Can railroads be built later in the game without coal?

[Roberto Tomba]

I've had Steam Power since the early 1800s, but have never had coal; it's the 1950s now, and still no coal, and thus no railroads. In fact, I've "skipped over" it in a way: I have Combustion, so I don't need to build Ironclads. I'll soon have flight, too, so I'll have Destroyers, Transports, Fighters, and Bombers...but will I ever have a railroad? Sure, I could trade a boatload of goodies to another civ for 20 turns of coal. But, do I have to? What about trains that run on refined oil (or electricity)? Anyway, thanks in advance...

 

[Dralix]

No coal, no rails. You need to acquire some, either through trade, conquest, or luck (a new source of coal appearing).

 

[eyrei]

The lack of railroads is seriously hampering the growth and production of your civ. Find some.

 

[Roberto Tomba]

Thanks for confirming my worst fears Looks like I'll have to do a trade with someone trustworthy (China) or use it as an excuse to invade a hated rival (Babylon), which I was planning to do anyway once I built my new technology up enough. :ak47:

 

[sealman]

Originally posted by Roberto Tomba
Thanks for confirming my worst fears Looks like I'll have to do a trade with someone trustworthy (China) or use it as an excuse to invade a hated rival (Babylon), which I was planning to do anyway once I built my new technology up enough. :ak47:

I vote that you invade Babylon.

 

[chiefpaco]

I've traded for coal before. Not a bad option since you only really need it for laying down the railroad. You can get a huge band of workers to make it a 20-turn job. If you're Industrious, that'd help. Remember, trading for coal is instant. If you have to take it, you will keep it (unless it disappears!) but must spend turns conquering & linking the new territory.

You need the railroads to boost the terrain bonuses as much as the free movement. I think it would be very difficult to win a game without coal - that is if you're not clearly winning by that point.

 

[Marzipan]

I've got a mod going where I've changed the requirements for railroads to industrialization, iron, and oil. This makes more sense TO ME than iron and coal. Unfortunately the editor is set up so that you can't have "thing 1 AND thing 2 OR thing 3". I also upped the number of turns to build railroads to 16 from 12 cuz it seems to me railroads get built way to quick in the stock game. Anyways you can checkout the latest version in the "three new governments" thread.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Roberto Tomba
I've had Steam Power since the early 1800s, but have never had coal; it's the 1950s now, and still no coal, and thus no railroads. In fact, I've "skipped over" it in a way: I have Combustion, so I don't need to build Ironclads. I'll soon have flight, too, so I'll have Destroyers, Transports, Fighters, and Bombers...but will I ever have a railroad? Sure, I could trade a boatload of goodies to another civ for 20 turns of coal. But, do I have to? What about trains that run on refined oil (or electricity)? Anyway, thanks in advance...

Need coal for steel. Need steel for trains.

 

[Jimcat]

Originally posted by Zachriel


Need coal for steel. Need steel for trains.

I was going to post something a little more detailed, but this pretty well sums it up. Look up "steel" in a good encyclopedia and see how important coal is to the manufacturing process.

That said, one could imagine an alternative technology based on, say, oil, electricity, and aluminum that would run perfectly serviceable trains. But this is a little far out of the box for Civ3. Might make an interesting bit of local color for a science fiction/alternate history world though.

 

[Sir Yelof]

Argh, I know the feeling all right. Get this: playing on a smaller map of two continents, and have been consolidating the lower half of the larger of the two. I buy steam power and get ready to load up the workers. Hmmm, no coal according to trade advisor. Let's look at the map, maybe I just need to build a road or something...

There are three coal resources on the entire map. Two of them are in the middle of the other two-nation continent. The third is in the higher part of my continent -- you guessed it -- the part I don't have, deep between two enemies who are my military equal.

Yeeowch!!!!!

I won't be able to trade for it. I'm going to get pummeled in production unless I can:
a) stage a massive military campaign up north
b) invade the other continent (something I had had no intention of doing... was planning on securing my position and going for an alternative victory)
c) praying that a new coal resource is discovered.

What a mess! Anyone else ever see something similar?
--Yelof

 

[a98ac7h]

In my current game, I'm working on Combustion at the moments and formerly had a source of coal. This source ran out, however, and I had no other possible sources. I'm not trading with anyone.

The weird part, is that my workers continue to expand my railroad without any source of coal. I can't figure out why it's doing this, but I'm not complaining. It's been several turns since the source ran out. I dunno what's going on.

 

[jimmytrick]

Thats very interesting. Are your worker automated? I bet they are. It was reported that if you queue up an item that depends on a strategic resource it will build out even if you lose the resource. So, therefore, i am guessing that your workiers are automated and no check is being done by the software to see if coal is there.

This kind of bug usage will have big impact in multiplayer.

 

[john heidle]

Originally posted by Sir Yelof
Argh, I know the feeling all right. Get this: playing on a smaller map of two continents, and have been consolidating the lower half of the larger of the two. I buy steam power and get ready to load up the workers. Hmmm, no coal according to trade advisor. Let's look at the map, maybe I just need to build a road or something...

There are three coal resources on the entire map. Two of them are in the middle of the other two-nation continent. The third is in the higher part of my continent -- you guessed it -- the part I don't have, deep between two enemies who are my military equal.

Yeeowch!!!!!

I won't be able to trade for it. I'm going to get pummeled in production unless I can:
a) stage a massive military campaign up north
b) invade the other continent (something I had had no intention of doing... was planning on securing my position and going for an alternative victory)
c) praying that a new coal resource is discovered.

What a mess! Anyone else ever see something similar?
--Yelof

On a standard map after many clear map scans, I could only spot TWO coal in one game, and the coal were only seven hexes apart, meaning that one civ controlled the industrial age. I quit in disgust rather than try to play such an unfair game. Coal is plentiful on our planet and there should be some minimum number in the game (at least one coal per civ).

 

[Shabbaman]

Rule: 1 strategic resource per civ. Fixed by the 1.17 patch.

Those strategic resources really spices up the game, don't they?