Railroads - any value?

[planetfall]

Unlike civ4 I don't see any value of railroads. They come so late in the game and require too much time and resources to make them useful. I once built 4 sections, and then decided, why. There is too little gain.

But, I could be wrong. Have any of you found RR to be of any benefit in your games?

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Not really, I built them perhaps in one or two games when GS released because I assumed they were as strong as in civ 5, but no.
The problem with railroads is the same that civ 6 has with a lot of the endgame stuff.
Terrible late game scaling means that as you get better at the game, the late game (around when you yourself reach industrial era techs) becomes shorter and shorter, to the point where you are one-turning techs (or close to it).
Meaning that it doesn't make any sense to invest in late game stuff like railroads because the game will be over in like 30 turns anyway.

It's perhaps the most annoying thing with civ 6 in retrospect (awful late game balance and thus pacing), and I really hope they fix that for civ 7.

 

[Ordnael]

Never built one in CIV VI. I love railroads in the original CIV as they increase terrain yields, decreased movement cost is just a petty bonus for me!

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Alot. Actually Railroad movement rules in Civ5 and 6 don't really right to me. it simply a decimal multiplier when calculating movement points, it is simply a superior iterations of roads. in truth, Railroads (or Railways, depending on what English you're using). does NOT half or quarter movement costs (and gives mounted units trememdous advantages using rails to move around over foot units).
There's other games that made it right. Commander European Wars (a 1UPT WW1 TBS), any land unit that uses a train takes the SAME speed advantages regardless of unit classes and base movement points per turn. like say, a cavalry has a basic movement of 5 hexes, and infantry has 2. in this token, if rail transportation movements per turn is 15, BOTH Infantry and Cavalry can move up to 15 hexes away (in real game however, units have to end their turn at a farthest train station possible directly connected to the rail line).
This is what RR movements should be.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Alot. Actually Railroad movement rules in Civ5 and 6 don't really right to me. it simply a decimal multiplier when calculating movement points, it is simply a superior iterations of roads. in truth, Railroads (or Railways, depending on what English you're using). does NOT half or quarter movement costs (and gives mounted units trememdous advantages using rails to move around over foot units).
There's other games that made it right. Commander European Wars (a 1UPT WW1 TBS), any land unit that uses a train takes the SAME speed advantages regardless of unit classes and base movement points per turn. like say, a cavalry has a basic movement of 5 hexes, and infantry has 2. in this token, if rail transportation movements per turn is 15, BOTH Infantry and Cavalry can move up to 15 hexes away (in real game however, units have to end their turn at a farthest train station possible directly connected to the rail line).
This is what RR movements should be.

The movement bonus is quite irrelevant once you start getting fast win times, because you arent moving your units across your own empire much anyway, especially when you consider all the time spent to construct them.
That leaves the gold bonus, which is negligible in the late game because you usually have enough gold to begin with, and gold sort of loses its value at that stage.
What made railroads so good in civ 5 was mainly the +25% production modifier to connected cities, which made it pretty much mandatory to improve in the late game.
And since civ 5 late game was much better paced (lasting longer) than civ 6, you actually got to reap the rewards of those for a good portion of the game.
If civ 6 had that sort of production bonus as well not suffering from a completely botched late game pacing, I probably would still make these for my core powerhouse cities today.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

I like them. They’re completely superfluous (like most things relating to Military Engineers), but fun to have.

A unit zipping across 8 tiles at once is just fun.

I hear they’re better in multiplayer, where people actually use them for building paths to enemies. As they are now, they’re just a nice novelty for single player.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

I do make them, sometimes for an entire network, but always for the shortcuts through nasty terrain.
(oh, connecting 2 cities just for the era score.)

In 5, they were pretty much mandatory, and you could automate the workers to make'em.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

One of the (many) Great Failures of Civ VI, as posted, is the Late Game. In 4000+ hours of play over the years, I don;t think I have ever had a game last more than 350 turns, and that was when I was actively trying to prolong it. The average game is over in 250 turns or less, and most of the games long before I ever reach the Information or Atomic Eras.

Which makes most of the late game units and constructions, like airfields and railroads, utterly meaningless. I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of games in which I actually built or upgraded to Modern Armor and I've never built an Aircraft Carrier in any game, ever.

A massive waste of game design resources and due entirely to other game design decisions.

This particularly applies to Railroads, because IRL they were a Singularity Event in world history.

Before railroads, you could not trade bulk goods over land. Period. Food between cities only happened by sea or river, because to make a difference in the average city it had to be in hundreds of tons per day or week. EVERY major trade route either dealt in extremely high-value goods where a few hundred pounds was worth it - like the Silk Road o the Amber routes to Rome from the Baltic - or went by water.

After railroads, in game terms every city radius expands to wherever on the map the city is connected by Rail for EVERYTHING: food, resources, production, etc. Movement increases not by a few multiples of tiles, but by an Order of Magnitude: an army even with modern wagons and well-fed horses could move about 30 - 40 kilometers a day at most. By railroad it could move 100 - 400 kilometers a day every day, without s topping for 'rest days', and arrive untired and with all of its equipment and supplies intact. In 1941 the Soviet Union could move divisions from the Far East to Moscow by rail in 2 weeks - 1/25th of a Game Turn in Civ to move 9000 kilometers!

Civ has never adequately modeled Railroads, or even come close. Long past time for that to change.

 

[planetfall]

Just as an experiment I played small conti and had a conti running almost all the way from North to South, so I build a RR line from N to S.
Could have used it about 50 turns earlier when a few barbs suddenly popped up and started attacking and destroying improvements. But it comes so late in game, it was of no value as I had airfields gained nothing, other than saying, Ok I tried this. Useless, not again.

 

[Mahi]

Not really, I built them perhaps in one or two games when GS released because I assumed they were as strong as in civ 5, but no.
The problem with railroads is the same that civ 6 has with a lot of the endgame stuff.
Terrible late game scaling means that as you get better at the game, the late game (around when you yourself reach industrial era techs) becomes shorter and shorter, to the point where you are one-turning techs (or close to it).
Meaning that it doesn't make any sense to invest in late game stuff like railroads because the game will be over in like 30 turns anyway.

It's perhaps the most annoying thing with civ 6 in retrospect (awful late game balance and thus pacing), and I really hope they fix that for civ 7.

What the hell are you talking about.. one turn techs after railroad?
Anyway I find railroads useful for logistics. I like to build them anyway. It only costs a military engineer and 1 iron and coal per turn. Hardly expensive if you have the income to sustain it.

 

[Disgustipated]

Some people play normal or quicker speed games. I build them on marathon speed games. Are they necessary? NO. But my empire doesn't feel complete without them. It does seem to increase my income a decent amount allowing me to instant buy many things. But I can't say how much, it's possible my income would have increased during this time span anyways. And of course those things you can buy aren't that relevant since you are on path to winning the game anyways. It's mostly for roleplay reasons I build them.

 

[Patine]

I love railroads in the original CIV as they increase terrain yields, decreased movement cost is just a petty bonus for me!

Which Civ does one consider to be the, "original," out of curiosity?

Civ2 had stellar railroads - though perhaps highly unrealistically so, to the point that the ToTPP gave an option to tone down their UNLIMITED contiguous movement to just a notably higher rate from roads. But trade yield increases built on roads, and production on squares already producing shields was awesome, too. And when you had Engineers, instead of such Settlers, with the Explosives tech, they can be built even faster.

 

[Miserable Old Git]

I always have railroads connecting cities, just to speed logistics. However, the one time they are essential is when going for a scientific victory. In order to speed up the laser station projects, in conjunction with the Royal Society, you need to have spawned large numbers of builders, and these need to be stored somewhere, and have rapid access to the space stations. So... I cover my entire land area with railroads for this purpose.

 

[Quintillus]

One advantage I see is that you can build railroads manually, which can give more precise connections over desired terrain than by trying to convince traders to take a particular route.

Aside from that? I see it mainly as a thematic upgrade. To be sure there is some military benefit, with newly-trained troops being able to reach the front line sooner. But they aren't the game-changer that they were in Civ III, or which I'd argue that more or less were historically.

I'm hoping they are buffed for VII. Maybe not quite to III levels of being a complete pivot point, and overpowered in terms of movement (giving unlimited movement so long as there are contiguous rails), but enough to feel consequential and like a demarcation line both in terms of eras, and economically.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

One advantage I see is that you can build railroads manually, which can give more precise connections over desired terrain than by trying to convince traders to take a particular route.

Aside from that? I see it mainly as a thematic upgrade. To be sure there is some military benefit, with newly-trained troops being able to reach the front line sooner. But they aren't the game-changer that they were in Civ III, or which I'd argue that more or less were historically.

I'm hoping they are buffed for VII. Maybe not quite to III levels of being a complete pivot point, and overpowered in terms of movement (giving unlimited movement so long as there are contiguous rails), but enough to feel consequential and like a demarcation line both in terms of eras, and economically.

I see the impact of railroads more on Loyalty and Empire Management than speed of movement.

As mentioned before, effectively they extend City Radius to wherever the railroad runs within your territory, and also edtend land trade routes infinitely the same way. That changes how you manage your cities for Everything and how you manage your Trade.

IRL railroads required huge amounts of capital, labor and production to build them and whole new types of industrial organization to run them, and they also required that the entire country be organized into time zones and regulated in ways never required before. That means they vastly increase the reach and intrusiveness of the government. That means the type and way the government runs also changes, and its relationship to the population, as well as the amounts of Gold and Production that government can access.

So, in addition to speeding up transport of military/civilian units, Railroads also change politics, gold, production, and loyalty. And the new distances people can travel easily (from 10s of kilometers a day to 100s) change the type and placement of Entertainment and Cultural benefits available, and the size of cities, and the placement of Wonders and National Parks - in fact, a case can be made that National Parks are impossible without the mobility of the railroad to make them accessible to the population.

Model even a fraction of all that, and Civ might start to get Railroads right for a change.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

I see the impact of railroads more on Loyalty and Empire Management than speed of movement.

As mentioned before, effectively they extend City Radius to wherever the railroad runs within your territory, and also edtend land trade routes infinitely the same way. That changes how you manage your cities for Everything and how you manage your Trade.

IRL railroads required huge amounts of capital, labor and production to build them and whole new types of industrial organization to run them, and they also required that the entire country be organized into time zones and regulated in ways never required before. That means they vastly increase the reach and intrusiveness of the government. That means the type and way the government runs also changes, and its relationship to the population, as well as the amounts of Gold and Production that government can access.

So, in addition to speeding up transport of military/civilian units, Railroads also change politics, gold, production, and loyalty. And the new distances people can travel easily (from 10s of kilometers a day to 100s) change the type and placement of Entertainment and Cultural benefits available, and the size of cities, and the placement of Wonders and National Parks - in fact, a case can be made that National Parks are impossible without the mobility of the railroad to make them accessible to the population.

Model even a fraction of all that, and Civ might start to get Railroads right for a change.

Interesting enough. Railroads are sometimes sujected to ingame resources requirements--iron and coal-- and these two are primary ingredients of (Bessemer-Krupp) steel that is needed to build a rail line.
Should it also be prerequisite as it was in Civ 3 and 6? though most of the time many countries that has railroads don't have access to the two resources (or at leaset have these iron and coal mine but in limited numbers.) and so many times subjected to imports. and steel imports for railroad buildings (including associated facilities, and bridges... note that Gustave Eiffel was also a forerunner builder of railroad bridges, there's one in Georgia (of Caucasus) he built, an experience in his resume' before building the two world wonders--Statue of Liberty (of NYC), and Torre de Eiffel (in Paris) ; both of which are respectively city landmarks.) ... even if steam trains are fueled by wood or sticky fuel oil distillates.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

However, the one time they are essential is when going for a scientific victory.

Its not essential then either.
Whenever you go for a SV and need builders, you can get around that by pre-building builders one to three turns earlier than you normally would (which will make up extra travel time).
Space race projects only allow for one builder to be expended on a spaceport per turn anyway, so once you get your supporting cities churning out a steady stream of builders, it doesnt matter whether or not you have railroads placed down, since it wont speed up the victory.
As long as you are being fed one builder per spaceport per turn, you're already working at max capacity so to speak.

 

[Miserable Old Git]

I use all cities, or at least all bar one, to build lagrange/terrestrial laser projects (I only play on deity, so any suboptimal strategy will end up in defeat). So all the builders need to be prebuilt, and used in every city on every turn. Hence the railroads.

 

[Arcaian]

Oberinspektor also plays exclusively on deity and has a different experience. When I do play on deity, I haven't founded railroads essential for scientific victory either. Barring the use of something like Hercules I'm not even 100% sure if I'd have the time to get a spaceport in every city before the science victory is complete.

 

[EdTice]

I use all cities, or at least all bar one, to build lagrange/terrestrial laser projects (I only play on deity, so any suboptimal strategy will end up in defeat). So all the builders need to be prebuilt, and used in every city on every turn. Hence the railroads.

I don't quite understand this. You can only use one builder per turn per city. I can see having many prebuilt around your empire. I've done that. But you can just line up the builders outside of the spaceport. You move a builder onto the spaceport, activate it, and then move all of the rest one tile closer.

I like to use Lagrange laser stations as well. But I'm very rarely limited by how quickly I can get builders to space ports. Usually the limiting factor is having the necessary aluminum. Mid-game I build encampments so I can store 120 aluminum, but that's only 4x Lagrange laser stations. Assuming I can pull ten per turn, after the initial four, I'm going to be Aluminum-limited. If you've found a way past that, I'd be highly appreciative of an education.