Get Rid of Roads and Railroads!

[polymths]

Many people have pointed out how easy it is to defeat the AI, and how the AI simply is incapable of posing a serious threat to a human player during the endgame. But a fundamental reason for this is the instant speed and the infinite capacity of railroads.

While it might be possible to revamp the Civ roads/railroads, I believe that we may be better off simply getting rid of railroads altogether. More than any other factor, railroads seriously unbalances and distorts the game, and makes the AI's task of invading your home continent simply impossible while making the defense of the home continent entirely easy and worry free.

The reason is simply that with infinite speed, infinite capacity railroads, it is easy to defeat any invasion force that lands on the home continent regardless of deployment or location of military production cities. If an invasion force of 8 units lands near a city and you have have 12 cities each defended by 1 unit, you simply activate each and every unit in all cities, instantly transport them over to the enemy, defeat the enemy force and then instantly transport them back to the original cities, and all of this is done in one turn!

Suppose though that railroads and even roads did not exist at all! If an AI lands near a city defended by 1 unit (or even 2), the AI can definitely take the city. Then the AI can march its 8 unit force and take a few more cities before your home guard can converge on the invaders since it will take some time before your spread out force of one tank in each city can converge on the enemy. Since there are no railroads, the AI might not even need to garrison the cities because even if empty, it will still require some time to reach the cities to take them over. By then those cities might have produced a tank (or two) already for the enemy! And while you have been busy emptying your cities and marching them off to meet the enemy, these cities have now become dangerously vulnerable. Another opportunistic AI sees this and decides now is the time to make it a two front war. Do you now still try to retake those cities leaving yourself weakened for enemy#2? (Remember now you cannot instantaneously defeat enemy force 1 and enemy force 2 in in two turns!)

By simply getting rid of railroads (and even roads), whole new possibilities now present themselves.

1. Deployment of forces for defense
Since it takes time to move units, you have to make decisions about where to concentrate and deploy your home guard. (Assumes of course that it is not possible, say, to mass 10 units in each and every city quickly and easily)

2. Importance of terrain
Despite all this attention to detail concerning movement and defense bonuses of terrain, roads/railroads make it largely irrelevant. Now it matters a great deal.

3. Importance of diplomacy
You've been invaded and are now massing your home guard for counterattack? better make sure another neighboring AI doesn't join the fun before you empty all your units in all your cities to engage the invader!

What a vast improvement in challenge and gameplay if we simply got rid of roads and railroads! Without roads/railroads a mediocre AI could become very challenging indeed!

[MrFun]

I disagree completely!

How can we have a Civilization game without railroads!?

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Never submit to social double standards.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi There,
You make a number of very valid points, Railroads (and to a lesser extent) roads), have always been one of my big problems in Civ II. However, there is a solution that does not require the total abolition of roads and RR.

1) Give all units a "terrain movement modifier" (eg. for infantry it might be: plains=1x, forests =1/2X and hills=1/4-1/8x; cavalry might have forests=1/4x and hills=1/8-1/16x), then simply make roads and RR a modifier of this terrain modifier (eg. Roads 2x and RR=3x). This makes a journey on RR only slightly faster than on roads (which is in turn only slightly faster than unimproved terrain!) It also makes all movement dependant on the unit type (although you could just make a single set of modifiers for all units based on terrain only!) Most important, the AI could still obtain a beach-head before you can muster the Home Gaurd!

2) Roads and Rail should have a capacity rating-this is the maximum stack size you can have moving onto a road/rail tile at any time. You could improve road/rail tiles multiple times to increase the capacity rating to reflect the construction of multiple lines, highways etc. There would be a limit, however, to how often this could be done!
Additionally some units should count as more than one unit for the purposes of capacity. Obviously, infantry and units would be equal to 1, but cavalry and knights would probably be equal to 2 and armour(and mech inf.) units may even count as 3! This puts even greater limits to the number of units you can muster for your defense and has the added bonus of discouraging people from building stacks consisting of nothing but armour!!

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear what you think of my alternative suggestions, and thankyou for putting the topic on the agenda!

The_Aussie_Lurker

[TechWins]

Polymyths, that has got to be the worst idea I have ever heard! No railroads I could maybe understand but no roads? Maybe you've had a few too many drinks tonight but I still think you're an idiot for making such a terrible idea. Roads were a big part of history. How do you think Rome was able to be so succesful? I mean I realize it was more than just having a bunch of roads. I feel that railroads should be 1/2 turns, not completely gone, or being free for move.

[joseph1944]

No name calling please. Sorry I want roads and railroads.

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[TechWins]

Sorry Polymyths If I was a little to harsh.

[Father Beast]

Check the "Improved Road And Rail Rules" in the EC3 list. had some great stuff.

[Cyclotron]

Don't leave 'em out, just make 'em better!

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- Cyclotron7, "that supplementary resource fanatic"

[Zanzin]

No roads and railroads....what a great idea!! (read: sarcasm)

If you're going to chuck out roads and railroads because of the way they impair the AI, lets chuck out every aspect of the game that the AI can't properly understand....I mean c'mon!

The majority feeling on Civ3 is don't sacrifice fun for historical accuray.....but this going just a tad too far!

[Brad]

Do not get rid of roads and railroads. I think that railroads should be reduced in speed (maybe to 1/5 of a movement point), and maybe reduce roads to 1/2, but if you don't like roads or railroads in a game because it makes it easier to defeat the AI, Don't use them.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Guys,
Whilst we are on this whole "Movement Based" thread, am I the only one here who thought that the movement rates of units during the early parts of Civ II, even on roads, was just ridiculous. I mean, when you consider how many years there are to a turn during the ancient and medeival eras, then it's just silly. The only way they can solve this in Civ III is to either

1) Reduce the base number of years per turn to about 5 or 10.
2) Increase the Movement allowance of all units or,
3) Have unit movement and combat occur at a different time rate to that of the normal turn (as is being suggested by the creators of "Clash of Civilizations" for their game)

So people, I've thrown down the gauntlet-what do you think, am I crazy, or do you agree with me? If the former, then why? If the latter, then which of the above suggestions, if any, would come closest to solving this problem...or if none of them will, perhaps you have some suggestions on how movement can be improved!

Yours in Civ,
The_Aussie_Lurker (though I don't really lurk that often anymore)

[Grumbold]

With 1 turn = 1 year I am reluctant to prevent friendly railroad tiles being less than infinite movement. However there have been suggestions that each enemy tile should have to be captured individually to slow down rail invasion of enemy territory. That should allow massive invasions in one turn if they have the extra manpower but not allow a single stack to ride for free all the way to the enemy capital. Perhaps there should also be a reduction in combat strength for any unit which used friendly rail movement for any part of the turn in which it fights - but that would involve a rail/no rail toggle that defies the KISS rule.

[polymths]

The main problem I have with Infinite Speed, Infinite Movement Railroads is that it makes no sense in comparison with the movement rates of aircraft and ships and therefore it is totally out of balance. It also totally negates any kind of terrain effect on land movement to a degree that has never been seen IRL. I DO NOT RECALL in WWII, WWI, that units reinforce from large land distances instantaneously.

The bottom line is this:
Do people want some semblance of tactical level manuevering of units or not? In other words actually controlling and moving individual units like tanks, planes, ships? If so, then I think that the movement rates of all units should together be balanced realistically.

Therefore either we get raid of roads/railroads altogether to maintain this balance or we should simply do away with any kind of tactical maneuvering altogether and just abstract ALL UNITS to have close to infinite movement. That way not only land units using RRs will have infinite movement but also ships and planes.

[Your.Master]

While I think RR's should be toned down, I agree with the logic that land units move too fast. Remember, WWII would only be 4 turns in Civilization II, and there were battles for every turn: on the large scale, railroads ARE effectively instantaneous even if not so on the tactical scale.

What I think is that Airplanes and Ships should get speed boosts with tech. Also, I wouldn't mind if railroads were weakened but game time late in the game had turns that lasted a half-year or a season. That late in the game you'd hardly notice technological progress slowing down.

[polymths]

quote: Originally posted by Your.Master on 05-10-2001 04:28 PM While I think RR's should be toned down, I agree with the logic that land units move too fast. Remember, WWII would only be 4 turns in Civilization II, and there were battles for every turn: on the large scale, railroads ARE effectively instantaneous even if not so on the tactical scale. What I think is that Airplanes and Ships should get speed boosts with tech. Also, I wouldn't mind if railroads were weakened but game time late in the game had turns that lasted a half-year or a season. That late in the game you'd hardly notice technological progress slowing down.

The only purpose of timescale is to mark technological progress. There is no way to reconcile that with movement of units nor do I think this is even particularly important.

What matters is good overall balance. Already I see that airports, paratroopers and RRs basically make the whole concept of tactical movement of individual units silly. So like I said, either balance movement of all units to be realistic IN RELATION TO ONE ANOTHER or just do away with tactical movement of individual units altogether and abstract everything the way is done with RRs, airports, and paratroopers.

Using the arguments people have made regarding RRs, why not just have seaports that function like airports with a "chance of fleet being intercepted" everytime you instantaneously transport a fleet???