Supply Lines

[Lord Sun Ce]

I like supply wagons as much as the next guy, but couldn't there have been a different method to supply your troops in the later ages? I mean, why not be able to construct railroads at the appropriate time, which act just as supply wagons but can also transport a certain number od troops with it? Troops could be within a radius from the train tracks/ station. With trains you could build into enemy territory, but not too far (i.e. building a railroad to the enemy's cap., then sieging it). Techs could be researched to increase radius, how many troops it could carry, and speed. Of course railroads would have to take some time to construct, but it could add a nice twist to Civ bonuses- the Jap could have larger radius, greater speed (magnetic trains). If trains could not be used for supply, then at least have them transport- my troops always exit my generals' radius with forced march.

*sry for the long post

[yin26]

I like supply wagons for the simplicity as building a railroad would prove a hassle (for me, anyway) in this type of game. But if they were to try to implement something like railroads, I think the best way would be to think of a unit like caravans that auto-build roads.

So you could have an engineer unit that goes to Point X and railroads auto-build along his path. These rails could then speed units in a given radius but would be easily open to being cut off by enemy troops.

In other words, if it were an automatic, easily manageable addition that didn't add hours and hours of art work and programming, it would be neat. For my money, though, I'd like to see the AI given some better bags of tricks so as to make games on Tough, well, really tough!

[Carch]

I think in wartime you'd have a real problem building a railway into enemy territory. There would be a lot of derailments

The bottom line is that even in modern warfare, armies rely on trucks to get supplies to the front line. It was even an issue in the Iraq war!

[Poogas]

Big Huge games (atleast from what I hear) decided against making the user build roads (IE roads from buildings connecting town(s) and all your gathering locations (IE foresters, mining, and farms) due to their research suggesting that making the user build all that would be a hassle, and most users didn't like it, so now its all automated, I'm guessing, if thats true, than building railroads, or any manual troop support device would be veto'ed, due to the rush/hurry enviroment most player play in online or in intense single player games.