Railroads / Transport Infrastructure or not in N4

[miketr]

The thinking currently among the moderators is to limit railroads in effect to colonies and the like outside of player nations.  Player nations would already have built up to max useful level for the area.  A 1 to 5 scale where low is good and high is bad, IE the higher number is an increase in movement and logistics cost for troops.

That or shelve the idea till later in the game as several of the moderators are not thrilled with the concept at all.  So this is to gauge support.

Michael

[Korpen]

I would not say that is the paperwork per se that would be a problem. But so far I am not convinced that it solves more problems then it creates. For example how when and if it would be improves as that can be done both by pure state action as well as by private initiates and most often a combination of both.

[ctwaterman]

I think improvements would be based in the colonies almost exclusively by government involvement.   Basically all the railroads in India were finance [I Believe by the British Government]

But yes a system for improving such things will have to be arrived at.... possibly an improvement when the Colonial Colony reaches a certain level and automatic improvements based on the locations of Rivers, Lakes and such for local water travel.   The Infrastructure around the Great Lakes or the Mississippi is going to be better then say the Sahara Desert and Atlas mountains no matter how much investment is put into the location.  ;)

But over all we need to decide if  there is enough support for it while we work on Ideas on how to implement it.

As Mike pointed out we are contimplating this as a penalty to movement and fighting strength of units operating into or out of a region.   Bad Infrastructure means you might have 100K troops in a region and only 20K or even 10K are involved in fighting the rest are simply maintaining the roads and moving supplies.  This would simulate the fighting in East Africa in WW1 or even the Boehr wars and or the Crimean.   Where huge numbers of native troops were hired simply to carry supplys to the small numbers of troops actually fighting.

[miketr]

I would not say that is the paperwork per se that would be a problem. But so far I am not convinced that it solves more problems then it creates. For example how when and if it would be improves as that can be done both by pure state action as well as by private initiates and most often a combination of both.

That is part of the problem

[Nobody]

I'm pro train/infrastructure, with effects above pure logistics.

Also don't think we should start at the highest level, there was simply too much improvement between 1880 and say 1910. (from little 6- to pretty much still current 12-wheelers engines and from barely more than 10 to nearly 20 tons of axle-load, which are still the norm today)

[snip]

Im fine with including it when it functions of a multiplier in economics with the option to build addition lines in under-developed territory. More then that, and I dont think its good to include as this is Navalism, not trainsim

[Logi]

I like more in-depth simulations, regardless of the focus of the sim. I don't think this would be a very heavy paper load (given how it is presented) and  over simplifying a game system would just make this risk with ships. I don't like playing risk. It is very obvious what I voted for.

[TexanCowboy]

I don't have a huge amount of time anyways, so adding more isn't gonna help any of that, and might drive away new players. Texan votes No.