[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Railroads and AI

[Artur Biesiadowski <abies@xxxxxxxxx>]

Raahul Kumar wrote:
> 
> Why does the Railroad work like a Startrek teleporter? 
Because it was done so in Civ1/Civ2.

[...]
> This addresses the problem of having all units travel at the same speed,
> and perhaps there could be a movement penalty incorporated? For every 9
> railroad squares travelled, you lose 1/3 of the units mv. It is not really
> possible to cheat the railroad system effectively, because even if a
> player gets off after being on for only 8 squares, he cannot traverse more
> squares than if he remained on the railroad. Sounds good? Alternatively
> you can have a unit that travels on a RR square lose 1/27 of its mv for
> every square.

In Civ:CTP railroads costs were 1/5 per square and maglev 1/10 per
square. I think that sticking to 1/10 (or 1/9 if it is easier for
freeciv) would perfectly do the trick. I've even have a patch against
some old version of freeciv which bumbed out movement points x 10 and
allowed to set road/rail costs (so rail would cost 3 and road 10).
Unfortunately I doubt if it would work anymore against current freciv
(especially as it wasn't rebust even then).

Artur