Railroad discussions

[quadalpha]

I seem to have read somewhere that railways come too far in the late-game to make much of a difference, but that's not really true. I rather like how they're implemented. They add a wrinkle to strategic considerations when expanding and seem to convey a definite advantage without being overpowered.

Has anyone seen the AI build rail stations yet? I have some allies holding telegraph offices and interrupting my rails.

[easytarget]

Yep, they actually do show up soon enough to be of some use. The catch for me has been location of where they run. In my first campaign as shogunate, not knowing that allies would be too stupid to complete them, I left some controlled by them, and of course they never completed the stations, so it never much mattered that I diplomatically went to the trouble to secure access indefinitely through their provinces.

Ok, so I'm in 2nd campaign as Imperial (and finding that more than 2/3's of the island btw is controlled by shogunate clans and my few imperials clans are apparently run by the village idiot) and this time I'm not going to rely on allies, I'm focused on taking provinces up the right side of the coast from where I started headed towards the center of the island. I've got 3 stations hooked up so far and I'm using this in such a way that I'm not militarily upgrading any subsequent provinces I capture because I'm going to run all supplies out of the starting connection. So, assuming this works out as a planned, the benefit will be not wasting upgrade time and money on developing provinces close to the front, which is what I used to do. Now I just focus on economic and repression.

As an aside, since you need a navy anyway to keep the marauders at bay (I find they are much more aggressive in FOTS), I still consider the Navy as really the easier alternative to rail, I'm just developing it really because it's available, so why not test out it's viability.

[quadalpha]

I'm planning to use those new ishi agents to provoke rebellions and take those provinces for myself. I think I'd much prefer rails to naval transport, since I'd be paranoid about ships getting intercepted and having to keep track of them seems a bit fiddly.

Does upgrading the stations improve the transportation functionality, by the way?

[andrewt]

Can somebody list the railroad path or paths? I doubt I'll make use of it much since I'm playing as Saga but might be useful for future reference.

[Madae]

Sendai, I think, finished the first railroad network in my game at about 1872 (4 years from the end). Haven't seen them use it yet. I didn't even know you could do that until they did it. I just went about transporting stuff by boat. I pretty much had the west side of the map controlled and the waters to myself, except for a single trying to sneak by every once in awhile and blockade my ports.

[easytarget]

I'm planning to use those new ishi agents to provoke rebellions and take those provinces for myself. I think I'd much prefer rails to naval transport, since I'd be paranoid about ships getting intercepted and having to keep track of them seems a bit fiddly.

Does upgrading the stations improve the transportation functionality, by the way?

I've not noticed any further upgrade option on them. The only additional item connected to railways I've noticed was a civ research item called national railway or something like that, I seem to recall it didn't improve performance but did something to improve commerce or something like that. Not something I considered worth worrying about, I only researched it because in the first campaign play through I was researching the entire civ tree just to see the impact of everything, I'm doing the same on the military side of the tree as imperial this time for the same reason.

[Lemur]

Does upgrading the stations improve the transportation functionality, by the way?
I did some low-tech testing of this, and I can say that National Rail Company does not seem to speed up transport times (or if it does, the difference is so small as to be unnoticeable). I had a single province maxed out as my unit production center, and was moving upgraded troops up and down the lines. Upgraded all of my stations to National in an attempt to speed things up.

No change. A trip that required three turns still took three turns. Troops entering the rail system cold exited with what seemed to be the exact same remaining movement allowance.

I think the upgrade to National is purely economic.

[Vladimir]

All this talk of rails has me thinking of Minecraft. Choices, choices.

[Azi Tohak]

I think they're very well done. I played as Tosa and it was nice to have my troops move so quickly because their walking speed seems so dreadfully slow even if they were only moving 3 provinces.

[quadalpha]

I'm actually kind of disappointed in the railroads now. You can't go more than two or three stops, and the stations are never linked to roads either. Wonder if this is moddable ...

[Lemur]

You can't go more than two or three stops, and the stations are never linked to roads either.
This all depends on how far a unit can move normally. If you try to send artillery to the other end of the island, yeah, it will take something like 4-5 turns. But if you move cavalry they'll get where they're going much faster. Personally, I think this makes low to no sense, but that appears to be the calculation.

[Greyblades]

Well the cannon time kinda make sense, added weight I guess would slow down early locomotives, though really the weight of 50+ horses should really have the same effect.

[Lemur]

I guess I should run a methodical test, but railroad transit time and distance appears to be strictly a function of unused movement "points," or whatever the term is.

Ripe for modding.

[Greyblades]

Well I suppose it makes sense seeing as the remaining movement points indicate the amount of the turn still left to move through, an army that arrived at a station with few movement points left wouldnt be able to go as far as one that has gotten on with full point because the one with few movement points would have already spent the majority of the month/turn on the march before embarking.
Wierd, that was alot more concise in my head.

[Slaists]

To be frank, it should not make any difference whether one is transporting artillery or cavalry by rail ;)

[Trithemius]

To be frank, it should not make any difference whether one is transporting artillery or cavalry by rail ;)

I concur!

In fact, unit types in armies probably should not make much difference at all!
Most of them will be marching with their supply trains so will go as slow as a wagon anyway - all cavalry, all yugekitai, or all kisho ninja armies might be able to justify some faster speeds but on roads most armies will be going the same speed, one would think.

[Slaists]

I concur!

In fact, unit types in armies probably should not make much difference at all!
Most of them will be marching with their supply trains so will go as slow as a wagon anyway - all cavalry, all yugekitai, or all kisho ninja armies might be able to justify some faster speeds but on roads most armies will be going the same speed, one would think.

Not sure how it was in 1870's, but during the Russian revolution in late 1910's, they put horses (and arty) on the trains. So, everything moved at the train speed.

[tomslack34]

Speed matters and that is the reason people prefer travelling in trains. Those old rail road just requires maintenance.
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[Yesugey]

I am around turn 90 and about to have railoads. Since the game has 288 turns, it's not that late to have railroads.

But yes, the game ends before 288 most of the time. And your stacks doesn't require reinforcements from homeland most of the time, (Even the best units replenishes at the most unadvanced town)
Naval transportation is extremely fast and effective as well. So why bother using the trains?