentive for them to do that. Instead of using a train, a player might let that mech infantry take three turns to get where it's going. That, after all, is the whole point of this, right?

[Dominae]

Steppint into dream-land for a minute (because there's no way they're going to change RRs at this point), I would like to see the "no movement" cost of Railroads applicable only to inter-city travel; if in a city connected to another via rail, a unit can issue a "goto" command that costs zero movement points. Thus, if you really want to take a trip into the countryside, you're gonna have to use the good old roads. This would be a little more realistic, but probably wouldn't change gameplay too much.

Now stepping out of dream-land.


Dominae

[MiloMilo]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
And if you alter the tile production to compensate for the RR's loss then you completely destabilize the ancient and midieval periods of the game.

I've been thinking about this. I've seen mods where people have made brand new buildings and wonders with effects not in the editor. What about a new building, available some time in the industrial age, that increases food production by one in all irrigated tiles, or in all tiles already producing one food--like the Colossus, but for food? This would pretty much simulate the effect of having RRs over irrigation.

[Merc]

Railroads should cost gold per turn to operate. There's just no ther way to stop people from building them EVERYWHERE.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by MiloMilo


I've been thinking about this. I've seen mods where people have made brand new buildings and wonders with effects not in the editor. What about a new building, available some time in the industrial age, that increases food production by one in all irrigated tiles, or in all tiles already producing one food--like the Colossus, but for food? This would pretty much simulate the effect of having RRs over irrigation.

you could create a building called the SUPERMARKET, which would add 1 production to a mine and one food to irrigation. You could then add a building called the STOCK MARKET which would add 1 commerce to all tiles with roads. Finally with the discovery of steam power you could build that train unit that someone dreamed up, set it as a wheeled unit and with a move of 7 with all terrain as roads flag in the editor. (actually a unit that could move 21 tiles in a turn) That is you could with a better editor, I dont know how robust PTW's editor is but its not possible in the 1.29 editor.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

According to the PtW editor I've seen, you can only add production and food to sea squares, not land squares, not sure about commerce, I think you can boost it using the flag for banks etc, but I'm not sure if you can give an improvement a flag for s Great or Small Wonder (i.e. Colossus) . Definitely, the editor is MUCH better than the one which came with CivIII, but they still have a way to go, in my opinion. One thing to do would be to have the ability to choose what TYPE of square (land or sea) you want the extra shields or food to appear in!
Anyway, can someone bring this up at the PtW chat tonight? I'd love to know what future plans they have for the editor!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[MiloMilo]

Originally posted by Dominae
Steppint into dream-land for a minute (because there's no way they're going to change RRs at this point), I would like to see the "no movement" cost of Railroads applicable only to inter-city travel; if in a city connected to another via rail, a unit can issue a "goto" command that costs zero movement points. Thus, if you really want to take a trip into the countryside, you're gonna have to use the good old roads. This would be a little more realistic, but probably wouldn't change gameplay too much.

Dominae, that sounds a lot like airlifting with airports. Since veteran air units are not necessarily much better than regular ones, and I rarely airlift (thanks to infinite-move railroads), airports are basically useless to me right now. I would love to recyle them and rename them "train stations," and allow the player to "rail-lift" between cities with train stations. The problem is that you could move units from train station to train station between continents, which is no good. Of course, luxury effects only pass to cities in a road network... maybe the airlift ability could be limited in the same way, and then this limitaiton could be removed upon discovery of flight? Obviously this is beyond the power of the editor, but some people have mods that go beyond the editor. Check what Elucidus has done with The Balancer. Maybe we can commission idesas from him.