Railroads--worth it?

[EL_Kondor]

In the alternative, if you RR to your harbor city, any cities connected by harbor get RR bonus. (again as i understand it).

I am pretty sure this didn't work for me, maybe because my city was originally connected to the capital by a road?

 

[Airey]

I am pretty sure this didn't work for me, maybe because my city was originally connected to the capital by a road?

Double check, needs to have a habour @ your capital as well.

 

[MadDjinn]

Double check, needs to have a habour @ your capital as well.

nooo...

@ EL_Kondor: I am pretty sure this didn't work for me, maybe because my city was originally connected to the capital by a road?

---- You must have a RR connection from your capital to the city (via other cities or harbours) for the city to get the RR bonus. Ie, if you connected two cities together, but neither of them were connected to the capital, you're getting nothing.

Your capital only needs a harbour if it is on the coast and you have coastal cities, with harbours, that you do not want to run a RR to. (or to jump to other continents).

Otherwise, if cap is not on a coast, you must run the RR to a coastal city that has a harbour and it will spread the RR bonus everywhere else that is connected to a harbour (or has one).

-----

For the OP: I always use RRs, and will GS it over any other tech at the same level. The better your production, the faster everything comes. It affects all production, so nothing to worry about there. I will also reroute all of my workers back to start the RR, ignoring other tile improvements unless they are very important for the next few turns.

The cost analysis from prior posters has been fairly poor. How many wasted turns of production did you spend without the RR, just to have an AI or MP opponent beat you to a wonder? You don't have the boost, they do and so they'll get the factory sooner, get the Public school/Stock Exchange/Wonder, faster and earlier. Their gpt and bpt will go up faster than yours, leading to more CSs, more modern units, techs sooner and so forth.

advantage wins games.

It's about:
the trade route income; Gold and Science cities need production too! (and population) any building post-factories is monstrous in hammer costs. The longer your gold cities are making buildings, the less gpt you are making. Do ensure the cities are big enough (trade route income) to support the connection though. That brand new 1 pop city might not be the best place for a 10 gpt RR unless it will have significant late game impact. (new prod city where you'll grow but rush every production building/build the minor ones)

*is* the city a production center; if yes, build the RR!!! Considering you have multipliers: Factory, Windmill, Workshop, forge/etc, marble/Aristocracy, etc etc, the +50% can go pretty far. not just on a base number ignoring the other multipliers. Can't get a 100+ hpt city without it! (given that the later buildings are in the 500-700 range, if not more, that's a lot of time wasted without it)

*is* the city on the front line and you need to move units there in a hurry, etc, etc;
These are the basic 3 thoughts. RR's cover both production and speed of movement, so it's not just the +1gpt vs. +hammer in a city question.

Don't bother running RRs that are longer than 6-7 tiles though; unless really really needed. If you're doing that, then you're misplacing cities or the cities you captured are just far enough away that you should consider their own RR network attached to a harbour. Even on Pangea I do this as most AI start just far enough away and have a city on the coast. Only build the long RR/road if you really need to move units from one part of the planet to the other fast.

 

[Airey]

---- You must have a RR connection from your capital to the city (via other cities or harbours) for the city to get the RR bonus. Ie, if you connected two cities together, but neither of them were connected to the capital, you're getting nothing.

Your capital only needs a harbour if it is on the coast and you have coastal cities, with harbours, that you do not want to run a RR to. (or to jump to other continents).

Otherwise, if cap is not on a coast, you must run the RR to a coastal city that has a harbour and it will spread the RR bonus everywhere else that is connected to a harbour (or has one).

Tx for clarifying.
Capital cannot build habour if not coastal.
He had cities connected to the Capital by road, didn't think he wouldn't double check to see if all roads are railroads.
I shouldn't assume his capital was coastal though.
He said "originally," I thought he wanted to disband the road to save on maintenance.

 

[Michl2602]

Double check, needs to have a habour @ your capital as well.

Or some other harbor in a city connected with your capital by RR is sufficient or not?

Ok, sry, answer is already given here and I'm right as usual.

 

[Polish]

Does it bother anyone else that the only city that can not benefit from the railroad production bonus for connecting to the Capital IS the Capital?

 

[Airey]

Does it bother anyone else that the only city that can not benefit from the railroad production bonus for connecting to the Capital IS the Capital?

Ya...it was kind of annoying at first.
but if actually think about it, Capital should be the strongest city in the empire since have it developed the longest.
With RR bonus for Capital, might be very powerful, 1 turning space ship parts.

 

[basta]

Does it bother anyone else that the only city that can not benefit from the railroad production bonus for connecting to the Capital IS the Capital?

It bothered a modder too--check out "Dan's Railyard" in mods which adds 50+ production to the Capital

 

[Seabastian Civ]

Sorry to revive a long-dead thread, but I was wondering if RRs still have the same cost/benefit. I don't remember seeing anything in any patches, but I've overlooked things before...

 

[The Pilgrim]

Here's the fresh one for you. WA article on trade routes is still valid as well.