When to build roads

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Walrus Paradise

Chieftain
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Aug 25, 2015
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One of the things I've sort of struggled with is the right time to build roads.

Obviously connecting to your capital is important, but around what turn (Standard) would you start?

I mainly ask because I'm currently in a game where I hooked up 3 of my 4 cities, but while waiting for the trade route to connect I was in the negatives for gold. Seems like they cost a lot.

The road to one of my cities is 8 gpt, while I only get 7 gpt back for the connection. Obviously worth it for the movement speed in the end, but it usually hurts my economy in the short run.
 
It's not something that can be answered with a turn number. It's based on a number of factors. Distance between cities and population determine how worth it they are for gold alone. This means it will grow in time.

I basically get to it when I have all my key tiles developed. I try to aim for cities+1 workers. This allows me to double up on developing the capital as well as to then have a free agent for road building.

If you have even more free time with your workers, what you can do is "pre-build" roads. So if it will take you 3 turns to put a road on a tile, spend 2 turns and then move to the next tile. The road won't be there, so you won't pay for it. Then you can have your workers come back and spend just 1 turn on each tile to hook them up quicker. I wouldn't recommend this approach as standard, but if your gold is that tight, it's a way to deal with it.
 
Indeed, it's not turn number based, but instead based on when the city connection would make enough money to offset the road maintenance.
In addition, it's more important to get unique luxuries than roads.

Always plan the route to minimize total road maintenance of the network.

Also, a city 7 tiles away from its nearest neighbor is rather long for a road before Markets. If it's coastal, a harbor is much better.
 
And remember, it's not just the Calculation of Population to Road length, although that covers the question of net gpt. It's also a question of workers and tiles you need to improve. If I'm a bit slow in my worker production/stealing, I'm particularly slow to start road networks because I need chops, mines, and farms.

Every worker building a road isn't working on hammer or food tiles, and hammers and food are most important.
 
Nick31 said:
Every worker building a road isn't working on hammer or food tiles, and hammers and food are most important.
Click to expand...

Exactly. In my current game (partially published here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgk2rDDrG24&list=PLq46mc4m-emD1CzO-k0mpZqcsC5Wp-U8t ) I get some roads up relatively early on, but I was still expanding. So my workers had more important things to do. Half the roads have were delayed and not built until later, when I could afford the Worker downtime. And that's a Liberty game where city connections also equal happiness.
 
phillipwyllie said:
In my experience the quicker you get connections to your capital, the quicker you make gold. I build roads when most sell-able resources are improved and each city has at least one worker.
Click to expand...

You make gold only if Route Gold > Road cost

Which (as a rule of thumb) is distance to connecting city <= population
 
That is a good question, but like many other posters said there is no set time. My strategy is to have two different types of roads: Connecting roads and Strategic roads. I like to have all cities connected to the capitol by the time the market can be built. With connecting bonuses and market money they are usually paid off. From there I aim for the Wagon Trains policy so they are 50% cheaper so I can build strategic roads with little cost. Strategic roads aim for city states and other civs, with caution of course. But in a war time scenario especially on defense strategic roads help move troops towards the borders helping in defense. Just my strategy, I am very fickle about making sure I can afford them without being in the red.
 
Every citizen in the expand adds roughly 1 gpt to the city connection. Every 6 citizens in the capital add roughly 1 GPT the city connection.

I usually build roads when either they break even, either add at least 1 GPT. So for example, if a city is at pop 4, and capital at pop 7, I will start building a road if the complete road for the city connections is only 5 tiles long.

If I need roads for strategic purposes, like moving troops, I will start building them earlier even if they run negative GPT overall, I'll try to get the money from other sources.
 
well i usually first establish trade route sending food to my new city and once it grow to lets say 5 i start making road toward it... i also tend to make roads toward location w/o city so i can move my army faster (when i prepare for war) but thats if my economy is good. Usually after i can put my capitol into money production
 
Some roads are so long that they do cost more than the trade route pays back. However, with some commerce social policies and future financial buildings, the gold for the trade route eventually starts making sense.
 
Actually, I tend to only build roads for faster troop movement in the Renaissance, unless I go commerce and reduce road maintenance before the Renaissance.
 
I also build roads to the civilization that is at war so by the time the puppet is captured, its new trade route gets built up soon.
 
I try to be efficient with roads, but I find that having a good network means lower unit upkeep because I am able to shift my defenses quickly to manage any threat.
 
I'm playing a game and was reminded of this thread. I think I have a general rule of thumb to put forth, at least for peaceful gameplay. I think a good time to build roads is after you get Universities up. It's still fairly early in the game and now your cities just took 2 citizens off of the land to work the specialist slots. This not only lowers the city growth, but frees up two tiles that were presumably already improved for the next 2 citizens that spawn there. This frees up the Worker improving the tiles of that city to put in some road time. What do you guys think of this approach?
 
Frequently your cities are around 10 pop at university if you do tradition start and it may be pretty late as you're losing out on getting extra gold from city connections. IMO you're free to use your workers for road after getting river farms,lux,strategics improved. If you do liberty start, you will have to connect city for the happiness boost early, even if it wouldn't pay for the road itself.
 
I still remember upgrading from GnK to BNW and learning the hard way that I needed to do roads significantly later. Still before universities I would think.

Generally my worker priories are luxes, strategics, resources, chops, wet farms, roads, then everything else. Later farms still has them online before Civil Service. I am wondering if maybe I should do chops before resources?
 
Getting that road connection earlier is good because you do work necessary before getting your worker to other areas that need them working. Not only that but you could also save them for the time you get units plundering your improvements.
 
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