High cost road building through mountain (Full Version)

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arvcran2 -> High cost road building through mountain (7/1/2021 12:50:30 AM)

It puzzles me that having an existing pre built road does not reduce the cost of building sealed roads. I can understand rail because incline/decline must be fairly level.

[image]local://upfiles/75928/742598A0DDFF458B832EEE5B4A33C7AA.jpg[/image]



BlueTemplar -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/1/2021 9:55:08 AM)

I'm pretty sure it does ?

(Though it does it for rail too for IPs, even more so, to the point where the dirt road is more than free on hard terrain.)



zgrssd -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/1/2021 10:22:45 AM)

"5.2.2.5. road ConstruCtIon Costs
The AP Costs for constructing a Road is calculated with the Road Construction Movement Type. Dirt Road construction costs 20 IP per 10AP. Sealed Road construction costs 50 IP per 10AP. Constructing a Sealed Road over a Dirt Road gives you a -40% reduction on costs."

The original cost is 4800 IP/Hex.



Mercutio -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/1/2021 10:55:23 PM)

I still feel the cost should be reduced as you discover certain technologies. We use to do it with pick axes, then dynamite, and now boring machines and heavy equipment.



arvcran2 -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/1/2021 11:51:51 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

"5.2.2.5. road ConstruCtIon Costs
The AP Costs for constructing a Road is calculated with the Road Construction Movement Type. Dirt Road construction costs 20 IP per 10AP. Sealed Road construction costs 50 IP per 10AP. Constructing a Sealed Road over a Dirt Road gives you a -40% reduction on costs."

The original cost is 4800 IP/Hex.


Good find - I missed seeing this in the manual.

My sense is however that it still seems excessively high cost when most of the excavation work is done for the dirt road already.



arvcran2 -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/1/2021 11:55:02 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

I'm pretty sure it does ?

(Though it does it for rail too for IPs, even more so, to the point where the dirt road is more than free on hard terrain.)


I was thinking rail would have to blast tunnels and build more bridges to solve elevation problems.



zgrssd -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/2/2021 12:39:42 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mercutio

I still feel the cost should be reduced as you discover certain technologies. We use to do it with pick axes, then dynamite, and now boring machines and heavy equipment.

What part of the metal and IP cost are Pick Axes, Dynamtie, tunnel supports, boring machines and bridge (building)?
Hint: Basically everything beyond the basic price :)

It is hard to understate the expense of a tunnel. Even in our day and age, bridges and tunnels are herculean tasks of engineering.



zgrssd -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/2/2021 12:45:27 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: arvcran2

quote:

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

I'm pretty sure it does ?

(Though it does it for rail too for IPs, even more so, to the point where the dirt road is more than free on hard terrain.)


I was thinking rail would have to blast tunnels and build more bridges to solve elevation problems.

Railways on a flat terrain as the 2nd most efficient form of transport. (The only thing that can beat it is shipping).
However in turn it absolutely can not deal with elevation changes. Curves are not exactly ideal, but they can deal with it. With a train, the only way is straight - and thus expensive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbUsKWbOqUU



zgrssd -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/2/2021 12:50:45 AM)

I found this little thing on the cost of tunnels:
https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/assess_unit_cost_rail/annex_13_case_study_tunneling.pdf
It puts the cost in the 20-35 Million € per Kilometer.

I found figures ouf ~1 Million € per Kilometer of road.
So yeah, liteally 20-35 times the cost. The price increase is realistic.



Pratapon51 -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/2/2021 5:00:56 AM)

I think it's better not to question how a city-state can build a 1000+ km highway/railway in a single planet-season, while we're at it. [:D]



BlueTemplar -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/2/2021 9:33:34 AM)

Yeah, it doesn't make sense for "pre-built" dirt roads to give an extra bonus to sealed roads when the construction is instant.



zgrssd -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/2/2021 10:38:38 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Pratapon51

I think it's better not to question how a city-state can build a 1000+ km highway/railway in a single planet-season, while we're at it. [:D]

One seasons equates to about 2 earth months in time.
Just in case the scale maters.



mroyer -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/2/2021 11:41:28 AM)

quote:

I think it's better not to question how a city-state can build a 1000+ km highway/railway in a single planet-season, while we're at it. [:D]


Right... this might be my only quibble with the road building system.
Perhaps there should be a road-crew requirement or something like that -> 100 spare workers needed from a zone per hex of road/rail building.
Or, maybe a player could hire/fire cache of road builders that are on-call (and tracked in the SHQ inventory like recruits and colonists).

-Mark R.



BlueTemplar -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/2/2021 12:33:05 PM)

Industrial Points are what approximates this... but yeah, it's weird that they can be stored.



Wtface -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/2/2021 3:25:41 PM)

If it helps, imagine this turns construction is telling the universe what your IP did over the last couple turns.

They were produced over the past two months and spent over the past two months on... this road.

Although yes, it is a little odd to think about your IP storage tanks somewhere filling up and draining.



mroyer -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/3/2021 12:03:33 AM)

Yeah, I get that, but it does mess with intelligence and planning to discover the enemy who had no logistics for a thousand miles around suddenly has a nice paved road. That should be a rather difficult surprise advantage to gain.

Another way to curtail sudden-road-syndrome might be to simply limit road building to hexes within a certain distance of a hex with logistic points. That could be a simple way to better model the situation.

-Mark R.



BlueTemplar -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/3/2021 11:08:06 AM)

That would be quite annoying though.
Oh, I know, maybe the IP cost should increase with either each new road/rail hex on that specific road/rail, or anywhere during the round.
(Kind of still annoying though, but not too dissimilar to worker recruiting micromanagement. Could also have dedicated stratagems helping with that !)

Another indirect way to avoid this would be to be able to find out what item stocks the enemy has via recon (spying).



Zanotirn -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/3/2021 4:35:31 PM)

I think it may be more realistic if the difficult terrain increase for railroads was as it is now for IP, but reduced for metal. Over mountains, marsh and so on, you would need extra metal for more track curves, bridges, tunnel reinforcement, etc., but the increase here would be nowhere near as much as for the sheer amount of labor and associated industrial products (digging equipment, explosives, bulldozers/graders etc.)



BlueTemplar -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/3/2021 7:21:54 PM)

I believe that the overall cost of rail in difficult terrain had already been severely reduced ?

(If you make it too cheap, then this lessens the usefulness of airbridges...)



zgrssd -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/3/2021 7:28:45 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mroyer

Yeah, I get that, but it does mess with intelligence and planning to discover the enemy who had no logistics for a thousand miles around suddenly has a nice paved road. That should be a rather difficult surprise advantage to gain.

Another way to curtail sudden-road-syndrome might be to simply limit road building to hexes within a certain distance of a hex with logistic points. That could be a simple way to better model the situation.

-Mark R.


It takes at least another turn for Logistics to actually flow over this road. So you still get reaction time.
Plus the real limitation is the trucks and trains anyway.

However a lot of our slow roadbuilding is due to permits and socio-economic impact studies. All thingas a Shadow Empire could ignore. In reality we can do Kilometers per day.
Honestly, waiting the for concrete to harden can take 1 month, easily the longest part of the building process. And rain can cause the biggest delays (as it softens the ground).

There could be one option to limit road building - by looking at what operational supply would be from the existing road.
However that causes a question between useability and fairness. And I get the feeling usability should win out.



mroyer -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/3/2021 10:19:44 PM)


quote:

It takes at least another turn for Logistics to actually flow over this road. So you still get reaction time.


You sure about that? I'll go back and double check, but as I recall when my opponent made a beautiful strategic maneuver to separate my forces into two disconnected valleys, because I was sitting on a pile of logistic points I was able to sudden-build an impossibly long road from one valley over a high mountain chain several hexes wide and into the second valley. Voila, supply was flowing and troops were eating next turn.

-Mark R.




BlueTemplar -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/4/2021 10:15:10 AM)

I believe that he's referring to being able to strategically move units ?



zgrssd -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/8/2021 6:15:42 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mroyer


quote:

It takes at least another turn for Logistics to actually flow over this road. So you still get reaction time.


You sure about that? I'll go back and double check, but as I recall when my opponent made a beautiful strategic maneuver to separate my forces into two disconnected valleys, because I was sitting on a pile of logistic points I was able to sudden-build an impossibly long road from one valley over a high mountain chain several hexes wide and into the second valley. Voila, supply was flowing and troops were eating next turn.

-Mark R.



So your enemy had 1 turn to disrupt that new road was well? Exactly what I am talking about!

I rarely have enough IP for 10 hexes lying around. Nevermind a road going over several mountain hexes. And that longer way should still drain logistics via the AP mechanic, so even it is not cost free.



bobarossa -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/11/2021 2:59:21 PM)

Another factor on high cost of mountains is when changing terrain, you pay the cost of the more expensive terrain when going into that terrain and moving out of it. When building across a single mountain hex you pay the mountain cost going into the hex and again building out the other side even if the destination hex is clear terrain.



Mercutio -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/12/2021 9:50:00 PM)

The other issue is many roads over steep areas have switchbacks. You cannot do that with rail nearly as effectively. In reality you need ideal terrain for rail and/or just tunnel through some areas. You can't just build a rail over any part of a mountain range. (Roads either, but much easier, although still intensive with the switchbacks)



BlueTemplar -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/13/2021 8:53:50 AM)

Arguably, IRL you can do a switchback *more* effectively with rail - a car isn't expected to be able to start driving in reverse !
[image]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Lorenbahn_Nordstrandischmoor25.jpg/1200px-Lorenbahn_Nordstrandischmoor25.jpg[/image]
[image]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Zig_zag_railway_at_Lithgow.jpg/1200px-Zig_zag_railway_at_Lithgow.jpg[/image]



zgrssd -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/13/2021 10:02:18 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Mercutio

The other issue is many roads over steep areas have switchbacks. You cannot do that with rail nearly as effectively. In reality you need ideal terrain for rail and/or just tunnel through some areas. You can't just build a rail over any part of a mountain range. (Roads either, but much easier, although still intensive with the switchbacks)


People still can not understand how limited trains are in regards to cards regarding uphill travel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbUsKWbOqUU

quote:

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

Arguably, IRL you can do a switchback *more* effectively with rail - a car isn't expected to be able to start driving in reverse !
[image]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Lorenbahn_Nordstrandischmoor25.jpg/1200px-Lorenbahn_Nordstrandischmoor25.jpg[/image]
[image]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Zig_zag_railway_at_Lithgow.jpg/1200px-Zig_zag_railway_at_Lithgow.jpg[/image]

If the switchback is lot as long as the longest train, it is entirely worthless for the purpose. Meaning you waste a ton of ideal driving terrain on something that is for all purposes a speed and capacity reduction.



Mercutio -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/13/2021 9:18:03 PM)

When I say switchback, I mean this
Switchback



Mercutio -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/13/2021 10:35:44 PM)

Ok Blue Templar, how did you get those images in? I am just a moron, but I think a lot of us would like to upload screenshots much less images.



zgrssd -> RE: High cost road building through mountain (7/13/2021 10:53:35 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Mercutio

Ok Blue Templar, how did you get those images in? I am just a moron, but I think a lot of us would like to upload screenshots much less images.

You upload them onto a 3rd party site and image link them from there.

The above images are actually from wikipedia.



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