Ground movement along rivers

[Hurricane]

First I want to say hi to everybody. Yesterday I got the brilliant idea of reinstalling Civ2, and I can tell I came rather tired to work this morning after playing all night

Anyway, I found this great forum and read all about Civ 3, so after spending an hour searching without success, I decided to post my idea for Civ 3 as a new post instead. Sorry if this has already been discussed, but all I found were topics about *crossing* rivers and movement of *ships* along rivers.

What I want to point out is the massive importance rivers had for movement of people, during most part of history. Railroads were the first means of transportation that was faster than water. Now, in Civ 2, rivers count as roads when you move along them, but you have to spend a whole movement point to enter the river tile. This means you in most cases will build a road beside the river and walk along this instead. And because you can't build roads in river tiles before Bridge building, you will see rivers more like obstacles than fast ways of transpaortation for most of the time.

So I have some simple suggestions for Civ 3.

1) Make river movement for ground units faster than road movement. I suggest 1/6 movement point. Looking at history, rivers were *always* used whenever available.
2) Make it possible to build roads into river tiles before bridge building. However, before bridge building, crossing a river will always cost 1 movement point even if there is a road in the tile.

This would lead to rivers having an important strategic importance, just like they had in real life.

What do you think?

Hurricane

[Grumbold]

The point you highlight about bridge building preventing road construction into a river tile is a valid one. I also found rivers in Civ were generally so small it wasn't worth the bother of entering them as you would be leaving again very soon. I don't think it should be any faster than road transport for troop movement unless you actually built transport ships capable of navigating rivers.

[Cyclotron]

I think one of the major deterrents for people using rivers in Civ2 was not only because they were just as slow as roads, but because most of the rivers became jagged and zig-zaggy due to the isometric tiles. It became much more inefficient to navigate those winding rivers... so I think that rivers should be modified to 1/4 movement to balance this out. And to make that fair too, it should be made so rivers give no extra move bonus unless the tech "map making" or whatever allows triremes is discovered, indicating that you can now build small boats and rafts to ferry your troops up and down rivers. There shouldn't be a unit for doing this, it seems to complicated to create such a dedicated unit.

On the other hand, if you wanted a unit, you could make it so certain boats could travel up rivers... you wouldremove the ground bonus, and normal sea units could ferry troops up and down the river. The downside would be your boats would be open to attack from the shore, and would kind of be trapped if they blockaded the river mouth.

------------------
- Cyclotron7, "that supplementary resource fanatic"

[Mokael]

an interesting point. but I have a slightly different approach. Instead of building a "river boat", or doing all that complicated road/bridge-bidling thing, there should be a much simpler way. For example -- Settler unit (or is it now Laborer?) should have ability to construct a small port/station on a river tile, that would allow your units to enter that tile without losing a movement point.

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by Hurricane on 05-08-2001 08:37 AM 1) Make river movement for ground units faster than road movement. I suggest 1/6 movement point. Looking at history, rivers were *always* used whenever available.

Perhaps it is enough to simply tweak the rule-files, once your personal copy of Civ-3 is installed?

quote: 2) Make it possible to build roads into river tiles before bridge building. However, before bridge building, crossing a river will always cost 1 movement point even if there is a road in the tile.

Why complicate such a minor issue? Does above ADD anything that important to the overall fun- and challenge-value of the game? Also, perhaps some civers (those who dont read manuals that carefully) is likely to report this upgrade as a BUG instead?

[Roman]

Welcome to Apolyton!

[Jarouik]

I just wanted to point out that in one of the screenshots seen recently, there is a river that flows not through map tiles but between them; see http://apolyton.net/civ3/images/scre...y-incaesar.jpg - the river starts from the mountains and flows past Washington. This might have some interesting effects on movement along rivers, although I don't know what those would be.

[Grumbold]

quote: Originally posted by Mokael on 05-08-2001 01:32 PM an interesting point. but I have a slightly different approach. Instead of building a "river boat", or doing all that complicated road/bridge-bidling thing, there should be a much simpler way. For example -- Settler unit (or is it now Laborer?) should have ability to construct a small port/station on a river tile, that would allow your units to enter that tile without losing a movement point.

That would be identical to a bridge.

The note about rivers shifting to tile edge is an interesting one. If the screenshot is accurate then it looks like they are more interested in the combat and border effects of rivers than movement. Unfortunately if the screenshot is accurate it looks like irrigation results in ugly squiggles rather than a fertile landscape look

[Roman]

quote: Originally posted by Jarouik on 05-09-2001 04:44 AM I just wanted to point out that in one of the screenshots seen recently, there is a river that flows not through map tiles but between them; see http://apolyton.net/civ3/images/scre...y-incaesar.jpg - the river starts from the mountains and flows past Washington. This might have some interesting effects on movement along rivers, although I don't know what those would be.

An interesting point.

[Hurricane]

Thanks for all your comments guys. Didn´t know about the screenshot. I almost guessed they´d do this, but I think the old approach would have been better.

Anyway, I still think my idea is vaild. But I see some problems. Take the screenshot as an example, and look at the part of the river running from Washington to the lake (between the forest and the lake). Now, a unit that wants to move from Washington to the forest tile two hexes south of the city can take two ways: river or road. Looking at history, an army would have taken the river route. Thats 4 steps. The road is 2 steps. I would say my 1/6 movement point for rivers (road 1/3) is valid.

Crossing the river could cost 1 movement point, unless there is a bridge over it.

[Jarouik]

quote: Originally posted by Grumbold on 05-09-2001 05:48 AM The note about rivers shifting to tile edge is an interesting one. If the screenshot is accurate then it looks like they are more interested in the combat and border effects of rivers than movement. Unfortunately if the screenshot is accurate it looks like irrigation results in ugly squiggles rather than a fertile landscape look

I agree that the irrigation looks horrible
But the graphics for irrigation are (luckily) much easier for the developers to change than the in-game mechanics of having rivers on tile edges as opposed to tiles. My guess would be that movement along tiles bordering rivers would be faster than normal, while crossing a river might even slow down movement, until the construction of road (=bridge) across the river.

[airdrik]

I totally agree. One question that needs to be answered is movement along rivers, how will they figure that? Will it be increased movement as long as you move between squares that are both adjacent to a river, or some other method of transportation.

Another question is river bonuses to food/trade. Which square gets the bonus, or do they both? Or do you just get one bonus point of trade per segment of river in the city borders?

[Pingu:]

I agree, you should be able to build raods running along side rivers before bridge building.

However I think it's importatnt to have different types of rivers... (this has been mentioned before, so thanks to whoever it was that thought it up...)

You have small rivers, that are crossable without bridges at fords where the river is relatively shallow (although with a big movement penalty). River transport down this is still good though, and probably better than roads. Bridges over these get rid of the movement penalty, and connect up roads on either side of the river.

There should be lots more small rivers than currentlty in Civ2, just look at any map and from just about every group of hills, in every plain, there's a small river.

These rivers flow until enough join up to become big rivers, these are uncrossable by conventional units (although spies should be able to swim them with a risk of dying?). Also Ships can sail up these rivers up until the point where they become small rivers (so acting as ferries if you want).

To build big bridges accross big rivers you need engineering, not just bridge building.

(canals woudl be a good idea too, effectively you should be able to turn small rivers into big rivers, and perhaps build big rivers from nothing (at great expense...., you'd need explosives for that???)

Pingu: