Build roads to a "to be" city?

[Remorseless]

I don't start building roads until I've got five or six cities up and going, plus at least one Wonder (Great Wall or Pyramids, usually). Then I'll start building roads between existing cities while founding more cities.
Irrigation and other improvements come after 12-14 cities. That's when I'll have the settler or engineer build a road to a "future city."

 

[CornMaster]

Depends on the kind of game. In an MP game, where there are no rules....I'd probably skip the roads. But any SP game and some MP games, I'll always build roads. Slower start, but much better infrastructure. Better trade, etc...

 

[Ace]

I don't build roads (except for trade) until I have 4-6 cities going. The exception to that is the "free" none settler (on deity level), he goes to work immediately building roads to connect the closest cities.

A road net is mandatory for rapid movement and trade proposes. also, its much faster to build railroads when you already have a road in place. IMHO, a civilization is not really a civilization until it is knitted together with a good road net.

 

[funxus]

I allways use the extra settler to found a city, I like to get as many cities as I can early on. I don't know if I road or not, I think I road to all cities in the center of my empire, but wait with those on the outside. It depends on

 

[Revenant]

I only build roads if i need the trade in the first city and the new city (if there is no river for example ) and only on grasslands with shields.

 

[Old n Slow]

Yeah, I find myself building roads first -- seems like the thought is...while I'm there, I might as well be doing something... Looks like this is a bad habit that I'll need to break sometime -- may be why I'm so slow at this game...

I ususally try to have a road square to work when founded -- I like that extra arrow ASAP.

 

[Dark Ascendant]

Roads are used first in the game to cnnect cities, I don't start building until after I've got a few close cities, then roads for strategic purposes and then for trade.

 

[Marlos]

To echo many of the comments made here, I will build a road to the "to be" city only if there is no special (esp. whales) in the planned city. To have workers in the field without having them generate trade is wasteful.

But there is a tradeoff between quick early expansion and building necessary infrastructure. I find that after building a phalanx for defense I will start to build a settler with the city size still at 1 in anticipation of its growth to '2'. That settler will then build up some infrastructure (roads and irrigation) before moving to a planned site.

Happy is the game where I have four to six NON settlers/engineers building infrastructure constantly.

 

[cliff]

I usually build 4 cities right away without roads (unless there is no specials or rivers nearby in which case I build a road on one shielded grassland tile). The next wave of settlers start to connect the cities with roads and build roads to new city sites. On deity, the riot factor kicks in after 4 cities in despotism IIRC and after 6 cities in Monarchy. This is a good moment to halt your expansion somewhat and prepare for the riot factor by building extra martial law units, temples or the Hanging Gardens. Meanwhile, let your settlers build roads.

 

[covok48]

Building roads first is a good plan for civ I.

But for civII you'll start lagging behind.