 |
| |
|
|
Octavian X
|
 |
Probably buried under piles of Literature, Biology, or Government homework
Jan 2002
time: 23:37
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by CyberShy
repost of the idea 
Pherhaps a better idea:
roads: 1/3
railroads: 1/9
superhighways: infinite. maintanance: 1gold/tile/turn
That forces you to think about the places you want to build superhighways. You most probably will only connect cities through superhighways and not flood your entire country with it. |
I really do like this idea, except for the idea of superhighway maintanence. That gets expensive after a while, I would think, even for just connecting cities. Maybe .1g, rounded up.
There's also have to be another factor to prevent a player from just building superhighways all over the place, just as one does currently with railroads. Maybe, rather than terrain improvments, superhighways could be individual city improvments. For example, in the build menu for City A, options 'Superhighway to City B, Superhighway to City C, etc.' would be present.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Fosse
|
|
U.S.A.
Mar 2002
time: 23:37
|
|
Just adding my voice to the cacophony....
Infinite movement is a terrible design, and breaks late game combat. Make it some other fraction. I would say 1/6.
I am in favor of no economic bonus to the tile rail is built on, but additional income to cities that are connected by rail. Also, a gold per tile (1 or .5, assuming that gold is worth about the same as in previous games) upkeep.
Rails everwhere will bankrupt you.
Rails connecting cities directly will make you a little cash.
The ideal military rail network (best defense grid possible, and lines to all fronts) might cost a little bit, or maybe break even.
The map looks nice, combat isn't broken, and there is a little thinking involved in your rail network.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
CyberShy
|
 |
Delft, The Netherlands
Mar 1999
time: 06:37
|
|
quote:
I really do like this idea, except for the idea of superhighway maintanence. That gets expensive after a while, I would think, even for just connecting cities. Maybe .1g, rounded up. |
That may be a better solution indeed. Or pherhaps 1g / 5 tiles (or x tiles) of superhighway.
quote:
Maybe, rather than terrain improvments, superhighways could be individual city improvments. |
I prefer the system in which the worker has to build the roads. Pherhaps a city can make a highway-ring around the city, which is needed to connect the superhighways to.
And you can put a worker in a city and chose: "Create highway to....." option
quote:
Intersting idea, but it still eliminates the importance of troop placement. |
This can be implemented by taking a one-turn penaly from any unit that wants to travel over the superhighway.
Thus: you can get from whatever point on the continent to whatever point at the other side of the continent, it'll always take you 2 turns anyway. (1 for getting ready to travel and 1 for traveling)
For short distances one can take the ordinary railroad for only 1/9 (with no start penalty)
|
|
| |
|
|
|
rickontherun_21
|
|
make it so you have to embark/disembark from train/superhighways and that would take a turn
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Drachasor
|
|
Errr, 1 turn to get on or off a railroad? That is a lot less realistic than 1/9 or 1/12 rail movement (upgradeable to higher values), and a lot more annoying too. Same with the maintainence cost. Also, charging 1 turn to load eliminates the usefulness of that transit system...at that point you might as well use the airport.
Just remove the bonuses to trade and production given by rails/roads, and give them a high, but limited movement. Perhaps increase the number of turns it takes to make a rail (perhaps). Then you will only see rails and roads used for actual travel purposes, no ugly glut. It is a lot easier to deal with than ideas about unloading and loading from rail, easier to tell in-game (can you defend a city if you are loaded on the rail inside it?). This is the simplest solution I think.
Then, as I said, let units be set to a "defensive" mode. This would be like fortify/sleep, with a unique graphic. When a city within a 1 turn movement is attacked, then 1 by 1 they will go to the city to defend it if the defenders there are defeated. Movement for these purposes should ignore enemy ZOC (if it exists), so the only way to stop it would be to fully surround a city.
These changes would make strategy in unit placement have a much bigger role in the post-rail game. It would make it so you can adequately defend you cities as well, without being an overpowering change. If you somehow can't find ways to place the troops you need within 20-30+ tiles of where you need them (remember, almost all units late game have 2+ movement), then that is something you need to work on; not something you need a crutch to prop up.
You shouldn't punish people for building rails (by making it cost money/turn), nor should you punish people for using them with a load/unload time (heck, it doesn't take time to load on to a ship, now does it?) Instead make rails useful and fun, but find ways to get rid of the usefulness of putting rails everywhere. As for highways, well, there is no reason why roads shouldn't eventually become 1/6 or 1/9, say an increase when you get the automobile, and another later on. By then your rails will probably be superior, but both would be handy.
-Drachasor
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Fosse
|
|
U.S.A.
Mar 2002
time: 23:37
|
|
It should be impossible to protect an entire coastline. Can you imagine building a military large enough to actually defend even a small country's entire shore?
That being said, units should not be able to disembark onto mountaintops. But I don't see the need to limit navy landings beyond one or two terrain types. Navies are already useless enough, and efforts should be made to increase their power.
If the other guy's navy can land almost anywhere, and you don't have the ability to teleport to them on rails, then you have to actually think about your defenses strategically. That's a huge gain.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Enigma_Nova
|
|
The only way to prevent rails being built everywhere is to make building the rail useless.
If it costs the same to maintain an A->B connection as it does to maintain a A->(B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I) connection, then people will probably keep spamming the increased number of connections.
Make rails a path between 2 squares rather than a tile in a specific square.
That way a hub with 8 rails coming out of it would in effect be 8 rails - build time and maintenance applies.
You just might see a strategic network forming, with rails running along coasts or through mountains and between bases without the mess of having all 3 lines form an ugly pattern.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
SpencerH
|
 |
Co-Ruler of my patch of land south of Birmingham Alabama
Feb 2002
time: 23:37
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
The only way to prevent rails being built everywhere is to make building the rail useless.
If it costs the same to maintain an A->B connection as it does to maintain a A->(B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I) connection, then people will probably keep spamming the increased number of connections.
Make rails a path between 2 squares rather than a tile in a specific square.
That way a hub with 8 rails coming out of it would in effect be 8 rails - build time and maintenance applies.
You just might see a strategic network forming, with rails running along coasts or through mountains and between bases without the mess of having all 3 lines form an ugly pattern. |
I like that  although again, infinite rail movement would need to be stopped.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Enigma_Nova
|
|
Infinite rail movement was indeed dumb.
If my enemy had lost all my troops, I could take his entire continent in one turn with just one unit.
"Day 23: Killed all resistance in New Orleans, which had conveniantly been waiting on the railway tracks for my locomotive. Moving on to St. Louis."
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Deathmerchant
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by SpencerH
The point is you shouldnt have to defend the entire coastline. Its impossible to land modern troops just anywhere. Do you think that the allies would have attacked Normandy in the face of Hitlers 'fortress Europe' if they could sail any old where and attack at any point.
The fact is that infinite rail movement allows you to defend against naval invasions at unreasonable locations. The answer is to limit where modern units can land and thereby allow reasonable (limited) rail movement. |
Alright, Hitler's forces at normandy were not the strongest forces he had on the Western Coast. Hitler assumed that the allies would attack at the shortest point possible between Britan and France, which is where he concentrated his defence, Normandy happens to be about twice that distance. So Hitler -did- have a tough time defending all that coastline. If he could have teleported all of his army to normandy via railroad, the invasion of normandy would have easily failed.
But reading your post again, I see that this probablly wasn't your point. Your point was not allowing troops to land anywhere and everywhere they want? Which makes perfect sense, but now we have to wonder where they can and can't land. If your entire coastline consists of open grassland, well, tough luck, they should be able to invade anywhere they want to in that scenario. If half of your coastline is mountain, the other half is grassland, well, you would be forced to land on the grassland. Or should you? Why can't I land my units on mountains? Sure it would take em awhile to get up those slopes, but they should still be able to find some way up, shouldn't they? Should it depend on how steep the mountians are? What about how well equipped your troops are? Should some units be able to land and some not?
Well, what if my coastline was entirely mountains, steep, frozen, lifeless mountians. Well I'd say that you should probablly find another way around. But what if I had a crack infantry divison that specializes in climbing mountains. Why shouldn't I be able to land then?
Or should we just simplify the entire thing and say that nobody can land on mountians? Or what if we had a different type of coastline that didn't allow the landing of troops? So it depended on the coastline rather then the type of terrain that you're landing on?
Just a few questions to ask yourself when considering this.
(Sry for the slight threadjacking at the end, but the start of my post had a paragraph about the evilness of infinite rail movement.  )
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Enigma_Nova
|
|
Unless you've somehow built an undersea railroad to the invading location, the point seems somewhat moot.
Most likely, there will be railroads through the mountains - especially if the guy on the continent has artillery.
---
I like the 'super highway' idea, move the infinite movement thingy back up the tech tree.
If roads are 1/3 make Railroads 1/7 or so. That will solve the army teleporting thing, which is far too cheesy IMO.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Drachasor
|
|
Well, there are two goals I think that need to be considered.
1. Elimination of infinite troop movement. It is unrealistic, and destroys depth in combat strategy.
2. Elimination of rails and roads being everywhere.
Solutions:
A. Reduce the benefit of rails to 1/9 or so, and have it upgradeable to higher levels. Eventually 1/18 or some such. Have road travel upgraded too, first when you hit the automobile, and later on as well. Car speed should never be as fast as rails though (unless you don't follow the rail speed upgrades at all). Good rails are always fast, even in modern times. Perhaps have the upgrades to rails be small wonders though, to show you must dedicate resources to it.
B. Allow everyone to use all road and rails freely, regardless of who built them. It is pretty obvious why this should be true for roads, and for rails one can just assume some sort of mechanism was jury rigged to allow this. This will mean you don't want them.
C. Eliminate all bonuses roads and rails give beyond movement. With B this will mean you don't want roads and rails everywhere, since the enemy can get troops on them very easily if they are too prevelent. If you are concerned about a coastal invasion, for instance, don't make nice high speed lanes for the enemy to use if they arrive.
D1. Make it harder to bombard rail and roads into oblivion. Perhaps give them a "damaged" state, that is repairable by any worker in 1 turn. Once this is reached it should be extremely difficult to damage the road.
D2. And/Or, use my idea of setting troops into a "Defensive" mode, wherein they automatically defend anything that is attacked. Have artillery automatically fire on anything in their radius that passes. Fighters should automatically scramble against enemy bombers that come into your territory. Perhaps let SAM batteries be build by workers inside forts, but give this a very long construction time. It would be nice to have some sort of ZOC back.
Net effect: It will be very hard to damage the road and rail network within a civilization, since a smart player will build fortifications and cities in a way to block and attack anything that tries to threaten them. Also, with defensive stance troops, you can have strategic troop placement, while still maintaining a movement advantage for linked cities. Sure, you can still spam roads and rails everywhere, but then you sacrifice time you could be spending to build defensive networks, more troops, and more improvements (since you'll need more workers).
Lastly, I think that regular tile improvements should give a 1/2 movement bonus when next to each other, and this should upgrade with the automobile to 1/4, and continue to improve with roads. This represents the fact that there are road/rail networks there, just primitive ones, smaller ones. It also makes there be less incentive to spam roads and rails everywhere for movement, since you'll get a bit of a bonus in the lesser used areas anyhow.
This way we wouldn't have to deal with infinite movement, the messiness of "loading" troops onto roads/rails, nor paying maintainence costs. While the last one is realistic, it is also a decided headache (hence very unfun).
-Drachasor
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Enigma_Nova
|
|
Which, added into my 'limited links' idea will make a great system.
Some form of primitive link at a developed square... I don't see how you'd implement that; make a troop that passes over the square spend 2/3 of a movement point?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Enigma_Nova
|
|
Does it cost the same gold to move units over 2 road connected tiles as it does over 20?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
lajzar
|
 |
Japan
Jun 2003
time: 14:37
|
|
Just to clarify that gold cost for using the rail depots.
If you are moving units with their usual movement allowance, there is no gold cost. Roads allow x3 speed, highways allow x5 (x9 ?) movement.
The rail depot allows you to move a unit instantly to any other city. The restrictions are:
1 - both cities must have a rail depot
2 - both cities must be connected by a road/highway network.
3 - The unit must start its turn in a city.
4 - Moving a unit by rail depot ends the unit's turn.
5 - Each unit moved by rail depot costs [n] gold for the movement, regardless of actual distance.
Essentially, the mechanic is the same as the civ2 airport, except the main limiting factor is gold instead of "one unit per turn".
Thus, normally, you'll want to keep your units in a good position for defence, but if necessary, you can spend hard cash to get your reserves in position in an emergency. Good players will have their defence arranged such that they won't usually need the rail move order.
Having rail depots as a city improvement also solves the issue of using "enemy" roads and rails. Roads and highways can always be used (its just a long thin hard piece of flat ground after all); rails require significant facilities to use, represented by rail depot city improvements. Theres no need for the civ3 "can't use enemy roads" rule.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Enigma_Nova
|
|
So basically it's a rehash of an old idea which avoids the central problem of infinite railway movement.
Right.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Deathmerchant
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Drachasor
*Snip
|
Good post .
A) Yes.
B) Yes.
C) Yes.
D1) So you propose it would take two bombardments to destroy a road/railroad? Or just one to reduce a road into a rail, then another to destory it? Or more then that? I would favor three or four bomardments for a road, just so it isn't too easy, and think about it, to disrupt every different route you could take in that one square (think of it as a network of roads in a square, not just one) but I'd think it would be just a couple bombardments to destroy a rail network. Railroads should be a bit easier to destroy, I'd think anyway. This would all be effected by chance to, it may take 4 or 5 bombardments for a rail, if chance is against you.
D2) To a degree maybe, someone else had an idea about auto-defending land units, where they just zoom to a city being attacked automatically, I really wasn't in favor of that. But I'd say yes for the fighter and SAM batteries shooting bombers down, and artillary auto-shooting at approching enemies.
And great idea with the network of roads with terrain improvments. That would simulate grid roads that branch off major highways that connect cities. They are still there, but just not as fast of travel as highways are.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Enigma_Nova
|
|
Well, can't have a primitive road network on a per-tile improvement,
but can't have my 'linked nodes' idea either
(Where you install the link to one adjacent tile separately from the links to other adjacent tiles).
Which idea gets the nod and which gets the heave?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Enigma_Nova
|
|
The real reason was because Germany had Land superiority on the direct assault path to Berlin.
So, the Allies attacked a different point.
But if Germany had Railroads, the allies would have been stuffed.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Drachasor
|
|
Here are some other reasons the allies did what they did:
1. Avoid having Germans east, west, and south of them.
2. They wanted to *liberate* Europe, so just going in and attacking Germany wouldn't have accomplished they. There still would have been large contingents of German troops elsewhere.
3. They wanted to have a direct line of supply for the troops, and to make it as unlikely as possible that the supplies lines could be attacked. As it was, Patton pushed things almost to the breaking point on the supply end.
-Drachasor
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:37.
Apolyton Time is 00:37. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
02-07-2004 10:06
)
|