OCC roads

Does anybody build roads in an OCC game?

I have just built a short road to a nearby CS who requested it, so that I could get the boost, but was it worth it?

Are they worth it, to get your units about more quickly, to make connections with CS as above, or is it just unnecessary use of worker and unnecessary maintenance costs, any views please.

Even defensive mobilization isn't very useful on OCC, because your land is all so compact anyway, but in some extreme situations a small efficient road network for defensive mobilization can be worth it.

Once you build the road to the CS and trigger the quest, you can dismantle the road to save the gpt maintenance cost. You can think of the road as a worker turns/gpt investment in the benefits that come with the CS quest, but there's no need to continue the gpt investment after you've completed the quest.

Every map is different, of course, but I would not see much defensive value in a 5 or 6 segment road from your capital to a nearby CS. I would scrap the road as soon as the quest triggers.

If you are into ultra-micromanagement (and who isn't? ), you can have your worker finish all but one turn of each road segment and then finish the road in a quick sequence of one-turn builds -- that minimizes your gpt investment, since each completed road segment costs you gpt from the moment it is completed, but has no gpt cost if it is only partially built. (I confess I haven't the patience for this, but it can save some gpt, if that matters to you.)

Browd said:

If you are into ultra-micromanagement (and who isn't? ), you can have your worker finish all but one turn of each road segment and then finish the road in a quick sequence of one-turn builds -- that minimizes your gpt investment, since each completed road segment costs you gpt from the moment it is completed, but has no gpt cost if it is only partially built. (I confess I haven't the patience for this, but it can save some gpt, if that matters to you.)

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This is absolutely crucial in liberty play without pyramids, it saves an overwhelming amount of gold at a very important point in the game. In OCC tradition play, however, obviously one is not going to go liberty. But if building a road to a CS it might be difficult depending on how far the CS is from your cap, considering enemy units (or foreign units in general) may stand on the partway finished road at a crucial time, or an AI may even place a city controlling the area, etc etc. Not that it's necessarily likely but very possible and likewise probably quite annoying.
I don't have a lot of experience with this brand of quest, normally I keep myself in the realms of wonder building, camp clearing, etc. But as to building roads, it can be very important in some wartime situations to "road up" in a non-OCC game, when you need to protect a lower-production area. However as your capital is the only city to protect, I expect it would be rather easier to simply spam units and put them on crucial hills and so on. So roads are probably not something that should be built very much, and in the situation of the CS quest I'd say dismantle the regions in your territory or in neutral territory immediately after the quest is done.

I'm not sure how "efficient" in terms of worker gold maintenance but I tend to do it anyways. If I have worker(s) leftover after I have improved virtually every tile in my territory, instead of deleting the worker I will build roads in CS territory, especially those that are my allies.

It can help transport your units to foreign lands if you want to harass/pillage your neighbors.

sure, in enemy lands Mobility near the border is very useful for invading armies!

It clearly depends on what other tasks you have to do for your workers. If they dont have more anything important to do, go for it ! (and thanks for the suggestion, i think i have that quest too

It also matters what trait the CS is. If it were a cultural one, i would have already built the road.
But i suppose its probably a mercantile one thus rather useless for now.
Still, it never hurts to have friends, and some of the influence might remain by the time it gets useful trough the 3th patronage. Also depends if you have any influence already, if you do, getting another 40 now is probably worth 500 gold later in the game. If you dont, its only worthy if you happen to complete another quest in the near future.

And with that info, you can decide how much of a priority to give it compared to other tasks your workers have to do. (probably not enough to overcome the priority of farming tiles that you will be using in the near future)

If I have rough terrain and lots of rivers, I'll build little 1 and 2 tile roads out from my capital so my units can get to and from the city faster. But it's not a really high priority.

Often I make some bridges, or have a three tile road leading through some hills, but those are only if I fear an invasion from multiple sides and need the ability to relocate my armies across rough terrain.

Thank you for your contributions. In this instance the road has been built, influence gained, and road scrapped. Workers were at a loose end anyway. The maintenance costs for the period the road was in place would not have been as high as the gift price. (or maybe they are higher - see below)

Interestingly, whilst I can build road for the CS, I cannot scrap the road in their territory, so I have to wonder, who's paying the maintenance on it?

The CS pays for roads in its territory...and you can only remove roads that YOU are paying maintenance for.

Crus8r

I'm never sure about roads in neutral territory. Does the builder pay for them, or does nobody pay for them? (at least until cultural borders overtake them) I know you can't remove them.

I had a game once where I built a road all the way across the map to link up my cities and two CS's in between, and I don't think I paid any maintenance. That was a long time ago.

Builder pays for them. On that long road, you paid the maintenance, but may not have noticed it as your maintenance cost would increase by 1 gpt every time you completed a road segment. If you had 2 workers building that road, and it took an average of 4 turns per road segment (1 turn to move and 3 turns to build), your gpt would rise 1 gpt every couple of turns, which might be nearly unnoticeable.

Since that road also connected many of your cities along the way, you would also have seen your city connection income rise as various portions of the road were completed, further obscuring the cost of that road.

i remember an OCC community game of the month where my roads saved me quite a lot. Not because i could send troops faster but because i could retreat them faster and save them from a superior force. It allowed a nice effective rotation among my army.

So i would recommand, especially if there's a river or any other natural barrier.

And OCC, you hardly have gold issues so why not have some roads to allow for faster worker movement toward new resources etc..

It depends on my terrain I guess but usually I like to build a road in each direction out of my city. If I've got a lot of flat terrain and not many forests or anything I'll just use Cav to defend my lands instead.