Please fix the Railroad System

[Mr. Bojangles]

Please fix the railroad system for use by it's own troops only. At no point did any enemy army invade by rail. It's logistically impossible. Armies did use their own rail to move supplies and sometimes troops, but not their cavalry, supply trains and guns. I can think of one instance where Jackson used rail to move troops, and Lee used rail to move supplies. But, they typically used their own railway systems. No southern army ever invaded the North using the North's own railway system (also logistically impossible - where would the rolling stock come from....the railways were severed, guarded etc.) Sherman's invasion of the South and Lee's invasion of the North were done entirely on foot (with the enemy destroying rail as fast as the other armies could repair them). Furthermore, crossing the Potomac was a big deal, rail or no.

[Butch]

Good points all around. I'd also like to see a faster increase in rail capacity; at the moment it increases far too slowly even with transportation and industry subsidies at 500 k. I would love to see the ability to destroy rail!

[HB]

Originally posted by Mr. Bojangles:

Please fix the railroad system for use by it's own troops only. At no point did any enemy army invade by rail. It's logistically impossible. Armies did use their own rail to move supplies and sometimes troops, but not their cavalry, supply trains and guns. I can think of one instance where Jackson used rail to move troops, and Lee used rail to move supplies. But, they typically used their own railway systems. No southern army ever invaded the North using the North's own railway system (also logistically impossible - where would the rolling stock come from....the railways were severed, guarded etc.) Sherman's invasion of the South and Lee's invasion of the North were done entirely on foot (with the enemy destroying rail as fast as the other armies could repair them). Furthermore, crossing the Potomac was a big deal, rail or no.

All good points, the pity is the Devs were made aware of these points, and many other issues before the games release, and still have not done anything of substance to mitigate the issues.

[Chucktown]

Originally posted by hannibalbarca120002001:

Originally posted by Mr. Bojangles:

Please fix the railroad system for use by it's own troops only. At no point did any enemy army invade by rail. It's logistically impossible. Armies did use their own rail to move supplies and sometimes troops, but not their cavalry, supply trains and guns. I can think of one instance where Jackson used rail to move troops, and Lee used rail to move supplies. But, they typically used their own railway systems. No southern army ever invaded the North using the North's own railway system (also logistically impossible - where would the rolling stock come from....the railways were severed, guarded etc.) Sherman's invasion of the South and Lee's invasion of the North were done entirely on foot (with the enemy destroying rail as fast as the other armies could repair them). Furthermore, crossing the Potomac was a big deal, rail or no.

All good points, the pity is the Devs were made aware of these points, and many other issues before the games release, and still have not done anything of substance to mitigate the issues.

Game is still not "released". You bought an early access game which im sure you know means it is not finished.

[Nats]

I am sure they are working through a very long list.

[HB]

Originally posted by Chucktown:

Originally posted by hannibalbarca120002001:

All good points, the pity is the Devs were made aware of these points, and many other issues before the games release, and still have not done anything of substance to mitigate the issues.

Game is still not "released". You bought an early access game which im sure you know means it is not finished.

It’s in early access to be sure, many months after release, and is as unplayable as a competitive game, now as it was when released, and still contains game immersion breaking design flaws, like the topic of this thread.

[Fossil.21]

Never really considered this, it would definitely help with immersion. Would definitely need to come with the ability to destroy railroad as well.

[pgrobison]

It's not the first civil war game to have a issue with rail. Beyond the issue underlined, there is also the problem of the national rail capacity being instantly fully available on any line. In reality rail lines have a definite throughput (bandwidth if you will) on each specific line. That's not even getting into the weeds of different lines being built to different gauges etc.

[Zipuli]

On the list -- though (maybe) not a quick thing to pull off. The railroad system is deep in the pathfinding system, which does not allow construction/destruction of short segments of raillines.

...but we'll figure out something here.

[HB]

Originally posted by Zipuli:

On the list -- though (maybe) not a quick thing to pull off. The railroad system is deep in the pathfinding system, which does not allow construction/destruction of short segments of raillines.

...but we'll figure out something here.

Try assigning to move troops requires not only ownership of the connecting rail depots, and surplus military rail transport, and ownership set at stat of scn for the depots, that means each side can only use its own rail for its own troop movement, while rail commercial freight used for mil purposes still occurs, US layed ooos of miles of its own gauge rail road, the CS did not, so allow each side a yearly modifier to supply movement between depots, 100% reduction for CS in the depot connects to a non at start CS depot, ie the Northern rail for supply is denied to them, so they can’t now use US rail freight transfer between depot, US gets nothing in 61 also, buts gains a % each year to convert CS rail infrastructure to its own use, so foe example it gets a 50% reduction in 63, 25% in 64 for example, so it over time gets the ability to use CS at start of scn rail lines, this was how AOP was supplied in Va, conversion of CS rail to maintain itself, plus naval supply of course.So a 64 scn has a different rail net for the North than does the other scns.

[Mr. Bojangles]

Even if you can't destroy rail, you could at least deprive the enemy of its use. I had the entire Army of North Virginia roll right past the inner blue circle of my Army of the Potomac sitting in Washington City and rail itself up to sack Philadelphia without having to stop and give battle. When you consider all the man hours put into the officer and weapon selection, something like that is a deal breaker. If you can't deprive the enemy by force, then restrict the south to southern rail and the north to northern rail.

[MAD DOG]

Originally posted by Mr. Bojangles:

Please fix the railroad system for use by it's own troops only. At no point did any enemy army invade by rail. It's logistically impossible. Armies did use their own rail to move supplies and sometimes troops, but not their cavalry, supply trains and guns. I can think of one instance where Jackson used rail to move troops, and Lee used rail to move supplies. But, they typically used their own railway systems. No southern army ever invaded the North using the North's own railway system (also logistically impossible - where would the rolling stock come from....the railways were severed, guarded etc.) Sherman's invasion of the South and Lee's invasion of the North were done entirely on foot (with the enemy destroying rail as fast as the other armies could repair them). Furthermore, crossing the Potomac was a big deal, rail or no.

hell the south didnt even have standardized guage for tracks they were diff for everyline.. had to offload and reload trains alot

[pointman]

Originally posted by MAD DOG:

Originally posted by Mr. Bojangles:

Please fix the railroad system for use by it's own troops only. At no point did any enemy army invade by rail. It's logistically impossible. Armies did use their own rail to move supplies and sometimes troops, but not their cavalry, supply trains and guns. I can think of one instance where Jackson used rail to move troops, and Lee used rail to move supplies. But, they typically used their own railway systems. No southern army ever invaded the North using the North's own railway system (also logistically impossible - where would the rolling stock come from....the railways were severed, guarded etc.) Sherman's invasion of the South and Lee's invasion of the North were done entirely on foot (with the enemy destroying rail as fast as the other armies could repair them). Furthermore, crossing the Potomac was a big deal, rail or no.

hell the south didnt even have standardized guage for tracks they were diff for everyline.. had to offload and reload trains alot

No, most Southern rail lines used 5 ft. gauge. There were numerous local and short line exceptions, but the South used mostly broad gauge. Most Northern rail lines used 4' 8 & 1/2" or 4' 9" gauge. Again, with many local and short-haul differences. But generally, the Northern lines used narrow gauge. Efforts to standardize started with the Pacific Rails Act of 1863 and was accomplished in 1886.

What I'd like to see is the ability for players to build rail lines anywhere they liked that they have the resources for.

[Oubley]

Originally posted by pointman:

Originally posted by MAD DOG:

hell the south didnt even have standardized guage for tracks they were diff for everyline.. had to offload and reload trains alot

No, most Southern rail lines used 5 ft. gauge. There were numerous local and short line exceptions, but the South used mostly broad gauge. Most Northern rail lines used 4' 8 & 1/2" or 4' 9" gauge. Again, with many local and short-haul differences. But generally, the Northern lines used narrow gauge. Efforts to standardize started with the Pacific Rails Act of 1863 and was accomplished in 1886.

What I'd like to see is the ability for players to build rail lines anywhere they liked that they have the resources for.

lol you're probably both right. I do remember hearing that the south used different types of rail... Logically speaking what does it mean to be north and south.... at some point there probably is a "transition" or a station that has both, thus one would need to load/unload/load at a junction.

For some of the states and major cities in the middle there probably was both.

Could the use of rail be limited to where have city/town? Then also communicate Load times to the player so they could make a decision on if they want to use or not? Example like csa in northern territory maybe there is like a one month delay because they have to organize the cars. So it's not so much that one couldn't use the rail, who going to have an army sit around and gather box cars in "enemy" territory that more at play.

Rivers kind of have the same problem, get on and off whenever.

[HB]

Originally posted by MAD DOG:

Originally posted by Mr. Bojangles:

Please fix the railroad system for use by it's own troops only. At no point did any enemy army invade by rail. It's logistically impossible. Armies did use their own rail to move supplies and sometimes troops, but not their cavalry, supply trains and guns. I can think of one instance where Jackson used rail to move troops, and Lee used rail to move supplies. But, they typically used their own railway systems. No southern army ever invaded the North using the North's own railway system (also logistically impossible - where would the rolling stock come from....the railways were severed, guarded etc.) Sherman's invasion of the South and Lee's invasion of the North were done entirely on foot (with the enemy destroying rail as fast as the other armies could repair them). Furthermore, crossing the Potomac was a big deal, rail or no.

hell the south didnt even have standardized guage for tracks they were diff for everyline.. had to offload and reload trains alot

Correct, we’ll mostly, see Gabel Rails to Oblivion, the decline of the Confederate railways, US Army War College.