Railroads and infrastructure

[Alex_brunius]

I'd personally love to see a whole parallel set of infrastructure dedicated to the construction of communications networks. This was the era of the communications revolution, and all nations had to make massive investments (public or privately funded) to constuct the infrastructure, yet in V1 that was hardly recognized.

I'd have it break down into the following levels

Telegraph
Electricity
Telephone
Radio Network

Good Ideas, but why limit it to so few levels? I could imagine adding a few more when talking about communications.

Basic postal service
Pony express
Telegraph
Electricity
Telephone
Radio Network

 

[henryjai]

Good Ideas, but why limit it to so few levels? I could imagine adding a few more when talking about communications.

Basic postal service
Pony express
Telegraph
Electricity
Telephone
Radio Network

But what about countries that don't even have basic postal service? But many countries did can communicate as efficient in "government" level as those having postal services?

e.g. China, Japan... whatever have "messengers" for important messages, so important stuffs should run as fast until telegraphs making the difference

 

[unmerged(148761)]

But what about countries that don't even have basic postal service? But many countries did can communicate as efficient in "government" level as those having postal services?

e.g. China, Japan... whatever have "messengers" for important messages, so important stuffs should run as fast until telegraphs making the difference

China lagged behind in railroads but certainly had advanced networks of roads and canals. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_(China)

 

[Alex_brunius]

Well do you think everyone had access to telegraphs, phones, electricity and radio at the beginning either?

Or might those perhaps also initially be only for important government messages too?

 

[Orinsul]

a pony express is hardly a step up from a post office
i think these things would be better handled by events or decisions than by any system within the game

 

[unmerged(28220)]

IMHO canals should be in the game... but unlike other infrastructure they provide a set bonus that goes away after a certain level of other infrastructure is built (i.e. canal abandoned). Good for uncivs or low industry nations to build because they would be cheaper than a RR (yes I know that isn't true to life but...) Big navigable rivers should be similar only in their case you can 'upgrade' them by building a special unit like 'river barge' or something. Massive canals like Panama, Suez and Kiel could be handled by national decisions...

 

[Alex_brunius]

a pony express is hardly a step up from a post office
i think these things would be better handled by events or decisions than by any system within the game

A pony express is a dedicated chain off messengers to deliver only information & letters. A Basic postal service means messages are at best loaded onto the next carriage passing by going in the right direction. Might be today, might be next day.

Yes with railroads postal services would probably be equally quick, but that's why those two steps would be so early that they represent information infrastructure before good railroad networks exist.