Problem with ship movement.

[Exile]

Ok, some of the high-end ships in my latest scenario have relatively high movement values; 13, 14, 16, 17. The road movement multiplier is set on its maximum--10.

Unfortuneately, when I do this, for some unknown reason, the ship movement of ships that move over 12 suddenly become negative numbers with the result that the ships in question, when built, cannot move at all.

1.) The road movement mulitplier MUST be high--roads are not "roads" in this scenario, they are railroads.

2.) The ships must be able to also move with high numbers, 13-17. Otherwise, given the size of the map, it'll take forever to get anywhere.

3.) I've already tried changing the numbers for ship movement in the rules.txt file. Doesn't seem to have any effect. The ships in question, when built, still have the negative movement number and can't move.

If I can't solve this, the whole scenario is a waste of time. Low movement numbers for either ground or naval units will make the scenario unplayable.

Suggestions?

[Case]

Wow, that is wierd.
Though I doubt that it's responcible for your problem, whats the movement cost of the ocean set to?

[Exile]

Well, as far as I know . . .

It's at default. I sure haven't changed the ocean squares' movement value.

But that is an idea that I can try. Have you set the value of these squares lower than 1 ?

edit; I can't find a way to set the ocean squares' movement value at less than 1. I tried putting .5 in the rules.txt for the ocean movement value. The ships still treated the squares as if their movement value was 1. If I lower the high-end movement values so that 12 is the highest number, they function. BUT . . . the ships in the scenario start with relatively primitive steamships and advance to battlecruisers and destroyers and such through a graduated movement scale. If the top-end movement tops out at 12, then that means I have to considerably lower the movement of the lower-end ships.

That is bad--not what I intended and inaccurate. Not to mention painfully slow at the start of the scenario.

RANT;I can do things this way and they'll work, but it's yet another compromise solution. Why is it that nothing in this game works the way it's supposed to work? (rhetorical question ) The editors CLAIM that their range for road movement is 1-10! Yet, when I try to set it, according to their own rules, the program freaks out and does weird s*h*i*t. Yes, I spotted the warning that says something to the effect that if you exceed the recommended range . . . etc. Well, I didn't exceed it. And still, a problem exists.

I wish that once, just ONCE, a game would actually FUNCTION the way that it is advertised to FUNCTION.

End of Rant.

Still looking for answers.

[klesh]

Hmm, very strange.
Exile, try putting wildly outlandish movement rates for the ocean terrain... like 459 or somesuch... just see what those effects are. You might magically hit on something.

Or, why not make the road multiplyer to 9 rather than 10. If this is the only think that makes your scenario inoperable, then it is probably more worth it to sacrifice a movement point on rails, then to loose several on oceangoing vessels.

Also, do you mind if I send you an email? I have something rather important to discuss with you.

-FMK.

[Boco]

Would this work?

1) Set the road multiplier to 25 (road bonus will actually be 10)
2) Set the movecost of ocean to 205 (each ocean square should cost 1/5 mf to enter)
3) Reduce ship mf's five-fold (from 13-17 down to 2-4). Unfortunately, with the round-off's you lose a lot of flexibility, but it's better than chucking the scenario.

Does that prevent the negative numbers from appearing?

[klesh]

I have your answer, Exile.

After a quick test:

I was able to recreate this phenomenon, using both 9 and 10 for a road multiplier.


Worked for anything above 12. 450 movement was the same as 17. They both moved 0. I even changed the Ocean movement rate to 400. This had no effect as regular vessels traversed the ocean at regular 1 move point per tile.

Battleship with movement set to 17

Road Mtpl= 9--> BB shows negative 34 (doesn't move)
Road Mtpl= 8--> BB shows negative 40 (doesn't move)
Road Mtpl= 7--> BB shows... WAIT A MINUTE!!!!!!!

Doing this and typing right now, I think I have it Exile!

Road Multiplier set to 7, Battleship set to move 17... Civlopedia now says the unit can move 39 spaces. However, the Status bar listing (far right of the screen) shows the unit's actual functioning movement value which is 18.

Same road multiplier, ship movement set to 15. Ship's civlopedia entry reads 35, but the side listing and actual function is 16.

Lol here... a ship with move set to 450... results in a movement of 12 1/7! Yes, twelve and one-seventh. Enough of that....

Set the move value to 18, and the ship moves 19. Thats as high as it will go. Any value over 18 with the roads set to 7 will result in a ship being stationary.


Using the road multiplier 8 isnt better. The highest you can get their is entering 15 into the rules... resulting in actual movement of 16. Any higher results in immobility.

I think going with 7 is you best bet. You might be able to achive higher ship movement with a lower road multiplier but that throws off your railroads too much imho. 7 is the best attempt at a compromise you are going to get I'm afraid. You will have to tell the players to ignore the civlopedia entries for ships here as well. :-(

But, if 17 was the highest movement you intended for your ships, you should be in business.

-FMK.

[klesh]

Originally posted by Boco
Would this work?

1) Set the road multiplier to 25 (road bonus will actually be 10)
2) Set the movecost of ocean to 205 (each ocean square should cost 1/5 mf to enter)
3) Reduce ship mf's five-fold (from 13-17 down to 2-4). Unfortunately, with the round-off's you lose a lot of flexibility, but it's better than chucking the scenario.

Does that prevent the negative numbers from appearing?

No dice. I tried this. The highest achieveable movement is setting a ship to 12, resulting in a movement of 13. Setting values which are reduced 5-fold doesnt seem to work. I dont think the game recognizes changes in the ocean move cost.



-FMK.

[Case]

How does giving a civ the nuclear power (ship movement + 1) tech effect the above?

[klesh]

That was actually all tested with a civ who had Nuclear Power. Gimmie a minute...

-FMK.

[klesh]

Exile, Case et al.

Nuclear Power works as usual in this case, Case.
The top allowable movement value for a ship without NP is 18 (with road multiplier set to 7). This is achieved by setting its movement, amazingly enough, to 18.

Nuclear Power was the reason the values in my first post were all off +1. I didn't even think of NP when doing it the first time.

The effects of NP seem to be the same as they are usually in the game.


-FMK.

[Exile]

More thoughts on this annoying problem.

FMK; sure, send me an email anytime.

Ok, now to business. I thought about this in two ways;

Solution 1; I can always increase the movement value of ground units so that if they moved 1, they will now move 2, and likewise increase, by 1 movement point, all other ground units. Then, I can lower the road multiplier to 5. This will give me the road/railroad movement value I'm looking for (and 6 would be even more accurate still), and might not adversely affect the ship movement. By doing this the high movement rates of both types of units would fall into what I consider the satisfactory range. BUT . . . assigning a 2 movement point value to all ground units is a radical step. Anyone who has played the default Crusades scenario that comes with FW/MGE knows that being able to move up to a city from 1 space out and still have full attack value changes the entire feel of the game. Suddenly, the advantage belongs to the attacker. To partially offset this, I could then increase defense values by 1 or 2 on all ground units. While that might be a workable solution for games involving all human players, the painfully brainless AI has enough difficulty taking cities. Making it harder would probably mean the the AI would flounder miserably even more so than it already does. This could well be the solution that I am forced to go with, though I am NOT happy about it.

Solution 2; I don't know if this one is workable at all, however. I can increase the movement points required for terrain to be entered. Thus, "clear" terrain types (grass, plains, desert,) would now require 3 movment points to enter and all other types would be multiplied in the same fashion. Sea movement would be left at 1. Now then, IF I can set the road space entry cost at 1, then this would neatly solve the problem. Naval units still move at their intended rates, ground units move at "1" (even though it costs them 3 actual movement points), and these same ground units would then move at 9 or even 12 spaces along a road/railroad with the multiplier set at on 3 or 4. The reason I suspect this might not be workable is because I'm not aware that the road entry cost can be set like this. (I can think of an even more complex solution involving Engineers, terrain conversion, and the devotion of a terrain type to "railroad," but that's too painful to contemplate right now )

Has anyone ever tried these solutions? Feedback?

[Case]

A while ago there was some disscussion of the effects of giving terrain a really high movement cost. From memory, at certain movement costs the road movement bonus was altered

Perhaps a solution would be to have a special terrain (called 'developed' for example) which would increase the road/'RR' movement benefit.

I may be totally wrong about all this though...

[Exile]

Yet another idea.

It occurred to me that the primary difficulty here is the movement along the road/railroads. Striving for as much accuracy as possible, I wanted units to be able to move much farther along the rails, but decidedly NOT the "infinite movement" of actual Civ2 railroads. In order to make this workable, it was necessary to sharply increase the road multiplier and make roads "railroads."

In areas that are heavily road/railroaded, like Europe, European Russia, and America, the number on the road bonus isn't that important; 7 or 8 would probably work. BUT . . . for the purposes of the transcontinental railroads, 7, 8, or, for that matter, even 10 are probably inaccurate and too slow. Trains do take awhile to cross a continent, but not months.

So; I thought about putting in two Transcontinental railways. One across North America and one across Siberia to Vladivostock. Henrik has pointed out to me that the TransAmerican one was completed by 1869. No problem there. But the TransSiberian line was only completed after the start of the scenario. The trick with these railways would be that I could place actual Civ2 railroads along stretches of these lines, but not all the way. This would allow, along these lines only, a greatly enhanced movement along the rails, but would still require movement points and so prevent what I consider the stupidity of the "infinite movement" of railroads in Civ2. (Yes, these lines could be pillaged and destroyed.)

Any thoughts on this idea? Anybody ever do something like this?

[techumseh]

That's exactly how I've handled the Trans Siberian in Red October.

[klesh]

I was thinking about this last night, and I got the same idea. I was thinking that for areas you intent to be able to cross in one turn, simply place a few true 'railroads' which graphically look like the regulation 'roads' at every other square or some other alternating pattern. This allows for movement to be taken away from units as they go from road to rail and back but can also allow for certain locations to achieve better shipping. You have mentioned the Trans-Siberian and Transcontinental railsystems, this would be great for that. Yes the American one was indeed completed in the late 1860's, incedentally by Chinese immigrants who, after the work was completed, were handed the Chinese Exclusion Act so no more could come over. Nice eh?
But the Trans Siberian was decidedly later. I guess this is just one thing you'll have to compromise on. I'll keep thinking of other possible solutions too, to see if I can perhaps be of more help.
Is 7 the road multiplier you are going to use here as it allows the highest ship movement rates?

I will compose an email and send it out in a moment Exile, thanks. I have your addy from Henrik, our favourite Swede.

-FMK.

Edit: Just noticed I signed the post twice