[GS] Railroads worth it?

+1 Railroad graphics should be improved
+1 Railroads should provide some small increase to production, most logically to Industrial Zones, Harbors and Spaceports, possibly to mines and lumbermills
+0 Environmentally impact should be adjusted. I think it is just fine where it is at.

As to the OP question "Railroads worth it?", for me it is a solid "yes." Surely not for the min/maxer, but I'm a builder/roleplayer and I believe that railroads significantly add to those aspects of the game.

Built them again in my current Germany game. For longer drawn out games I see value in them. I agree about the graphics, especially regarding districts and wonders. No way to tell if there's a RR there. A small production boost would be nice, but the gold isn't insignificant.

As for cost analysis, I was very conservative using 5 above, but really it seems like 10+ gold increase in some of the longer trade routes. I haven't even bothered testing it on internal trade routes, I assume they provide gold, but I'm not sure. From a cost analysis standpoint, they seem worth it assuming your game goes on long enough. But for any early cultural or domination/religious victories I do, I probably won't bother.
 
I've built railroads in two games. I will never do so again unless I need the +2 era score for connecting two cities.
The sheer tedium and micromanagement of building railroads makes Civ a less fun game to play. I play Civ for fun, anything that makes it less fun I don't do.

Military engineers are expensive units with very few useful applications anyway. I don't bother build them in most games.
 
Understanding the value of "Logistics" will you understand the value of railroads.
Sometimes a railroad can help save 1 turn to win, that's quite a lot. If there's a chance to spend 1,500 production to save 1 turn of victory time I'll definitely do it. But building railroad cost you less than 9 engineers.

Also, once finish his railroad task, an engineer can chop trees, that's some return. So it does not cost as much as 170 actually.
 
Since one engi can railroad your entire empire and the resource cost is irrelevant I think they are absolutely worth it, for unit speed alone.
Remember they not only increase trade route gold, they also increase the distance a trader can travel, allowing you to trade with distant allies previously out of your reach.
 
The sheer tedium and micromanagement of building railroads makes Civ a less fun game to play.

Is this any different than past games? I think we've all been spoiled by having traders create our roads. :) Although maybe in Civ5 you could use the connect cities command? I admit I never used it, and manually connected my cities with roads. I didn't trust the AI to do it since roads were so expensive.

Since one engi can railroad your entire empire

1 takes far too long. I used 2 in my Germany game, and it still took a very long time if you want all cities connected with each other.
 
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