So for the longest time I've been happy with rails being modelled on a state level in HoI4, mostly because, as someone pointed out by taking a WWII rail map of Europe and super-imposing it over a HoI4 province map, it seems most every HoI4 province has a rail connection in real-life. Also, it works well with the industrial and resource systems, in that you can increase the resource output of a state by building more rails there.
Latelly I've been coming around to the idea of province-based rails, though, and I wish to explain why. I've also got a compromise I think would work well that I wish to suggest. The main reason I would like province-level infrastructure, or at least infrastructure damage, is that the current system doesn't work too well when you and your enemy "share" a state. Let's say your enemy has broken through your frontline and is advancing down a one-province wide corridor. You may want to bomb the railroads to deprive them of supplies, but if they only control the provinces they're advancing down, bombing makes far less sense as you'll damage the remaining provinces still under your control. State-wide bombing also makes it impossible to surgically hit bottlenecks in the enemy's supply lines.
There are also a few places in the game where provinces don't have railroads in real life, Norway being a prime example. In HoI3, this was simulated by most of the provinces having very low infrastructure, and some mountain provinces even being impassable until rails were built there. The provinces with rails, such as the Bergensbanen railroad between Bergen and Oslo, became far more important.
So, on to my compromise:
Hold on to state-level infrastructure, but allow targetted bombing of occupied provinces (a checkbox could allow you to tell your air wings to bomb only occupied/enemy provinces, or do a kind of "scorched earth" bombing of the whole state), and then implement a "Rail Damage" level for affected provinces. So you have state infrastructure, with every province in the state having the same level of railroads... until the infrastructure in a province is damaged.
So a state could have level four infrastructure, but if you bomb the provinces occupied by the enemy, they are treated as level 3 or below, depending on damage. You could perhaps have small icons on the map to denote provinces with damaged infrastructure, if only while viewing the Infrastructure screen. States with infrastructure damage are still repaired as before, with the whole state's railroads (or at least the ones you control) being treated as one item to repair in the construction menu.
This would allow the game to retain the current state-level infrastructure, but would allow province-level infra damage, which would be better for gameplay, and also mean you would no longer be bombing friendly rails, or repairing those held by your enemy.
Latelly I've been coming around to the idea of province-based rails, though, and I wish to explain why. I've also got a compromise I think would work well that I wish to suggest. The main reason I would like province-level infrastructure, or at least infrastructure damage, is that the current system doesn't work too well when you and your enemy "share" a state. Let's say your enemy has broken through your frontline and is advancing down a one-province wide corridor. You may want to bomb the railroads to deprive them of supplies, but if they only control the provinces they're advancing down, bombing makes far less sense as you'll damage the remaining provinces still under your control. State-wide bombing also makes it impossible to surgically hit bottlenecks in the enemy's supply lines.
There are also a few places in the game where provinces don't have railroads in real life, Norway being a prime example. In HoI3, this was simulated by most of the provinces having very low infrastructure, and some mountain provinces even being impassable until rails were built there. The provinces with rails, such as the Bergensbanen railroad between Bergen and Oslo, became far more important.
So, on to my compromise:
Hold on to state-level infrastructure, but allow targetted bombing of occupied provinces (a checkbox could allow you to tell your air wings to bomb only occupied/enemy provinces, or do a kind of "scorched earth" bombing of the whole state), and then implement a "Rail Damage" level for affected provinces. So you have state infrastructure, with every province in the state having the same level of railroads... until the infrastructure in a province is damaged.
So a state could have level four infrastructure, but if you bomb the provinces occupied by the enemy, they are treated as level 3 or below, depending on damage. You could perhaps have small icons on the map to denote provinces with damaged infrastructure, if only while viewing the Infrastructure screen. States with infrastructure damage are still repaired as before, with the whole state's railroads (or at least the ones you control) being treated as one item to repair in the construction menu.
This would allow the game to retain the current state-level infrastructure, but would allow province-level infra damage, which would be better for gameplay, and also mean you would no longer be bombing friendly rails, or repairing those held by your enemy.
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