Near Infinite Movement Point Model (for all modern units)

[polymths]

In several threads, I have been fighting the timescale literalists who insist on the literal interpretation of 1 turn=1 year (10 years, whatever). Because of this literal interpretation, they say that it makes sense for units to have infinite movement on railroads. I have countered that this is not in sync with other units NOT using railroads since even modern ships can circumnavigate the globe in a year's time.

But after some thought, I have come up with a model of movement that might satisfy the 1 year=1 turn literalists. That is we should have nearly all modern units have nearly infinite movement.

This is how it would work.
1. RRs have infinite movement.
2. All ships and planes have nearly infinite movement per turn, say on the order of 30 or so MPs.
3. Ships and Planes will have expanded zones of control. If you move a large fleet of ships or planes and unwittingly move into a hostile zone of control, your unit's movement is severely reduced (perhaps to 1 MP.) Thus you will be allowed to initiate an attack but simply cannot use large MPs to avoid detection and interception! (For those of you familiar with Sid Meier's Colonization this is the exact model used! In the presence of hostile ships, your own ships MPs were reduced to prevent simply running away from intercepts every time!)

Advantages:
1. Satisfies the 1 turn=1 year literalists. (I am not one of them BTW)
2. Since all units have very high MPs, satisfies balance of MPs between units.
3. Using the "Colonization" model, upon entering enemy ZOC, MPs are reduced severely so still models intercept capability. You can't just use high MPs to just bypass intercepts!
4. Speeds up game.
5. Strengthens AI by making routing and control of units easier (doesn't have to plan and coordinate many units over large distances spread out over several turns.)

What do people think of this near infinite movement, ZOC lowers MP model???

[Darkknight]

Diasadvantage : lowers gameplay value.
You shouldn't look at civ3 as a game lasting 6000 years you should look at it lasting 600 turns. It's a game it's not real.


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" Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few "

[polymths]

quote: Originally posted by Darkknight on 05-14-2001 05:51 PM Diasadvantage : lowers gameplay value. You shouldn't look at civ3 as a game lasting 6000 years you should look at it lasting 600 turns. It's a game it's not real.

I couldn't agree MORE!

As I have said many times, timescale should NOT be interpreted literally for unit movement and is only for marking technological progress.

The proposal is mainly aimed at those who insist on the infinite movement of units using RRs based on timescale argument. It is a scheme which allows for infinite MP using RRs but makes MP of all other units have nearly infinite movement so that all movement is balanced.

Therefore, if you are a fan of infinite movement using RRs, you should definitely consider this proposal.

[Cyclotron]

quote: Originally posted by Darkknight on 05-14-2001 05:51 PM Diasadvantage : lowers gameplay value. You shouldn't look at civ3 as a game lasting 6000 years you should look at it lasting 600 turns. It's a game it's not real.

Very true. All those realists should realize that turns are merely something to measure tech progress against, and should not be taken literally. Do you really want a game that lasts 144000 turns?

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"Third option, third option!"
Let's have civ bonuses that YOU control!
[This message has been edited by cyclotron7 (edited May 14, 2001).]

[Ralf]

Good point, polymths! You put that "realistic time-scale" issue to its most extreme consequences, just to show us how ridicules it is to keep on demanding it. A middleway solution would be:

Allow infinite railroad-moves, but decrease combat-strength from full > 2/3 > 1/3 of full strength. This way you cannot move a howitzer half across a huge continent and STILL expect to be 100% combat-ready within that same game-turn.

Infinite railroad-movement, Yes - but the combat-strength decline should be the same as if the unit moves on roads:
[*] Tank road move-factor: 3. This means a max-limit of 9 squares on roads for tanks. At the end of that journey, the combat-strength has declined to only 1/3.[*] Tank railroad move-factor: Infinite. This means no move-limits, but the combat-strength nevertheless declines just as if the unit moves on roads; only 1/3 strength after 9 (and above) squares.

As for air-units moves; I think the move-rates where to lame in Civ-2 - at least double the move-rates for all air-units. Either that, or let them survive two turns without fuel-shortages.

-------------------- OBS!

PS: Come to think of it: All you who complains about the 1 turn = 1 year end-game time-discrepancy. Listen up:

What about ROADS? Why cant a modern unit; a tank or a freight, move more then 9 squares within 1 turn (a full year) in Civ-2? Is THAT realistic? My God - a full years of continued travelling, and only 9 stinking squares!!! You see - this is why its so stupid to get hanged up on this issue. It always going to be some reality-discepancys here and there - and you no what. It doesnt matter!

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 14, 2001).]

[polymths]

What matters to me is overall BALANCE of MPs. Thus either:

1. Roads/Railroads are toned down significantly to be in sync with movement of ships/planes. In other words, the number of turns/movement of all units is balanced with respect to each other somewhat realistically.
(My preferance).

OR

2. Near Infinite Movement Model (see first article in this thread). (Not my preferance but better than this inconsistency of infinite movement for RRs but relatively finite and small movement points for non-railroad movement).

The point though is BALANCE, BALANCE, and BALANCE!

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by polymths on 05-14-2001 06:27 PM 1. Roads/Railroads are toned down significantly to be in sync with movement of ships/planes. In other words, the number of turns/movement of all units is balanced with respect to each other somewhat realistically. (My preferance).

Well, I would be happy with reduced RR-moves also.

Road-factor: 3
RR-factor: 5

Above would meant a respectable 3 x 5 = 15 squares of tank-travelling, but with only 1/3 combat-strength at the end of that journey. Isnt that enough?

[polymths]

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 05-14-2001 06:36 PM Well, I would be happy with reduced RR-moves also. Road-factor: 3 RR-factor: 5 Above would meant a respectable 3 x 5 = 15 squares of tank-travelling, but with only 1/3 combat-strength at the end of that journey. Isnt that enough?

Still unbalanced IMHO.
Tanks have 15 tiles/turn but planes would have only 12 tiles/turn???

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by polymths on 05-14-2001 06:53 PM Still unbalanced IMHO. Tanks have 15 tiles/turn but planes would have only 12 tiles/turn???

Well, as I said in that other reply:

"As for air-units moves; I think the move-rates where to lame in Civ-2 - at least double the move-rates for all air-units. Either that, or let them survive two turns without fuel-shortages."

[ancient]

sure while were at it why not make citys/units to scale? i mean why should a tank be the same size as a city? why should a size 2 city be the same size as a size 22? the fact is that doing any of these things even if they are good for realism cuts on game play and it is a game isnt it? gameplay should always be before realism..

[polymths]

quote: Originally posted by ancient on 05-14-2001 07:44 PM sure while were at it why not make citys/units to scale? i mean why should a tank be the same size as a city? why should a size 2 city be the same size as a size 22? the fact is that doing any of these things even if they are good for realism cuts on game play and it is a game isnt it? gameplay should always be before realism..

Are you talking about making graphics to scale when talking about making cities/units to scale??? I have no clue what you're talking about!

But what is the problem to scale movement points of units to be realistic relative to each other??? Howe does that detract from gameplay??? If anything I feel it adds to gamesplay!

Or put it another way, why is there better gameplay to have land units using RRs have way way more movement/turn (ie nearly infinite) than units not using railroads? I just don't understand what you're trying to say!

[ancient]

how do you go from wanting to get rid of roads and railroads to wanting free movement?

if you can can move units as much as you want in one turn., you could attack one side of the wordld from the other in one turn with very little work it would get rid of any timing the game has.. if you scale units with citys units would either be very tiny and take for ever to move or citys would take up the entire screen..

[polymths]

quote: Originally posted by ancient on 05-15-2001 08:46 PM how do you go from wanting to get rid of roads and railroads to wanting free movement? if you can can move units as much as you want in one turn., you could attack one side of the wordld from the other in one turn with very little work it would get rid of any timing the game has.. if you scale units with citys units would either be very tiny and take for ever to move or citys would take up the entire screen..

Well, the question for you is do you like infinite RR movement or not?

If you do, then it is bizarre that you have no problem with them but then say that it is a problem if this were done with other units. Why is it good for RR using units and not for other units?

If you don't and agree that 1/5 movement for RRs is much better than the Civ1/Civ2 infinite movement system then we have absolutely no argument at all!

In any case what does scaling cities with units have anything to do with scaling RR movement with all other movement? (Not that I actually understand what you mean exactly).

The real point of this thread was to see what the Infinite Movement for RR supporters have to say if the concept was extended for all units. Evidently many have kept silent or have perhaps admitted privately that perhaps infinite movement is stupid after all!

[ancient]

poly.. your very weird.. and 1/5 movement for railroads isnt a bad idea.. i just never saw you say anything about that..

[me_irate]

I personally like the way the units currently move. but if i was to change them this is the way i would do it.


1. I believe that roads should be 1/3 terrain mov. so a horse could traverse 6 roads with plains on them. And 2 mountains with roads on them(3 mov to cross mountain=6/ 1/3 =2)

also i believe that railroads should be 1/6 or 1/9 and possibly not effected by mountains and terrain(not sure on that one though)

2. also i believe that ships mov should increase by 2-3 times their current movment. i find it dumb that a trimarines can only mov 2 squars and more modern ships only 5-6. i think ancient ships should be at least a min of 3/4 and more modern ships such as galleaons 6-7 and ships such as crusers 12-15. this would not only make navies much more effective, but also increase the ability to wage war across oceans.

3. airplanes should have infinate movs as long as they can get fuel. an airplane can fly around the world in a day. so i believe if they have 15 fuel, they could fly 10 squares to an airbase and get 15 more fly 12 more to a carrier then fly 5 more to attack and 5 back to the carrier all in the same turn. this would not only make seldom used carriers more effectove but would also make them more realistic.
[This message has been edited by me_irate (edited May 15, 2001).]

[Gammaray fan]

Essentially, the argument is between tactical warfare and strategic warfare. With the Civ2 system of MPs, emphasis is placed on HOW you get to places - this makes it difficult for the AI to handle war.
Infinite movement would essentially make the game a strategic game - (see how war is handled in Imperialism) where the emphasis is on HOW MANY units you have in KEY LOCATIONS (such as cities and choke points). The move from units to armies significantly shifts the balance to STRATEGIC war, and the near infinite movement system merely gets rid of the need to waste time MOVING which the AI can't handle anyway, and concentrate on STRATEGIC WAR.

[Dienstag]

Good discussion.

I thought I'd mention that the board game World in Flames has a system in which planes have a movement rating, and can fly missions up to that number of hexes away. Some planes have the "extended range" characteristc, which means you can choose to double the plane's movement rating and halve its attack rating, on any particular combat mission. Also, instead of flying a combat mission, you can rebase the plane, moving it up to twice its movement rating (or 4 times MP if plane has "exteded range") in one turn, just so that it's somewhere more convenient for next turn.
I think this is a reasonably good examble of realistic but playable airplane movement. Downside is that you'd have to decide if each plane is attacking or rebasing all the time.

[Dienstag]

Concerning the main idea of this thread: I would be overjoyed if there was a way to have balanced movement that was realistic timewise. As has been pointed out, ships planes and land units can do a lot in one year.

1.) As is:
Unit movement neither balanced or literally agrees with game turn. We've all played this and it's still fun but could be way better.

2.) Movement balanced / not literal interpretation of game time:
Planes and ships move much faster than land units, but it still takes anything many many turns to go around the world. Better than #1, but not entirely satisfying.

3.a.)Movement balanced / literal interpretation of game time (shorter turns):
Each turn is a month or two, and all units move like they realistically would in this time. Game becomes more tactical, also much longer. I like this option, but understand why many would not.

3.b.)Movement balanced / literal interpretation of game time (longer turns):
Each turn is a number of years, and all units move like they realistically would in this time. Best model for this is probably polymth's Near Infinite Movement Point Model, with small changes as necessary. Strategic, if a little abstract, but definitely a big improvement over #1 and #2.

Comments?

[Harlan]

I always thought movement was a bit weak in Civ2. In a perfect world, here's how I'd do it (I'm just kind of making this up as I go along, never really thought about this before, so bear with me).

Roads would have their regular bonus, and railroads would be triple that or so. Each unit would have its "normal" movement amount, much like the Civ2 numbers. To move this amount is already figured in the yearly upkeep cost of the unit. Here's where things get different: any unit can move more (not infinitely, but a lot more - lets say triple your normal range), but to do so is costly.

How is it costly? You use up special resources, depending on the unit. Ancient land units would chiefly burn through food and money. More modern units would burn through coal, oil, and the like, as well as money.

Thus, to keep costs, it makes sense to move things slowly. But if "it absolutely positively has to be there overnight", you pay to make it happen. For instance, you need to bring up some far away units for an attack on a town, or rush defenders to a town being threatened. One would have to use this sparingly, cos if you did it all the time, you'd run out of resources. Fast units would still have their fast advantage, cos they could move more without incurring that extra cost, and if they did incur the extra cost, they could go farther at their max than slow units at their max.

Planes and ships would operate slightly differently. Planes could only attack once per turn, and would always end their turns in a city or airbase(but other planes would have intercept abilities a la CTP, so you could have dogfights and so forth). If their range was 20 a turn, they could never go farther than that in one jump, so ten away from an airbase is as far as they could get. However, they could go that distance of twenty between airbases and/or cities you control as much as they like during a turn with only a small resource cost.

Most ships would operate similarly. They could only attack once a turn, and until nuclear ships, they'd need to stop at naval bases and/or cities periodically to keep going. Wooden ships that didn't stop reguarly at naval bases would run a chance of dying, esp. the ones that weren't adept at open ocean travel. Nuclear and other modern ships could in theory circle the whole world in one turn, but the cost would be quite high, so normally they'd stay at cruising speed.

In this way, tiny island bases like Singapore, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, Malta, Panama, Diego Garcia, Okinawa, and so forth become as important as they are in the real world for both air and naval bases. You would also be able to pass through allied bases - a big reason to have allies.

The game would have a smart move function, where you could click on any part of the map and the unit would find not only the fastest, but the cheapest way to get there. So lets say you want to send a (coal powered) Dreadnaught from Britain to Australia. You click on Australia, and its line of travel would be shown on the map, and any extra cost you'd incur to move that far would be shown too. If you're willing to pay that, you click again, and watch the ship whiz from island to island, port to port, getting to Australia in a few seconds. Ditto with aircraft, except they would stop at a few airports along the way instead of a larger number of naval bases. Of course the journey would stop if the ship or plane came within range of an enemy intercepting unit.

I don't think this is very complicated, and it would greatly improve the game. Normally, especially in peacetime, things would go their normal pace. But wars would tend to go much faster, and overly prolonged wars could really bankrupt you. No more nonstop state of war with an enemy for centuries on end. You could also try to send off Columbus type expeditions (if you had the technology for it), but it would be very costly- recall how Columbus spent years begging various monarchs to fund his scheme. If you're really rich, you could go on an Alexander or Hitler styled fast war. Note that Hitler literally ran out of oil and was increasingly unable to move weapons around, a huge reason he lost. These strategic resources used in running your military would become phenomenally important to have in big amounts. Typically, you'd have a small mobile army that you'd devote a portion of your economy to keeping runing, cos it would cost too much to quickly move a large one around. So this style of movement would naturally prevent IUS (infinite unit sleaze). Also, during peacetime you would be able to stockpile up more movement ability, so things would tend to fall into patterns of long periods of peace followed by short bursts of warfare.

Unfortunately, this is all pipedreaming, cos the one drawback to all of this is the AI would have to be very smart to be able to play this way. It would have to know to secure colonies and bases allowing it to get around easily, it would have to know when to go into "overdrive" movement mode, when to launch voyages of discovery, and so forth. These would be very hard things to get it to do well, I imagine. But one can dream, right?

[Grumbold]

quote: Originally posted by cyclotron7 on 05-14-2001 05:58 PM Very true. All those realists should realize that turns are merely something to measure tech progress against, and should not be taken literally. Do you really want a game that lasts 144000 turns?

Not quite. The same desire to feel good about your achievements, be it discovering democracy before 100AD, spaceships by 1800AD or building a wonder of the world before it was done historically applies to military achievements too. Alexander conquered the mediterranean with infantry marching on poor roads in 20 years. The Nazi's invented, built and conquered most of Eurpoe with panzers in 4 years before being pushed back and defeated by allies whose tech and troops were only built in response to the declaration of war. That makes it a little depressing to realise you can barely produce a handful of panzers yourself and conquer a few cities before the technology is out of date, let alone outstrip historical achievements. A minor brush war in ancient times can sometimes take an unbelievable 2000 years or more to conclude. I don't think juggling movement points can solve this (without having several turns per year.) Instead you would need to rework the system completely toward strategic movement of armies.

[JellyBean]

Why should movement on railroads be based on the movement of the unit? A train doesn't go any faster when it's carrying a tank than when it's carrying infantry. If railroads are going to allow only finite movement, then it makes more sense for them to take 1/10th of the unit's maximum movement per square rather than 1/5th of a single movement point.

For example, a tank with movement of 3 could move 3 squares on a railroad at a cost of (3/10)*3 = 0.9 movement points, and then be able to move two more squares of grassland or plains. An infantry unit could move a full 10 squares along a railroad in one turn.

I believe they should use the following movement rate. Foot Soldier, one tile p/turn. On a road 3 tiles p/turn. On a railroad 9 tiles p/turn.
Soldier on Horseback, 2-tile p/turn without road. With roads 4 tiles p/turn. On a Railroad no more than 9 tiles p/turn.
Tanks, how about 3 tiles on dirt, 6 on a road, 9 tiles on a railroad.
Railroads should be a constant, no matter what. Maybe in the modern age a railroad can go 12 tiles with a city improvement or new tech. discovery.
Ships should be able to go one tile faster than a horse or why even build a ship, unless you need it to go to another Continent.
So early ships 3 to 4 tiles and as we build newer ships one or two tiles faster with each new class of Ship.
Airplane between 1914 and 1939, 9 tiles. From 1940 to 1950, go 11 tiles, 1951 to 1960, 12 tiles, 1961 to present 14 tiles. Of course if you add air-to-air or ship-to-ship refueling the ship or plane could be extended twice the distance.
Meg. Rails, I will go along with “Roman” on this one, it is future tech. to be sure. I know that Europe is now running a Meg. Rails system to see how it will work. Who knows how long before the world will be using Meg. Rails.


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[Harlan]

Jellybean,
Your idea about railroads is great. Of course, it doesn't make a difference what kind of unit is carried by railroad- they all get there at the same time! Firaxis, please notice this!