How to bring back railroads?

Formica

Chieftain
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Mar 6, 2002
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With the new way that roads are implemented (which I like) I understand why railroads aren't part of Civilization 6. How would you implement them?

My half formed idea would have a building - a rail yard - in the City Center or IZ. Bring back production bonuses for cities with rail yards, cumulative based on how many cities are part of the network. Add some kind of city to city movement for units from one rail yard to another, similar to airlifting, but without consuming all movement points. This would ease larger troop movements in the later game, removing some of the tedium involved in going to war.

I'd love to hear other ideas for railroads. They've been a huge part of Civilization since the beginning, and their absence is notable.
 
There was a suggestion in an earlier thread about building a Transport Hub type district which would serve as a train station. That's one idea.

Idea 2: After researching the necessary technology, Traders build railroads in their wake just like they do for roads. Perhaps we could combine the Transport Hub and this idea. Trade routes (across land) which start from a city with a train yard build railroads behind them.

Idea C: A new unit which specifically exist to shuttle between cities building rail links and/or roadways. Perhaps based on the "Navvy" Navigational Engineer.

Idea the fourth: Builders gain the ability to convert existing roads into railroads. This is expensive in terms of builder usage but favours policies focusing on public works.

Perhaps there'd also be room for some Wonders projects to represent stations or rail routes.
Bonus to station adjacency yields from Shinjuku Station, automatic connections to nearby cities with the Grand Central Terminal or the Trans Siberian Railway project to reduce building costs.
 
Just a thought, but I like the idea of seeing traders travelling up and down railroads in locomotives. We had a lot of railroads in Civ 5 but no trains.

Also perhaps train stations could appear in the trading screen like trading posts, granting bonuses to trading routes between them.
 
We have military engineers to build forts, roads, airstrips and missile silos.

Add Civil engineers to build railroads. You have to have at least one iron resource to spend a charge building a railroad, but it isn't consumed.

They have a number of charges. Maybe 5 or 6. Each one can convert a single road tile to a railroad tile. Railroads are only useful when they connect two cities. When a trade route travels between cities on a complete rail road, the number of rail road tiles it travels on is counted. The % of railroad tiles (vs total land distance) traveled in total is multiplied by 0.5, added to 1 and then against the yield of the trade route.

So if your trade route travels over land for 20 tiles and 15 are on a completed railroad between two cities, you'd get 75% of 0.5 which is 37.5%. The trade route itself would yield 137.5% of it's normal values (so ~7 food instead of 5, or 28 gold instead of 20)
 
They have a number of charges. Maybe 5 or 6. Each one can convert a single road tile to a railroad tile. Railroads are only useful when they connect two cities.
Doing it tile by tile sounds like it'd be really fiddly. I think maybe just having one unit travel to cities within a certain distance to build railroads and establish a station at either end. Maybe make them one-use each so there's incentive to use each effectively.
So if your trade route travels over land for 20 tiles and 15 are on a completed railroad between two cities, you'd get 75% of 0.5 which is 37.5%. The trade route itself would yield 137.5% of it's normal values (so ~7 food instead of 5, or 28 gold instead of 20)
I like the idea that shorter trade routes should give better returns but I think I'd see that more as an issue with road-routes than rails. (Or at least I'd prefer to see distance penalties applied to road trade routes as well in some fashion.)
If anything I'd say being able to get large amounts of goods around on rails reduces the disadvantage of a circuitous route.
 
I'd like to see a great merchant or great engineer "railroad baron" that put down some railroads. Not a full solution - there would have to be other ways to create them. We need railroads though.
 
Doing it tile by tile sounds like it'd be really fiddly. I think maybe just having one unit travel to cities within a certain distance to build railroads and establish a station at either end. Maybe make them one-use each so there's incentive to use each effectively.
I like the idea that shorter trade routes should give better returns but I think I'd see that more as an issue with road-routes than rails. (Or at least I'd prefer to see distance penalties applied to road trade routes as well in some fashion.)
If anything I'd say being able to get large amounts of goods around on rails reduces the disadvantage of a circuitous route.
but doing it tile by tile is EXACTLY how railroads were built. It was grueling, tiresome and killed hundreds and hundreds of people.
 
I dig the idea of a transport hub district in an expansion. I definitely want to see animated trains on the map.

I also do NOT want to see the map covered in rail roads like in Civ 3 and 4. So, so ugly and time consuming.
 
One idea would be to have them be a "city center building," almost, where a city can build a railroad to another city, and if that second city is building a railroad to that first city, then their production is added together for building that railroad, which is obviously more expensive the further apart they are and the fewer preexisting railroads exist between them.

So it's more like the International Games from Civ5 that you can make as many of as you have buildings, but you get the idea.
 
Could be an industrial district project, which would make more sense that "money". Or like a nuke (which I think is basically what you said)
 
There was a suggestion in an earlier thread about building a Transport Hub type district which would serve as a train station. That's one idea....

My ideas about a railway system:

The new civil unit "Railway worker" has six points to build railways on tiles. It costs 2 points to put a railway on a hill, desert or swamp or over a river.



Mate, I'm playing this game to stave off the ennui of modern existence, not to visit the injustices of the Transcontinental Railroad on my clicker-finger.

For action player of course could be introduced an auto function of the "Railway worker" ;)


The new railway district
offers an extra adjacent bonus (+1) to adjacent districts. City centers gain +2 food. Neighborhoods +1 food. Aerodromes +2 gold.

Units can move between connected railway district automatically (like traders). Every turn the unit moves max. 10 tiles (if the tile is free otherwise the transported unit stops in front).
The unit can be stopped manually on the way but cannot execute commands directly only in the next round.

Traders following a railway from one railway district to another offer +1 to every ordinary benefit from the trade route and change their appearance into a locomotives.


Buildings:
1. Marshalling yard (Industrial districts, City centers and strategic resources gain +1 production)

-> 2. Central station (all districts within 6 tiles of the railway district gain +1 adjacent bonus (City centers gain again +2 food. Neighborhoods +1 food. Aerodromes again +2 gold).
This bonus is not cumulative with other Central stations.

-> 3. Subway infrastructure (the extra adjacent bonus to neighboring districts is raised to +3. City centers gain again +2 food. Neighborhoods +1 food. Aerodromes again +2 gold)

(4. building -> magnetic levitation shuttle terminal...)


I dig the idea of a transport hub district in an expansion.

The base implementation of the railway system should be a patch for everyone because a railway system is essential for a Civ game. IMO it is still a shame that such a self-evidence is still missing after half a year since publication.

I would say they should bring at the same time with the patch an huge infrastructure dlc like the viking dlc.
This additionally dlc can offer a scenario about "railroad barons" and a north America map.

Also some new CS like:
Panama city: All commercial districts of the Suzerain can be used by naval units.
Suez Port: All Encampments of the Suzerain can be used by naval units.
Bern: Railway worker can build a tunnel through one mountain. This costs 2 points of the worker.

And some new WW like:
Trans-Siberian Railway brings border expansion with your railways,
Bailey Yard gives a free Marshalling yard to every railway district of the Civ.
Shanxi–Henan–Shandong Railway gives + 1 production to all mines with railways.


I definitely want to see animated trains on the map.
I also do NOT want to see the map covered in rail roads like in Civ 3 and 4. So, so ugly and time consuming.

Both YES!!!
 
Leaving Railroads out of Civ VI was another of the massively silly decisions made in designing the game. But to bring them back correctly (and none of the earlier Civ games got this right, either) let's look at the effect of railroads historically:
1. They made it possible to move massive quantities of trade or industrial goods ANYWHERE you put a railroad on the map. Effectively, this made the 'city radius' expand to any point along any railroad leading to the city.
2. They made it possible to move people in quantity, to any point on the railroad at speeds no human had ever gone before unless he was falling off a cliff. So, they expanded the optimal size of a city from Walking Distance to 10 - 25 times that. Railroads = Suburbs or in Civ VI game terms, Districts not adjacent to the City Center.
Railroads also required some brand new things, in quantities never before required:
1. They required materials like Steel and Coal in Massive Quantities. Older Wrought Iron and Cast Iron were tried and failed: the mass railroad building of the middle 19th century needed mass quantities of Steel to build, and mass quantities of Coal to power.
2. They required money in quantities unknown before except, possibly, in the building of Wonders. Raising this money required new Economic methods: the joint stock company, Bonds and Loans on a government-level scale, and all the accompanying economic chicanery that made 'Robber Baron' and 'Railroad Tycoon' almost identical in 19th century United States (and Railroad Bonds a by-word for Fraud in financial markets all over the world).

So, to put it in Game Terms:
Railroads should extend a 'city radius' along the tiles through which the railroad runs.
Railroads allow Districts to be built up to one tile away from the city center, or even , possibly, 2 tiles along the specific railroad route.
Railroads should require both Steel (manufactured/Tech resource) and Coal ('Strategic' Resource) and some sort of Economic 'Tech' or 'Civic'

Practically, Civ VI uses either 'charges' to build Improvements, which is what a railroad is, or Traders to lay down Roads, which is also what a railroad is, sl the construction of a railroad should be one of those two mechanics, but neither covers the real 'cost' of building a Railroad. Also, Military Engineers, as trained at West Point Military Academy in the USA, surveyed and supervised construction of many railroads in the 19th century, so either a specific Railroad Engineer could be added, or the Military Engineer could be given an 'extra' task.
Either way, the Engineers' job would not be to build the railroad, but to indicate where it should go ('surveying'). The Engineer would put Stations along the route between cities. The actual construction would require not Builders, but Money (Gold) from the entire Civilization. More Gold, faster construction. If the route follows an existing Road, faster/cheaper construction. If the route goes over Rough Terrain (Hills, Jungles, Marsh, Tundra, crossing Rivers - just about anything but Plains, Grassland or Forest) it would cost more, take longer. That extra Gold should come from an Economic Tech or Civic in the Industrial Era.

There are two types of Railroad Buildings, as indicated by previous Posters: the Passenger Terminal in the city center, and the Freight Yard/Marshaling Yard in the Industrial District. Even without them the railroad will deliver people and Resources to the city far beyond what was possible before (except by Sea) but with them both Immigration From the Country (population increase in the city) and Resources/Production/Gold are increased.

Possible Wonders associated might be:
Enola Yards (the Pennsylvania Railroad's marshaling yard near Harrisburg, PA, at one time the largest in the world)
Grand Central Station (or Victoria Station) - or any other Central/Union passenger station in a major capital

One more thing: the railroads not only allowed movement of 'resources' at unheard-of speeds, they also allowed movement of military units and supplies at speeds and quantities unknown earlier. Movement on a railroad is NOT dependent on the 'walking' or riding/driving speed, of the military unit. Therefore, movement on a railroad, regardless of the original Movement of the military unit, would be X stations in a turn. Historically, even in the mid-19th century, it was possible to move a military unit by rail 100 - 300 miles a day. Marching speed was about 25 miles a day on good roads and in good weather, so 'railroad movement' should usually equal about 5 - 10 times a 'foot' unit's movement on Plains/Grassland tiles AT A MINIMUM.

Finally, while tunneling through mountains had been done on a small scale before, railroads from within 30 years of their invention were tunneling through major mountain ranges using Black (Gun) Powder and. later, Dynamite and other explosives. At great expense, it should be possible almost from the start to put a Railroad through a single Mountain tile. Depending on how you want to interpret the game's map scale, later in the Modern or later Eras it should be possible to 'tunnel' through virtually any number of consecutive Mountain tiles.

And, of course, we should have trains moving on the map, with visual changes (as in Builders and Trade Routes) indicating Era Upgrades:
Industrial Era: Small smoking steam locomotives with wooden cars
Modern Era: Large steam locomotives with steel cars, long passenger cars
Atomic Era: Diesel locomotives and 'streamlined' stainless steel passenger trains
Information Era: 'Bullet' high speed trains
 
So, to put it in Game Terms:
Railroads should extend a 'city radius' along the tiles through which the railroad runs.
Railroads allow Districts to be built up to one tile away from the city center, or even , possibly, 2 tiles along the specific railroad route.
Railroads should require both Steel (manufactured/Tech resource) and Coal ('Strategic' Resource) and some sort of Economic 'Tech' or 'Civic'
I'd be inclined not to utterly upend the existing city spread system (as is, the territorial size of cities relative to the entire world is exaggerated to integrate urban combat and city planning into the world view) but I would be interested in, say, making Railroads be the technology which allows for Industrial and Entertainment buildings to spread their influence out to 6 tiles. (Maybe prior to them, they only radiate out three tiles.

Certainly I think Railroads should be a key technology dependent upon Steel and the Economics tech route.
Either way, the Engineers' job would not be to build the railroad, but to indicate where it should go ('surveying'). The Engineer would put Stations along the route between cities. The actual construction would require not Builders, but Money (Gold) from the entire Civilization. More Gold, faster construction. If the route follows an existing Road, faster/cheaper construction. If the route goes over Rough Terrain (Hills, Jungles, Marsh, Tundra, crossing Rivers - just about anything but Plains, Grassland or Forest) it would cost more, take longer. That extra Gold should come from an Economic Tech or Civic in the Industrial Era.
Sounds to me like requiring a load of production or gold to obtain the railroad building unit would simulate the production and economic expense, perhaps with a "Railroad Tycoons" economic policy to reduce their cost, later becoming a "Transport Infrastructure" policy in the Information Age.
If the Railway building unit acts like a Trader, maybe they have a high maintenance cost while active (simulating the massive expense of building long lines) and if it acts more like a Military Engineer perhaps it could incur a gold cost when you use it.
 
I think a railroad station district is the best option. Have it connect automatically to other railroad districts and make it so units can immediately move from one station to the next 2-3 in one turn. I prefer a separate district and mechanic than lumping them in with roads, they should be separate.
 
I'd be inclined not to utterly upend the existing city spread system (as is, the territorial size of cities relative to the entire world is exaggerated to integrate urban combat and city planning into the world view) but I would be interested in, say, making Railroads be the technology which allows for Industrial and Entertainment buildings to spread their influence out to 6 tiles. (Maybe prior to them, they only radiate out three tiles.

The increasing Spread Influence is an elegant solution: stays within that current game mechanics and provides a substantial bonus to the Civ involved. Historically, of course, the Influence would spread to virtually all cities connected to the Rail network, but that's probably Way Over The Top. I do think the actual distance spread should not be fixed, but dependent on Map Size to make it proportionally as influential.

Certainly I think Railroads should be a key technology dependent upon Steel and the Economics tech route.
Sounds to me like requiring a load of production or gold to obtain the railroad building unit would simulate the production and economic expense, perhaps with a "Railroad Tycoons" economic policy to reduce their cost, later becoming a "Transport Infrastructure" policy in the Information Age.
If the Railway building unit acts like a Trader, maybe they have a high maintenance cost while active (simulating the massive expense of building long lines) and if it acts more like a Military Engineer perhaps it could incur a gold cost when you use it.

The source of the Gold required could be a Civic: Rampant Capitalism, which dramatically increases the Gold per Turn in the Civ, (perhaps based on the number of Banks in the Civ) while, every 6 - 10 turns the amount of Gold would be reduced by 50% for 1- 3 turns to represent the periodic Panics, Recessions, or Depressions caused by unscrupulous Speculation. This Civic might be replaced/negated by Central Reserve Bank Civic in the (late) Modern Era, which stabilizes the amount of Gold per turn.
This way, the Railroad would require both Tech and Civics, which would also reflect the massive changes required in finance and industry to build them.

I was all ready to require more 'railroad upgrades' in the Information/Atomic Eras, until I did some research on the US Dept of Transportation statistics, and discovered that by pure Tonnage Carried, trucks outweigh railroads by almost an Order of Magnitude in the US of A now. The reason is the Interstate Highway System and the greater flexibility of truck traffic, which has virtually taken over all the mid-range and short distance freight transport. I'd still like to see the railroads kept, but if we were being really accurate (not that Civ games ever were!) in the Information Era the railroad graphic would be replaced by a multi-lane highway with trucks moving along it and a faint soundtrack of diesel horns and country & western music...

I think a railroad station district is the best option. Have it connect automatically to other railroad districts and make it so units can immediately move from one station to the next 2-3 in one turn. I prefer a separate district and mechanic than lumping them in with roads, they should be separate.

The problem with having a separate District is three-fold: on the one hand, many of the major passenger terminals are Central of Union stations in the city center. On the other hand, many of the effects of the railroad are connected with Commuter Traffic by rail into the city center, which allowed suburbs (Districts) to spread out since the Industrial Era. Finally, the great Industrial/Production increases brought by rail were due to the railroad delivering right from Factory to Factory - that is, from Industrial District to Industrial District.

One possible solution, because the separate District does keep the railroad in line with current game systems, would be to have a Railroad District that, for full effect, must be placed adjacent to the City Center AND the Industrial District. This might require, as it frequently did historically, the 'tearing up' of an older District to make room for the railroad, but it would neatly cover all the Requirements.

The Buildings possible in the Rail District would be:
Passenger Terminal - Industrial Era. - Or a possible Wonder of Grand Central Station/Victoria Station, or such - Population Growth increase from Immigration from the countryside, allows Influence from Entertainment Districts up to X+ tiles away (twice or more previous Influence Distance)
Freight Marshaling Yard - Industrial Era - Production increase to all buildings in the Industrial District or Ruhr Wonder, Influence from other Industrial Districts up to X+ tiles away as from the Passenger Terminal for Entertainment.
Container Yard - an Atomic Era Building, representing the vast increase in trade/transport caused by 'containerization' starting in the late 1950s. This would increase both Gold and Production in the city, AND increase Gold from any Trade Routes to/from the city.
 
I was all ready to require more 'railroad upgrades' in the Information/Atomic Eras, until I did some research on the US Dept of Transportation statistics, and discovered that by pure Tonnage Carried, trucks outweigh railroads by almost an Order of Magnitude in the US of A now. The reason is the Interstate Highway System and the greater flexibility of truck traffic, which has virtually taken over all the mid-range and short distance freight transport. I'd still like to see the railroads kept, but if we were being really accurate (not that Civ games ever were!) in the Information Era the railroad graphic would be replaced by a multi-lane highway with trucks moving along it and a faint soundtrack of diesel horns and country & western music.
The American experience isn't universal. I don't have stats but certainly passenger travel is more popular in other nations and freight travel is probably more common.

The problem with having a separate District is three-fold: on the one hand, many of the major passenger terminals are Central of Union stations in the city center. On the other hand, many of the effects of the railroad are connected with Commuter Traffic by rail into the city center, which allowed suburbs (Districts) to spread out since the Industrial Era. Finally, the great Industrial/Production increases brought by rail were due to the railroad delivering right from Factory to Factory - that is, from Industrial District to Industrial District.
One possible idea: The method that allows building railroads must be started within a district and run to another city's district. (Both train lines also extend as directly as possibly to the city centre either on their way there or out from the end.) Stations appear in the middle of the district and produce an increased yield.
Perhaps later cities can have more stations but there'd probably either be a population limit or a civic limit.

Heck, this is also a possible solution for people who want to establish stations prior to rail building. It could come up as a build option in each district just like regular buildings.
 
Lots of interesting ideas here.

I too would like to see rail come back. It was always quite satisfying to build that first cross-empire rail in III.

What I don't want to see is rail spam. There should be a cap on how much you can lay down. Maybe 1 rail link between 2 cities of your choice for each coal resource in your borders (not traded for)? One of the cities has to build it as a special project?

Aside from the movement boost, maybe bonus production and gold?
 
It would be nice to have roads and railroads separated, to give them strategic value. Aesthetically I think it would also look nicer. (I'll mix some ideas from the thread with some of my own)

- only one rail connection per city
- the rail connection is assigned in the production screen by building a railyard district.
- the railyard increases trade route capacity, connects and boosts yields for all adjacent districts, so if any of the following districts are two tiles away from the railyard district then it wont get bonuses:
- harbor: food and gold
- commerce hub: food and gold
- industrial zone: gold and production
- spaceport: production and science

- the railyard districts has two possible buildings:
- passenger station (allows "airlifting" of units)
- cargo station (allows assigning trade units)

- the way you build the actual rail is with military engineers or by assigning trade units to railyard districts and then making a trade route from there.
- connecting cities by rail (even neutral or allied cities) allows "airlifting" of units between such connections (not to the neutral cities, I mean you can skip past them).
- in regards to yields they will be completely dependent on the districts each railyard is connected to and the buildings for each.
 
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- connecting cities by rail (even neutral or allied cities) allows "airlifting" of units between such connections (not to the neutral cities, I mean you can skip past them).

or 10-12 tiles along the railway line and it takes one round to wake up the transported unit between the train stations.
 
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