Introduce coal into the game

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    • We are aware.
      But the railway station to transport units as convoys is a little different.
      General Nightman

      Retired Hero


      "War is fought in three ways. Helping your enemy to lose, helping your allies to victory or helping yourself to win. Any way you take it, you are always helping someone."
    • General Nightman wrote:

      Edepedable wrote:

      Like rares, which are a neglectable resource if you do not mass produce rockets and/or commandos.
      Then produce commandos and rockets. They extremely cheap, if you can afford the oil.

      Edepedable wrote:

      Adding train transports and having them cost coal would also add reality and might mean choices between training or transporting.
      I like the idea of coal in trains. I just think it's a bad idea for the Industrial Complex's. If you can't produce units; your dead in the water.
      I tried to say that rares are not a respurce that you are very busy with unless you chose to be.

      I imagine coal would kind of be the same. Yes players should all be able to produce at the start of maps, plenty of coal around and being produced. Possible trouble would start if big countries have running IC all over the map. This is when having a fewer number of level 5 IC, that can produce the same number of units as 10 level 1 IC would be prefered. Meaning big countries would have to pay attention to managing their production. Especially with transports happening here and there.

      And even then you would not be dead in the water. It would just mean that you can maybe produce at only 12 IC at the same time and use a train fro transport instead of producing troops at 15 IC at the same time.

      Stormbringer50 wrote:

      just so everyone is aware, we already have railways in cow. level 3 infrastructure is railroads, and level 2 and 3 infrastructure increase movement rates.
      We have infrastructure that looks like a railway to show that a province has really good infrastructure. We do not yet have a building where we can put units into a train and transport them to other places a bit faster. It would be like a naval base to put troops on transports that travel on land. But faster. I hope the way I put the idea in that thread was clear about this. There is a link to the thread in the first post in this thread.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Edepedable ().

    • There is no denying that coal was a vital resource during WWII, and also that it was both an issue of consideration and a means for trade negotiations (see the demands of both Italy and Spain in order to enter the war - coal was there - the targeting of Germany on Ukranian coalmines, and numerous other examples).

      To be fair, although coal would indeed be cool and realistic, there is a gameplay problem: either it is abundant (in which case it is indifferent), or it is limited (in which case it will need management and development). In the second case it will probably create a serious issue in fitting it into the overall economy management (more infra needed, and/or IC, plus a map clustered with icons). It would also require the redesign of all maps (a far from trivial task).

      If the current trend is the simplification of the gameplay, then probably such a change goes against it. If the desire is to add more strategic element to the game, perhaps there are more "obvious" changes to do (oil management comes immediately to mind, with a change to the way oil is consumed and to the consequences of oil shortage). But the railroads/train could perhaps be added even without the coal requirement.
    • atreas1 wrote:

      If the current trend is the simplification of the gameplay, then probably such a change goes against it. If the desire is to add more strategic element to the game, perhaps there are more "obvious" changes to do (oil management comes immediately to mind, with a change to the way oil is consumed and to the consequences of oil shortage). But the railroads/train could perhaps be added even without the coal requirement.
      That is true, train transports could be implememted without coal. If the game aims to becomes more simple than they would probably not want to introduce it. Though I am not sure that this is ineed their aim. I'm all for adding complexity and more strategy, though I understand that is not according to everyone's wishes.
    • Edepedable, I think with this last post you nailed it.
      Like you, I personally enjoy complexity of every kind. However, most players (especially those who don't participate in the forum) don't. They prefer the economical part to be as simple as it is and the focus of the game being on armies and battles. That's why the game is called "Call of War", not "Call of economical management" or "Call of Logistics". And that's why we have 33 different units, but only 5 resources (or 7, if counting manpower and money).

      About your ideas they're not bad. And indeed coal had some strategical importance. But that was for steel smelting. The presence of both coal and steel in the game without needing coal for your steel production has some kind of overlapping about it that creates a compile error in my brain. Or put it this way: The amounts of coal needed for civil purposes and for steel smelting were way higher than for the actual weapon manufacturing and for troop transportation in trains. So it would feel strange to need it for the two latter purposes in CoW.

      All in all I have to oppose your proposal, but still thumbs up for you to have thought in this direction... not bad... not bad at all.
    • Hans A. Pils wrote:

      About your ideas they're not bad. And indeed coal had some strategical importance. But that was for steel smelting. The presence of both coal and steel in the game without needing coal for your steel production has some kind of overlapping about it that creates a compile error in my brain.
      Hey there, thanks for the comment! Allow me to clarify what I have in mind exactly;

      I know coal was mostly used for smelting metals and even more so, for 'civil' needs. Be it industrial or not. So yes, in a way metal in the game already represents the use of coal.

      My point though, by having it in the game, is to make running your industrial centers costly. That way producing units would become more of a challenge later on. This would also simulate coal being used with metal to produce units. What I had in mind was a diminishing requirement to run IC on coal.

      Level 1 industrial complex: Requires 400 coal to run per day
      Level 2 industrial complex: Requires 600 coal to run per day
      Level 3 industrial complex: Requires 750 coal to run per day
      Level 4 industrial complex: Requires 800 coal to run per day
      Level 5 industrial complex: Requires 850 coal to run per day

      This would mean that players that grow to be big will still be wise to keep producing units in their core. Since high level factories can produce units faster and more coal efficiently. To get them to the front --> trains.

      Also, it means that mindlessly producing units EVERYWHERE is not an option anymore. At least not at the same time. It would take away some of the advantages that bigger countries have over smaller ones. Which would make it for example more interesting to create stronger units. Like heavy tanks, with limited production options but steel not being an issue at some point anymore it becomes more interesting to have units with high numbers. Simple as that.

      So that is the idea of the whole thing. Though I understand that it would be a major overhaul of the game. So it will likely never happen. Though I'm still rooting for at least train transports making their way into the game :P

      Kind regards,

      Edepedable