Suho1004
Warlord
Mythical, unseen, small peoples... so, the roads are maintained by fairies? Works for me.
Use of Roads in Hostile Territory
- Thread starter ottocrat
- Start date
Mythical, unseen, small peoples... so, the roads are maintained by fairies? Works for me.
The same thought process (regarding the Village People
) applies even within your own culture. In almost all cases any road you build will end-up within your culture eventually so making you pay for it from day one makes sense.I am somewhat unsure whether I'd prefer to have roads affect movement and thus I can live with either option; though the specific mechanics are imporant since a multiplier like in Civ4 is too powerful given the increased base movement. Negating negative effects is probably the best option - though how those apply to movement is unclear in its own right.
Can Azazell chime in? Did he build any roads to City states or to connect cities?
I don't see how you can only be charged for a road inside one of your city's cultural sphere... seems pretty obvious that without culture bumps and with no distance maitenance costs, you could build a city a long way away. And Greg talked about road cost being an impediment to spreading out.
Either the initial construction cost is high, or the maintenance cost is high; other wie the incentive is to build huge networks of roads in neutral territory. And the realism factor, in addition to the gameplay factor, would seem low if the peasants in neutral lands were maintaining roads.
I don't see how you can only be charged for a road inside one of your city's cultural sphere... seems pretty obvious that without culture bumps and with no distance maitenance costs, you could build a city a long way away. And Greg talked about road cost being an impediment to spreading out.
Either the initial construction cost is high, or the maintenance cost is high; other wie the incentive is to build huge networks of roads in neutral territory. And the realism factor, in addition to the gameplay factor, would seem low if the peasants in neutral lands were maintaining roads.
Yes, the same Road Fairies that maintained roads from Civ I-IV.Mythical, unseen, small peoples... so, the roads are maintained by fairies? Works for me.
Thyrwyn
Guardian at the Gate
RE: graphics:
I would guess that the screenshot of the French Empire was either on a dx9 PC or one with integrated graphics. You can tell by the cloud and water effects. Any of the of the other graphical glitches (lack of city markers) can probably be attributed to their system, as well.
Don't know what's up with the cheatcc pic - their system must have been really bad.
I would guess that the screenshot of the French Empire was either on a dx9 PC or one with integrated graphics. You can tell by the cloud and water effects. Any of the of the other graphical glitches (lack of city markers) can probably be attributed to their system, as well.
Don't know what's up with the cheatcc pic - their system must have been really bad.
Ahriman
Tyrant
I think there are enough penalties for building cities a long way away (much harder to defend, for example) without needing to penalize you extra for maintaining a road to it.
Remember that in previous civs, more distant (or foreign continent) cities would have more valuable trade routes, representing that trade was more profitable with distant locations, because they traded relatively more exotic goods (cities further apart are more likely to have different endowments and produce different goods, and so have more scope for trade).
Yes, IRL further away means less trade because transport costs are higher, but this isn't much fun as a mechanic.
Remember that in previous civs, more distant (or foreign continent) cities would have more valuable trade routes, representing that trade was more profitable with distant locations, because they traded relatively more exotic goods (cities further apart are more likely to have different endowments and produce different goods, and so have more scope for trade).
Yes, IRL further away means less trade because transport costs are higher, but this isn't much fun as a mechanic.
OK, but since you ARE penalized if that road traverses owned tiles the question becomes why should running it through neutral territory be treated differently?
M
Me,myself,and,I
Guest
Roads? Where were going we wont need roads...
Oh wait, never mind.
I think that you should still have to pay maintenance for roads you build in neutral territory, after all it is in your civ's interest to maintain the roads.
stealth_nsk
Deity
If their means of calculating road maintenance requires ANY micromanagement at all I'd be extremely suprised. I outline (in post #19) a very straightforward mechanic to handle road maintenance - that incldues neutral territory roads, and I came up with it in about 10 minutes of thinking and don't have the same experience Firaxis has at programming Civ games.
May I politely suggest you think hard about questioning matters of programming efficiency and capabilities if you have never actually done programming before. Saying something is difficult is cheap since you have no need to provide proof/support for your statement. Provide your best possible algorithm (for anything) and say why it is not practical if you really want to make your opinion contribute something meaningful.
Tarkhan
King
Regardless of programming involvement, I don't want the AI to be able to build kilometers of roads over my land and be stuck footing the maintenance bill. But I also don't think you should have to pay for roads in enemy territory that you're obviously not maintaining.
:/
:/
I seriously doubt you can build a road in enemy territory. If you claim neutral roads then it is likely you'd want them anyway and you've been saved the expense of building them yourself.
Depending on pillage mechanics you could either pillage the neutral roads before you settle OR, for anything with (or even without) maintenance, you should have the option to demolish/disband it if it is in your territory - even if it takes worker actions to accomplish.
Depending on pillage mechanics you could either pillage the neutral roads before you settle OR, for anything with (or even without) maintenance, you should have the option to demolish/disband it if it is in your territory - even if it takes worker actions to accomplish.
Olleus
Deity
Your system doesn't work unless every single road has a flag saying who its owner is. If I build a road in neutral territory, and Civ B also builds a road in neutral territory. Our road ownership tally is both 1. Later, my border expands and captures one of the roads. This means that my road tally is 2 and B's is 1, but the game has to know who built the original road in order for either me or B to have 1 taken away from the tally. This means that it is not enough to have a single int variable per civ, but you need an owner tag per tile.
That makes programming it more time consuming and makes the whole thing very obscure for the player who will wonder why he pays more in road upkeeps than he has roads without a clear explanation.
stealth_nsk
Deity
Surely you could suggest that, while I have been programming for 18 years (12 years commercially)
The problem here is not related to programming in any aspect - it's purely gameplay issue. And as of gameplay - there's simple example. Let's say we have 2 cities, connected by road. 3 tiles of this road flow through neutral territory. Let's assume these tiles are maintained by the cities owner. Now, one of the cities gets conquered by another civ. Who now supports the neutral road and how many tiles?
Yes, a single "current owner" flag - on each road - for whomever was the last to take ownership of the road. Initially the builder owns the road (can only be built in owned or neutral territory). If ownership changes whoever in tagged as "current owner" has their road maintenance pool reduced by 1 and the new owner has theirs increased by 1 - and the road now is tagged as owned by the new owner. If a road goes "unowned" (i.e., was owned but the city was razed or captured and the road is now neutral) then ONLY IN THAT CASE no-one pays maintenance. As soon as the road is recaptured the new owner pays for it.
@stealth - I see your point now in respect to how the mechanic can result in somewhat unrealistic or unfair maintenance situations but then the question is whether your scenario is common enough to warrant a special cases for road maintenance in neutral territory. I think it is rare enough that - aside from "disowned" neutrals - anyone who builds a road in neutral territory should be stuck paying for it as long as it is never owned. If you really want to stop paying you need to destroy the road.
With a tag added to each road (inexpensive to accomplish) you "could" just add a "owner layer" to - say - a "trade route" view to check which roads are tagged as yours and then look to see which are in neutral territory and should be pillaged/destroyed.
@stealth - I see your point now in respect to how the mechanic can result in somewhat unrealistic or unfair maintenance situations but then the question is whether your scenario is common enough to warrant a special cases for road maintenance in neutral territory. I think it is rare enough that - aside from "disowned" neutrals - anyone who builds a road in neutral territory should be stuck paying for it as long as it is never owned. If you really want to stop paying you need to destroy the road.
With a tag added to each road (inexpensive to accomplish) you "could" just add a "owner layer" to - say - a "trade route" view to check which roads are tagged as yours and then look to see which are in neutral territory and should be pillaged/destroyed.
stealth_nsk
Deity
That's what I call micromanagement hell
There were unpredictable increases and decreases in income, once someone claims other's road. There will be situations there you don't want to own a tile (if it contains a road you use, but not pay for currently), etc.
A lot of complexity for no gameplay or even realism reasons.
Any system without such a pool/flag is going to have issues since it is undesirable to look at every controlled tile, and check if there is a road, every turn. So somehow only specific events (gain or loss ownership of a tile) should impact the calculation and thus knowning, for each road, in which pool it is currently being counted, is necessary.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Precisely. Much easier to ignore direct ownership of improvements, and just have "ownership" mean within cultural borders.
That's what I call micromanagement hell
There were unpredictable increases and decreases in income, once someone claims other's road. There will be situations there you don't want to own a tile (if it contains a road you use, but not pay for currently), etc.
A lot of complexity for no gameplay or even realism reasons.
Yeah, I'm going to NOT grab a tile (and forgo the food/production) because I would have to start paying for a road I find useful anyway.
Plus I'd be leaving it open for the opponent to traverse.Maybe, but personally I would just mostly ignore specific roads and just deal with whatever maintenance is shown.
I really do get the whole "I would choose not to maintain that road now that I lost my other city" but you probably would still find it of strategic use when you go to reclaim the city. Trade routes are not the only reason to build roads.
I'd program in maintenance as described and only if I felt that it really through off game balance would I make every neutral road have "no owner" and thus no-one paying for it. When the road was built in neutral territory it had value to the builder and thus should be paid for/maintained. I thin that in more cases it will be part of someones culture rather than being made irrelevant - in which case you WOULD be paying for it AND if you then lost it would it go "no owner" (a more common situation in my experience).
stealth_nsk
Deity
Look at this from the following angle - if you build a road in a neutral territory it already have a cost. If anyone will declare you a war, you can be sure - he/she already have a unit blocking this road. I'd not risk like that building roads over neutral tiles for 1-2 additional gold. Not saying what once your city grow, these sideways will cost you more than direct roads.
So I'd say there are no exploits here, neutral roads could be unmaintained.
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