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Yarco_TW
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Yes, it should be infinite movement.
Travelling years from one place to another is somewhat unrealistic.
And no movement on foreign land. But yes, you need not travel etween cities. In real life there are train stations i between.
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Toby Rowe
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London, UK
Feb 2001
time: 05:28
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A Cohort marching to Greece was a little slower than the two British army Officers who invented the "Blitzkreig" therom in the 1920's using Petrol (Gas). In relative terms, it was instant, and as each turn is a year or more in all Civ versions.......
Toby :-)
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Sir Ralph
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Long live teh Schwampel!
Dec 2001
time: 06:28
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quote:
Originally posted by Yarco_TW
Travelling years from one place to another is somewhat unrealistic. |
Mentioning the word realism in a game means opening a can of worms, I hope you are aware of this. How realistic is it on the other hand, that you need many years to circumnavigate the globe by sea?
A strategical game is the better, the more strategical choice you have, without losing on balance. Think of a Civ game as of a big board (like an enlarged chessboard) with a variety of different units (chessmen) on it. That's exactly what it is. Forget mountains, hills, oceans and forests, they are just eyecandy, and so are improvements like mines, farms and roads. And forget warriors, knights and tanks. They are just chessmen, able to move and to interact with other (enemy) units. Some special units exist, that can interact with the board itself (settlers and workers), something that doesn't exist in chess.
Now imagine in terms of chess, that all chessmen would have the ability to move to every free tile on the board in one turn. Wouldn't this make that game incredibly stupid? And even if you limit it to "not on enemy territory", it would still be stupid and render the whole strategy and tactics useless.
Even more. Lets look at chessmen in terms of realism.
King - can move in all directions, but very slow. Ok, that would be realistic
Queen - can move in all directions, but very fast. Hello realism? If the king crawls, why can his wife move like a lightning? By the way, in older versions of chess, the queen could move only 1 diagonal tile. But some game designer invented the unlimited queen movement.
Rook - was formerly meant to be either a boat, or a war elephant. Is there a realistic reason, that it can move only N, S, E and W, but not NE or SW?
Bishop - a cleric. Why can he move only NE, NW, SE and SW but not in the "straight" directions? Is that realistic? Is he drunk or something?
Knight - Jumps in 8 possible directions. Ok, that might be fine, even though it is not very realistic, that a mounted warrior moves slower than a drunk cleric, let alone the queen.
Pawn - Moves only straight north, in no other direction. The other side's pawn moves only straight south. Can beat others only, if they are not directly in his way. If he reaches the end of his way, he will ineviatbly become either queen (even if male), bishop (even if not religious), knight (even if not noble) or rook (a boat? an elephant?). Hello realism?
Keep in mind, that just like Civilization, chess is meant to be a "mirror of the world". It is a model, at a certain level of abstraction. It is not a simulation. It does not have to be realistic.
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Peter Triggs
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Gone Fishin, Canada
Jan 2000
time: 05:28
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Yes, that's an excellent post, Sir Ralph.
The crucial thing is that we want a game that's designed to be fun to play.
Anyone who wants total realism can turn off their computer, go out, and get a lousy job.
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Lancer
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Oregon Coast, USA! or Bohol, Philippines!
Apr 1999
time: 05:28
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In some of the old 70s wargames it took a turn to 'get on' the train, the next turn you moved unlimited distance, then a turn to get off. If attacked in this process the unit defended with a fraction of its defense strength. There was also a limit on total # of rail moves in a turn. This could be based on # of cities.
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Lancer
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Oregon Coast, USA! or Bohol, Philippines!
Apr 1999
time: 05:28
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In civ some things are strategic, some tactical. That's how they combine civilization building with warfare. It doesn't take a thousand years to sail around the world either.
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patcon
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I like the idea of a "train"unit similar to a maritime transport (galley, transport, etc.) unit. You get rail movement, but you have to plan in advance for it, not just pay some sort of "fee" when you use it. If you want the ability to transport lots of units by rail - build lots of trains; if you're willing to preposition defensive and offensive units - build just a few trains.
The method of using a "train" would be similar to using a maritime transport unit. (Since the coding already exists for water transportation, and so that the AI doesn't have to learn a whole new strategy.)
EMBARKING
If a unit moves into a "rail depot" tile (more on this later) where a train is present, it may choose to load onto the train, using up any remaining MP. If a unit starts out in a rail depot tile where a train is present, it may choose to load onto the train, retaining any MP. This is similar to loading on a ship.
MOVING
A train unit can only move into and out of tiles containing railroads. Train units don't receive a movement bonus, per se, rather they have a large (but not necessarily infinite) number of MP to use along the railed route. There could be different train units with different numbers of MP, just like the different kinds of maritime transports.
DISEMBARKING
Embarked units arriving at a rail depot tile with their own MP remaining may disembark at a cost of 1 (maybe 2 or 3) MP and then move with whatever MP they have left. This could include embarking on a new train. Embarked units arriving at a rail depot tile without their own MP remaining would have to wait until the next turn to disembark.
RAIL DEPOT
A "rail depot" represents a facility for loading and unloading trains. These could exist anywhere along a rail line. They would be built by the worker action "build depot" on a previously-railed tile, including city tiles. The time cost would be the same as for building railroad, including adjustments for terrain.
Possible additional ideas
1. Trains must end turn in a depot, or else lose some MP at the beginning of the next turn to simulate the effects of maintenance and refueling at a depot.
2. Trains passing through a depot lose some MP to simulate the decreased speed when passing through a depot.
3. Depots act as both road and rail tiles for the purposes of movement.
MOVEMENT IN RAIL TILES BY NON-TRAINS
Non-wheeled unit movement from RR tile to RR tile costs half the usual movement cost for the underlying terrain to simulate the ease of moving along the right-of-way, movement into or out of RR tiles incurs normal cost. Wheeled unit movement from RR tile to RR tile costs double the usual movement cost, so you don't tear up the rails by racing your tanks along the tracks.
ATTACKS ON TRAINS AND EMBARKED UNITS
An attack on a train also effects any embarked units. If a train is damaged to the point where it has lost half of more of its HP, then its MP is halved. If a train is destroyed, any embarked units are automatically disembarked, lose 1 HP , and defend at half (rounded up) of their strength for the remainder of that turn. Train units should be reasonably hard to destroy to simulate the difficulty in hitting a moving train, but should not be able to inflict damage on their attacker as trains don't shoot back. Maybe give the attacker one roll of the RNG to attempt to inflict damage on an unescorted train.
DEFENDING TRAINS
A special train unit, the "armored train escort" could be used in the same way as destroyer to escort trains. They would come under attack before any other train units in that tile. They would be capable of inflicting damage on any attacker, including air attacks. They might also be given the capability of transporting a small (much smaller than a normal train) number of units.
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Impaler[WrG]
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Cheif Manufacturing Officer of Morgan Industires
May 2002
time: 22:28
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If its possible for a unit to make multiple embarkations and disembarkments in a single turn then thats going to lead to a lot of Micro Managment as people string together these trips. I would just keep Infinite movment.
The Restriction of Embarking and Disembarking only at Rail Depots sounds interesting. I would assume that Cities are automaticaly considered Rail Depots or a "Rail Depot" improvment can be built to give it this ability (along with some nice economic bosts as well).
All this Rail Road nerfing gets me thinking.
In the US the Highway system if even MORE expensive and powerfull then the Rail system, you can go roughly as fast on it and its easier to get on and Off. Lets have "Highway" as a late game Super Transport system that Upgrades Roads, is more expensive then Rail Roads, requires some steep upkeep costs (1-3 gold per tile) and have most of the abilites of Old school Rails aka Infinite movment, geting on and off at any point, no need to board transports (were assuming vehicles are ubicuitous by this point).
This would give us 3 levels of Transportation.
Level 1 - Roads - reduce movment costs of terrain to a minimum, no maintance costs
Level 2 - Rails - reduce movment cost to zero but only for special "Locomotive" unit that can carry other units, pay maintance for each Depot
Level 3 - Highway - reduce movment costs of terrain to zero for all units. Pay maintance for each Tile of Highway.
Last edited by Impaler[WrG] on 25-07-2005 at 08:45
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patcon
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quote:
Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
If its possible for a unit to make multiple embarkations and disembarkments in a single turn then thats going to lead to a lot of Micro Managment as people string together these trips. I would just keep Infinite movment. |
The most you could do is: (1) embark in the tile you started the turn in; (2) be transported to another depot; (3) disembark using 1, 2, or 3 MP (depending on whether it's desired to let fast movers move after disembarking, I'm open to debate); (4) embark on a new train, using up all remaining MP; (5) be transported by the new train, no more action possible. "Leapfrogging" could be prevented by making disembarkment use all MP.
quote:
The Restriction of Embarking and Disembarking only at Rail Depots sounds interesting. I would assume that Cities are automaticaly considered Rail Depots or a "Rail Depot" improvment can be built to give it this ability (along with some nice economic bosts as well). |
Rail depots are the result of worker action (the only action that occurs in the city core tile, IIRC), not city improvements. Since I'd like to have depots anywhere on a rail line, not just in cities, I think it's easier to have only one way of making a depot.
I like the idea of economic boosts. Maybe +1 for each item produced by a tile with a depot.
Radical idea alert - Allow a worked (irrigated, mined, or chopped) tile with a depot, but not in a city radius, to contribute its output to a city with a depot within a 1-turn distance for the fastest train available. Don't you just hate it when a potentially useful tile is located where there isn't really a good reason to build a city? An irrigated flood plain in the hinterlands could ship its food to a nearby city; likewise for a mined hill. Sound like real life? Where do you suppose most metropolitan areas get their food supplies and raw materials? The last time I was in NYC, I didn't see farms and coal mines in Times Square, or even Central Park, yet the people had food to eat and the power plants had coal to burn. This could get tedious in terms of MM in designating which city gets the output, if a player wishes to tweak every turn, but doesn't have to. When such a depot comes "on line" (either by "depoting" a worked tile or working a "depoted" tile) a dialog box opens listing all cities with depots within range and asking where to send the output. Later, as conditions change (new range, new city depots, changed needs) the output can be redirected to a new city by clicking on the source tile and bringing up the previous dialog box, these changes taking effect at the start of the next turn.
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04-07-2005 23:56
. However, many of the ideas expressed are those of other members. Some of my ideas weren't even included. Elimination of unlimited RR was not my idea, and I did not and do not favor it.
to Sir Ralph!
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