Failed City Connections

[BjBasa_Z]

Just about 40 turns into a game on King-level difficulty and everything was going well until I invested a lot of time and money to set up a road between my capital and one of my other cities and the connection didn't work, right at a time where I badly need the extra revenue (all tapped out of diplomatic and tile money, losing science and worried that my units are going to start to disband)

I think it may be because there's a river that separates my cities and I have neither Sailing (I'm playing on Pangea) nor Engineering (bridges) yet. Wondering if this will be fixed after I get Sailing

If anyone's up for taking a look at the game and giving more general advice, then let me know and I'll set up a file

thanks

 

[Browd]

Neither is an issue. Did you double-check that each road segment was actually completed? The graphics can be misleading. Mouse-hover over each tile to confirm that the road segment is completed.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Some possible causes

• One of the road tiles is pillaged (did you go to war recently?)
• An AI you don't have open border with had it's borders grow and absorb one of your roads

Since you "invested a lot of time" i guess the city is quite far away.

 

[vanatteveldt]

If a city is far away it is usually not worth it financially to connect it as each road tiles costs 1 gpt to maintain. From the wiki:

Gold output = (City population * 1.1) + (Capital population * 0.15) - 1

For example, with a capital of 6 citizens,
a city with 4 citizens produces 4.3 gold per turn,
while a city with 5 citizens produces 5.4 gold per turn.

So unless you have quite large cities, more than 5 roads is not really worth it for the income. It can still be very useful for logistic / military reasons, of course.

To troubleshoot your problem, a screenshot would be really nice.

 

[consentient]

Most common cause is the road is in someone else's territory.

 

[Browd]

That includes CS territory unless you are friends with that CS.

 

[BjBasa_Z]

Mystery solved, but problem persists-- it's a CS (M'Banza Kongo) that's blocking my connection. I just built it through their territory and didn't think anything of it. Meanwhile I didn't realize population was a factor in city connection income and I connected the capital to another city (also far away) and was very disappointed at the dismal gold increase (+3 or so) for the connection.

I've got an economic crisis, had to bully a CS to stop the bleeding. Now actually thinking about attacking M'Banza-Congo to both clear the connection and to grab some valuable luxuries and strategic resources. I think it might be the only way. Got to go to work now, but I'll post screenshot when I have the time later.

 

[BjBasa_Z]

OK here's the screenshot below:

- I only have gold because I just bullied it out of Florence down south
- My troops are down south fighting with Catherine after she declared, just picking off lots of Russian troops not trying to take any cities (the only wonder she has is hanging gardens)
- I can take M'Banza Kongo in 8-10 turns and currently I think it's my best option. I can sell the iron, destroy the roundabout road (that will soon connect The Stick to StrongBadia by way of Club TechnoChocolate), save on the maintenance.. focus on happiness population and catching up in science.

also I just made peace with Catherine, because after I attack Kongo I'm really going to piss off Ottomans and Egypt, not too worried about them though militarily

any thoughts on saving my economy? should I demand gold from my only friend Venice or try to keep bullying city states?? My plan is to get that silver online and sell it, and then sell the iron I get when I take over Kongo. Would still like to have some smidge of diplomatic credibility after this is all said and done tho.



IF that screenshot isn't working, here's the url for the image file, if anyone has a best practice for screenshots please share thx:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xyc4xyxo5o4ejkp/Screenshot 2015-02-16 13.01.16.png?dl=0

 

[Erneiz Hyde]

I think you should've probably connected The Stick with Club Technochocolate instead. Saves a lot more maintenance that way.

Only, I don't think it will improve your economy with cities that small