Road ownership: what determines it?

wobuffet

wobuffet

Barbarian
Joined
Jun 27, 2011
Messages
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I'm not clear on who "owns" roads (i.e., which Civ pays for them and is able to destroy them with Workers) in a few scenarios:

1. I build a road in an unclaimed/neutral tile which another Civ later takes over.
2. I take over another Civ's city. Its land has several roads in it.
3. I build a road in a City-State to fulfill a road quest, and then I lose Friendly status or they are taken over.
(and feel free to explicate any other odd cases I can't think of right now.)

I know Open Borders with a neighboring Civ allows you to make Trade Routes through roads in their territory in certain circumstances, but I'm not super sure on the details.
 
The road and maintenance belongs to whoever owns the tile. If no one owns the tile, then no one pays maintenance.
 
DaveMcW said:
Someone always pays maintenence. The civ that owns it, or the builder in neutral land.
Click to expand...
Yep, it keeps track of who built it. For example, if you capture a city and raze it, you pain maintenance on nearby roads during the razing, but once the city is gone the original owner pays the maintenance.

Doesn't quite make sense from either a realism or fairness perspective, but at least the rule is nice and simple.

Not sure about city-states... my guess is they pay the maintenance as soon as you build it, and then whoever controls the territory pays it. City-state borders can interrupt a trade route, so it seems they are certainly considered to own the road.
 
pirsq said:
Yep, it keeps track of who built it. For example, if you capture a city and raze it, you pain maintenance on nearby roads during the razing, but once the city is gone the original owner pays the maintenance.
Click to expand...

I'm fairly sure, pre-patch, that you had to pay maintenance on these phantom roads from razed cities. Was this another stealth change?
 
I have often filled up most tiles of Friendly city states in good locations with roads because they were free. In my last game I was questioning if I was actually paying the maintenance on those roads or not, now I'm questioning that even further.

It would be nice if there were some way I could look at a tile with a road on it and see who's paying the maintenance for the road.
 
Well, I'm not sure why you are not charged for that road in your screenshot, but I'm being charged for the road that I am currently building (see attached screenshot).

Maybe because your road is not connected to a city of yours? I'm not really a fan of the new road maintenance with civ5, and this whole mess isn't really helping there ;)
 

Attachments

  • maintenance.jpg
    maintenance.jpg
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Thanks for the link, TW_Honorius. I might do some testing later to see exactly what's up with this... it's clearly not a simple question to answer, unfortunately.
 
Whoa, wait. Roads are supposed to always cost maintenance but they don't just now because of a bug?

I thought it only cost with in borders so I would route the stupid things out of the way just to keep the bulk of it outside the borders..

Jeez...
 
blasto said:
Whoa, wait. Roads are supposed to always cost maintenance but they don't just now because of a bug?

I thought it only cost with in borders so I would route the stupid things out of the way just to keep the bulk of it outside the borders..

Jeez...
Click to expand...

Roads cost the builder regardless if they're in your boarders or not. They just cost less on lower difficulties. If your boarders take over a road that someone else owns you now own it and pay the maintenance. The only thing I'm not sure of is if I build a road in a city state boarder do I pay maintenance. I will run some experiments and find out soon.
 
I ran some experiments last night and was able to confirm that I do not pay maintenance for roads built inside a city states boarders. I was on King (trying to wrap up my win as each leader achievement) so all roads cost 1 GPT. I do not know if the CS pays maintenance on the road (I would assume it does).

If you want the CS to have cash for upgrades I wouldn't build too many roads in their boarders, but you can build all the roads you want in a CS boarders for free (at least to you).
 
I always full railroad up all my CS border states with a worker. Saves a couple turns a game.
 
From how I understand it, it follows two simple rules:

1. The civilization who has the road inside their borders pay for it.
2. The civilization who built the road pays for it.

That's very simple if it's the same civilization for both, or if only the latter applies. The confusion is when there are different civilizations for the two, in which case rule #1 takes precedence. So when you conquer a city, you'll pay for the roads within that city's borders, even though someone else built those roads, but for the roads outside the borders the civilization who built them will pay, since only rule #2 applies for roads in neutral territory.

In even simpler terms: The civilization who has the road within their borders pay for it, and if none have it within their borders, the civilization who built it pays for it.

As far as I know, this is consistent, with the exception of possible bugs.
 
potatosalad said:
From how I understand it, it follows two simple rules:

1. The civilization who has the road inside their borders pay for it.
2. The civilization who built the road pays for it.

That's very simple if it's the same civilization for both, or if only the latter applies. The confusion is when there are different civilizations for the two, in which case rule #1 takes precedence. So when you conquer a city, you'll pay for the roads within that city's borders, even though someone else built those roads, but for the roads outside the borders the civilization who built them will pay, since only rule #2 applies for roads in neutral territory.

In even simpler terms: The civilization who has the road within their borders pay for it, and if none have it within their borders, the civilization who built it pays for it.

As far as I know, this is consistent, with the exception of possible bugs.
Click to expand...

That's correct as far as I understand it as well. What I don't know yet, maybe you do, is who pays for a road if those conditions change. But does previous ownership mean anything?

1. Lets say I take over a city that has some roads. I know when I take the city I will pay for those roads, but I didn't build them. What happens if I burn the city. The roads will no longer in my boarders. I did have them in my boarders at one point, but I didn't build them. I'm assuming the maintenance goes back to the person who built them, but I'm not sure.

2. Also if they do go back to the person who built them what happens if I eliminate that person from the game? Does the maintenance go back to me or does nobody pay maintenance on them?
 
WeaselSlapper said:
That's correct as far as I understand it as well. What I don't know yet, maybe you do, is who pays for a road if those conditions change. But does previous ownership mean anything?

1. Lets say I take over a city that has some roads. I know when I take the city I will pay for those roads, but I didn't build them. What happens if I burn the city. The roads will no longer in my boarders. I did have them in my boarders at one point, but I didn't build them. I'm assuming the maintenance goes back to the person who built them, but I'm not sure.

2. Also if they do go back to the person who built them what happens if I eliminate that person from the game? Does the maintenance go back to me or does nobody pay maintenance on them?
Click to expand...
If the rules I suggested are consistent, it doesn't make a difference whether you once owned them, just whether you currently own them or whether you once built them. So for the first scenario, they would go back, and for the second, no one would pay for them.

But that is only me assuming that the rules are consistent. It would require testing, which I'm not capable of doing right now. I would be grateful if someone else could check for me.
 
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