Extra Treats - Railways!

[Arheo]

One of our dedicated closed beta testers took the time to stitch together an overview of the railway map in NSB. At the risk of opening the can of worms that is railway classification, I thought it was cool enough to post for you folks here!

Bear in mind that our map definition is not great enough to represent every railroad in the world at 1936, so we've made some clear choices as regards what constitutes relevant mainline etc. What is given the classification of relevance in one area of the world, may not be given the same treatment elsewhere, and in very few cases, we have added small railway connections between larger networks for balance purposes.

View attachment 1635463948676.png

EDIT: It seems I can't embed this directly due to the extreme size of the image - click the link to view!

Many thanks to Jeankedezeehond for compiling this!

 

[AP Erebus]

Awesome stuff, thanks @Arheo

Out of curiosity, what do the different dot colors mean?

Yellow seems to indicate a capital and blue seems to be ports, but curious to pink & teal?

 

[Arheo]

Awesome stuff, thanks @Arheo

Out of curiosity, what do the different dot colors mean?

Yellow seems to indicate a capital and blue seems to be ports, but curious to pink & teal?

Correct for capitals and ports.

Pink/purple is a supply node (hub). Teal I can't remember at this time of night

 

[el nora]

Teal I can't remember at this time of night

it looks to me like vps but it got abandoned partway through. i recognize a few of them, eg astrakhan, chernigov, novgorod, chelyabinsk, etc

 

[Goodfontana]

It seems Japan is going to have a really tough time getting to Chongqing: no railways, no hubs, unless somehow supply by river can make up for it.

How's AI Japan handling China in the simulations?

 

[Arheo]

It seems Japan is going to have a really tough time getting to Chongqing: no railways, no hubs, unless somehow supply by river can make up for it.

How's AI Japan handling China in the simulations?

Slightly poorer than release currently, which I'm relatively happy with.

 

[Dryhad]

I understand some of the railway themed infrastructure focuses are being shifted over to add railways instead or in addition to infrastructure, is there any chance of a catalogue of these kinds of "scripted railways" which will be absent at the game start but will presumably appear in most playthroughs due to national focuses?

 

[Harin]

Arheo, did you really post that after 1am, your time? Thanks for sharing and please let Jeankedezeehond know his work is appreciated. It surprised me how interesting it was to dive into the map, a map I have seen a thousand times (or more). Tonight, that map has a very new look about it.

 

[Kai shek weapon delivery]

I want to mention that railway system in China is not entirely accurate, with 2 important railways left.
First is Longhai railway, starting from east coast of Jiangsu province, going west horizontally and intersect with vertical railway at Xuzhou, which made it a significant supply center. It then goes further west through central China to XI'an.
Second is Tongpu railway, from Datong in northern Shan'xi province going south through Taiyuan to southern Shan'xi. It interects with Zhengtai Railway(which is already on the map) in city of Taiyuan , and made it a supply center. During WW2, Chinese army and guerilla had tried to destroy it in order to stop Japanese supply.

 

[TommyScaletta]

I really appreciate the communication that's happening between the developers and the community, it's great!

I noticed that the Australian outback will be impassable with the next update, are there other state changes as well (excluding the Baltic's which we've already seen)?

I have some suggestions as well for areas that should be impassable:

• The Amazonas
• Siberia could be impassable as well (this probably conflicts with the newly added nations?)
• The mountain range in central Papa new Guinea
• Desert region in Saudi Arabia (the state with 42 population)
• Edit: northern canada

For modders: To my knowledge it is currently not possible to make a few provinces within a state impassable, only the entire state or a part of the border. Could that be changed so it's not necessary to create new, weird looking states just for an area to be impassable?

 

[Fulmen]

I have to point this out because it's rather striking.

So Sweden and Russia both have railways going up to the Arctic region, but not Finland, because... why exactly?

Actual railway map from 1935.

View attachment M014_SRMK1_37.jpg

Key to the relevant map symbols:

Black lines = railways
Dashed lines = railways under construction

EDIT:

On the left is PDX's version and on the right is more like what it should look like; I've added the missing railways, save for some of the really short ones, in red lines, and those under construction in dotted red lines:

 

[Xeonic]

I have to point this out because it's rather striking.

So Sweden and Russia both have railways going up to the Arctic region, but not Finland, because... why exactly?

View attachment 769007

Actual railway map from 1.1.1937.

View attachment 769013

View attachment 769012

Key to the relevant map symbols:

Black lines = railways
Dashed lines = railways under construction

EDIT:

On the left is PDX's version and on the right is more like what it should look like; I've added the missing railways, save for some of the really short ones, in red lines, and those under construction in dotted red lines:

View attachment 769021

I think most countries only have really major railways pointed out on this map, though I agree that there is a major importance of the northern rails of Finland and Sweden particularly for WW2, they should be interconnected over the border. This was the cause of a major crisis for Sweden as German troops were transported along this railroad to the Soviet/Finnish border.

 

[BlueAndGrey]

If the outback is been made impassable can we get Siberia, parts of Canada and the Amazon also added to the list?

 

[Araxiel]

I have to point this out because it's rather striking.

So Sweden and Russia both have railways going up to the Arctic region, but not Finland, because... why exactly?

View attachment 769007

Actual railway map from 1.1.1937.

View attachment 769013

View attachment 769012

Key to the relevant map symbols:

Black lines = railways
Dashed lines = railways under construction

EDIT:

On the left is PDX's version and on the right is more like what it should look like; I've added the missing railways, save for some of the really short ones, in red lines, and those under construction in dotted red lines:

View attachment 769021

While more accurate, considering the scope of the game, adding every single piece of rail track to the game in it's appropriate province, essentially would cause every single province to have rail-lines in them. And if every province has rail lines in them, than it renders the entire game-play mechanic of rail lines kinda moot.

Also, I think some provinces would be overlapping over multiple separate rail-lines.

At the end, it was mentioned in the OP post (highlight by me):

Bear in mind that our map definition is not great enough to represent every railroad in the world at 1936, so we've made some clear choices as regards what constitutes relevant mainline etc. What is given the classification of relevance in one area of the world, may not be given the same treatment elsewhere

At the end of the day tho, if someone really wants, adding more rails to the start map would be very easy to add through mods, by through changing the history file, or having a secret event fire at gamestart to simply add railways.

 

[Fulmen]

I think most countries only have really major railways pointed out on this map

What constitutes a major railway?

Here's two photos, one picture is from the Murmansk railway, present in the game, the other from Suojärvi in Ladoga Karelia, one of the railways missing from the game. Can you guess which is which?

While more accurate, considering the scope of the game, adding every single piece of rail track to the game in it's appropriate province, essentially would cause every single province to have rail-lines in them.

I had a feeling someone would make this case. Take a look at the map at the end of my post again, and tell me it's simply a difference of "not modelling every single piece of rail track".

EDIT: What exactly is it that people are disagreeing with in this post?

When a nation has well over half its railway network missing and it's a question of individual tracks spanning hundreds of km halfway across the nation, it's clearly not a case of a few missing minor sidetracks. I thought this would be obvious to anyone who saw the comparison picture at the end of my previous post.

Furthermore, the map features plenty of tracks far less "major" than ones it omits. The purpose of the photos was to illustrate how little of a difference there was between something like the Murmansk railway and a railway at the eastern edge of Finland. The latter is the one with men working on repairing it after it was taken back by the Finns during the summer of 1941.

 

[Znail]

I have to point this out because it's rather striking.

So Sweden and Russia both have railways going up to the Arctic region, but not Finland, because... why exactly?

View attachment 769007

Actual railway map from 1.1.1937.

View attachment 769013

View attachment 769012

Key to the relevant map symbols:

Black lines = railways
Dashed lines = railways under construction

EDIT:

On the left is PDX's version and on the right is more like what it should look like; I've added the missing railways, save for some of the really short ones, in red lines, and those under construction in dotted red lines:

View attachment 769021

Note that rivers also acts like railways and that actually covers several of the ones you consider missing. The main issue I see is that Sweden and Finland should be connected.

It's also a case of how the lack of railways will help Finland defend against Russia and some of those you suggest would actually solve that problem for Russia. It's easier to leave those out then to make special rules that prevents Russia from converting them.

 

[Fulmen]

Note that rivers also acts like railways

Level 1 railways.

It's also a case of how the lack of railways will help Finland defend against Russia and some of those you suggest would actually solve that problem for Russia. It's easier to leave those out then to make special rules that prevents Russia from converting them.

None of the railway network connect to the eastern border or are in areas the Russians reached historically save for on the Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia. Russian difficulties along the long border between the Barents Sea and Lake Ladoga should be modelled by impassable borders and a lack of railways that would be there even if the historical railway network were modelled properly.

If in-game they reach a Finnish railway that can be connected to the Russian railway network, I see no issue with that. The gauge was normally the same anyway.

 

[Deinhardt]

Lmao. Those Railways going out of Berlin had to turn in that DIrection now, did they?

 

[DeadHeat16]

How different is the map in the 1939 start date?

 

[goodcigar]

Is it possible to increase the map resolution so we can get a more accurate 1936 railway representation? CPU's and GPU's have improved a lot since 2016 release.