[LURKERS] Mr. Gradgrind's Review

[Tohron]

The railroads rules for 1-movers and 2-movers is quite confusing. Afaik, railroads make movements cost one-tenth of the base movement of the unit. So it costs 0.1mp to move a railroad tile for an infantry, 0.2mp for a cavalry/tank, and 0.3mp for say a morale tank.

Now why do I have this memorised while the actually important early-game stuff forgotten?

Was this a Beyond the Sword change? I can swear I remember moving Gunships 40 tiles on railroads in vanilla Civ 4.

[Fluffball]

I'm getting a bit skeptical Dreylin and Scooter's teams are going to trust each other more than a few turns and then accidentally hand REM the game. If Dreylin hops into the war in two turns and then takes the bulk of the causalities in a land assault (cavalry against tanks edit: and fighters ) and Scooter doesn't make a move because they haven't planned anything yet... Dreylin might very well take a white peace. And similarly Scooter and Sulla both are getting antsy through no fault of Dreylin, it's simply a long time to be in a war that Dreylin is unable to join.

[Tohron]

I'm getting a bit skeptical Dreylin and Scooter's teams are going to trust each other more than a few turns and then accidentally hand REM the game. If Dreylin hops into the war in two turns and then takes the bulk of the causalities in a land assault (cavalry against tanks edit: and fighters ) and Scooter doesn't make a move because they haven't planned anything yet... Dreylin might very well take a white peace. And similarly Scooter and Sulla both are getting antsy through no fault of Dreylin, it's simply a long time to be in a war that Dreylin is unable to join.

Admittedly, the fighters will be a bit limited in that Nav1 transports can move from outside Fighter range to unloading Marines into a city in one turn - though defending the Marines that are still on the transports could prove challenging, since there would probably be at least one second-line city with fighters in range to soften the navy stack for a counter-strike, in addition to fighters attacking from carriers.

In general, with this map design I think offense is more likely to involve amphibious assaults, since unless you can get Tanks attacking a city the same turn you move them forward, you leave the stack exposed to attack by fighters, cannons and (soon) bombers. With amphibious attacks, the actual city assault units are safe aboard the transports, so as long as the transports survive, your ability to attack and hold the city isn't weakened by air strikes.

EDIT: And an amphibiously focused campaign would particularly favor Scooter/Dreylin over REM, since their numbers advantage could quickly be brought to bear, and the only defensive advantage REM would have is fighter cover.

[Bobchillingworth]

Was this a Beyond the Sword change? I can swear I remember moving Gunships 40 tiles on railroads in vanilla Civ 4.

Gunships actually can't use railroads at all, presumably to keep the game from emulating Civ III's "a stack anywhere can defend everywhere" dilemma.

[Tohron]

Was this a Beyond the Sword change? I can swear I remember moving Gunships 40 tiles on railroads in vanilla Civ 4.

Gunships actually can't use railroads at all, presumably to keep the game from emulating Civ III's "a stack anywhere can defend everywhere" dilemma.

In my test today, gunships could use railroads: a Gunship, a Cav, and a Machine Gun all went 10 tiles before running out of move.

[GermanJoey]

I'm getting a bit skeptical Dreylin and Scooter's teams are going to trust each other more than a few turns and then accidentally hand REM the game. If Dreylin hops into the war in two turns and then takes the bulk of the causalities in a land assault (cavalry against tanks edit: and fighters ) and Scooter doesn't make a move because they haven't planned anything yet... Dreylin might very well take a white peace. And similarly Scooter and Sulla both are getting antsy through no fault of Dreylin, it's simply a long time to be in a war that Dreylin is unable to join.

Dreylin will have his own tanks by that time, and Fighters aren't so devastating by themselves. You mostly want lots of Fighters to counter an opponent's Bombers, which can obliterate you if you have no other defense against them.

[Bobchillingworth]

In my test today, gunships could use railroads: a Gunship, a Cav, and a Machine Gun all went 10 tiles before running out of move.

Huh! My mistake then... I guess it's just a flat 10 moves for anything.

[DTG]

Dreylin will have his own tanks by that time, and Fighters aren't so devastating by themselves. You mostly want lots of Fighters to counter an opponent's Bombers, which can obliterate you if you have no other defense against them.

Fighters are automatic death for Airships though. The Airships cause no harm and insta-die ~90% of the time, IIRC.

Besides, en masse Fighters aren't so bad. From an old game:

[Fluffball]

REM will also have been building tanks from multiple cities for half a dozen turns or so, while Dreylin will have just gotten them a turn into the war, and will probably still be working on destroyers. I foresee some horrendous casualties in Dreylin's future if Scooter doesn't launch an attack shortly after Dreylin declares. Either than or neither one of them do anything out of distrust/greed and REM comes out majorly ahead.

[Commodore]

Scooter giving Dreyote oil? Otherwise pre-Combustion tanks..