⚠ Availability
Trains and railways are currently only available in single player and private lobbies (v24 experimental feature). Public lobbies have it disabled by default—check your lobby settings.
Three Components
- Factory — Train production source, cost
min(1M, 2^n × 125k). Shares counter with Port. - City — Train stop and "gold settlement point", v24 no longer requires Port prerequisite.
- Railroad — Auto-routes between Factory/City, max 120 tiles, can form loops.
Key Values
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Train speed | 2 tiles / tick |
| Car spacing | 2 tiles |
| Train spawn rate | (numFactories + 10) × 15 ticks |
| Max station distance | 15 ~ 100 tiles |
| Max railway length | 120 tiles |
| Ally city visit revenue | 35,000 gold / station |
| Team city visit revenue | 25,000 gold / station |
| Self city visit revenue | 10,000 gold / station |
| Distance penalty | 5,000 × max(0, citiesVisited − 9), floor 5,000 |
Network Design
- Station placement: Aim for 5-8 Cities + Factories forming an 80-120 tile loop. Adding ally cities to the loop doubles revenue.
- Avoid excessive distance: Single segments over 100 tiles won't connect; use intermediate Cities to bridge.
- Core protection: Captured stations = lost gold flow. Place 1 DefensePost mid-loop.
Train vs Trade Ship vs Base Gold
⌖ Marginal Revenue Comparison (rough)
- Base gold: 100/tick continuous, 1 minute ≈ 60,000 — stable but small.
- Trade ships: One full ship averages 30k-70k per settlement, global 150 ship cap limits scale.
- Train + ally loop: 5-station loop with 3 trains averages 200k+/minute — late-game's biggest income burst.
Practical Tips
- Only build railways with allies: solo loops yield only 10k/station, poor ROI.
- v24 factories auto-generate new railway loops—leave ground space for tracks when planning.
- If opponent cuts your railway, trains stop in place—don't route tracks along borders.