What do railroads do?

[couerdelion]

I haven't been able to find any details of this improvement in the civilopedia or booklet. I do remember something about there being no bonus for workshop tiles so I wanted to understand what they add.

[Nacht]

They add one hammer to squares with either a mine or a lumbermill.

[axisworks]

And they increase the distance you can move a unit per turn considerably.

[Fallenhero]

Railroads really come in handy if you're a builder and have a tech edge but are behind in units. You can race your artillery to the trouble spots and decimate the AI's big stacks.

I usually set some of my workers on trade net auto pilot while others work to develope my important production cities and lay track to likely invasion areas.

[axisworks]

and lay track to likely invasion areas

I love doing that as soon as I get cannons.

Adversary: "Oh, that's nice, he's building a road to the country near my capital"

Adversary: "Oh ****, those troops are moving quickly..."

[Swiss Pauli]

Railroads tip the balance firmly back to the defender.

If attack-minded, I try a 'last hurrah' assault on a land-border AI before track gets layed, whilst researching another path (Assembly line or Artillery).

If I'm worried about an AI attacking, I'll go for the railroad-combustion route to improve my defensive capabilities then swing round to (potential) offence with transports and destroyers.

[samspock]

It lets me play more like I used to on CIV 3, zone defense. If I have railroads spammed everywhere then I don't need to have strong defenses in every city. Some rapid responders will do nicely. It only gives you 10 squares movement (20 for 2 tile movers) rather than unlimited so I do have to keep a few more units local.

By the time I get railroad I have pretty much developed everything so I set all my workers to auto trade network so they do the tedious stuff of railrod building with my help.