Moving Units from Poland to France... death march?

[macroeconomics]

Historically the Germans used rail extensively to move units between fronts. For the mech/motorized units even much shorter distances were covered on rail to reduce wear and tear on the machines. It's really only in the summer of '44 with the collapse of the rail system in France that German motorized units had to drive to the front. So realism wise, yes, rail movement should be dramatically cheaper and more commonly used.

However as a practical game balance matter, in SC normal land movement is so slow that strategic movement is overly powerful and needs to be restricted. This is particularly true in the winter months where it might take up to 3 months to respond to an enemy deployment. For example - if strat/rail movement is readily available, how can the Germans possibly respond to a massive redeployment of Soviet forces to the Finnish front? One turn to move units off the front and to a rail line. One turn to move by rail to a Baltic port. One turn to sail to a Finnish port. One turn to rail to front line. One turn to deploy. So five turns to get maybe 2-3 German units to Finland? It'd be over. Finland would be dead. Even worse would be if the German player decided to move say 10-15 units to Finland by using Norwegian and/or Swedish ports. Again 5 turns to move them to position and the turn after the get there, the Soviet rails his attack force back to Rostov and launches an offensive there. Again, it will take the German player months to respond by fetching his forces back from Finland.

Ultimately IMO, the alternative forms of movement(land, see and air) need to get improved. Without improvements in those forms of movement, allowing free or even cheap rail movement is potentially game breaking. Even though realism wise, rail movement should be cheaper.