14-04-2004 02:33									#31
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quote: Originally posted by Trip If an AI ship runs into one of your subs they will automatically declare war on you irregardless of any other concerns.

Actually . . . that may not be such a bad thing. Declaring war causes you to get a bad reputation. If u use your subs as war-bait to draw a neutral into a war with you, it damages his rep and you're the hapless victim.

Make mutual protection pacts between yourself and his neighbours, then blockade one of his ports with your subs. Poof - instant war and he's surrounded by enemies!

"Why die for your country? Get the other b@stard to die for his country!" - G. Patton

	14-04-2004 02:44									#32
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quote: Originally posted by DrSpike These are the kind of tweaks that will surely have to be made if the current system is to be kept. Balance must dominate all realism arguments.

Which is the main problem with RRs having infinite movement.

Yes, yes, if you count how far x unit can move in x number of years, you could probably circle the globe a few times, but that doesn't lead to good gameplay. Ships could do the same time... send them off from one port to a continent halfway across the world, take a city with Marines, land Cavalry to use the RRs to take inland cities... bam, enemy empire 1/2 gone in a single turn. Ahhh, the realism! The fun!

	14-04-2004 02:45									#33
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quote: Originally posted by zyelmyrada Actually . . . that may not be such a bad thing. Declaring war causes you to get a bad reputation. If u use your subs as war-bait to draw a neutral into a war with you, it damages his rep and you're the hapless victim. Make mutual protection pacts between yourself and his neighbours, then blockade one of his ports with your subs. Poof - instant war and he's surrounded by enemies! "Why die for your country? Get the other b@stard to die for his country!" - G. Patton

Of course, as you fight the war, killing units and taking cities, that also detracts from your reputation.

	14-04-2004 02:53									#34
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quote: Originally posted by Trip Which is the main problem with RRs having infinite movement. Yes, yes, if you count how far x unit can move in x number of years, you could probably circle the globe a few times, but that doesn't lead to good gameplay. Ships could do the same time... send them off from one port to a continent halfway across the world, take a city with Marines, land Cavalry to use the RRs to take inland cities... bam, enemy empire 1/2 gone in a single turn. Ahhh, the realism! The fun!

You realise I said balance must dominate realism right? Just making sure.

	14-04-2004 03:08									#35
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quote: Originally posted by DrSpike You realise I said balance must dominate realism right? Just making sure.

I know, I was simply building further on what you had said.

	14-04-2004 03:25									#36
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Hehe good. It was just your post looks like a semi-annoyed response to people who insist reality is more important, and you quoted my post.

	14-04-2004 03:37									#37
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I've just played Civ 3 too long and seen the kind of crap that RRs can cause...

	14-04-2004 04:50									#38
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here's an idea as to how this could be handled in Civ4:

Railroads shouldn't multiply your movement points, but rather railroads should only give you a given number of movement points free per turn.


The train doesn't move any faster just because you got a vehicle loaded instead of infantry. So perhaps each unit could get 2, or 3, free movement points when moving from one railroad square to the next. After said number of movement points is used up, the rest of the movements points get deducted as if it were on roads (even if its moving on railroads).

Shouldn't be to hard to implent code wise. Just add an additional Byte (or bit?), with a number to each unit.

	14-04-2004 05:41									#39
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One stipulation about all of these - workers should still get free movement. Otherwise the Industrial era would be hell.

	14-04-2004 05:55									#40
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I have a better idea.

You have a system where you can designate certain tiles which need certain improvements by a certain date or have a certain priority. That way the AI can then manage your Workers for you to get the jobs done. With a little work on the AI it could do jobs just as well as humans, and with a lot less work for the player. Just click on a bunch of tiles to tell which ones need mines, etc. and the Workers do it.

	14-04-2004 11:35									#41
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident I seem to be the only one who likes it SMAC had it as well- and that's the greatest TBS of all time. I know from a strategic standpoint it isn't that great. But it speeds up the game. Late game tedium is already bad enough as it is. I don't want more. perhaps there should be a limit to how many troops you can transport accross country. It's not like you have infinite number of trains.

I thought I am the only one who is crazy. With the current rr, I dont even have much time to finish most of the game (never finisih conqest, always UN, cultural, at most domi). With limited rr, I dont even have time to play on modern time

	14-04-2004 14:20									#42
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Trip any automation like that is doomed to failure in my opinion. Plus improving tiles doesn't really get to the heart of the railroad issue, which isn't about building the network but using it.

	14-04-2004 20:25									#43
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quote: Originally posted by binyo66 I thought I am the only one who is crazy. With the current rr, I dont even have much time to finish most of the game (never finisih conqest, always UN, cultural, at most domi). With limited rr, I dont even have time to play on modern time

Remove infinite movement, take away the commerce bonus for rails, and add a commerce-style Tile Improvement to replace the lost gold, tweak the cost of unit upkeep and tech costs, and your problem would be fixed.

Unfortunately, Firaxis locked themselves into this flawed system in civ3 by hardcoding rail movement and limiting the creation of multi-tiered tile improvements. Short-sighted and foolish...

	14-04-2004 20:42									#44
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quote: Originally posted by hexagonian ...take away the commerce bonus for rails, and add a commerce-style Tile Improvement to replace the lost gold...

Have I been missing out on the railroad trade bonus all this time?

	14-04-2004 21:15									#45
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quote: Originally posted by DrSpike Trip any automation like that is doomed to failure in my opinion. Plus improving tiles doesn't really get to the heart of the railroad issue, which isn't about building the network but using it.

They're different sides of the same coin, IMO.

The main reason people argue in favor of infinite RR movement is having to deal with all the Workers later on in the game.

I think the automation would work fine as long as the human has control over what goes on. He determines what gets done and what the priority is for it to get done (higher priority means more Workers devoted to the task).

	14-04-2004 21:17									#46
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quote: Originally posted by Solomwi Have I been missing out on the railroad trade bonus all this time?

There is no commerce bonus for RRs in Civ 3. I forget if there was in Civ 2 or not.

	14-04-2004 21:21									#47
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Roads and RRs should cost gold, rather than grant it. Additionally, RRs can only be built BETWEEN cities on a pre-determined path. And they don't give infinite movement, but only allow you to move a certain # of tiles (rather than a multiplier like how roads work now).

That'll limit how many people build...

	14-04-2004 21:34									#48
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quote: Originally posted by Trip They're different sides of the same coin, IMO. The main reason people argue in favor of infinite RR movement is having to deal with all the Workers later on in the game. I think the automation would work fine as long as the human has control over what goes on. He determines what gets done and what the priority is for it to get done (higher priority means more Workers devoted to the task).

Well personally I don't like the automation idea. Whatever the restriction on movement along railroads might be it wouldn't be hard to have local gangs of workers that could cover the needed territory in 1 turn. Plus with a new pollution model things might not be quite as bad as now. That would seem a better approach than just removing workers since they are a possible justification for infinite movement, which for understandable balance reasons you don't like. That's backwards logic.

	14-04-2004 21:38									#49
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quote: Originally posted by Trip There is no commerce bonus for RRs in Civ 3. I forget if there was in Civ 2 or not.

There is a production bonus in Civ2. Indirectly commerce is affected since trade routes could (under certain extremely complex conditions ) yield more arrows when the cities were connected by rail.

	14-04-2004 22:04									#50
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Another idea for RR: You build RR lines instead of just rails. Each tile with rails connects to no more than two other tiles, excepting city tiles which act as rail line junctions. Cost to move along rails is still 0, however each junction would cost 1/3 movement point. A tile improvement called Rail Junction would act the same way as city tiles.

The real problem I think is not the infinite movement, it's the infinite interconnections. Just because two adjacent tiles have rails doesn't mean they are part of the same line.

Having rail lines would create strategic junction points that could all rail traffic must switch through. Tearing up just a few rails would cripple your's or the enemy's ability to ship units rapidly to the front.

While you could still conceivably criss-cross every square, pratically few people would build rails this way.

	14-04-2004 22:20									#51
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quote: Originally posted by gunkulator Another idea for RR: You build RR lines instead of just rails. Each tile with rails connects to no more than two other tiles, excepting city tiles which act as rail line junctions. Cost to move along rails is still 0, however each junction would cost 1/3 movement point. A tile improvement called Rail Junction would act the same way as city tiles. The real problem I think is not the infinite movement, it's the infinite interconnections. Just because two adjacent tiles have rails doesn't mean they are part of the same line. Having rail lines would create strategic junction points that could all rail traffic must switch through. Tearing up just a few rails would cripple your's or the enemy's ability to ship units rapidly to the front. While you could still conceivably criss-cross every square, pratically few people would build rails this way.

As long as RRs still give production bonuses then people will still build them everywhere. That is the main application of RRs, along with infinite movement... they give extra production.

I like your idea of only being able to connect RR tiles together (starting from cities), though I still think that units can only move a certain # of tiles along railroads, rather than a certain number of cities. What if you control an entire continent, recently conquered with rail lines in place but only have a couple cities on each side of the continent there after razing everything? You'll still be able to cross the entire continent.

I also think that each RR tile should cost 1 GPT. That is the best way to limit how many tiles are produced.

Rail depots would be another tile improvement that could be built along rail lines, which would give production bonuses to adjacent tiles (or perhaps 2 tiles away?) as RRs do on every tile now. This means there's both an economic and military incentive to build these new costly railroad lines.

	16-04-2004 14:05									#52
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Come on guys. If u want to suggest to firaxis/atari to limit the rr movement, please dont forget to ask them to allow transfering workers by airport. I just cant imagine placing bunch of worker on every corners. Especially by limiting the rr movement, it would destroy the automate clear pollution, which is currently closed to perfect when we have rr.

	16-04-2004 14:07									#53
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And Soren also said that Firaxis was going to whack the current corruption model for Civ IV.

	16-04-2004 22:49									#54
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Just noticed something:

Disabling RR's doesn't at all negatively affect worker management in the industrial age at all. Infact, it enhances gameplay by giving the player even more strategic decisions to make.

For example, to send workers across your city, the fastest way would be to use airfields (assuming you modded it that way, like me). Although it would use up your airfields turn and your units. Another way of doing it, is using helicopters (hey, they finally got a good use). Pack three workers in a helo, rebase the helo, activate worker and you can do it all in one turn.

Now what if you need workers in an area where you don't have a town? Well, then you need to build up your infastructure by placing airports (hey, this finally got a good use too!) around your country. I'm someone who likes to build cities far away with big distances from each other. To make sure i have access to terrain further away from my cities, i placed airports there. I've also modded it so you can only build cities on a few tiles, making airports in the inhabital areas invaluable to my defense.

Also, i've placed the now-very-useful airports around my production centers, this way i can airlift multiple units from own town to the hot-zone.

Removing RR's was the best thing i ever did to this game. Actually having to work out a good infastructure (which is also easily demolishable by enemy airstrikes if left undefended) for your empire is awesome! I just love the possibilities now

	16-04-2004 23:46									#55
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Thanks for your great Mod ideas Matt, much appreciated!

Trip I think your cost idea would go long way to improve game play. I would add, a cost slidder and play test the effects of 2 or 3 gpt per tile and with 'rail junction points' much more like 15 or more depending on the scenario. I believe building railroads should be much more difficult giving their advantages.

Additionally, why not add costing out other now seemly free upgrades? With only time to build as a factor, plus the original investment which is lost after a worker has been on the job for a millininum or two. Yes, yes I am not arguing realism only some game balance in relation to ease of making so much for not much of anything.

Mines for instance are a valuble asset, shoul they not cost something, at least to build?

	17-04-2004 12:44									#56
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quote: Originally posted by WarpStorm I would like to see an infinite movement but with limitations. The limitation I'd like to see is this a unit must start its turn on a railroad and use up its entire turn to use the rail net.

Any idea if they never tried this because of coding problems, or are they just not open to consideration of altering RRs? Have you ever seen it mentioned to them in an interview?

	17-04-2004 17:38									#57
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My guess is that they have it in to help the AI react instantly to any threat when the player's Stacks of Doom start getting very large...It basically reduces decisionmaking issues for it.

The AI can then give the appearance that it is acting intelligently.

I would favor replacing infinite rails with a more robust AI/AI alliance implimentation if the player was an aggressive warmongor.

	19-04-2004 04:20									#58
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It's not only the infinite RR movement, it's also the unlimited nomber of units at one tile and the lack of real ZoC. All they are for AI's sake, and all decrease fun in MP games. If the stealth units, the diplomacy and the incredibly stupid AI weren't such a gigantic killjoy, I'd play CtP2 instead, but alas...