Railroads

[Sweetchuck]

I don't know if anyone else uses this strategy, but as soon as I get Steam Power (or several turns before I get it), I pump out a crew of workers just for railroads.

Each turn after that, I keep this railroad crew building railroads to each of my cities, leapfrogging each other as they move along the roads.

Once each city is connected (it doesn't have to be visually perfect or even symmetrical - just so that each city is connected), I retire most of the railroad crew to cities that have population capacity.

Now, I can keep my defense units at a minimum since they are accessable to each continental city immediately.

 

[vmxa]

No need to retire them as long as you have useful tiles for them to rail. Remember the rails increase shield/food on some tiles.

 

[Sweetchuck]

No need to retire them as long as you have useful tiles for them to rail. Remember the rails increase shield/food on some tiles.

Yeah, I considered that. I don't know if it's more efficient to let the current worker group deal with that (remember, the other workers not on the railroad crew are building railroads also), or to keep paying the extra units.

I usually find out that they are just standing around after some time, but I try to keep a fair supply of worker units to do pollution clean-up and improvements, and the like.

If I don't have cities that will take workers (or if the cities are at population max or don't have the room and will starve them off), I'll keep them around instead of disbanding them.

 

[Aceman101]

Once each city is connected (it doesn't have to be visually perfect or even symmetrical - just so that each city is connected), I retire most of the railroad crew to cities that have population capacity.

That's how i do it, except i don't retire any of my workers after all the cities are connected. I just keep railing.

 

[gmaharriet]

Keep those workers working until every tile is 100% improved. There are some exceptions to this, such as adding them to a single city that's going for a 20K culture win, but there will usually be tasks for them to do for a very long time.

 

[MAS]

I start building up my workforce before steam, in preparation of getting steam.

 

[Aabraxan]

I try to build up a workforce in preparation for steam. Once I hit steam, first comes the strategic railnet, then I rail everything I own. If I'm capturing cities, my empire keeps expanding, and so does their "To Do" list.

 

[Virtual Alex]

Usually at that stage in the game a city can create a worker in 1-2 turns so I don't know how much prep before steam you would need. One worker per city should be plenty to rail your whole empire (in addition to the workers you no doubt already have.) I almost never retires workers. Once they run out of tiles to improve I start building forts all over the place, I like the way the star shaped forts look

But seriously, setting forts on hills and strategic/lux near borders have treated me well in my games.

 

[Aabraxan]

Usually at that stage in the game a city can create a worker in 1-2 turns so I don't know how much prep before steam you would need. One worker per city should be plenty to rail your whole empire (in addition to the workers you no doubt already have.)

Who said anything about creating workers? By the time I get steam, I'm usually much more interested in a slave workforce than building my own workers. Once I get what I feel is a sufficient slave workforce, I begin rejoining own workers to cities. And because slaves cost no upkeep, I want as many as I can lay hand on to rail my lands.

 

[thetrooper]

Slave workers are indeed great but they do in all honesty suck pre-replaceable parts.

 

[Aabraxan]

Individually, yes. However, in large numbers, they're fine.

 

[Sweetchuck]

Individually, yes. However, in large numbers, they're fine.

Yeah, they take twice as long to complete tasks than regular workers, it seems.

My style is such that, at this stage of the game I usually don't have a lot of slave workers - so I have to build them to get the railroads done.


Dumb question, though - I agree that having a crew of somebody elses workers doing the job even though they are not efficient is better because they're basically free - but if you join a foriegn worker to one of your cities, does a certain part of the population now become foriegn (and subject to civil disorder on the "stop the aggression against the mother country" line) if I continue to stay at war with the worker's home country?

 

[Aabraxan]

Well, it doesn't just seem that slave workers are slower - they are. I tend to take lots of slaves, so by the time I get railroads, I usually have a fairly large contingent of them.

As to joining slaves to cities, I know that I've seen that addressed in these forums and I think that joined slaves retain their foreign nationality. However, I've never actually joined a slave to one of my cities, so be wary of taking my word for that.

And it's not a dumb question.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

yes, they do retain their nationality. They will eventually turn into your people, but it's really only safe to use them to join your cities once you have wiped out their civ. Or will be pop rushing

 

[MAS]

If you kill people from an other civ, the civ the people belong to will like you less.

If you join a slave worker to a city, it is counted as killing the worker. (this is probably an error of some sort, but since civ3 won't be patched anymore, we'll have to do with what we have.)

Having non-natives in your city has influence on stuff like culture-flipping, revolt-flipping, unhappiness when being at war with the civ people are native to, and it further reduces the incentive to use the fascism government. (because that government works less well when you have a lot of non-native citizens. Slaves are OK though)

Owning slaves doesn't cost you upkeep, the circumstances where it would benefit you to somehow get rid of them are so rare it isn't worth discussing.

I'd just keep all slaves. They cost nothing, the do something: their efficiency is 100% !

 

[thetrooper]

And if you're playing Maya - never, never, never ever join enslaved workers (barbarian chiefdom) to your cities. You may try, but be sure to save your game first.

 

[Aabraxan]

If you kill people from an other civ, the civ the people belong to will like you less.

If you join a slave worker to a city, it is counted as killing the worker. (this is probably an error of some sort, but since civ3 won't be patched anymore, we'll have to do with what we have.)

And while we're (sort of) on the topic of killing slaves, IIUC, turning them into airbases or colonies also counts as killing them, doesn't it?

 

[Son_Of_Dido]

And if you're playing Maya - never, never, never ever join enslaved workers (barbarian chiefdom) to your cities. You may try, but be sure to save your game first.

Oh man did I learn THAT one the hard way once

 

[aluka]

Can someone explain to me what occurs if one were to do that?

 

[Son_Of_Dido]

They have and retain their Barbarian ethnicity.

Since you cannot negotiate with barbarian cheifdoms, you are always considered to be "at war" with them whenever they pop up, or even after you've dispersed an encampment.

Therefore that merged barbarian is perpetually and permanently "stop the aggression against our mother country!" unhappy.