Is anyone else somewhat confused with new system of roads and trade routes, or am I the only one?

[bbbt]

There's definitely a lot of interesting ways to go with railroads as a form of "modern" travel. I do think it makes some sense to have you build it using a charged unit, as that would be a decent enough cost to prevent them from being spammed everywhere. And I agree that having movement essentially be a form of "airlift", where as long as you have an unbroken path of railroads, you can move between those cities. Maybe you could also have a cap of 20 moves so that you can't move from Paris to Johannesburg in one turn by rail, but that would also limit where you needed to spam them (as it would only matter essentially whether your cities were connected or not).

I'm not sure if using it as a full district would make sense, as district spots are probably a bit scarce. But maybe it would just be another city centre building (railway station). I do like having some other benefit for having your cities connected by railroad - maybe even something as simple as if two cities are connected by railroads, the trader will simply instantly transport between the cities, and you also get +25%/+50% to all yields of the trade route?

I'd vote for a railway station as a city center building and as a tile improvement. Building one automatically makes tracks 'appear' connecting it with any other stations within maybe 6 tiles?

Definitely should be trade bonuses, and maybe production bonuses ala civ 5.

 

[kaspergm]

I agree, Railways could be a good way to solve some of these issues. Either by building a railway station in the town, thus connecting it to nearest railway station, or by making it a city project (build railway connection to X town, cost depending on distance). There's a subtle difference between the two in that the former solution would take production from target city, while former would take production from starting city, which is rather significant, because the latter will make it easier to connect satellite cities (low production) to your major cities (high production). Also, Railways would have the option to add tunnels through mountains, which would obviously require a dramatically increase cost.

All this still doesn't change some of the inherent problems with current system. I.e. we need some sort of interface to choose pathing of trade routes - either directly on map, or as a "connect the dots" where you pick the cities it goes through.

 

[cazaderonus]

The real problem with roads is that they just do not save enough MP atm to justify any changes to the way they're built...

I really like some of the ideas for railroads in this threads. Sounds like a good job for a builder,

 

[historix69]

If there would be more free tiles around a city, railway-segments could be built by a city like districts ...

 

[Timothy001]

How about a Railway Tech. It gives ability to build railway engineer. It has limited range. Builds like a trade route, only 1 allowed. He takes 1 turn + 1 turn for MP entry cost to hex to build railway. Units pay 1/2 MP to enter a hex on a railway, and trade units advance 2 hexes per turn. When engineer reaches destination, he disappears, another can be built, but for a higher cost. He creates a Railway depot in both cities. The Depot gives a gold bonus to trade routes to and from the city that travel on railway.
In next era, have a tech that upgrades the engineer. Has larger range, allows 2 at a time to exist. They take MP cost=turn, to build railway. Units pay 1/3 MP to enter a hex while on a railway, trade units advance 3 hexes. Depots upgrade to Stations. Give a bigger gold bonus for trade routes all on railway, plus a production bonus.
In the third and final era, allows still 2 engineers, they take 1 turn per hex. Units pay 1/4 Mp per hex, Stations upgrade to Modern station. Trade units using all railways travel entire length in 1 turn. Gives a bonus to all (Food, Production, gold, culture, science, and Faith) for each trade unit that travels all on a railway.
Trade units will always use a railway if available.
Railways can be pillaged, and give a Gold and Production bonus to pillager. Railways are repaired by builders.

 

[historix69]

A historical example : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway
Built time : 25 years (1891-1916), 62.000 men, working in 7 independent sections
Length 9.288 km
Time of Travel : 8 days

If you look at a single group of workers (ca. 7.750), they built a ca. 1-day-travel-length (ca. 1.100 km) in ca. 25 years (ca. 9.130 days).
An army in the field (WW1 and pre-WW1) usually only travelled 30 kms per day (60 kms on Roman Roads) by foot. (The Mongols were faster since they travelled by horse.)
So Trans-Sib-Railroad allowed armies to travel a distance of 5 weeks by foot in 1 day by train. (35-40 times faster)

 

[Xur]

I miss building roads... we are back to spaghetti roads and I hate it.