Road Maintenance Discrepancy

pyhriel

Chieftain
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
8
This one is a somewhat funny AI bug/exploit.

Since you can build roads inside another civs influence if you have open border, you can litter his territory with roads. This cripples his economy and the AI doesn't seem to know how to react to this kind of sabotage.

My test game was at cheiftain level, but I doubt the AI has a mecanism to deal with this issue even if I up the difficulty level.
 
You can also build roads and rail roads that you don't maintain inside the borders of city state allies. I've no idea how it will affect their economies too.
 
This one is a somewhat funny AI bug/exploit.

Since you can build roads inside another civs influence if you have open border, you can litter his territory with roads. This cripples his economy and the AI doesn't seem to know how to react to this kind of sabotage.

My test game was at cheiftain level, but I doubt the AI has a mecanism to deal with this issue even if I up the difficulty level.

I seem to recall from the manual that you're always liable to pay for maintenance on roads that you constructed, regardless of their location. Can you attach a savegame that demonstrates this?
 
Here is a savegame.
I am responsible for the roads of Alexander and Iwatha... the Mongol didn't want to be my friend. You can see I have only 15 commerce worth of road expenses, which are my own trade routes.

It is easy to verify in any game when you conquer a city you become responsible for paying the maintenance on the roads in your influence. Also when my worker builds a road in another civs influence he cannot remove it afterwards, showing that the ownership is not mine, because workers can remove any road tiles that you pay for.

Another easy validation is just to conquer a city and remove the road tiles created by the AI and you'll see your road maintenance cost go down by 1 each time (if you don't have any road maintenance cost bonuses).
 

Attachments

  • Road attack.Civ5Save
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Thanks for providing a save game. I looked at it and there is definitely a discrepancy between what's stated in the manual, the Civilopedia, the tooltip over the ingame Road and Railroad Expenses and what actually takes place in the game. You're paying 15 gold for road expenses. The tooltip says you pay 50% of the normal cost because of the difficulty level. Since you don't have any Railroads, you are paying for 29, 30 or 31 roads (depending on how the game rounds odd numbers). Assuming that you constructed all the Roads in your own territory and that of both Alexander and Iwatha, then there are far more Roads than that. If, on the other hand, you're paying only for Roads in your own territory, then I couldn't make the Road count come out right, but it's close. So the documentation is wrong about you paying maintenance for all roads you construct, but do we have any evidence that the AI is paying maintenance for roads that you construct in their territory? If not, then you may be doing the AI a favor by building Roads for them. I'll confirm the problem, but invite further discussion.

Moderator Action: Moved to the Confirmed Bugs forum.
 
Oh, I didn't know we paid 50% at chieftain level. I shouldn't have made my test on this difficulty level, I just didn't want to have to focus on the actual game while I was testing.
Unfortunately I didn't find a way to make sure the AI actually pays for the road I built but it would be illogical if it didn't because if I get an AI built road in my own influence I know I pay for it (that's why I think some kind of road maintenance overlay in the strategical view, that would show every road tile you pay maintenance for, would be great).

I should verify just to make sure, but from what I observed you seem to pay for every road that is in your influence + every road you build that is not under anyone's influence.

I would find it strange that you pay for every road you build regardless of location because if someone conquered some of your cities and grabbed your roads you would pay the maintenance for them and you could not destroy them.
 
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