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Playing Union, I had great difficulties plotting a rail move for a lone officer from VA to OH. Whatever I tried, the move was plotted smack through enemy-held VA rather than through Union territory. I ended up setting manual waypoints through PA, which involved a rather thorough scrutiny of the RR network, thus a lot of work.

1. What would have happened to my general on the RR move through Reb territory?

2. Is this something that should be fixed, so that a RR move should usually lead through own territory?

Are you sure that RR-move was enabled? In order to move by rail, you need to have at least 25% military control in the region(s) you're moving through, and I really doubt you had that through the stretch of the route going through Virginia.

Of course, you may have discovered a bug, in which case it'll need looking into.

The key factor to consider here is that if you have 25% Military control of a region you can use its rail network. Thus the one you mentioned is not enemy territory or, at least not so enemy to stop you from using the rail.

Someone proposed to increase this to at least 50% MC, but it seems to be a bit strange that both armies could use the same rail up and down. Furthenmore, with 3 quarters of the territory out of control, and especially in disloyal regions, any rail sabotage could happen anytime.

Others proposed 75% MC... i agree to this % proposal. You must drive the enemy away and seriously control the region before you can safely use its rail network. At least that's how i see it

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Gray_Lensman wrote:Actually the suggestion was 51% to prevent double usage, but I don't remember what the negatives were to the suggestion. Might have been Athena usage.

Now that i remember, you yourself who proposed 51% while I proposed 75%

A historical study on the matter would say whether the armies used rails when they had no MC (i.e. sherman's march was a march not a rail transport) or not. I say 51% is already much better than the actual 25%. You don't risk kaboom with wagons full of ammo and troops with all those rebels out there cutting rail, putting boulders and stones...or...tnt just as you pass lol

Sherman's march would in game terms be a series of entering regions that are 0% militarily controlled, so it doesn't serve as a good example for you

If it's a number thing, one could argue that when you want to control a region, you start with the parts that matter most, e.g. the rail lines when supply and troop movement matter. Also keep in mind, that the enemy is still fully capable of causing strategically significant rail breakage, no matter how much control you have

Heldenkaiser wrote:Playing Union, I had great difficulties plotting a rail move for a lone officer from VA to OH. Whatever I tried, the move was plotted smack through enemy-held VA rather than through Union territory. I ended up setting manual waypoints through PA, which involved a rather thorough scrutiny of the RR network, thus a lot of work.

1. What would have happened to my general on the RR move through Reb territory?

2. Is this something that should be fixed, so that a RR move should usually lead through own territory?

If your general is active, you can send him with the evade combat option. He should be OK. I have never lost a general travelling through enemy territory by using evade combat.

Rafiki wrote:Sherman's march would in game terms be a series of entering regions that are 0% militarily controlled, so it doesn't serve as a good example for you

I know raf, but game-wise, you could detach a few cavalry to take possess of a whole region in a sniff and then exploit the 25% acquired to move all the inf and guns faster. It's...gamey.

Essentially, Sherman was *marching* 12 miles a day in enemy but uncontested territory, MC was zero but there also was no enemy. The game's MC is something different where in a contested territory or with low MC (such as 25% is) you could travel a whole region (say, 50 miles wide) in just a single day using the rail.

Honestly, who sane in his mind would put the whole army on the train when your MC is 25%? The other 75% of territory you don't control could have a single cannon by a bend, or dynamite by a tunnel and half the army dies or is injured beyond recovery.

Maybe i'm excessive with 75% MC request but the 51% Gray proposed at that point in time seems much more appropriate, realistic and...strategically needed than the 25% we need now to travel by rail.

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Le Ricain wrote:If your general is active, you can send him with the evade combat option. He should be OK. I have never lost a general travelling through enemy territory by using evade combat.

Thanks! I'll try it next turn. There's still a lot of 3-1-1 * sitting unemployed with McDowell.

Gray_Lensman wrote:If it were possible, a workable compromise that would make the 25% MC rule seem more logical, would be to only allow RR move along a rail into 1 (one) and only one region that had less than 50% control.

Pocus:
Would it be possible to change the game engine code to check that the RR Move is originating in a region with 50% control or more, if so, check the region being entered for (25+% but less than 50%) control and if so, allow that one RR move, but no further.

This would allow RR movement into a 25+% controlled region that was adjacent to a more solidly (50+%) controlled region, but no further, until the newly advanced region's control was increased. This eliminates the over penetration of the enemy's rail net, but at the same time allows some exploitation of bordering RR regions.

This can't be done, easily at least, as the logic is rather advanced for the pathfinding algorithm in this case. And it needs as simple as possible rules, so to calculate fast.

The % can be upped though. I like the idea of keeping the possibility to have both sides still able to reinforce a region by rail, as if there is a front. 33% can be made official without too much fuss I believe, above, I would advise only playing with such value in a mod.

Also, it is not that simple to raise to 25% the control of a region. Sending cavalry for a few day won't do.

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Pocus wrote:The % can be upped though. I like the idea of keeping the possibility to have both sides still able to reinforce a region by rail, as if there is a front. 33% can be made official without too much fuss I believe, above, I would advise only playing with such value in a mod.

If you can make the rail movement and supply forwarding a moddable option, i am sure we will see great things going on. 33% is better than 25% (and 51% would be even better) but the point is that to achieve MC u need to patrol and destroy eventual opposition parties, even small bands that could sabotage rail or capture supplies (they would disappear and reappear once you think the territory is relatively safe but we don't have such partisans, meaning there's too few of them to work out a detailed plan to harass, sabotage and then disappear plan).

To do that, you can't travel by train, you've got to march and scout, that's why 25% is too little (actually we only have a phase to send troops in region but then it's about how many days it takes them with us not involved in the process that is carried on in resolution phase).

Perhaps...the loyalty values could be made to move MC a bit faster from one side to the other, so that you need to leave more garrisons along the path of resupplying the front. Obviously, this also need that we finally have a DISTINCT reason to suspend habeas corpus and apply martial laws.

Loyalty *does* affect MC already