Can't use roads during invasion?

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Mines, blockades are great, but how do your defending troops avoid them with no loss of movement?

They have maps, and some auto off switches.

[squid]

Firaxis, reconsider and turn it off.

If you recall during the Civil War, one of the greatest threats to Washington was if the South took it by rail, so as I believe the rail lines were cut.

Rail lines in france are a different gauge, I believe, for similar reasons.

HOWEVER it is always easiest for enemies to use roads as a method of invasion for fastest movement rate.

Civil War troops frequently used roads, and wheeled vehicles certaintly don't want to truck through the jungle. Perhaps reseaching "mines" may be effective, but road bonuses should not be withheld!

[DonJoel]

What is this!!? Of course you should be able to use roads! perhaps not railroad but road! The road is still there right

(and if the ai sucks as much as in smac and civ2 in attacking it will be even easier now if the enemy piles up at your border...)

[Ralf]

Originally posted by DonJoel
(and if the ai sucks as much as in smac and civ2 in attacking it will be even easier now if the enemy piles up at your border...)

This idea is a double-edged sword - but the burden lays mainly on the human player, since he most often take the conquer-the-world initiatives. Good.

Basically, I like the idea of only having complete full-speed access to enemy-roads, after you have conquered the enemy-city controling the surrounding roads. But there should at least be some incentive to use roads anyway. My suggestion earlier was treating both uncontrolled roads & RR:s as roads with only doubled (not tripled) move road-bonus. But I can live with Firaxis variant as well.

Look at it as a new challenge - now your old Civ-2 sleepwalk-routine invasions wont work anymore. You have to rethink your strategies - is that really so terrible?

As for realism - compare with invading foreign contries in "Europa Universalis", which is much harder (and much more realistic) - even compared with Civ-3, it seems. So I dont think you can use realism-arguments against the idea of making invasions slower & harder then it ever was in Civ-2.

[RedWhiteArcher]

IMHO the roads shouldn't be touched during invasions but the railroads are great idea. Although this could be easily implemented in Civ 2 too by pilaging you own RR. Hey hint, pilage the roads too.

Also a great and very easy to implement feature could be the attrition. Just like helicopter in Civ2, every unit outside the borders should suffer damge in precentage depending on what terrain it is on.

[Harlan]

I hope this is something that is editable for scenario makers. In general, I think a good compromise would be to have the movement rate for hostile roads and railroads halved. Keep in mind that turns are a minimum of 1 year, sometimes 25 years or so. So if you can't use the infrastructre at all, it may take several centuries just to reach a city's outskirts! That's no fun, and not realistic. (Having to take "only" 50 years isn't realistic either, but at least its better, and there are good gameplay reasons for some slowdown)

By the way, railroads were not such a big obstacle as many people think. The main example that pops to mind is Russia during WW2. But this is a rare exception: only Russia and Spain AFAIK use narrow gauge rail tracks. In most other cases, railroads could be used effectively very quickly (for instance the German approach to Paris in WWI), and it certainly wasn't a slowdown on the order of years.

[DonJoel]

I hope this is something that is editable for scenario makers. In general, I think a good compromise would be to have the movement rate for hostile roads and railroads halved. Keep in mind that turns are a minimum of 1 year, sometimes 25 years or so. So if you can't use the infrastructre at all, it may take several centuries just to reach a city's outskirts! That's no fun, and not realistic. (Having to take "only" 50 years isn't realistic either, but at least its better, and there are good gameplay reasons for some slowdown

I dont see why people always says what you should be able to do in a year and not. CIVILIZATION uses TURNS NOT YEARS. The years is just for fun, its the turns that counts.
Yes, you should be able to do alot in a year but if you walk down that road you have to re-design a whole new game.

But I do think that you should be able to use roads, not just railroads (for gameplay reasons)

[jdd2007]

the roads shouldn't be touched

there should at least be some incentive to use roads anyway.

Of course you should be able to use roads!

road bonuses should not be withheld!

well well well ... everyone still likes the RRs ( ) but the road idea gets

[Alexander's Horse]

Invaders use the existing lines of communications!!!!! DUH!!!!! This would have to be one of the stupidest game design decisions I have ever seen.

I'd like the Firaxis team to explain to me

a. how "culture" stops an invader from using a road and

b. how you execute a blitzkrieg when you can't use the freaking enemy roads and railways!!!

On the civ time scale, roads and rail should be available to invaders.

SSHHHEEESSSH!

If you ask me, this is a code bug dressed up as a feature.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
a. how "culture" stops an invader from using a road and

It doesnt. Just because you must conquer/control enemy-cities in order to get full road/RR-benefit within city-indevidual culture-borders, doesnt necessarily mean that "culture" has anything to do with it. The main point is that you must control the local area, before you can relax and move at full-speed along these enemy-roads.
Besides - who says you cannot use uncontrolled enemy roads? You can very well choose to move along these roads anyway - it just that you dont benefit from the road-bonus.

The overal idea makes perfect sense to me (although a reduced doubled road-bounus roads/RR:s alike, would be enough - but perhaps customers who dont bother with manuals would promptly report such subtle differences as a bug). A slowed down invasion symbolizes sabotage, sniper harassment, mines, blown-up bridges, removed roadsigns, food/fuel-logistical problems and so on.

b. how you execute a blitzkrieg when you can't use the freaking enemy roads and railways!!!

The blitzkrieg's that one could execute in Civ-2 was in fact extremely unrealistic "ultra-speed blitzkriegs", that (for example) didnt take food/fuel-logistical problems into account at all. It was quite possible to invade & control upto 50-75% of an huge soviet-style AI-empire within the initial turn, before the invaded empire was allowed to fire back even a single shot.
And the AI could never respond in similar ways - thats way beyond what it can possibly do, in such a higly complex, random-map game like Civ. Besides, I think modern blitzkrieg's is still possible, because all modern units have much better move-stats then ancient/medieval ones (obviously).

On the civ time scale, roads and rail should be available to invaders.

The time-scale is a passive backdrop - whats important is the turns. One could just as well argue why it should take 5+ turns (= 5+ years) to move a battleship over a pacific ocean-type of distance, in a generic game, on a computer-generated map. The reason is of course that it would take "forever" to move around each indevidual ship, airplane & ground-unit, if they all had unlimited moves (if moves really was ruled by the time-scale alone).

If you ask me, this is a code bug dressed up as a feature.

I really dont think its that hard to program the default move-bonus rules, this way or that way. Instead they deliberately and purposely designed the rules this particular way, in order to make the game more balanced, fun, challenging and realistic in terms of invasions.

[DonJoel]

I say it again. You should be able to use roads but not railroad, all for gameplay and realism reasons.

[Harlan]

Ralf,
I think the fool who doesn't know the rules would be equally baffled if roads didn't work at all compared to roads working at half effect.

The ultra speed attacks you speak of are the result of unlimited movement on railroads. That indeed needs fixing, but this is going to the other extreme. In Civ3, it would take Alexander God knows how many hundreds of years to accomplish what he really accomplished in 8 years.

Is there anyone who DOESN'T like the idea of having roads work at half effect? Railroads are typically laid down where roads have already been (and remain), so you'd at least need the road half speed effect in the railroad case.

Personally, I think the naval rules are screwed up if ships can only move a few squares a turn. Just cos one thing is screwed up doesn't make it right to have another thing screwed up. There needs to be some compromise, but battleships for instance should move 15 at the very minimum, not 5. Especially since roads and railroads speed up ground traffic, but there is nothing similar for ocean. That level of slowness is just messed up. At least they seem to have fixed air movement this time around.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Harlan
In Civ3, it would take Alexander God knows how many hundreds of years to accomplish what he really accomplished in 8 years.

One can always choose to play a good Alexander-scenario (with adjusted time-scale).

Is there anyone who DOESN'T like the idea of having roads work at half effect?

Well, your variant I would infact prefer as the best choice. I hope they consider changing it. Otherwise one perhaps can tweak this feature through the extensive game-editors we have been promised.

[Alexander's Horse]

A road is a neutral terrain feature. Invaders use them, always have, always will.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
A road is a neutral terrain feature. Invaders use them, always have, always will.

Learn from Harlan. Hes also against the idea, but he at least is willing to compromise (= reduced road-bonus).

[Alexander's Horse]

My code problem suspicion came from the magazine article I read. It said enemy troops occuppying ground denied the resource to the civ that owned that ground. That might mean they had a code problem denying the resource but letting the occuppying unit use the roads. So they dressed it up as a "feature".

Sneaky Firaxis, sneaky.

You can't really see non use of roads as a "feature". Its proposterous! Invaders have always used roads. Full stop. End of story.

Would you like me to list some famous invasion roads/routes from the beginning of time to the present day?

[DonJoel]

Cant we get a firaxis response to this?

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
My code problem suspicion came from the magazine article I read. It said enemy troops occuppying ground denied the resource to the civ that owned that ground. That might mean they had a code problem denying the resource but letting the occuppying unit use the roads

Erm, that doesnt even make sense.
If an enemy unit is sitting on another civs resource (like iron or horses) for instance, that civ wont be able to use that resource. Nothing weird about that.

Then the next bit about roads... If an enemy unit is sitting on another civs resource, that enemy unit is static, not moving, not using roads, not travelling at all.

How the above situation relates at all to the ignoring roads/railroads rule i have no idea at all. Further, if they did this "because they couldnt get the code to work", then how come any units can travel just fine through another civs transport network when youve got a "right of passage" pact with them?? The same code works in one situation but not another?? Give me a break!!

[Skanky Burns]

Adding to that, i think that completely denying a bonus from roads is a little harsh. You've got this nice, wide, flat path that, to an invading army, cant really be treated the same as grasslands or plains. A half-bonus for using roads would be more appropriate, and we will probably be able to adjust this value ourselves if needed.

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
My code problem suspicion came from the magazine article I read. It said enemy troops occuppying ground denied the resource to the civ that owned that ground. That might mean they had a code problem denying the resource but letting the occuppying unit use the roads. So they dressed it up as a "feature".

haven't you got that backwards, horse? An occupying army takes over a piece of ground with a resource belonging to the enemy civ. the enemy now cannot access the resource. but they can access the road (if they kick the invaders off)??? seems the occupying army can't access the resource either when they're on it or not. occupying invaders block access to resource, but don't get the road themselves? explain the backwardianism of that, huh?

however, you and everyone else posting is correct, invaders have always used roads. rails are another matter.

[jdd2007]

you guys dont realize that when you take over a city u can use the roads and RRs there. go on to next city. this is what invaders have done ...

[DonJoel]

you guys dont realize that when you take over a city u can use the roads and RRs there. go on to next city. this is what invaders have done

So jdd2007, dont you think that invaders used the roads when they were going to the city that they were going to capture?

[aiin]

While it's unrealistic to stop enemy civ to use your roads it's probably a good gameplay decision to make it that way. Of course it would be better in game to create mines or what nots on your roads so it can't be used by other civs that declared war on you(your alley would of course be able to avoid the mines). It's will create the stragtegy of mining your roads connecting to other civs.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by DonJoel
So jdd2007, dont you think that invaders used the roads when they were going to the city that they were going to capture?

Well, often they did - but thats really not the issue, is it?

The issue is instead if they where free to move along just as fast and effective, as it where some kind of business-trip by a single indevidual. This what you implying if you want the road-bonus be the same regardless war or peace.

Also, read again what Jdd2007 actually said:
"you guys dont realize that when you take over a city u can use the roads and RRs there. go on to next city. this is what invaders have done ..."

In other words: If you conquer one enemy-city, you can use the roads surrounding that city at full-speed potential again. If you conquer a second city, you can use the road-nettwork surrounding both cities at their full-speed potential again. Why is this so hard to understand???

Finally: Thanks to this feature, its now much harder to penetrate unrealistically deep within enemy territory and then pick-and-choose "the raisins in the cake" (= only Great Wonder cities, for example). That was way to easy in Civ-2. Only implementing invasion-limitations on the RR-bonus (which i hope is not "infinite" anymore) alone, aint gonna make it. Invasion road move-limitations is also needed. The question is only how much is reasonable?

[Father Beast]

let me get this straight.

I stage an invasion to some backward city that doesn't have much road built around it, and bring my workers to build roads.

and I can't use the roads built by MY OWN WORKERS??

[Lordfluffers]

Ok for those having difficulty...

Imagine your town invades the next town along. How would you get there, by road or through the fields and woods, especially if you have vehicles, or cavalry, artillery or whatever??? Ad if you took the road and reached the enemy town's road why would you go any slower down that one. railways are a little different due to logistics and the ease with how you can sabotage a railway, but still its not that different. Maybe small hit bonus for RR's but definately no for roads!!

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Father Beast
I stage an invasion to some backward city that doesn't have much road built around it, and bring my workers to build roads.

and I can't use the roads built by MY OWN WORKERS??

Correct (I believe).

After declaring war the road-bonus is automatically nullified within uncontrolled enemy-territory (regardless if you have built those roads or not), and you can only get full road-bonus back again stepwise, by conquering cities - one after the other. And its a damn good thing that it is designed like that, I might add. I agree with Harlan though that reduced road-bonus would be quite enough.

Originally posted by Lordfluffers
Imagine your town invades the next town along. How would you get there, by road or through the fields and woods, especially if you have vehicles, or cavalry, artillery or whatever???

The point isnt if you can use roads or not - obviously you use the fastest & safest way, and that would probably be roads - even considering mines and hostile backstabbings.
The point is (again) that you cannot expect move around big army-battalions in still uncontrolled hostile environments just as fast & effective, as if you were a smaller group of goal-focused peacetime backpackers surrounded by a friendly and helpful foreigners.

You cannot just barge in without looking back - you must "secure the area" and safeguard army maintenance-routes back to the homelands. Why is this so hard to accept?
This is simulated by temporarily reduce/neutralize the enemey road-bonus (the attacked civ still enjoys this bonus, though). So the overal idea really makes perfect sence. Only those who want invasions as easy-going, unchallenging & onesided process as it was in Civ-2, can have anything against this idea.

[ancient]

Thats perfect!

No more Infinite howitzers, there slowness would actually be a weakness..

I also agree with Harlan that a "reduced-benefit" from hostile roads would be the best choice (not simply a compromise). This reduced benefit should wither be a 1/2 movement point cost to move along roads and/or a 1 movement point cost to move on hostile roads REGARDLESS of the terrain (or a combination... 1/2 for open terrain, 1 for other terrain).

This represents a number of concepts as mentioned by others, including SUPPLY LINES... although absent from civ3, this can be considered a partial abstraction of them.

[Stromprophet]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
ANY roads inside the cultural border of an enemy civ won't give you movement bonuses. If you bring in your own workers and build roads towards the enemy cities, they'll thank you by moving their armies towards you faster and attacking!! Or not. But you still wouldnt be able to use the roads. Once you take the city, then the enemy civs cultural border will shrink, and areas that were once inside their border will now be fully usable by your armies.

I guess this stops the "infinite howies" attack, where you move a howitzer by railroad directly to an enemy city, attack once, and retreat to a well-defended city of your own. Repeat with another howie, etc, until the enemy city (or empire) is out of soldiers. Then move a defensive unit into the cities to complete your invasion. This type of attack would leave you with no chance to retaliate in Civ 2, so the new road rules get a big

I guess the point here is to make sure your Culture is better than your opponents, so that way you can use the roads right up to their cities.

Not like I ever used them though, roads primary reason for building them in civ 2? Anyone, anyone. Defend your own land with a much smaller army than you would have to otherwise.

Of course increased trade would be a secondary feature. Then there is the to get outside your borders faster than you could before of course.