It's not a bug. What if you have a city on an island? It just doesn't get to have its industrial era production boost? That would suck. I assume harbors give the railroad bonus to make them in line with the fact that they earlier gave the road bonus (trade route if no road exists) and to simulate ports and harbors becoming a lot more efficient with the advent of steam/combustion engine machinery and ships in the industrial age.
Afraid of railroads
- Thread starter Torvoni
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AlienFromBeyond
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2010
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Plus, coastal cities usually don't have as much production capactiy.
I really think the railroad-production factor is pretty imbalanced and nonsensical. Sure, there's an underlying logic to the concept, but the overall weirdness such as harbors giving a railroad bonus, cities only getting production from railroads if they're connected to the capital, and the capital never getting a railroad bonus (making it, all things being equal, your worst city) just rub me the wrong way. They're obviously trying to get rid of the "RAILROAD EVERYTHING!!!" mantra of CIV while keeping the production bonus in tact, but I think it would have made a lot more sense to make it so that every city that's part of a rail network gives every other city that's part of that network a bonus equal to percentage of its hammers (maybe scaling up as more cities get added). Seems less arbitrary, more realistic, and better balanced.
alpaca
King of Ungulates
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If it's not a bug it's a stupid design decision because it means you'll avoid railroads like the pest and instead get your "railroad network" up and running using harbors on continents or archipelago maps. Because it almost always saves maintenance, even if you already have roads.
I would actually prefer a different bonus than the binary production boost (Lyoncet's proposition sounds interesting, for example, although I'd replace it with a flat production bonus per city and cap it somewhere), but as it is, I'd rather not have it for cities on an island than spread it via harbors. I don't see why overseas cities should necessarily get a railroad bonus, to be honest. See it as a slight penalty for settling on other landmasses, on top of being potentially a bit harder to defend.
There needs to be a toggle to tell auto workers not to build railroads. I seriously can't be bothered managing 20 workers with 30 cities.
I agree on the issue of the harbor as well. If these aren't instant transporting devices, a main benefit is the production increase, but now you don't even have to build railroads to get it in costal cities.
I really hope they finish the game at some point. So many things aren't working well and don't make any sense.
I agree on the issue of the harbor as well. If these aren't instant transporting devices, a main benefit is the production increase, but now you don't even have to build railroads to get it in costal cities.
I really hope they finish the game at some point. So many things aren't working well and don't make any sense.
last skunk
Chieftain
slightly off topic to anyone...
I was using captured workers to rr through the newly acquired puppet and city states; do we pay the upkeep costs for improvements made in friendly/enemy territory?
I was using captured workers to rr through the newly acquired puppet and city states; do we pay the upkeep costs for improvements made in friendly/enemy territory?
alpaca
King of Ungulates
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I noticed that, too, but didn't bother to check thoroughly. I don't think you pay since if you acquire the territory you have to pay for any roads through it. You only pay for roads in neutral territory you build.
I even wondered whether it might make sense to cripple the AI by road-spamming inside their borders but decided against it for reasons of worker upkeep.
Haha
You should really decide against it simply because its a pretty silly and stupid exploit (if it even works).
One word that people seem to have forgotten and that balance out harbours a little: blockades.
Sure, it's a lot cheaper to build a harbour than it is to connect a city by railroad, but you lose the bonus a lot easier: all the AI has to do is send a ship to disrupt your trade lanes. It's happened to me a bunch of times with barbarian sea ships: you lose the trade route (and all its bonuses) when the ships enter your zone. To disrupt your land trade, the AI actually has to get land units into your territory, which is much more difficult imo.
I know the AI doesn't handle the concept of seafaring very well (yet) and these trade route lapses are short-lived, but a few turns of no trade route here and there add up. And that's not counting what happens if your capital-connected harbour city gets blockaded: if you only have one, then all other cities with harbour based trade routes lose their routes.
Sure, it's a lot cheaper to build a harbour than it is to connect a city by railroad, but you lose the bonus a lot easier: all the AI has to do is send a ship to disrupt your trade lanes. It's happened to me a bunch of times with barbarian sea ships: you lose the trade route (and all its bonuses) when the ships enter your zone. To disrupt your land trade, the AI actually has to get land units into your territory, which is much more difficult imo.
I know the AI doesn't handle the concept of seafaring very well (yet) and these trade route lapses are short-lived, but a few turns of no trade route here and there add up. And that's not counting what happens if your capital-connected harbour city gets blockaded: if you only have one, then all other cities with harbour based trade routes lose their routes.
alpaca
King of Ungulates
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Good point, and welcome to the forums
But if you can connect a city via harbor for 3 gold while roads cost 6, you'd have to lose the trade connection for half the game time for this to make roads better. I think a more important point, at least for roads, is the strategic value of being able to move fast, especially over rivers.
Ha. I used to imagine a game combining the best aspects of, say, SimCity, Civ, and Railroad Tycoon. Maybe the social / political stuff from Tropico, too.
I mean, in SimCity, why is a city there? There should be natural resources you can mine or grow to actually build an economy (like RR Tycoon).
I was under the impression that whomever builds the road maintains it... even if it's in another's territory. ???
Zhahz
PC Gamer
I noticed this too and it pretty much has to be a bug. If not, it makes harbors even more sexy.
MadmanAtW
Knight
According to posts in the bugs forum, it's a design feature. Go to town with it. At least until they change their minds.
ShowOfForce
Chieftain
This must be why some times I get a message saying a trade route has been broken (always a city with a harbor) then the route was reestablished in the same cpu turn.
bryanw1995
Emperor
yeah, I had a lot of cities in another continent. I kept getting spammed with barbs due to severe navy neglect, and it would literally cost me 70-80 gpt every time it happened (only had a harbor in capital). VERY annoying!
Spatzimaus
Mad Scientist
Yes, that's a BIG downside. When a war starts and the enemy blockades a half-dozen cities with Caravels left over from the olden days, it's nice to not have your economy crippled in the turns before your navy can clear them out. And here are a few more ways it's balanced:
1> That movement bonus for railroads becomes VERY useful once you get larger empires. What's the point of building a brand-new tank if it takes you 10 turns to get it to the front lines? Roads are an absolute necessity, as a result, if only to avoid the 2MP cost for difficult terrains when shuffling units around. This also allows you to use fewer workers (since you'd just shift them back and forth as new tiles are added instead of needing to permanently assign a few in each area), which saves a ton on maintenance. Railroads just make this even better.
(Side note: In my Alpha Centauri-based future mod, I'm adding Magtubes at a higher tech, that basically cost 3gpt but have infinite land movement; depending on the map, we all know how huge that can be based on our experiences with earlier Civ games. I'm now wondering whether 3gpt per tile is even enough, or whether I need to bump it to 4...)
2> A Harbor costs 3gpt. While railroads are 2gpt, again, you'd want to connect coastal cities by road ANYWAY (at a cost of 1gpt per hex), which means forgoing the railroad to build a harbor only saves you money if it would have taken more than 3 railroad tiles. So really, if the coastal city is three hexes away from another city, it's the same cost either way and there's no point building the harbor, and given the movement advantage, the break-even is more like 4 or 5 hexes unless you really needed the Harbor's sea production bonus.
3> Unless you're on an archipelago map, you WILL have some landlocked cities. So you'll need some rail lines to those cities anyway, right? It often becomes fairly cheap to extend spurs off those lines to nearby coastal cities, since it might only add an extra one or two hexes to the line.
Harbors are still, of course, critical when moving onto a new continent. But I rarely build more than one harbor per continent, even if the cities are all coastal, because the other effects of roads are just too important.
hellboy909
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2005
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- 85
Love the railroads. Sure they are expensive but being abel to move across your empire in a single turn is a life saver when things go bad. Production bonus aint bad either 
I'm one of the few people that likes to build and generally play nice tho so I'm a weirdo. Plus I'm usually just fine for gold (again, weird).
I'm one of the few people that likes to build and generally play nice tho so I'm a weirdo. Plus I'm usually just fine for gold (again, weird).
