Does anyone else use railroads?

[kryat]

They’ve been one of my favorite features in GS, but I feel like a lot of people don’t use them as much as I do. I’ve built some fairly expansive networks in the last few games and have always found them useful.

As a reminder of their benefits:
-They don’t take charges to build
-Military engineers are cheap, so they’re quick to build even long stretches of tracks with teams
-One 2MP unit can move an astonishing 8 tiles per turn across railroads, and 3MP units (if you’re running logistics) can move 12 tiles per turn. For reference, that’s enough to move to the opposite side of a huge Pangea map in 5 turns. (If you control the intermediate territory) Not even boats are this fast.
-They don’t take a district or late game civics like rapid mobilization to use
-They count as efficient terrain for trade, so those inland cross-continent routes to your neighbors are suddenly worth more than ever.

With all this in mind, are people selling railroads short or am I overthinking their benefits?

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

I use them. I like the upgraded movement for my units. Plus it gives me something to do with military engineers other than rush dams.

 

[criZp]

Trading posts give trade route efficiency too so you don't need railroads for that

 

[Elhoim]

I did, but I really dislike how they look with the districts, whereas the modern roads mesh perfectly. I know it's a very petty and cosmetic reason, but there it is

 

[Beaver79]

Only if I'm hurting for era score and need the +3 for connecting 2 cities. They cause pollution and it's the worst micro-management in the game all for a bit of movement that I really don't need. I mean you are either turtling, so you don't need to move anything but Gp and they can be teleported, or you are attacking people and then you are in their territory.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I build them for the hell of it, but I don't consider them especially useful, and sometimes they are a hindrance. Apostles have used them to quickly move in and convert my Holy City. And at least once a neighbor enemy was able to use them to penetrate my borders deeply and pillage tiles behind my lines.

 

[Rosty K]

I build them because I build them. I'm one of those people who wants to have everything connected by roads (and I get genuinely upset when my traders pick the sea route to my own city ), and this is how I can do it Also gets me the ballistics (or whatever it is, I think it's ballistics) eureka because I build two military engineers in advance to do the RR from opposite directions towards the capital, and use one charge on each on a fort

 

[Aurelesk]

It could be interesting to prevent foreign units to enjoy the railroads as long you don't negotiate the Open Borders with them. It would be a niche as it will only affect:

• Religious units.
• Military units in war time.
• Archeologist if they have the Terracota Army.

It could go even further by adding a new diplomatic card that also prevent foreign religious units to benefit the movement cost reduction fro roads inside your territory (and let's get wild: maybe begin to lose health if they stand in the city that is not following the same religion).

Too bad the road building is kind of slow. I would love to see Military Engineer only loosing 1 Movement when building a railroads so you can move and build 2 railroads per turn with the +1 Movement inside your territory, or more effectively build them. Also, I would want roads not consume a charge, and railroads responsible to melt the ice, but maybe I asking for too much!

Edit: I forgot about Rock Bands, my bad Eagle Pursuit. Hopefully, there is a card that prevent them to get in your territory!

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It could be interesting to prevent foreign units to enjoy the railroads as long you don't negotiate the Open Borders with them. It would be a niche as it will only affect:

• Religious units.
• Military units in war time.
• Archeologist if they have the Terracota Army.

It could go even further by adding a new diplomatic card that also prevent foreign religious units to benefit the movement cost reduction fro roads inside your territory (and let's get wild: maybe begin to lose health if they stand in the city that is not following the same religion).

Too bad the road building is kind of slow. I would love to see Military Engineer only loosing 1 Movement when building a railroads so you can move and build 2 railroads per turn with the +1 Movement inside your territory, or more effectively build them. Also, I would want roads not consume a charge, and railroads responsible to melt the ice, but maybe I asking for too much!

Don't forget Rock Bands.

 

[Rosty K]

The first step could be that they should actually have the steam power tech to be able to use your RR (not really relevant to rock bands). It could also just work so that you need open borders for any of your units to use the other civ's roads (including those units that don't need open borders).

 

[Kwami]

I build them just for fun. I pretty much always get the era score for connecting the first cities with railroads, but then I keep going because that ME has to do something! Might as well connect all of the cities and then make a tunnel or two.

 

[tedhebert]

totally useless IMHO... built some once to see what it does, never bothered with it afterwards... sorry, not meaning to be negative, just answering the question

 

[FeiLing]

Can anyone explain how this trade route uses a nine tile longer way through two harbors instead of the two railroad tiles to Victoria?
Those land tiles between Victoria and Nazca even do not have roads yet. This is definitely by far the weirdest pathing I've seen yet

 

[Kwami]

I don't know. Are trade routes optimized for distance, gold, or time?

 

[RohirrimElf]

I connect every city with railroads. Militair engineers are cheap and in teams you could do it so fast. I usually build like 4 of them and spend their charges afterwards with airstrips and forts on frontier. I think i am one of the few players who find forts usefull. The times when it saved my game are scarce. (this has more to do with the AI being passive in the second half of the game).but i find their use of great value on defence. Bringing in fresh troops. Especcially a fast mobile aggressive force. Like 2-3 tank corps.

 

[aguliondew]

Railroads greatly increase the amount of gold you can get from trade routes(10-40g). It very noticeable once you have railroads across your civ. Also it give you something to do with all of that extra iron you may have during late mid-late game.

 

[Abaxial]

I like to have at least one main line running through my empire to rush units from one end to the other in case of emergency. But I hate the way they tangle up like spaghetti.

 

[Goodenuf]

Don't railroads cause some level of CO2 pollution? Likely a minor amount but if you build an expansive rail network, it may impact your diplomatic status due to the fact that you are deemed a polluter. If planned properly, though (lots of examples in previous comments) it can really help with trader values.

 

[James_Champagne]

I didn't even know you COULD build railroads. I've never built a Military Engineer because for whatever reason I just assumed they were some kind of military-orientated unit but last game I played I kept noticing all these mountain tunnels popping up and wondering how the heck you could get those. Looked into it later on and found out it was thanks to the military engineer. I'll have to make some of those next game I play.

 

[aguliondew]

Don't railroads cause some level of CO2 pollution? Likely a minor amount but if you build an expansive rail network, it may impact your diplomatic status due to the fact that you are deemed a polluter. If planned properly, though (lots of examples in previous comments) it can really help with trader values.

Yes anything that uses coal causes pollution. I am not sure how big of an effect it is. I never noticed it before I finish a game on emperor. Most of the time I am only around the first coast submersion by the end.