Train Wrecks

[Rommel2D]

No, this isn't another complaint about out-of-the-box PtW. ;)

I was just thinking of ways to curb the infinite power of railroads present throughout the Civ series. Simply increasing movement like a super-road doesn't sit well because a unit's mobility becomes irrelevant once loaded on a train.

I was thinking of a 1 in 20 chance per square that an incident would halt a unit's movement for that turn, either its involvement in a wreck or blockage up ahead of it. Maybe a bombardment attack against the unit could represent possible damage.

As modifiers, using keypad movement instead of goto commands would halve the chances of a wreck, so you could prioritize key units in a crisis. Discovery of certain techs (radio? electronics?) would futher reduce chances of accidents.

AFAICanTell, this would be a matter of adding some simple code and not hurt AI capabilities, except perhaps the matter of prioritizing trainloads. It would be an invisible implementation, just producing streams of curses from the hordes of hobos Civ has created out there who take their free rides for granted. :P

So, opinions? Could this be accomplished with a mod? Would they consider adding it to a patch?

[pedrojedi]

I think a 1:20 chance is way too high for such incidents. I did not like this idea, since there is already a mechanism in the game to produce such incidents: airplane bombardment, unit pillaging, unit ocupation of tiles... that's one of the only reason's why I use the paratrooper: to dumb a soldier right in the middle of key roads, while my bombers and artillery do the job on other roads.

[Konquest02]

Personally, I don't like the idea, but...

- It can't be done with a mod because railroads are hardcoded in the game.
- I would not like it to see it in a future patch, for the reasons pedrojedi stated above.

Something could be done to railroads (i.e. 20 or 25 tiles movement for any unit...), but I don't think your idea is what is needed here.

Sorry for sounding a little rude...

--Kon--

[Rommel2D]

Does the paratrooper trick work that well? I've unloaded entire transports of MIs (mostly conscripts, granted) into a mountain square just to have them clobbered because every MA on the continent is there instantaneously before they can fortify.

Bombers and artillery do the job, but is this something you've ever seen the AI do effectively? It seems to me they only target production or just random havok.

I picked 1:20 so that in industrial times it would still exceed a cavalry using a road on average. Beyond that it probably wouldn't be that noticable.

It just feels like an exploit that you can defend an entire continent against anything the AI can bring with a couple offensive units.

A little rudeness isn't a problem. Sorry if I sound a lot rude, but I'm not quite sure what to expect aroud here yet.

[mrmitchell]

Actually, it's pretty realistic IMO.

You'd think that a tank could cross from one side of a continent to the other in one year, wouldn't you?

[pedrojedi]

Paratroopers are cool!! I like the idea of just dropping them out of nowhere, if not to break routes, just to make the AI move some units there... same thing goes with the helicopter. It is not a large scale difference, but gives me time to move the real forces I want to different locations, since I like doing combined forces strategy with multi-location forces (something like that )

[Dauphin]

I think movement by rail should be as fast or slow for all units, but infinite movement is silly.

CtP2 reduced the movement bonus of railways and introduced monorails which were even faster. I think that railroads should have, say, a x5 movement bonus, increased to x10 when you research electronics or similar tech. Representing the transfer from steam engine trains to high speed electric railroads.

[steven8r]

First-off, I like RR's the way they are. Getting YOUR own troops across YOUR own territory shouldn't be too dificult. Yes, it makes Defense easy for you--also for the AI. What's that old saying that, "1 man defending his home is worth 10 men invading," or something similar. It should be hard to invade--especially in more modern times.

Originally posted by Rommel2D
I've unloaded entire transports of MIs (mostly conscripts, granted) into a mountain square just to have them clobbered because every MA on the continent is there instantaneously before they can fortify..

It just feels like an exploit that you can defend an entire continent against anything the AI can bring with a couple offensive units.

Just a point of strategy, try a Transport or 2 full of Marines. Take the AI city, then you can move in your Defenders AND Fortify during the same turn. Use the Marines to essentially establish a beachhead in your enemy's own towns.

The AI will be attacking you w/ everything he's got via his own RailRoads.

[Rommel2D]

You'd think that a tank could cross from one side of a continent to the other in one year, wouldn't you?

Well, you really have to fudge the dates to have combat make any sense. It's not simply a matter of issuing orders every January 1st and waiting around a year to hear the results so you can respond.

I like that troops unloading are wide open to attack before they can respond, but there should be limits. If the Japanese had coordinated Pearl Harbor with landing some troops in Washington State, would US forces on the east coast have been there before they could have made it to the mountains and dug in? Could Chile have sent help to knock them back into the ocean?

Just a point of strategy, try a Transport or 2 full of Marines. Take the AI city, then you can move in your Defenders AND Fortify during the same turn. Use the Marines to essentially establish a beachhead in your enemy's own towns.

MI fortified in a town: 24 1/3. More than 3 Marines lost per defending MI. Could be worthwhile with an army of marines, but this was Civ3 and I had just found out the hard way they don't get AA. My main invasion was on the other side of the continent, where I took a city and established the beachhead without any losses. My MIs were landed near a choke point in no-man's land to cut off a counter-attack. They tied up three MAs for one turn.

The part about not using RRs in enemy territory was a great change from Civ2, but the infinite movement thing is still off. Big Crunch, if you change it to movement bounuses, then you have trains holding tanks going 15 squares, while one full of infantry would clog up the tracks after 5.

Perhaps a universal limit like Kon said would help (sounds like a pain counting out the squares, tho). But I think wrecks would be an interesting option. Add a little uncertainty into the situation and force you to beef up on defense a little. Maybe I've just been watching too much of the History Channel.

[mrmitchell]

No, the troops in the East might not be able to get to the Japs. In RL the Japs would be able to bombard the coast before the troops could get there. Hell, a few might be able to get to the mountains. But the Eastern troops would be there within a week, undoubtedly.

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by steven8r
First-off, I like RR's the way they are. Getting YOUR own troops across YOUR own territory shouldn't be too dificult. Yes, it makes Defense easy for you--also for the AI. What's that old saying that, "1 man defending his home is worth 10 men invading," or something similar. It should be hard to invade--especially in more modern times.

While I agree that you should be able to defend your soil easily, I spent some time in the Army in stationed Germany where we moved armor by train all the time. And trust me, loading trains for movement is no quick task. Being able to move entire divisions in a sudden response to a sneak attack would be a logistical nightmare. Further, from a game play stand point, I would prefer some limits to the movement. My response to an earlier thread today:

"The RR instant movement capability takes the sometimes hard choices out of how to position your forces out of the game, especially on large/huge maps. If I am moving large armies for an about-to-be-declared-war on a civ on my northern border, for example, I don't have to put as much thought as to my defensive posture on my other borders. If I over-commit to the north, and a civ attacks from the south, so what? - I can fix my mistake in the blink of an eye. And as I am a player who has not by any means conquered the whole globe by Steam Power, I prefer the challenge."

[Mad Bomber]

Rommel:

Try softening up the city first with a few airstrikes and bombardments with ships, then have the marines move in. The main problem is your forces were conscript and too few in number. In an amphibious landing I usually land 30 transports fully loaded, with combined arms present. Also if you prepare the field correctly you can limit the number of troops that oppose you when landing.

MrMitchell:

Yes Japan would and could be able to bombard the west coast, even land a sizeable force, How far would they have gotten? Japan's army was weak in heavy weapons, esp armor. They would not have made more than 100 miles inland had they done so before facing significant resistance. Even with the spartan road sevice in the US during the 40's a counteratttack force of more than 10 divisions would have been available on the west coast in less than 2 weeks.

Arsenel:

So we can move forces around the globe in a matter of a month but we can't defend our own country in less than a week? Railroads not only represent the actual physical structures but also the infrastructures needed to move units/people/places in a timly matter these include POL depots, track repair supply points, even gas stations ect. How long would it take for The US Army take to respond to an armed invasion of our country.? i would be suprised, no; Horrified, if the answer was significantly longer than 72 Hrs. Units move in a different speed when responding to an emergency as compared to preparing for a deployment overseas. Many national guard units are mobilized in under 24 hrs when a natural catastrophy strikes, would an invasion take a longer response time?

Now as for the game:
You are still faced by hard choices even with the advent of stempower. Just because you can move them back and forth does not mean an automatic victory. You still have to commit the forces at your disposal and they will still be open to a counterattack.

[Rommel2D]

Try softening up the city first with a few airstrikes and bombardments with ships, then have the marines move in. The main problem is your forces were conscript and too few in number. In an amphibious landing I usually land 30 transports fully loaded, with combined arms present. Also if you prepare the field correctly you can limit the number of troops that oppose you when landing.

By the time I could've produced 30 transports worth of forces, someone would have long since launched a spaceship. Like I said, this was more of a diversionary tactic. An Army of MAs with a couple MIs and artillery were establishing the beachead on the opposite side of the continent (and succeded regardless). My bombers and battleships were bombing the isthmus to cut off support from the northern continent.

I've learned now that I should have waited a few turns (years?) until more damage to the isthmus could have been done, but things like this don't make sense. I don't mind a steep learning curve in a game, but it should be due to the complexities of the game, not because it produces results that defy intuition.

A more likely example with the Japanese would be a transport with some infantry and tanks, escorted by just enough firepower to protect the ships, landing in the Coastal mountains along Canada or Alaska. In game terms, every country in North and South America would have been able to attack them before they could even take up a defensive posture.

Yes, there was really little they could have gained in this instance, but its just an example of how RRs distort combat.

I'm not talking about hours or weeks of response time, just what a landing force would be capable of before the rest of the continent- not just area forces- could strike, assuming they didn't take a city first. A little pillaging and/or fortification, I'd think.

[Geoff the Medio]

How about making railroads work like airlifts? Transport city to city only. Continued movement that turn is up for debate. Departure and destination cities must be connected by unobstructed rail. Rail depot tile improvement akin to airbase could provide non-city loading/unloading (would require worker life to build, otherwise you'd end up back where we are now...)

I really liked Railroad Tycoon way back when... perhaps we could recapture some of the fun of that game in civ? (as long as you're not limited to railing into and out of a city on oppsite sides only, while the ai's get to rail from as many directions as they want....)

[Rommel2D]

How about making railroads work like airlifts? Transport city to city only. Continued movement that turn is up for debate.

I think something like this would be the best solution. I mean, how could it be faster to load an armor division onto a train and take them across a continent than to use C-130s? Plus, coupling this with the fixed range limit mentioned before would make it more playable.

(Um, I haven't taken a PtW game into the industrial age yet. Can airfields be used for airlifts?)

Unfortunately, that big of a revamp isn't going to make it into a simple patch. Considering how flight was re-done from 2 to 3, there's always hope for Civ4, what, 5-10 years down the line? :[

[Rommel2D]

I spent some time in the Army in stationed Germany where we moved armor by train all the time. And trust me, loading trains for movement is no quick task. Being able to move entire divisions in a sudden response to a sneak attack would be a logistical nightmare.

Could you make a comparison between moving an armor division from DC to Seattle by train vs. airlift? Including loading and unloading time, would there be a significant difference? I don't even know how many tanks are in a division, would this ever be done with C-130s or other cargo aircraft?

[TheArsenal]

Difficult question. I don't know that heavy armor can even be airlifted in numbers to be significant, if at all. I've only seen rail and ocean transport used. So truthfully, don't know. But pre-planned, at full readiness, it can take days to load a battalion's worth of armor, a little less time to unload, stage and prep for battle (even if units could roll straight from trains into battle, it would be suicide). Further, what instant movement of rail does not contemplate is moving 96-128 tanks (a division's worth) would take great coordination, even assuming that a platoon's worth of vehicles, no less battalion's or division's, were at full combat readiness, which they are not. This does not contemplate, either, the great number of support units that must move with mechanized units. No one goes anywhere, for example, without mechanics (I would assume fighting on your own soil, food, water and medical care would be less of an issue). Nor does it contemplate the coordination with the rail system itself - one doesn't just roll a tank onto any rail car, but one specially designed to move heavy equipment. The game assumes these exist in unlimited supply, everywhere in the country. And lastly, the game's rail system has the added assumption that all of this massive movement can be done instantly from the stand still of a peace time environment.

I don't require that level of realism in a game, so I don't need all of those factors to be taken into consideration. Just a slight limiting of rail movement. I like the idea of the city to city movement that was being suggest.

[Mad Bomber]

Just to reply on airlift v. RR:

Air transport is not used except for emergencies becuse there are limited assets that can do the job (only the C-5A can transport a MBT) and Sea and rail transport is the most effecient way of traveling. In an emergency (like an invasion) efficiency falls to the way of expediency. Airlifting would be used as well as the full potential of the RR's if this was not enough then the Highway system would be used as well (the most inefficient way to move a division)

The game makes the assumption that anything that would be needed would be mobilized to do the job when and if it is needed. RR's not only represent the actual RR's but also the highway system as well. Its simply a representation of the decreased travel times in the modern age.

I would like to keep the RR's infinate as te default game but perhaps Firaxis should allow it to be modified in the editor.

[Unconquered]

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Unconquered

Back at you.

and thanks for the

[Rommel2D]

Airlifting would be used as well as the full potential of the RR's if this was not enough then the Highway system would be used as well (the most inefficient way to move a division)

RR's not only represent the actual RR's but also the highway system as well. Its simply a representation of the decreased travel times in the modern age.

Are you talking about loading armor onto trucks for transportation? Or big convoys of tanks just cruising down the interstates?

My point is that whether its a train, plane, truck, or ship, the process of organizing and securing the machinery for transport and unloading and reorganizing at the other end would be similar to what Arsenel describes. If you're using both trains and trucks for one division, it would take even longer. It's just completely out of balance with air and sea transport to have units (at least mechanized ones) attacking straight from a train.

They could just make it an option, but- done right- why would anyone use the present rules? Does anyone prefer the way flight was done in Civ2 after playing 3?

Still, I guess there's not much chance of anything but an editor option in the near future, huh?

[Mad Bomber]

Rommel:

True, it would take some time to disembark, and if the timescale wasn't measured in years then I might agree that the RR should have a limited movement (one of the reasons an option should be available to mod RR is the new ability to change the timescale of the turns in the editor) However, I hope that it does not take the Third Infantry Division an entire year to simply disembark their Brads and Abrams at a Railroad Station and proceed to the front line.

[Rommel2D]

Bomber,

The games timescale is pretty irrelevant to movement. As I'm sure has been pointed out before, a tank could go far enough to circumnavigate the globe a number of times in a year on a train or not. A warrior could do it in 25. If calander accuracy is that important most units should have unlimited movement under any circumstances.

It does take a year to disembark those divisions from a ship or a plane and move them into position. Whether they speed up airlifts and ship unloading or limit RRs, shouldn't they be consistant with each other?

I'm just a little lost as to why Firaxis changed the ship disembarkment rule from Civ2 without touching RRs. And didn't the airlift equivalent (warp gate?) in SMAC allow movement from the destination on the same turn?

[Kampus majore]

I'm happy the way it is now because:

1. I think the timescale IS relevant.
2. If you mess with the RR movement, you mess up the balance as it is now and I like the defender having an advantage.

But this discussion is one of those things civers will never agree on. One other is workers or public works....

[TheStinger]

I think there ok

[pedrojedi]

I think the RR rules were maintained because of their tradition, at least in a part. There are some fundamental rules in civ that will almost never be changed; they were not made to make total sense, but to keep a balance in the game.

[Kampus majore]

Exactly! It already cost me a lot of trouble getting used to not being able to use the railroad in enemy territory....

[pedrojedi]

And it's so much better... when the it works backwards! heheheh...

[Kampus majore]

You've got a point there....

And I must admit it is more realistic....

[Rommel2D]

One promising thing I think Civ3 shows, territorial passage being the best example of this, is that nothing in the series is sacred except a good game and ironic Elvis tributes.

I don't think anything suggested here would directly hinder the defense of any culture's cities. Using airlift-style rules for RRs would still allow cities/fortresses to be loaded up with defenders long before anything but a direct amphibious assault could arrive. The problem I'm talking about is that a simple RR through a vast wilderness gives it the defensive equivalent of a square next to any major metropolis.

There should be more to defending a continent than being an obsessive builder.

If this a topic of great disagreement, why are RRs hardcoded? What I'd really like to know is if the AI would be crippled by it. I don't see how anyone could know how this change would affect gamebalance until its been playtested.