Slitherine

Neil suggested that the range set in general.txt determining how far from a friendly capital you can be to be eligible for rail movment, should be increased from 30 to 50.

We added this value when we allowed units in supply level 3 to be railed. This allowed for rail movement in minor country areas like Norway, Finland, Turkey, Spain etc.

With the range of 30 the Germans just get range to Stalingrad so units in Stalingrad can rail move, using Bucharest as a capital. However, you can't rail move from cities like Tambov, Penza, Saratov etc. unless you capture Moscow. With Moscow you get a chance to count the 30 hexes from Moscow instead of Bucharest. If you get as far as Omsk you can even count from Omsk.

Do you think we should increase the range from 30 to 50 (or maybe another value) so you don't need to capture Moscow to rail units from deep inside Russia? Or should we keep the as is value?

GS v2.00an is ready to be sent to you. I just await the decision on this change so please make a quick vote.

PS: The actual rail movement range is still 40 hexes, i. e. meaning a unit eligible for rail movement can max move 40 hexes per turn.

I vote for 30.

Paul

To clarify further, the issue here is that you can rail "to" places that you cannot rail back "from", which is anomalous. Eg, currently the German player can rail to Omsk in Russia but can only rail back if they control Moscow. Extending the rail range to 50 makes pretty much every hex at SL3 available to rail "from".
Historically, there is no reason why a unit should be able to go one way and not the other - in fact railing back was more feasible due to the ability to use empty supply trains.

So there are a few options:
1) Leave the current anomaly as is - players just have to remember that once their forces get 30 hexes away from a capital (minor capitals count so russia only is affected) units cannot rail back. In Russia, this means that units can be railed "back" from around Stavropal-Stalingrad-Voronez-Orel (30 hexes from Bucharest), Tula (30 hexes from Budapest), and Kotlas-Gorky (30 hexes from Helsinki) - yes units in the poor terrain of the north have better access to rail than those in the south where a proper rail net existed).
2) Extend the range to 50 - all SL3 hexes can use rail either way except for around Omsk (53 hexes), unless Moscow is captured
3) As per 2 but make heavily damaged cities ineligible for rail "to" (have to wait for rail lines to be repaired). Coding to prevent rail "back" from near a damaged city might be complicated by the need to check what the closest city is. This option will impact the German advance into russia to some degree as captured cities have to be repaired a bit before units can be railed forward.

Preference: 2) Extend the range to 50 - all SL3 hexes can use rail either way except for around Omsk (53 hexes), unless Moscow is captured

Option 3 sounds reasonable as well and would be my second choice. #1 just never made any sense.

I'm good option 2 and could also go with 1; but I'm very much opposed to 3 as I think risk of introducing a major bug is high versus the reward.

vote for 2

rkr1958 wrote:I'm good option 2 and could also go with 1; but I'm very much opposed to 3 as I think risk of introducing a major bug is high versus the reward.

Option 2 for me - agree that 3 has risks but thought it was worth putting out there as a thought provoker.....

Vote for Two

Yes for 2... Thbough it seems I already have version AN and my vote is moot since 2 is already chosen.