Iroquois forest road mechanics

According to this pic, shouldn't there be a trade route with Osininka? If not, why not? What am I missing? I thought the road+forest created a trade route

Only forest tiles in "friendly territory" count as a road for the Iroquois. That means the forest tiles need to be inside your culture borders, or inside the culture borders of a civ with which you have an open borders treaty or a city-state you are at least friends with.

On this pic, you would have to buy 3 forest tiles to get a city connection/trade route between Onondaga and Osininka.

It may also be worth pointing out just how many holes there are in the Iroquois UA:
1. As mentioned above, the forest tiles must be in your culture borders.
2. If your goal is not just trade connectivity, but you also want to give your troops the mobility between your cities (for defensive flexibility, or to be able to quickly bring fresh troops to the front), then you have to build your roads into the first forest tile. Otherwise, you'll expend the full 1 movement (not 1/2 or 1/3) to go from your road into the forest and vice versa.
3. The UA does nothing to connect railroads, either for the added mobility of units on railroads, or for the 25% production bonus.

In effect, you're going to have to build almost all of the roads (and definitely all of the railroads) anyway. It all adds up to the Iroquois UA being one of the worst in the game.

fyar said:

3. The UA does nothing to connect railroads, either for the added mobility of units on railroads, or for the 25% production bonus.

In effect, you're going to have to build almost all of the roads (and definitely all of the railroads) anyway. It all adds up to the Iroquois UA being one of the worst in the game.

Click to expand...

Incorrect.

I just finished a game with Iroquois and was getting railroad bonus without having to build RR's on top of the forest.

I was playing with Acken's mod, but I don't think he's done anything with the Iroquois yet, so I doubt that's the cause.

Yeah this seems to really weaken them. I was excited to give this a shot, but not so much now. If the trees are supposed to act as roads In terms of trade then borders shouldn't matter since they don't matter with roads.

Chum said:

Incorrect.

I just finished a game with Iroquois and was getting railroad bonus without having to build RR's on top of the forest.

I was playing with Acken's mod, but I don't think he's done anything with the Iroquois yet, so I doubt that's the cause.

Click to expand...

Hmm... maybe it was patched in as a fix (I haven't played as Iroquois in a year or two), or maybe I had other holes in where I built my railroads in that game, or maybe I just didn't see the 25% bonus. My guess is the first case, because I vaguely recall someone else on this forum saying the same. But I definitely could've just made a simple mistake.

In any case, there are enough other holes in their UA (not to mention their terrible UB).

It's a very fickle UA: if you are lucky it can be a good early game bonus but I'm not usually that lucky when I roll Iroquois and I usually end up building roads like normal with maybe an occasional savings. I remember how disappointed I was the first time I played them.

I've always thought their UU should get bonus movement in forests to help make up for movement penalty a bit.

I love the Iroquois.