Railroads?

[NFIH]

When can these be built?

In my current game, I researched railroads but the option to build them wasn't available to my workers. There don't appear to be any other listed prerequisites for railroads either.

Now several turns later I see that some of my workers have the option to build railroads and others do not. I can't determine any rhyme or reason why this is.

What gives?

[Petek]

You need coal to build railroads. Does that help?

Petek

[NFIH]

Originally posted by Petek
You need coal to build railroads. Does that help?

Petek

I have two coal deposits, both developed, so that can't be it. (Also, is this prerequisite's omission from the tool tips/description just an error on Firaxis' part?)

[Petek]

Can you post a save file that illustrates the problem?

Petek

[snoopy369]

My suspicion would be that some of your workers have access to coal and some do not. IIRC, you need to be on a tile that is either connected or one away from a connection to coal to build a railroad.

[NFIH]

Originally posted by snoopy369
My suspicion would be that some of your workers have access to coal and some do not. IIRC, you need to be on a tile that is either connected or one away from a connection to coal to build a railroad.

Hmm, I don't understand that since that would mean the vast majority of cities couldn't build railroads. In any case, I think the fault is mine--it looks like the icon for railroads simply doesn't show up and the regular road icon is all that shows. So I could build railroads all along! Seems to me like the way the UI and the icons work in this respect should be revisited by the designers. Sorry for the fuss.

[Diadem]

Ehm, roads and railroads have different icons. And you can still build ordinary roads even after you've researched Railroads.

You are familiar with the concept of trade networks NFIH? Well your workers need to be on a trade network that has access to coal. So if you have several cities far away that aren't connected to the rest of your cities, you'll not be able to build railroads there, while you can build them in the rest of your empire.

[NFIH]

Originally posted by Diadem
Ehm, roads and railroads have different icons. And you can still build ordinary roads even after you've researched Railroads.

You are familiar with the concept of trade networks NFIH? Well your workers need to be on a trade network that has access to coal. So if you have several cities far away that aren't connected to the rest of your cities, you'll not be able to build railroads there, while you can build them in the rest of your empire.

This is quite late in the game. All my cities are already connected by roads. And how can you build regular roads once you've already researched railroads?

[Jaybe]

You can build roads after you have rail capability any time you want by using the build-road icon (pressing "R" key will give you rail). If I am in a hurry (like I might be in enemy territory/marathon game), it can shave off 1-2 turns (or even more in some mods)/

[Shogun Gunner]

I'm not fond of how the workers - when set to auto - will just railroad my entire country... no discretion! It brings a bit of the micromanagement back to the game.

[Blaupanzer]

You need access to coal and iron at the point where you want to build rails. I have to agree with Shogun Gunner that thw workers' tendencies are to rail every tile inside my cultural borders, with no priority. Even if I will let them go eventually, I want rails to connect all my cities to each other and to the capitol. I also want those tiles that will benefit from rails (mines, lumbermills, quarries, etc.) to get them prior to general tiles. Thus I do a bit of micromanagement in the early period. I usually use sets of workers to implement this initial layout, as they don't have a lot else to do unless I am repaving a newly conquered city-state.