Preview of map changes regarding rail hubs

[timrt]

If these changes for new cities are to happen, & I think that they make sense, then is it not possible to use a different icon to denote that these points are "lesser" cities in effect?

[Kragdob]

Adding a lot of new cities will make it much more difficult to execute armored encirclements, since those cities will provide supply to the isolated units

Do they happen often? I saw close to none in the AARs (I remember one from Morris game)

In reality there were also not a lot of huge encirclements of whole armies. Encirclements were up to few corpses which is few hexes in CEAW. The only big 'encirclements' were battle of Kiev in 1941 and Operation Bagration in 1944, both happened due to specific orders that prohibited withdrawal of units in danger.

[Diplomaticus]

Me too. An elegant solution.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

We have discussed in the alpha team and suggested that we can create a new resource type with the same abilities as a mine (except the production). That means the defensive bonus will be minor and you get only entrenchment level 1. You can even be dislodged from the hex after combat. If we go for this solution we need to agree upon the name. Some suggestions are:
* RailHub
* RailwayStation
* Town

The word shown in hexinfo will be one word because the terrain.txt file can only read single words for terrain. Which name do you prefer.

The downside to this solution is that save games will be invalidated since we introduce a new resource type. But I can quickly make this and it should work with little coding.

The alternative is to make a special city (without production) and code a lot of exceptions. We can change the name and image, but for the game it still be a city. That change will not invalidate save games.

I propose the former solution.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Most of the cities we proposed in the latest screenshots will become rail hubs instead. Please be free to propose other rail hubs too if we have missed any.

The main job of the rail hub is to offer a place to rail units to / from. Since it's a resource and not a city you can NOT place newly built units there.

I want you to comment fast so I can start coding and have the new version out by the weekend.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Another suggestion is Rail Depot

[Schnurri]

Sounds good to me - we should try it. I say rail depot. How about some more rail hubs near Soviet border with Romania to allow mobilization to the front along the Prut river?

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Problem is that Russia can't rail prior to Barbarossa so units railed to the border would only be possible if the rail depot won't be captured by the Germans on turn 1 of Barbarossa

[ncali]

I like "town," but calling them depots is fine too! I don't object to adding a number of these in currently clear terrain. But it's important not to displace other terrain types (forest, mountains, etc.) with better defensive bonuses!

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Resources will take over for the terrain regardless of being a city, mine, oilfield, fortress or raildepot. We can always bump the defensive value a little bit if we want that.

[Schnurri]

Resources will take over for the terrain regardless of being a city, mine, oilfield, fortress or raildepot. We can always bump the defensive value a little bit if we want that.

Problem is that Russia can't rail prior to Barbarossa so units railed to the border would only be possible if the rail depot won't be captured by the Germans on turn 1 of Barbarossa

I was thinking of depots on the Axis side to allow railing of troops prior to Barbarossa.

[Diplomaticus]

I like the term Rail Depot.

I know it's a pain to invalidate existing games, but maybe since we all had to do that so recently it will add up to no more than a minor nuisance. I think it's worth it, especially since there's a very real chance of confusion/frustration if players assume that a "city" will defend like one... only to find that it's a city in appearance only!

[ncali]

Resources will take over for the terrain regardless of being a city, mine, oilfield, fortress or raildepot. We can always bump the defensive value a little bit if we want that.

I'd suggest just using the terrain modifiers for forests and other rough terrain where you place a depot, if that is possible. Or just try to avoid placing depots in non-clear hexes.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Rail depots will have max entrenchment level of 2, but slighty lower defense values than a mine unless we decide to have them slightly better. At the moment a rail depot has -10% attacker efficiency and -0% armor efficiency. Forests have -10% attacker efficiency and -20% armor efficiency. Should we use the same as forest for rail depots since there is some urban population in the areas we place rail depots?

[Schnurri]

I'd say no - we are just trying to make it more possible to transport troops but not effect defensive capability. Why not try it with the lower defensive values first and see how it works? Throughout the clear and forested terrain there are population centers not indicated so it seems unnecessary.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I have actually coded the rail depot and even added tundra as a terrain type. Tundra is the same as forest, but with max supply 2 instead of 4. We could use the in the far north of the map. Actually I added tundra before in the editor for a possible extended map where all of Norway would be on the map in addition to the Kola peninsula etc.

The code is working nicely and you can rail to the rail depots as intended. We're working on getting the images ready and I will suggest the map with rail depots. Some former cities will be converted to rail depots because they were added because we wanted rail capacity. Examples are Stavanger, Kristiansand, Joensuu, Kuopio, Saransk, Vladimir, Sterlitamak.

I might add a few other rail depots if I see any that should be there, but we don't want the map to become clogged with rail depots. I have to check rail maps from ww2 and only place depots where real rail lines existed.

Does anyone have a good link to maps over different countries where rail lines are drawn?

I will post new map screenshots as soon as we have the images done. I hope to have the update done within a day or two so you can try out with the rail depots.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I also took the chance to fix the issue with air units rebasing to hexes with supply level 0. Now they can only rebase to islands with supply level 0. So no longer rebasing bombers to partisan liberated hexes.

[Schnurri]

Well done! Can't wait.

[timrt]

Term rail depot sounds spot on - could we also have 1 nrth Scotland please (scottish roots coming out here).

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I will post screenshots this afternoon. Then we need to quickly discuss the status of each city / rail depot and change what we want to change.

In the first version I have changed several of the cities we added before to rail depots because the main reason for adding them were to get rail capacity in the area. Groningen and Orleans are a few examples. Vladimir, Sterlitamak and Saransk others. I even changed Kotlas into a rail depot because it was very small (60k today) and wouldn't have been able supporting forming of new corps units there. You can rail units from other cities to Kotlas, though.

I think having rail depots actually makes everything more logical because now we won't have small cities on the map anymore. Cities on the map should be real cities where the urban area would pose difficulties for the attacker and thus no chance to dislodge the defender just by inflicted some losses.