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cloneodo
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I dont know if this has been suggested before or even if it goes in here, but here goes anyway.
Each engineer (terraforming unit, whatever) should have its own menu, in which you can choose which tiles are to be terraformed, with checkboxes for farms, roads, fotress etc.
All you would need to do is click on each tile, or multiple select with control, or drag a square over tiles to be terraformed.
These would then turn a different shade (only when the engineer menu is up). You would then check the relevant checkboxes. (The closest thing I can think of is sort of like SimCity Zoning Controls). Then just click on the GO button, and it would go and terraform, farm, irrigate, etc.
Perhaps also an option to copy one engineers map, to another engineers.
There could also be some stats in the menu saying how many turns total it will take to complete all terraforming.
Also, if you choose to automate the engineer, it will show you the same type of menu with shaded tiles. Maybe with a MAX TILE option.
If anyone doesnt understand, i'll try explain again.
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"I refuse to be smart!"
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loinburger
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Sweet Sauce Jones
Jul 1999
time: 00:14
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Improving w Units:
I agree that there should continue to be settler/engineer units, particularly engineers. Modern armies use engineers all of the time in order to build bridges or blow them up. (I suggest that engineers, not settlers but engineers, be given a pillaging bonus--whereas a regular unit could only destroy one TI per turn, an engineer could destroy two). However, I loathe having to build an arsenal of engineers for peacetime building, particularly if I'm in a democracy and it makes my citizens unhappy (I think that engineers should only cause an unhappiness penalty if they leave my borders, not if they leave their home base). The answers proposed so far sound great--better autoimprovement AI and engineering build queues--but frankly I don't think that I could ever trust the computer's AI for autoimprovement and build queues still present the problem of the extensive support I would have to provide my engineers. So, I think there should be both Public Works and Engineers. PW should cost money, should probably require some tech advances to be made, should become better with newer tech advances/city improvements (Bureaucracy as a tech advance and Civil Engineering Academy as a city improvement). This way you won't be wasting food and population on settlers in the early game, nor time in the later game, on peacetime TI's when you should be worrying about other things.
Road Improvements:
-Path: 1/2 movement, can be built any place once "roads" tech is discovered, allows horse/chariot/tank/etc. to move in mtns., swamps, etc. Trade bonus if between two friendly cities.
-Road: 1/3 movement, can be built only on plains/mountain passes/hills/grassland/etc. until Explosives tech advance. Requires "roads" tech advance, of course. Trade bonus if between two friendly cities.
-Improved Road: 1/5 movement, replaces all Roads automatically, improved trade between interconnected cities, requires "highway" (or whatever) tech advance, more difficult to bombard to smithereens than a normal road.
-Railroad: 1/10 movement until "bessemer steel" (or whatever) tech advance, at which time it provides 1/15 or 1/20 movement. Improved trade between cities. CAN BE USED BY ANY CIVILIZATION, NO MATTER WHO BUILT IT!!! (has any of you ever seen "The General" with Buster Keaton? Two rival civilizations used the same rail lines in that movie quite effectively). Improved trade between interconnected cities.
-Maglev: Unlimited movement, requires advanced techs, CAN ONLY BE USED BY CONTROLLING CIVILIZATION, improved trade between interconnected cities.
-Tunnel: Built on shallow water, can only be one tile space in length total, allows Improved Road/Railroad/Maglev to be built on the sea space (acts as a Path).
-Vacuum Tunnel: Can be built anywhere (sea spaces, land spaces, don't matter). Acts as a maglev. (for transporting units across the ocean quickly--much more expensive than Maglev, so only a moron would build this on land instead of building a Maglev).
-Paths would never become obsolete, they'd be used at first for mountain and swamp roads but later they'd still serve as ways for tanks to get through swamps/mountains.
-Trade bonuses would only be granted for paths/roads/whatever that connect two or more cities together. The trade bonus would be computed automatically at the city and the square containing the movement TI would not necessarily have to have a citizen on it in order for the trade bonus to be given. This would help the game aesthetically as not every tile would have to have a road. I also think that with the Suburb (or whatever) tech the city's squares should be treated as if they have a railroad in them in regards to production (railroads give a production bonus, as they should, but the "urban sprawl" need not be shown to be present).
-Since enemy Civ's will be able to use your roads and railroads, this means that they can go marching into your territory with greater ease. You should be able to set up "road blocks" on your rail lines and road systems (no need to on the Maglevs and Vacuum Tunnels). These road blocks can be created by any unit-the take 2 turns to make (1 turn for engineers/settlers) and negate the map tile's TI bonuses. The TI still exists and can still be bombarded/pillaged-doing so removes the Road Block, as the TI it is blocking is also gone. A TI can be removed by any unit-doing so takes 2 turns (1 for an engineer) and returns the TI to full working order. This will slow down an enemy advance which is using your own rail system/road network against you, and would also keep a mountain village protected from horsemen in the early game.
-Later in the game, with the proper techs, movement TI's should be able to be built underground. Doing so would cause enemy Civ's to be unable to use your TI's until they have captured them (they probably don't even know they exist) and will also decrease the chances that bombardment/artillery will destroy your TI's.
-Destroying a movement TI by bombardment becomes steadily more difficult the more primitive the TI is--it's pretty difficult to destroy a Path, after all. Improved Road is the exception to this, as it is more difficult to destroy than Road (although if you've got an Improved Road, you don't have a Road, as the one replaces the other). Pillaging a Path will take 2 turns instead of the usual 1. Pillaging any movement TI (except a Path) will reduce that TI down to a Path. If the TI is built underground, however, it will always be reduced down to nothing (a Path underground will only take 1 turn to pillage).
-TI's can be built without their prerequisites, but having a prerequisite will reduce the build time of the new TI. However, having a Road (or Improved Road) will aid in the construction of a Maglev just as much as a Railroad will. Underground facilities are always built from scratch (with a whole lot of turns tacked on).
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Zakalwe
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Re: the Railroad Sleaze
To prevent the devastating of enemy civs in Civ2 by getting a few howitzers on their railway network, a simple solution would be (since Civ3 will in all likelihood include borders) to forbid rail movement by units outside their home territory. This is not strictly historical, but IMO it solves more problems than causes.
Another possibility is to rule that whenever a combat is fought in a tile, there's a chance of railroads being damaged/destroyed.
Finally, the (ab)use of other civs' railroads could be solved by adding a small feature: railway gauges. When your civ starts building its first railways, a pop-up window appears, asking if you want to build standard-gauge railways or have a unique gauge. Standard gauge would allow the use of other civs' railroads (perhaps with the above restrictions), while a unique gauge would force you to convert rails (half construction time) to your gauge. There should also be a slight penalty to trade with civilisations having different gauges.
Zakalwe
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"Ambitions that fall sort of their aim have all along helped produce excellent histories" - Ernst Breisach, Historiography
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Harel
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Ramat Hasharon, Israel
May 1999
time: 05:14
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EnochF, what happened on july 7? Had a good day?
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NotLikeTea
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HRM, NS, Canada
Apr 1999
time: 05:14
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I want to see no "Terraforming" tech.
What is terraforming? Making something more like the Earth (terra). We can terraform Mars, we can terraform Planet, but we're already on earth, so we can't terraform our own planet.
Maybe "Geologic reconstruction"?
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loinburger
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Sweet Sauce Jones
Jul 1999
time: 00:14
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Theben et al.:
The following post wanders a little bit, but the reason is that I'm trying to convince you folks to not have railroads be 'owned' by a civilization.
"The General" was an old silent film made by Buster Keaton and is based on an actual occurrence during the Civil War. "The General" is the name of a train (owned by Buster Keaton) which is stolen by Union soldiers and brought back to the Union base somewhere around Tennessee (along with Keaton's girlfriend). Keaton takes another confederate train, "The Texas", and chases the Union soldiers back to their base, steals "The General" back again, and saves the day. It's a wonderful movie and I suggest that you rent it sometime (although it is difficult to find).
The point? Things like this really happenned. (the movie is based on a true story and even has the actual train "The General" which was used in the skirmish). Two opposing civilizations CAN use the same rail lines, logically; all you really need is something on rails and you can travel as far as your heart desires, assuming that nobody blows you or the rails up first. Maglevs, however, require a power source to work and would therefore NOT be instantly accessible but would instead have to be occupied by the civ for one turn before the civ could use them.
But then comes the problem of rush tactics, which I am no fan of.
-First solution: roadblocks and ambushes, and stationing units on the railroad tracks.
-Second solution: you can only get on and off a railroad track from a city or at a Rail Center TI, otherwise you use up an entire turn (perhaps two) getting off the railroad (perhaps getting on? this must be decided--I think that units should be able to get off anywhere for a turn sacrifice, else they would get stranded, but what about getting back on?)
-Third solution: Alter the method in which railroads/meglevs are built (this need not apply to roads/paths). Railroad/maglev tracks would require a direction in which they would be built, and junctions not located at cities would be costly (in both time and money). This would eliminate the current "build a railroad everywhere for the land bonus" problem with railroads, because you just cannot defend yourself with a network like this (but you have to build one in order to get the most output from your land). Instead, railroads/maglevs would be built more sparingly and, preferably, only as connections between cities. This single-line rail system would make railroads much easier to defend and would justify allowing enemy civs access to your railroad(s). The current rail bonus should, IMHO, be replaced with a city improvement which would confer the same benefits or else the benefits should be automatically conferred with the discovery of the Bessemer Process (or something). It would also be much more difficult to perform a rail-blitz (with an army of engineers) with the increased price of railroad laying.
-Fourth solution: it will always take more than one turn to complete a section of track, no matter how many engineers you put on the job. The new rail tile square will confer a Path bonus (due to the clearing of trees and whatnot) but will not confer the Rail (or Maglev) bonus.
I do see where you're coming from with the "civ control of rails" idea, but I do not think that it should be implemented from a realism (>cringe< ) perspective nor from a playability perspective. Blitzes can be prevented just as easily by simply tweaking the railroad building process. As far as I'm concerned, if you've only got one railroad connecting your city and the enemy city and you don't have the common sense to defend it or destroy it, then it's your own fault. So all we've got to do is make a single railroad line a viable option instead of the rail network we've got instead.
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Diodorus Sicilus
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Steilacoom, WA, USA
May 1999
time: 05:14
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Technophile: Actually, "The General" movie (there were two of them: Disney made a version in the 1950s) is a good indicator that armies cannot use another civ's railroad. Individual trains on a raid, maybe, but a railroad is a system including switches, many trains, signals, and communications that all have to be controlled in order to use it. A single train is insignificant in the Civ game scale: remember that even a small Soviet WWII rifle division took 20+ trains to move, while an armored division can take 50 to 100 trains of 50+ cars each!
I agree with your concepts of limiting the massive rail net problem, but a relatively simle and realistic solution to the 'rail blitz' is to require railroads to be converted to your control by an engineer before any unit can use them for movement.
Thus, you could move an Armor/Tank unit along the railroad, but at terrain speed only. Behind it in the same turn you could place engineers on the rails to convert, but conversion would be like building roads: possible in the same turn, but only if you have a lot of engineers assigned to the entire railroad line.
In return, 'pillaging' or destroying railroads as you retreat should be one of the easiest and fastest of the Pillage commands. Destroying railroads in hill or mountain tiles is almost automatic: there are lots of bridges and tunnels that can be collapsed to block the rails and require major engineering to repair or replace.
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18-07-1999 08:19
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