Another railroad curiosity

[shadezguy]

Hi all, I don't know how much you are interested in introductions, but I'm brand new to Civ3, and it's the first time I've played a turn-based game. I was very surprised at how fun it is - it's costing me a lot of sleep. I don't think I can go back to RTS games - just too shallow. Anyway...

I just played a game where I finally had access to both iron and coal, but I couldn't make the workers build railroads. I checked to make sure I could build the other things that required these resources and they were available, then over the next few turns I gave a worker the order to build rail, but it wouldn't happen. I kept trying on various kinds of squares, including virgin and others. No dice.

I gave up, then a few turns later I noticed automated workers building rail. I picked one of them off and gave him the rail-to order, and he went right to work.

Any idea what the possible reasons they wouldn't build rail for me the first few turns I tried?

Thanks,
Eric

 

[Ruffian]

Just a guess, but you have to build a road before you can build railroad tracks on a square. Did you build the road first?

Civ is addictive as hell. Many a night I've played all night in Civ 1, 2, and a few in Civ 3 (including last Saturday night). Curse you Sid!! Heh.

 

[Hurricane]

* You have to click SHIFT-R to build rail (not just R).
* The resources have to be connected to your capital, not just any city.
* You must have discovered the Railroad technology.