Road questions

1. If the city-state is close enough, I almost always build the road to them if they ask for it for the influence boost, but then after that, unless they are like between parts of my civ, the roads become useless and just cost money the rest of the game. I think in Civ IV if you connect roads to other cities you get a trade route money increase (?), but I don't think that happens in Civ V, but for these quests my money per turn does seem to increase once I finish. But only for ones with the road quest. I've tried building roads to city-states without the quest or other civ cities and no money increase. So

A) Wouldn't it be good strategy to just build the road to get the influence then tear the unnecessary roads back down again?

B) Or does the game make an exception and roads to city-states that want them give you money per turn from the trade route to the city-state?


2. I could figure this out myself but I haven't been patient enough to pay the right attention to do so yet - The game just says that all roads you build cost the maintenance fee, but does this include roads you build outside your civ boundaries?


3. When you capture a city, do all the roads now inside your civ all the sudden cost you maintenance fees, or are they free since the other civ built them? If they cost, then I think the good strategy is to start tearing down roads you don't need, like to a neighbouring city that you're not capturing.

I've played around with roads a bit. I try to destroy them where ever possible. You can see when you destroy them that your cashflow increases, demonstrating that they were costing you money. So when I build a road to a nearby city-state for a quest, I tear it back down afterwards. Unfortunately, you don't get the road quest again. If you did, I would recommend just dumping one road tile then rebuilding it when the quest comes back up.

I always get rid of unecessary roads in conquered cities unless I plan to use them for further conquest.

Eagle Pursuit said:

I've played around with roads a bit. I try to destroy them where ever possible. You can see when you destroy them that your cashflow increases, demonstrating that they were costing you money. So when I build a road to a nearby city-state for a quest, I tear it back down afterwards. Unfortunately, you don't get the road quest again. If you did, I would recommend just dumping one road tile then rebuilding it when the quest comes back up.

I always get rid of unecessary roads in conquered cities unless I plan to use them for further conquest.

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Roads you don't built do not cost you anything, so what you are doing is helping your rival.

I recall doing the same as Eagle Pursuit and destroying roads in newly conquered lands and watching the changes to my gpt.

If you build a road in your or neutral territory you pay for it. If you take over lands with existing roads, they become yours, including the cost.

Roads to city state: Yes, you can rip out the road to a City State after filling the quest. But because the city state is likely to repeat the quest again if you do that, its often considering gaming the city states quests to do so.

Yup; roads in neutral territory are paid by the one who built it; roads within cultural borders are paid by the owner of the tile.

TheKingOfBigOz said:

Roads you don't built do not cost you anything, so what you are doing is helping your rival.

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Roads in conquered city boundaries definitely do cost maintenance.

joncnunn said:

Yup; roads in neutral territory are paid by the one who built it; roads within cultural borders are paid by the owner of the tile.

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Does this mean that building roads for AI who opened borders to us cost them money? Wouldn't it be a great way to deny them money, by spamming their cities with useless roads?

JockX said:

Does this mean that building roads for AI who opened borders to us cost them money? Wouldn't it be a great way to deny them money, by spamming their cities with useless roads?

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If you want to use this exploit and sure go go. Not that usable anyway.

Personally in the beginning of the game my economy is not that good so I can spare workers to go and build roads elsewhere and in the late game everyone seems to have a pretty good economy (or extremely bad) so it doesn't matter much.

DemonMaster said:

If you want to use this exploit and sure go go. Not that usable anyway.

Personally in the beginning of the game my economy is not that good so I can spare workers to go and build roads elsewhere and in the late game everyone seems to have a pretty good economy (or extremely bad) so it doesn't matter much.

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In addition, the worker itself costs you unit maintance.

Spamming useless roads in AI territory is not a good use of worker turns. Building a road in AI territory from your borders to his nearest city and/or capital is a great idea if you plan to invade any time soon.

JockX said:

Does this mean that building roads for AI who opened borders to us cost them money? Wouldn't it be a great way to deny them money, by spamming their cities with useless roads?

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I use this tactic when I am using a City State Ally's territory as a beachhead for invading another hostile Civ.

Building a bunch of roads in the territory of a City State Ally makes it easier to gather a bunch of units and move them all quickly....and it doesn't cost any gold per turn. Faboo!

Browd said:

Spamming useless roads in AI territory is not a good use of worker turns. Building a road in AI territory from your borders to his nearest city and/or capital is a great idea if you plan to invade any time soon.

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I will frequently do this to facilitate a quick invasion and conversion of assets.