Can my troops use roads on enemy territory?

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

When in war with a civilization, can my troops use roads on that civ's territory? What about roads in neutral territory? Thank you in advance

 

[Morgawr]

Strangely they can.. Didn't use to be the case in civ 5. Not sure whether it's intentional or oversight

 

[Lynnes]

I hope it is intentional, since I never understood why units wouldn't use enemy roads in Civ5!
Like

Enemy Soldier 1: "Hey look, there's a road! Can't we go just there?"
Enemy Soldier 2: "Nah, let's keep trying to move these tanks through sand and mud. Maybe the engines break down and we'll get the rest of the day off."

 

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

Strangely they can.. Didn't use to be the case in civ 5. Not sure whether it's intentional or oversight

An interesting change.

 

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

I hope it is intentional, since I never understood why units wouldn't use enemy roads!
Like

Enemy Soldier 1: "Hey look, there's a road! Can't we go just there?"
Enemy Soldier 2: "Nah, let's keep trying to move these tanks through sand and mud. Maybe the engines break down and we'll get the rest of the day off."

I think that it is more likely to be intentional. And the usage of enemy roads makes sense. Why not?

 

[Morgawr]

I think civ5 design was that way to favor game mechanics (make it tougher to conquer enemies) vs realism.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

As if AI combat wasn't easy enough, you can send your road to an enemy destination some turns before you march your army towards it.

 

[joncnunn]

You can use enemy roads. However, it isn't entirely clear what speed bonus they get from it. I believe what matters is not the era of the civilization moving units on the road, or the era of the civilization which owns the road, but the era of the civ who owns the trade routes that made that road. I haven't figured out what happens if several trade routes overlap.

Eitherway, it is a little confusing - specially as the UI blatantly lies when it comes to how far a unit can move.


As for being deliberate, who can say? It is however rather bad for gameplay, it makes late game wars even more ridiculously easy that before. 3 Cities per turn is easy to do if your borders are wide enough.

Based on Quill's Let's Play as Poland videos; looks like the road type; which since he was on Deity meant that the segment of the road in Indian territory was faster than the segment within his own territory. Looks like he retained that speed bonus in that area even after capturing the Petra city. To me it looks like this effect saved Quill one turn capturing it, which will snowball.
Even before then it was known that while when you upgrade eras the roads within your territory get auto-upgraded immediately the ones you built in neutral territory stayed the same until the next one of your trade units goes by.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

I think that it is more likely to be intentional. And the usage of enemy roads makes sense. Why not?

It was a rule based upon the abstraction that moving through hostile territory is slower because of opposition at a granularity not represented explicitly on the Civilisation map.
Guard posts, fortifications, patrols, emplacements, etc; static defences that are by themselves inconsequential to an advancing army, but which inhibit a unit (army) from moving at its full march capacity.

Obviously it also provided a vital gameplay balance purpose too.

Doesn't surprise me that the well considered reasoning & balance from past games was simply thrown out in civ6; Firaxis lost its good designers long ago.