Railroads vs. Roads

[Proteus_MST]

So, aside from the obvious...i.e. the movement rate,
is there any reason to connect your cities with railroads instead of roads?
(with other words, do the traderoutes between cities produce more money, if the cities are connected via railroads instead of roads?)

[pdxsean]

Railroads provide production bonuses to the cities connected, as well as up the maintenance to 2/tile. This is according to the Civi entry for Railroad tech... it doesn't specify what the production bonus is... but looking in a city screen it shows +50%! Wow, really?

[Nikolai]

+50% is very strong, so it is definitely worth it. Too bad it never applies to the capital though, it only applies to cities connected to the capital.

[Dinner]

There are several civs you could adopt which provide various bonuses for cities which are connected (+1 happiness is just one example). Also here is another option which lowers the costs associated with roads & railroads.

[pdxsean]

Too bad it never applies to the capital though, it only applies to cities connected to the capital.

That is a bummer. Who knows how long I'd have gone along happily without knowing that... I would say in this case ignorance was bliss.

[Grandpa Troll]

Just curious, is it worth having a road then for production or still not with the cost to maintain?

[pdxsean]

Just curious, is it worth having a road then for production or still not with the cost to maintain?

If you hover your cursor over your gold on the taskbar, it'll tell you where your gold is coming from and where it's going (in basic terms). You will see your trade route income, this is the money brought in from the road network. You will also see your tile maintenance, this is the cost of the road network. In my current game, with widely spaced cities, I earn 49 and spend 31, so it's a net of +18.

As for railroads, that's a trickier wicket, as the +50% production applies to your base production... and in some cases, it's more costly to increase production than it is worth. I'll be experimenting this game with not connecting my less productive cities... we'll see if it's worthwhile.

[ColdPhoenix]

In my experience (on Prince anyway) the value of a trade route taking the shortest route between two cities produces slightly more gold than it costs and so is a net gain.

It's a more difficult choice with rail and depends on how productive the city is.

[stbabylon]

Railroads let me move units quickly through my empire. I'm willing to pay for that. The rest is just a nice bonus

[Sir Og]

How does railroad production bonus work on continets different from your starting continent?

[ColdPhoenix]

I've heard elsewhere that once you research railroad a sea route acts like a rail route for production bonus. So, as long as both coastal cities have a harbour and one of them is the capital or connected to the capital by rail then they'll get the bonus. Cities on the other continent joined by rail to the coastal city with the bonus will then also get the bonus.

[Sir Og]

I've heard elsewhere that once you research railroad a sea route acts like a rail route for production bonus. So, as long as both coastal cities have a harbour and one of them is the capital or connected to the capital by rail then they'll get the bonus. Cities on the other continent joined by rail to the coastal city with the bonus will then also get the bonus.

Thanks ColdPhoenix!

So it seems that the only city that can't get the bonus is you capitol. (feature or a bug )

[Ferdi]

I've heard elsewhere that once you research railroad a sea route acts like a rail route for production bonus. So, as long as both coastal cities have a harbour and one of them is the capital or connected to the capital by rail then they'll get the bonus. Cities on the other continent joined by rail to the coastal city with the bonus will then also get the bonus.

I understand now why my coastal cities got 50% without any rail connection!

[Orange46]

As for trade routes, they produce more gold as the connected city grows. In my 2nd game, I connected too early and the trade routes gave back less than the roads cost, but that soon changed.

I love the help they give you on building roads. My worker just finished building on a luxury resource, and the helpful hint was to build a road to connect the resource to my trade network. They must have ported that module over directly from IV. Since that tile was also on the shortest route to the next unconnected city, perhaps the hint meant to say something about setting up a trade route.

In the end game, I find myself building roads and railroads to transport troops, but in most other times, I find money to be scarce enough that I destroy captured roads (and workers) for the savings or cash they represent.

So, does anyone enjoy the RR worker Conga line. At least thats how it seems to me when there's a line of workers buiding and the music is right.

[Jaybe]

Also note that (according to my experience, not what we were told) route hexes that are not in your borders you do NOT pay maintenance on. So build them so they don't cost so much, at least until your borders expand.