Strategic issue: bridges

Trifna · October 25, 2002, 11:15

Yeah I know, they're not ready to make Civ IV yet but so what... I like it.

One little problem in Civ is that bridges don't exist. It's REALLY not minor. Barbarians had trouble passing the Rhin to attack Romans, frontiers were generally where a river was and could only be passed by bridges (or taking lot of time with raddles...), bridges are important objectives to destroy, influences the places you can go (river stops you), etc.

This of course implicates giving some more importance to rivers. What do you think about it? Ideas?

Someone wants to talk about the impact bridges should have in Civ?

EDIT: We're talking about bridges over river tiles here, not over oceans or where our Civ III boats go! Over ocean, it's something else...

Skeeve · October 25, 2002, 11:46

Well,
I'm not totally sold on the bridge idea just yet since pre-engineering slows down movement across rivers.

However, I would love to see the ability to bridge ocean tiles someday. (Just one or two tiles - not the whole dang Ocean or maybe coast tiles only).

Demerzel · October 25, 2002, 11:51

civ3 was a step in the right direction for rivers, i.e. movement bonuses removed and defensive bonuses for a unit defending across a river from the attacker

still a fair few things that could be added tho'. bridges across coastal waters would be nice too.

vmxa1 · October 25, 2002, 12:18

I do not know about the bridges, but I would not mind them making moutains much harder to cross. They have no real impact on 1 move units. It should take a lot longer to traverse a mountain than it does a plain (without roads).

Alex · October 25, 2002, 13:05

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
I do not know about the bridges, but I would not mind them making moutains much harder to cross. They have no real impact on 1 move units. It should take a lot longer to traverse a mountain than it does a plain (without roads).

This is why I like the fungus in SMAC. They could really be in a pain in the a** w/ regards to expansion, but offered an interesting strategic element.

vmxa1 · October 25, 2002, 13:49

I have not played in years, but one race had a sort of affinity with the natives and could often capture them and use them as troops. I liked doing that, free troops.

Trifna · October 25, 2002, 14:07

Passing water should normally take alot of moves... you don't pass 3000 men just like this! You need to build some little boat to cross since people don't swim!!

EXCEPT: Except if you built a nice little bridge. No problemo then. Pass the river as a road tile.

Alex · October 25, 2002, 14:28

But if the rivers would become this kind of obstacle, then their commerce bonuses would have to go. I always look for river tiles in order to build cities, because of the commerce bonus.

Idea: bridges should be allowed since the start, but in a primitive way: you can only cross x units over them until you discover a more advanced tech.

Jaybe · October 25, 2002, 15:41

Rivers without bridges should cost 1 extra movement point. Of course, this would only affect fast units. I mentioned this before, some months ago.

Vercingetorix · October 25, 2002, 16:25

Of course, if we are talking about implementing new, more complex river rules, then we should include things such as fords. Many settlements grew up around accessible river fords, as they represented important crossroads.

Also, perhaps settlements (cities) located on rivers should provide some sort of pre-bridge river crossing bonus - i.e. less movement points required when crossing a river when starting from or ending in a city. This could represent the existence of the necessary crossing "infrastructure" - be it primitive bridges or boats.

Ozymandias · October 26, 2002, 05:18

I think replacing river tiles wth rivers being between tilles was a mistake.

As mentioned earlier, they have been significant obstacles to cross -- yet they have always also been major transport routes, reasonably represented in earlier Civ games by basically allowing road movement rates along them.

I was hoping to see this expanded, so that riverine craft could be created -- major factors in the American Civil War, the British Khartoum campaign, Vikings raiding Paris via the Seine, Albany being a major port -- and note that the defensive bonus afforded by being attacked across a river can just as easily be achieved by diminishing a unit's attack strength when attacking from a river to a non-river tile.

-Oz.

wrylachlan · October 26, 2002, 12:44

OK. This one is out there, but bear with me.

We liked the old style where rivers represent a movement bonus so that early scouts used the river systems... but...

We also like having the rivers between tiles so that they can have a strategic bonus to defense when fighting across rivers.

Solution.

Offset the water "tiles" a half tile to the land tiles.
So when you are on land, rivers go between tiles. If you are standing on a tile bordering a river and you have a unit that is amphibious, you hit "Embark" and your unit gets in its boat on the river and the whole grid shifts so that the river is the center of the grid. You travel up the river a ways and then "Disembark" back onto land and the grid shifts back.

Embarking and Disembarking would cost movement points, but the increased movement along rivers would make it worthwhile. To make it less complicated for the player, the go-to function would automatically use river travel when it is faster, without any need for the player to manually Embark and Disembark units.

In order to cross a river without a bridge you would have to essentially Embark from one side and then Disemark to the other. This allows you to make bridges more important by simply being conservative with what units get the amphibious flag. Chariots can never cross rivers.

If you think this makes bridges TOO important you could also add fords. Places where the river is shallow and you don't need to embark/disembark to cross.

Trifna · October 26, 2002, 12:56

Quote:

But if the rivers would become this kind of obstacle, then their commerce bonuses would have to go. I always look for river tiles in order to build cities, because of the commerce bonus.

Commerce: For commerce, I guess commerce isn't stoped alot. Of course a little, but look in reality and you'll see it just takes a little more effort and it stil passes.

Quote:

If you think this makes bridges TOO important you could also add fords. Places where the river is shallow and you don't need to embark/disembark to cross.

Well, where it is THAT shallow, I wonder if it shown on the map... We're talking about rivers such as Danube, Rhin, and all rivers that as a real effect on a map.

About the bridges, well even the first men could use some way to go over water, but I guess it took some time. The function of a bridge is only to pass easily. Look at Romans that had barbarians on the other side!!! They were blocked by the Rhin. Except this exceptional time where it was... FROZEN. Should we consider climate???? But river and bridges had a huge impact at roman time.

Theodrik · October 27, 2002, 15:51

The English victory at Agincourt only happened because the Seine was high from recient rains, and the local forces held the bridges strongly. So strongly, King Henry V kept looking for someplace else to cross and got trapped at Agincourt. The rest is history. If crossing the Seine had been easy, He would have been warm and snug in Calais.

Trifna · October 28, 2002, 12:38

Erm just an historical coment... if I'm right, the opponent, even if weaker in armament technology, were in greater number and got greater losses... So it's not ONLY the Seine. History is rarely less than conjunctions of factors

jim_steer · October 28, 2002, 15:59

I think he was refering to the fact that the battle wouldn't of happened if the river wasn't high, as the English would have withdrawn.
Any way as far as rivers are concerned i think they are alright as they are, if you think about the real world time that one ancient turn represents then the movement penalty is ok. I do think that city squares should count as bridges over adjacent rivers pre-engineering though.

Trifna · October 28, 2002, 20:23

Oh I see :P

A movement penalty does not permit bridges nor represent correctly the whole thing since they don't create specific places to pass/build bridges (key strokes). Here's what I mean:

Goth (very bad swimmers...) could not pass the Rhin without Rome's permission: by the time they would have constructed their boats and passed the Rhin, romans would have strongly reacted. The few bridges were guarded.

Mechanized units cannot pass in more than their height of water (some exceptions?). A modern infantry, of course: it'll take 30 minutes to swim.

What did USA did when attacking Kosovo/Serbia? Bomb bridges. Consequences: their boats can't pass (bridges are in the water), nor their cars until new bridges are built.

Gen.Dragolen · October 29, 2002, 10:36

Trifna,

Having forded rivers in the back country as part of a military unit, I can vouch for the idea that rivers are a huge obstacle to moving large numbers of men and their equipment.

Crossing a river, especially these days is a dangerous and generally unhealthy place to go for a swim. Modern armies have bridging units because it is impossible to move vehicles other than scouts/recon. That would mean all of your supply trucks and transporters for you tanks...

Not having bridges is sort of reflected in the movement penalty for units crossing rivers, but having bridges would have been a better choice from a wargaming perspective.

I have used "bridges" to funnel counter-attacks by pillaging roads on the farsides with cavalry and then leave one road intact so the enemy will try to cross there. I will have lots of cannons to soften him up before my cavalry finishes him. All I need to do is to put riflemen along the river bank to keep them from flanking me.

D.

Trifna · October 29, 2002, 10:45

Ok.

You say that modern armies have some bridging units or something? But how come bridges are always a priority target? There are some rivers that are unpassable I guess? Too broad?

ruby_maser · October 29, 2002, 15:16

I think it is a good idea to talk about bridging one or two ocean squares but as long as we are, we might as well talk about digging canals between two seas. It would beat the heck out of have to bridge a chokepoint with a city because it HAS to be 1 tile. This could facilitate longer channels and provide significant miltary targets to be held and defended.

Of course the bridges and canals would work best with archipelagos.

Trifna · October 29, 2002, 16:53

ruby-master, I'm NOT talking about bridging oceans, I'm talking about bridging river tiles!! The Rhin is a river that has a major importance on the way territories were through time because of how much difficult it was to invade comparatively to where there's no river. You have to get to a bridge usually.

wrylachlan · October 29, 2002, 17:34

Just out of curiosity, has anyone here modded the rivers so that they are more difficult to cross - a bigger movement penalty? Is this even possible with the current editor? And, if so, what does this do to the AI?

Gen.Dragolen · October 30, 2002, 02:04

Quote:

Originally posted by Trifna
Ok.

You say that modern armies have some bridging units or something? But how come bridges are always a priority target? There are some rivers that are unpassable I guess? Too broad?

Trifna,

Actually the main problem is wieght: a modern MBT like a US M1 Abrams weighs about 60 tons.

For comparison's sake, we have concrete bridges on paved country roads that can only handle 60,000lbs and there are quite a few dual-axle grain trucks that are 80,000lbs fully loaded. An M 1 would be 120,000 lbs. It would be a shame to loose a tank before it made it to the battle lines...

Add in another 10-20 tons for a transporter (tractor and trailer used to move tanks long distances so you don't wear out your treads and motors) and you find that an intact high strength concrete bridge is the best way to go. Most portable bridges have a carrying capacity at around 40 tons over a 30-60 ft span. (the longer the span the smaller the load) It's been a while since I had to know the details, so don't take the numbers as dead on accurate.

Even for tanks that can fully submerge, like many of the old Russian T-55 through T-72's, it would take 3-4 hours to prep the tank and again, choice of location was important. So to allow rapid movement of your armoured assets on the strategic level, the bridge is the way to go.

I have been thinking that for the mod I'm working on, any tracked units like tanks, Mech Inf, and Mdrn Armour will not be airmobile using Airports. I am going to make them all wheeled units. The only thing wrong is that there is not way to block them from crossing rivers. Guess you have to assume that there will always be a viable ford somewhere in a given terrain square.

I would like to have seen them keep more of the wargame aspect of the game and use river tiles instead of making them a mere graphic devices. The real thinking for an officer is how to move his men and equipment from point A to point B and not have to go to the middle of nowhere to do it. I've planned out routes and have had to account for vehicle weights. Even a 2 ton truck is a loss if it gets stuck off a muddy road and there are only 10 men to push it out, so you always check the capacity of the bridges and roads in any area.

Until they start building tanks like in Hammer's Slammer (GEV's) the military will always need bridges to cross major rivers and terrain obstacles. Hope that fills in my reasons well enough.

D.

Trifna · October 30, 2002, 11:09

Enough to put me in mind how silly it would be to see an Abram lost because it passed through and sunk in water hehehe

Gen.Dragolen · October 30, 2002, 20:14

Trifna,

Well it happened in WWII in Normandy: they needed something to support the bridge they were carrying so they drove an M3 sherman tank into a small river with steep sides and then laid the bridge on top. Apparently it was there into the 1960's slowly rusting away...

They had this picture in an old WWII history book in the library in high school. People used to look at me a little scared when I would laugh out loud at some of the incidents like this...hehehe

D.

Strakorfsky · October 30, 2002, 21:31

The point of rivers has been shunned away from real history in almost all the civs.

The Vikings used rivers as ways to explor inland and find trade routes with empires as far south as the ottomans.

In WWII, the american victories at getting at the enemy quickly were to that they could amke briges and bridge the gap between them. The Rhine river for example coulda stoped the American advance for almost several months if it was destroyed.

I don't think the various civs can ever truely express the importance of bridges and rivers.

Various civilizatiosn historicaly were made from the river, the vikings were able to achieve the great victories and trading from the rivers because their shiips could traverse them.

I think rivers should be considered coast sqaures in that ships should travel freely on them, and land units worker/engineers should have to construct bridges to travel them. As said before, how would an advancign army make their soldiers and horse swim across river like the Rhine, Volgda, ect...

Strakorfsky · October 30, 2002, 21:36

Well, the civ makers made it as so for the sake of practicality.

The various principles that are needed are astounding, one would need universal rules on tiles, which most woudl bicker about.

Like a river in jungle, would it msot likely be a infested thing and there be so much obstacles that making a bridge should take much longer. Or a mountain, making a bridge would have to be neccesary with or without a river, because how could tanks move on steep rocky valleys that are slooping and bending.

FOr the sake of practicality, I think the rules in civ3 about bridges are pretty decent, taking the move advantage off is a great leap from games liek ctp.

Trifna · October 31, 2002, 11:45

Quote:

Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen
Trifna,

Well it happened in WWII in Normandy: they needed something to support the bridge they were carrying so they drove an M3 sherman tank into a small river with steep sides and then laid the bridge on top. Apparently it was there into the 1960's slowly rusting away...

They had this picture in an old WWII history book in the library in high school. People used to look at me a little scared when I would laugh out loud at some of the incidents like this...hehehe

D.