Railroads, etc have limitied movment (8 - 12x) seems the most that is reasonable.
Enemy rail roads count as regular roads until they are incorperated into your territory.

nice idea

how about this

roads: 3x movement multiplier
highways: 5x movement multiplier
railroads: flat rate of 8 spaces

you build a road, then you can either build a highway or a railroad overtop of it, but not both

then like in Alpha Centauri, no trade bonuses for any type of road

i like this idea, except in SMAC, roads don't increase trade, there are other tile improvements that increase trade, which i think is a better system

- Highways: Only after the discovery of automobile. Trade bonus. Move bonus: 4x, but only for motorized units! For the rest of the units, 3x.

I love the idea that high ways only increase motorized vehicles movement! that's genius! same comment about the trade issue, but on movement i agree 100% with you

- Railroads: Flat movement rate, the same for all units, which can gradually increase over the time, as new technologies are developed (for example: diesel 4x, electric 6x, intercity 8x, monorail 10x). The building of rails should also cost money (or shields), because we are building not only the railway but also the train, but only virtually!

when you say flat rate but type in 6x ect, you do mean an infantry unit and an armored unit would both move the same correct? also one other clarification, after moving on a railroad the unit would still have all of it's movement left right? i completely agree with that, and i love that idea. put in one stipulation though, a unit can only use railroads once per turn

i agree that all tile improvements (TI) should cost one shield to build basic TIs (farms, roads) and two shields to build advanced TIs (railroads, airbases)

additionally all TIs should cost maintenance, counting each TI seperately, (a farm, a road, and a highway on one square would be three TIs) each citizen would give you two TIs free, and every five TIs after that should cost one mineral to support.

- The movement on railroads for all units and the movement on roads and highways for motorized units should cost money (or energy or shields or whatever).

if they implement the energy barrels system then i ardently agree that movement should use energy barrels but i disagree that movement should ever ost money or shields

- The cost for moving outside our borders should depend on the type of the diplomatic relations we have with the other nation:
1. Ally: the cost will be the same as on our territory
2. Friend (peace treaty): double cost.
3. Enemy: triple cost and slower movement (they are sabotaging you!).

i disagree with the idea that movement should cost more energy barrels outside of your territory, maybe more supply but certainly not more energy barrels that should be a fixed cost. also your units should not move slower outside of your territory...however i would be in favor of a +1 movement bonus while units are inside of your territory, that would make fighting a defensive war easier on the defender

first can you define what the problem is? is it a significant problem? how does your ideas fix that problem specifically? does your fix effect any other areas of the game? if it does effect another area does it upset game balance in those other areas? is there a simpler way to fix the problem? does your idea hurt gameplay? why out of all of the ideas does your fix belong on this list?

Improved road & rail rules.

For a better reflection of reality, Civ3 should use 3 ways of transportation: roads, highways and railroads.

Prerequisite technologies:
1. Road – none (or ???)
2. Highway – automobile
3. Railroad – railroad

Movement rate:
1. Road – 3 x (unit speed)
2. Highways – 4 x (motorized unit speed), 3 x (non-motorized unit speed)
3. Railroad – flat movement rate (rail speed), the same for all units, which can gradually increase over the time, as new technologies are developed (for example: diesel – 6 moves, electric – 8 moves, intercity – 10 moves, monorail – 12 moves). After moving on railroad, the unit would still have all of its movement (unit speed) left. I choused 6 as the minimum rail speed, because I thought it should be greater or at least equal with a Cavalry’s maximum range (3 road bonus x 2 speed).
In this way, the maximum range you can travel through the map will be 12 (monorail speed)+ 4 (max. road bonus) x 3 (max unit speed)= 24.

Trade bonus
The idea that roads increase trade is right (I think) because roads are accelerating the resource gathering process and road connected cities naturally exchange more goods thus generating more trade. That’s why I don’t think the Civ2 model should be changed in this case.
I think highways should generate more trade than railroads.

Shield bonus
Only railroads (in forests and mines).

Food bonus
Only roads!!! Prevents filling the map only with rails and highways but I'm not quite sure how realistic this is.

Construction cost
Road: 1 shield
Highway: 2 shields
Railroad: 3 shields (or maybe 6; after all you’re building the railway and the train as well).

Movement cost
1. For transportation on railroad for all units;
2. For moving on roads or highways for motorized units;
Cheaper on railroad. (Let’s say movement cost/move = 1 energy barrel. On railroad for 5 stacked unit moving 10 tiles the cost will be: 10 barrels. On the same distance, on highways, 5 stacked unit will pay 5 x 10 = 50 barrels!!).
Moving outside your borders: Should also cost money, not only energy barrels, and for nearly all units, except spies, explorers, caravans, etc (you are paying the right to use those roads). Only for railroads and highways.
Moving on enemy’s territory: -1 movement rate (they are sabotaging you). Another option is to give +1 move bonus inside your borders, but only in war or martial law (priority for military vehicles).

Maintenance cost - I’m afraid to not make this too complicated. So I’m against it.

i really like your system...however there needs to be a few slight changes

Trade bonus:
roads and highways only
they will increase trade by one for roads and two for highways in squares that already have a trade increasing tile improvement...
also if a city is connected to a city it has a trade route by roads the trade route is increased in value

but don't allow a trade bonus unless a trade increasing TI already exists!

Minerals and Energy bonus:
railroads only
they will increase minerals by one in squares that have tile improvements such as mines ect.
they will increase energy barrel by one in squares that have tile improvements such as oil wells

but don't allow a mineral or energy bonus unless a mineral or energy increasing TI already exists!

Food bonus:
no food bonus!

Construction cost:
Road: 1 shield per square
Highway: 2 shields per square (or 1 shield if a road already exists)
Railroad: 2 shields per square

so this means that when a settler builds a road or highway or railroad it will take a small amount of shields

Movement cost:
don't change movement costs or rates on enemy roads or highways...but only allow movement on railroad squares that are within your borders or on a allies railroads

also allow +1 movement for your military units on roads and railways in your territory during a war or martial law

use borders like in SMAC

clarification:
a square can't have both a highway and a railroad square

after a unit gets off of a railroad it has its full movement left

Trade bonus:
I agree.

Minerals and Energy bonus:
I agree.

Construction cost:
Road: 1 shield per square
Highway: 2 shields per square (or 1 shield if a road already exists)
Railroad: 3 shields per square

Movement cost:
"don't change movement costs or rates on enemy roads or highways...but only allow movement on railroad squares that are within your borders or on a allies railroads"
I still think you could use a friend's railroad, but paying some money (or anything else) for that. (friend = peace treaty).
My idea is that you could use an enemy's railroad only if you capture that railroad. A railroad is captured (controlled) if you have at least a unit fortified on the enemy's railroad and only after it stays there at least a turn! Of course, you capture only a piece of the railroad, between your border and the unit fortified on the rail. To be clear: you move a tank on the enemy's rail and fortify it. Only in next turn you can use that piece of rail.
+1 movement bonus on your territory (inside your borders) during war or martial law. OK

Of course, a square can't have both a highway and a railroad square.

i really liked your ideas, and all i can say is that when the time to votes comes, you can count on a vote from me!

1.3) Make road building and RR building independent tasks. (In crossing the American West and the Russian East, RR came long before roads.) Movement on roads would no longer cost 1/3 mp per tile, rather terrain/3 mp per tile.

1.4) Movement on railroads would cost terrain/12 per tile. Unlike roads, railroads would be constructed one link at a time, from one tile to another rather than connecting to any and all surrounding tiles at once. Construction of a railroad link by Settler takes [1 + 2 x terrain] turns (or [1 + terrain] turns if the tiles are already connected by road or river) and costs 1 money unit. In tiles without roads, one or more rail link(s) confers whatever trade benefit is applicable for roads.

1.5) After a civ builds one Superhighway city improvement, that civ may improve roads to Highways, reducing movement cost to terrain/6 per tile. Upgrading takes a Settler [1 + terrain] turns and costs [1 + terrain] money units. Highways give a +1 trade bonus above road (and Superhighway improvement) trade bonuses, even for tiles that would not get road trade bonus (but do not enable Superhighway bonus for such tiles).

1.7) Make military units capable of road building (but not RR) and construction of fortresses at ½ the rate of Settler units. This would represent their own labor plus levied labor from the tile inhabitants.

1.11) Additional suggestions to make roadbuilding somewhat closer to historical progression: paved roads such as the Persian Royal Road didn't come until 5th century BC, and quality of roads varies too much to be represented by a single tile improvement type. Trade contribution of roads and rivers is undervalued in many peoples' opinions.

1.11.1) An initial primitive trail (does not reduce movement cost or create trade) necessary to extend city radius from 1 square to the standard 2 squares, and necessary for mounted units to cross mountains.

1.11.2) Basic Roads (terrain/2 movement cost, ½ standard trade bonus) available as a civilization advance (preq Masonry) necessary for wheeled units to cross mountains.

1.11.3) Paved Roads (altered from the existing road improvement as suggested in §1.3 above) as an advance available after Basic Roads and Construction.

1.11.4) Road Network (trade bonus ½ unit per tile subject to §1.11.8) improvement available after discovery of Bridgebuilding.

1.11.5) Secondary Paving (trade bonus ½ unit per tile subject to §1.11.8) improvement available after discovery of Automobile.

1.11.6) Tertiary Paving (trade bonus ¼ unit per tile subject to §1.11.8) improvement available after discovery of Superhighway.

1.11.7) Graded Highways (see §1.5 above; see §1.11.8). Does not require road network, secondary paving, or tertiary paving.

1.11.8) Secondary Paving and Tertiary Paving trade benefits do not accrue to tile types that normally would not receive road trade bonus in the absense of rivers or special resources. Road Network trade benefits apply to such tiles only if Highway improvement has been built in that tile.

1.11.9) Trailblazing (§1.11.1) can be performed by any military unit, requiring only 1 turn. Construction of any tile improvement also includes the construction of trails. Initial road building (§1.11.2), and upgrading from one road type to the next, would require only terrain/2 turns rounded up (except as noted in §1.11.7 and §1.5). If §1.7 is implemented it applies only to §1.11.2 and §1.11.3.

Some of the younger members of this forum have never lived in a world without interstate highways and don't understand that movement before such extensively graded roads was very much slowed by terrain. Also those accustomed to car travel only think of trucks chugging up hills as annoyances rather than as the standard for terrain based movement on even the best graded highways. Hence terrain/3 road cost and terrain/6 highway cost.

Also discussed: trails and roads tend to erode in bad terrain without upkeep (which may be as simple as having population units working the tile in the city screen).

The suggestion of having rail and advanced road construction cost money is included. Money is generalized throughout the civ, but shields would have to be deducted from the production of a specific city, which could be very troublesome to program and to moreso to (micro)manage.

The idea that you can't have both rail and highway in a tile is nothing short of ridiculous. Roads and rail are completely separate entities that do not interfere with each other unless you're late for work and stuck waiting at the #*%@ crossing.

i really like ideas

1.3) make road building and RR building independent tasks. Movement on roads would no longer cost 1/3 mp per tile, rather terrain/3 mp per tile. (Highways would then be terrain/4 for motorized vehicles)

*however, on a railroad it should be the same flat rate...if you are building railroads through mountains though, it should take much longer

1.7) Make military units capable of road building (but not RR) and construction of fortresses at ½ the rate of Settler units.

good idea!

and i could live with highways and railroads on the same tile but how would you graphically represent it without making it look like crap, and having it easy to see that highways and railroads both exist?

however as for the other ideas i like zanzibar's model alot better, i really think zanzibar has a good model (especially railroads) that fits well into civ, and is simple and works

quote: …in SMAC, roads don't increase trade, there are other tile improvements that increase trade, which i think is a better system

In a game where most of play exists before "energy" as such is ever a factor (all of history up until WWI, perhaps until the post-WWII period) trade absolutely must be separate from energy. Up to that point trade exists only as physical goods are moved, hence roads/rail generating trade at the drop of a proverbial hat.

quote: i agree that all tile improvements (TI) should cost one shield to build basic TIs (farms, roads) and two shields to build advanced TIs (railroads, airbases) additionally all TIs should cost maintenance, counting each TI seperately, (a farm, a road, and a highway on one square would be three TIs) each citizen would give you two TIs free, and every five TIs after that should cost one mineral to support.

If irrigation and farms cost shields or money to support should they also cost food? Until the auto all farmwork is either human or animal labor. Livestock eat far more calories than they could ever supply in meat, and even dairy could never break even calorie-wise.

As I mentioned above, money is generalized to the whole civ but shields are not. TI construction and maintenance should never cost shields—how do you assign it to a city if it isn't within a city radius? What if you then build a city on or near existing roads and irrigation, is it suddenly saddled with upkeep shields for the improvements? What a micromgmt nightmare.

Requiring money support for all tile improvements, even in a x10 system, would quickly consume all resources. Especially if you are also proposing that they not generate trade (and therefore money) but that additional TIs would be required for that!

Furthermore, in most cases TIs simply need no monetary support as such. Many Roman Roads haven't been maintained in any meaningful way for centuries but are still around. More would still be around except they were pillaged for building material over a millennium ago. The same applies to a lesser extent to irrigation structures. Most TIs are maintain by the people who use them; even roads were maintained with levied labor rather than the crown's hard currency.

IMO the construction of rails one link at a time (§1.4) is a more important aspect than specific movement rate. But even for rails crossing mountains greatly slows traffic. Not just because of grades but also fewer double-tracked lengths. So rail movement cost still should be terrain/x, but if x is large the cost difference won't be as noticeable unless it's a large area of relief terrain (hills, mts).

I'm also hoping that vegetation will be separate from terrain proper. But not as clumsily or as ugly as SMAC. It costs little more to build a road or rail through forest as through flatlands; one could argue the reverse for rail because you'd use the timber for ties. Swamp costs somewhat more than flat terrain just because more fill material and bridgework is likely.

zanzibar never included TI support so that is not an issue

to me trade/money/energy is the same

though energy barrels are different

roads should just increase money where there is a tile improvement there...yes i agree that roads do improve the economy, however if you built a 500 mile long 6 lane highway in the middle of antartica it wouldn't help the economy

so you need something there first in order to see an improvement...hence you need a TI before roads or highways improve your trade/money...if there are no stores to deliver good to then there is no reason for a road to make you more money...same goes for railroads and mines/oil wells (mines for shields oil wells for energy barrels) no mine a railroad won't increase anything

and i could agree that you could use money instead of shields for building cost

but i think that railroads must be flat rate entities...maybe they take a penalty if they do cross too many mountains and hills (why would they slow down though if there was a tunnel?) so if they are flat rate how do you propose for mountain to slow them down and keep movement flat rate?

korn469

quote: so you need something there first in order to see an improvement...hence you need a TI before roads or highways improve your trade/money...if there are no stores to deliver good to then there is no reason for a road to make you more money

The same goes for rail augmenting shield production. The increase is proportional, rather than static; the idea is that rail is far more efficient at getting available bulk goods (lumber, coal, gravel, whatever) from the supplier to the demand center. No TI is required to chop down trees or harvest a shield special.

PS: If "trade/money/energy is the same" then try to barter your labor skills for electricity, or buy a loaf of bread with kilowatt-hours. An economy is based on exchange of goods and services (i.e., trade); energy only has value as we have need of it and it is in a useable form. Otherwise we'd just sit out in the sun collecting that 1200 watts/m²; Saudi Arabia would be selling sunlight instead of oil. That SMAC tried to use energy instead of trade is so stupid.

i have already asked the same thing of Thben...please do not post a summary of any list in any EC3 threads...post a link if you feel it is really important for people to see the entire list...if you think one particular section of the list pertains to the discussion then copy+paste that but do not just post the entire list...here is my reasoning

Firaxis has already seen the list and we shouldn't just resend it to them...the list has been summarized and some of the original flavor of the ideas have faded in the process and i feel that it ould stifle debate instead of encouraging it and could stop new ideas...i do not want the list to become a tool of intimidation

the Essential Civ3 List is all about stating ideas in civ2/SMAC terms and telling how that these ideas could make civ3 better

also about your quote when i said that trade/energy/money are the same thing i meant in civ2/SMAC terms...i was not talking about real life...and do not try to use real economics on a civ game...civ is not realistic it is fun

first thing one totalitarian god like dictator does not control every aspect of every body's life for thousands of years...the govenerment does not build every facility and tell people where they are going to work or pay for most of the R&D in any society or make sure every body is happy...so do not try to argue "realism" in civ with me, it's pointless

i from a gameplay point of view, feel that tile improvements should exist before you gain a bonus to money/trade/energy you collect...this means that it takes time+investment in infrastructure to reap the benefits...i like when things complement each other...like E-mirrors and solar collectors in SMAC, i think that is the most fun type of system...so my final answer is, a money increasing TI should exist in a squre before roads or highways increase money output

For a better reflection of reality, Civ3 should use 3 ways of transportation: roads, highways and railroads.

Prerequisite technologies and/or City Improvements:
1. Road – none or Masonry (tech)
2. Highway – Automobile(tech) (and maybe Superhighway as a CI)
3. Railroad – Railroad (tech)

Movement rate:
TM = terrain modifier (just for ex. plains TM = 1; hills TM = 0,5; mountains TM = 0,3)
US = unit speed (ex. Armor US = 3)
RS = railroad speed (the speed of the train transporting the units)

1. Road – 3 x TM x US
2. Highways – 4 x (motorized US), 3 x (non-motorized US)
3. Railroad – flat movement rate (rail speed), the same for all units, which can gradually increase over the time, as new technologies are developed (travelling on RR, the units are assumed to be travelling by train)
(for example: diesel – 6x TM, electric – 8 x TM, intercity – 10x TM, monorail – 12 x TM).
After moving on railroad, the unit would still have all of its movement (US) left.
A unit could use railroads only once per turn.

Trade (money) bonus
Only roads and highways, and only in squares that already generates trade, without any road.
(ex. One trade bonus for roads, and two for highways)

Shield (mineral, energy) bonus
Only railroads, and only in squares that already generate minerals or energy (forest, iron, coal) or already have tile improvements such as coal mines, oil wells, wind mills, solar collectors, etc.

Construction cost
Road: 1 shield
Highway: 2 shields (or 1 shield if a road already exist)
Railroad: 3 shields (the construction of the RR includes the construction of the train, too)
The city where the settler belongs to is allocating “n” shields for road construction as long the settler is working on that road (or highway or RR).

Movement cost
1. For transportation on railroad for all units
For stacked units, the cost will be the same, no matter how many units are being transported. The cost is coming from the train type (diesel, electric, etc)
2. Moving on roads or highways for motorized units only;
The cost will depend only on the type of the unit.

Clarifications
The cost for transportation won’t depend on the terrain type, because this is already included trough the movement rate formula.
The cost should be energy. (or something equivalent)

Movement and borders
Moving inside your borders: +1 movement bonus during war or martial law (priority for military vehicles); only on roads, highways and railroads.
Moving outside your borders: Should also cost money, not only energy, and for nearly all units, except spies, explorers, caravans, etc (you are paying the right to use those roads). Only for railroads and highways.
Moving on enemy’s railroad: You could use an enemy’s RR only after you capture it. A RR is captured if you move a unit (U) on the RR, there are no enemy vehicles between the RR controlled already by you and U, and don’t move U until the next turn. You can not use the RR until the next turn. If U survives, the RR is yours.

Clarifications
1. No road and RR on the same tile.
2. No maintenance cost.
3. Modern military units being capable of road (but not RR or highways) and fortress building, at the speed of a settler.

Travelling by train would be not necessary speeder, but cheaper, and especially for stacked units. I mean, on a highway, an armor could travel 4 x 3 = 12 squares, the same as the fastest train (at least in my example). If cost/move=1 energy barrel, than 5 stacked units moving on 10 RR tiles will pay 10x1=10 barrels. The same 5 stacked units, on highway, will pay 5x10x1=50 barrels.

how about this:

in SMAC when you raise or lower terrain it asks for confirmation about the cost of the action

how about when it asks for confirmation about building a railroad or road, or highway have a screen pop up that ask if you want to spend a shield or want to spend money...in the preferences screen you could permantly select one or the other though, so the screen wouldn't pop up

Whether you separate unit movement allowance from rail movement allowance there will be a cost to move, and that should be terrain dependent (terrain/x) to reflect the limitations that IRL can only be overcome at fantastic expense. The number I had used in the List was terrain/12. Obviously with any large divisor the affects will not be great unless you must move through much rough terrain.
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It is not my intent to cite the List as an authority, but as a reservoir representing countless threads of discussion, etc. We need to consider that Firaxis has (theoretically) already seen the List and so we don't want to be rehashing the old as though it were new.

with rails...i think they should have a flat rate movement rate that can only be used once per turn...so however you do it (and giving all units an equal rail movement category is a really simple idea that does the job perfectly!) that is the system to go with...a 3 move tank and a 1 move infantry unit should both move at the same speed on rails, a move multiplier is a bad idea for railroads because a fast unit is not going to speed up the train hauling it

but as rails exist now, almost aby system will be a major improvement on it...but i love flat movement railroads

_____________________________________________

also i want the list to be used as a source of inspiration, but i didn't want the entire 500 pages of the list posted in various pages, a link or a particularly apt quote should be enough...i just got worried that having a large chunk of the list posted in every active thread would kill those threads...you or theben or either one weren't guilty of using the list as to kill an idea thread, i just wanted to stop it before it happened

_____________________________________________

Zanzibar

please drop this part of your idea

quote: Moving outside your borders: Should also cost money, not only energy, and for nearly all units, except spies, explorers, caravans, etc (you are paying the right to use those roads). Only for railroads and highways.

because for one thing energy barrels should take care of the cost to move just fine, for another...who would you pay to use the roads? i cannot see your allies charging you to use their roads and i cannot see you paying your enemies to use their roads, so that means you would only pay neutral/truce countries to use their roads...i do not see how this adds to gameplay, and if you had to pay money to move on an enemy road that would really make me made mad at the game especially if it ran me out of money...maybe supply cost should be increased outside of your borders but it should not cost money to move on roads outside of your territory...i cannot support this idea unless you can somehow convince me it adds to gameplay

one other small change

diesel, electric, intercity, monorail

how about

steam, diesel, electric, mag-lev

other than that i think your system looks really good

You may have missed this among the (light-hearted) bickering between myself and korn (for which I apologize in principle)—

"Construction costs: money [or shields] should only be required for advanced road types (§1.5, §1.11.4-8). Rail is generally built for demand, and a single line passing through isn't that expensive. But for advanced road types the whole idea is to connect everything that might need it, and so the construction is expensive."

Otherwise, shouldn't all tile improvements cost money/shields to construct? Why is the cost of trains included in rail but not the cost of trucking fleets included in roads? Why just roads and rail? If you upgrade from irrigation to farm don't you have to build McCormick reapers and tractors? If you build a mine don't you have to install mining equipment? What about upkeep—mines are notoriously unstable?

Also, if we have to spend shields why even bother with Settler/Engr/Former units at all? It becomes only a clumsier and costlier version of CTP's Public Works system.

Remember KISS. We don't want to endlessly entangle the support and cost systems that make Civ simple in concept (even if unrealistic). I'd rather have no money/shield costs at all for tile improvements than too much complication.

Moving outside your borders: There is a lengthy proposal in the Movement Summary (see §1.10) on diplomatic and financial aspects of permission and rights for movement in other civs' territories.

If there is an energy system (which I really hope there isn't except in the most generalized sense) the difference in efficiency between road and rail shouldn't be more than a factor of two (armor being an exception). Otherwise railroads wouldn't be going bankrupt!

I can't emphasize this enough: no prohibition against road and rail in same tile! First, it isn't as though rail or roads actually take up space the way farms do. Second, (and perhaps more important in principle) tiles are huge and any exclusion of one TI by another (such as Irrigation vs. Mine) is ridiculous.

PS: Next time you're online just click on the "edit post" icon on the header of one of the doubles. There is a "clear fields" button to make it easy to remove all the text.

What you may want to do is bring a bunch of floppies to work and save copies of threads to read at home. It's fairly easy to do with either IE4/IE5 (from the File menu) or Netscape (File menu or right click menu).

I like of what you have: the fixed movement RR (once per turn), highways, bonuses.

Worries:
1. Construction costs: I already pay a shield per turn in settler/engineer support. I view this as including construction costs. Besides, it's a nightmare to assess. How do you charge the last RR link midway between two cities? How do I know which city is charged? What turn is it assessed on? What if I change my mind and need to have the RR finished next turn, not this one? At times I need to be able to predict the exact shields for a city; that means I need to keep track of what every settler is doing???

I wouldn't object to a gold maintainence cost for RR (or even highways); that would serve the same purpose of keeping the number of RR squares down a bit.

2. The +1 at war bonus. This again is something tough to keep track of. I'm often officially "at war" with an AI I haven't seen for 20 turns. What happens when I encounter them in the course of a turn and make peace (or had peace forced upon me)? Suddenly, all my travel plans have changed.
It's realistic in some situations to have a bonus, but I think it's unplayable.

i forgot about the eternal wars with civs halfway across the map...so you are probably right about the +1 movement has to go when you are at war...

however with construction cost for railroads i don't think it would be much of a drain on your civ just enough to keep it honest...one measly shield per square to build a railroad...you would have to be building lots of railroads around one base before it would really hamper your economy

If I was at war with someone I would just drive straight onto their roads as I'm sure the Germans did in Poland and Irag in Kuwait (among others)
If I was at peace with them then provided I didn't have a non-trespressing agreement (or even have a new treary such as use roads agreement) then I coud drive on them.
Obviously with allies you could use them as normal.

Let's say you have an engineer from Boston, building a railroad between New York and Washington. Now, which city is charged? Very simple: Boston! So, normally an engineer costs you 1 shield. For only those turns when he is building a RR, you will pay 2 shields. I don't think it's complicated. Of course, if you want do build a diesel RR on existing steam rail, it will cost you 1 shield. But if you want to build a mag-lev RR on a virgin tile, it will cost you 4 shields.
But I also have an another idea for this: You don't pay extra shields for RR building, but in order to link a city to a RR, you must build first a city improvement (maybe a RR Station or a Train Depot). Also, you could build RR only near cities or near tiles that already has RR on it ("chain-building").
Now, which do you like more?

Movement in war: I have 2 proposals. Please tell which do you like. If none, I will drop the idea:
1. -1 movement penalty on your opponents' territory , because they are sabotaging you
2. +1 movement bonus inside your borders, during war, IF there are enemy troops on your territory

all railroad tiles should be the same and should cost the same amount of shields to buy...not matter if you are at steam engine tech levels or at maglev tech levels. however when you discover the appropriate tech then your troops automatically move farther on rails...

i would go with proposal number 2 if anything

i like the train depot being a trade building...how about it being a commerce building, having a train depot in your city will increase that cities commerce rate by one and if all of your cities have train depots then your trains get a +1 bonus to movement

(custom houses could be another commerce building but that is another idea for another thread)

Road and rail must be independently built, and must be able to co-exist on the same tile. Rail movement could be initiated like an airlift, thereby ensuring that a unit only uses it once per turn and there is no confusion about whether its moving on rail or road.

Don don has good knowledge about railways. Here's a little more info. Highways cost about twice as much to build as railways. This changes radically in mountains, where railway costs absolutely skyrocket. "Roads" should cost about half as much as rail. This is all actually taken nicely into account in Civ2, with the time it takes to build each. (Highways being an improvement) I really agree that the maintain costs on engineers should be enough for whatever they're working on.

Although rail is somewhat slower in the mountains, particularly uphill, as Don don pointed out, this is probably not significant enough to bother with. For trains to be able to travel at all, the track is relatively straight, and relatively level. Roads are 10 times steeper and 5 times twistier, so using the terrain modifier only with roads is legit, IMHO.

Also, rail and roads have a neglible maintenance cost, while highways are expensive to maintain. Once again, Civ2 has it right! No need to complicate unless it gives important something back! ;-)