Civ6 : Dislike : Roads don't improve movement

Naokaukodem

Millenary King
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Aug 8, 2003
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Or only marginally in later eras, not considering the rough terrain bypassing, which I see more or less marginal for now.

If roads would dramatically improve movement, then one would consider more strongly to set up internal trade routes and change them often. But then, they would prompt too rarely to my taste.

Roads were very important strategically in previous civs, that's why we could build them on the fly with workers. Now that they are not that so important, they are done by marginal traders. A good way to reinforce the role of trade ? Maybe, but not when the benefits of roads are so marginal themselves.

How you guys see how roads should behave, and how would you set their system up ?
 
I guess I have to disagree all around. For starters, internal trade routes are so powerful that I rarely see any incentive to send foreign trade routes. Further, roads can dramatically improve internal logistics: moving builders around, especially in the early game where you're probably building them rather than buying them in the city you need them, is time-consuming without roads. Especially if you start in an area with lots of trees, hills, marshes, rivers, or other movement-blocking terrain. By the time you get to industrial roads, you can easily move a unit from one side of an average-sized empire to the other in a single turn.
 
For starters, internal trade routes are so powerful that I rarely see any incentive to send foreign trade routes.

yeah, for starters internal trade routes are so amazing, 1 food and 1 prod. :sarcastic:

By the time you get to industrial roads, you can easily move a unit from one side of an average-sized empire to the other in a single turn.

Huh what ?
 
yeah, for starters internal trade routes are so amazing, 1 food and 1 prod. :sarcastic:
Clearly you've never used them then. Assuming you actually have a properly developed capital, new cities can easily be receiving +5 :c5production: and +3-4 :c5food: from internal trade routes. For a freshly founded city, that bonus is huge. What's more, it also allows you to found cities in marginal locations (in deserts or tundra, for example) to claim a strategic location or acquire resources; I've frequently had cities that grow steadily but would begin shrinking immediately without the food from trade routes. Throw in the Triangular Trade policy, and you are now also earning gold and faith from those internal trade routes. The small amount of gold and diplomatic bonuses you get from external trade routes just can't compete in value with the food and production from internal routes.
 
Clearly you've never used them then. Assuming you actually have a properly developed capital, new cities can easily be receiving +5 :c5production: and +3-4 :c5food: from internal trade routes. For a freshly founded city, that bonus is huge. What's more, it also allows you to found cities in marginal locations (in deserts or tundra, for example) to claim a strategic location or acquire resources; I've frequently had cities that grow steadily but would begin shrinking immediately without the food from trade routes. Throw in the Triangular Trade policy, and you are now also earning gold and faith from those internal trade routes. The small amount of gold and diplomatic bonuses you get from external trade routes just can't compete in value with the food and production from internal routes.

Yeah, internal trade routes are way too strong as it is now. If they changed Triangular Trade to only impact foreign trade routes, that might balance it a bit. But for example in my current game, i haven't seriously considered using an international trade route yet. The internal ones are just too strong.

I do agree that roads need a boost, though, but certainly we don't need more reasons to want internal trade routes.
 
Further, roads can dramatically improve internal logistics: moving builders around, especially in the early game where you're probably building them rather than buying them in the city you need them, is time-consuming without roads.

Movement cost for roads:

Ancient Road: 100% (no bonus)
Medieval: 100%
Industrial: 75%
Modern: 50%

I don't think Internal Routes are too strong, and tbh I always prefer the Inernational ones for the huge amounts of gold you get.
But maybe I just like the shiny things.
 
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Ancient Road: 100% (no bonus)
Incorrect. It's actually 100% (disregard terrain penalties). If you have a lot rivers or rough terrain, that's a significant benefit.
 
Incorrect. It's actually 100% (disregard terrain penalties). If you have a lot rivers or rough terrain, that's a significant benefit.

Yeah, and on the flipside, since the bulk of units have 2 moves, the "75%" movement bonus does almost nothing for them, as they still can't go more than 2 tiles. The only thing they give you is that archers can now move twice and then shoot. I've gotten used to the ancient roads and I can live with the bonuses that they give, but definitely am not a fan of industrial roads not being strong enough.
 
I agree a bit with the OP. Roads are a bit too marginal early, and don't get strong enough late. At least a railroad with 5 move or such should be added. And military engineers can only build 2 pieces of road - that's just painful. Internal trade routes are awesome though, and you can still build your internal roads with foreign routes if you plan accordingly (build from the far side of your empire, for example). Roads are a bit weak overall, especially with 1 UPT where mobility is key to strategy.
 
Yeah, especially when before they increased movement by 100% ! They could be key to invasion. I especially remember building a big road project through a whole continent in order to invade in multiplayer. Roads were a part of gameplay in themselves ! Not considering the later railroads... Now, moving his entire army from a point the the other side of a pangaea in really a pain and takes forever, especially with the 1UPT thing. It's even worse then in Civ5. And it's not realistic either.

And I tried to send traders in other citiese than the capital to start routes from there... the best i could do is 4 food and 1 production, not 5.
 
And I tried to send traders in other citiese than the capital to start routes from there... the best i could do is 4 food and 1 production, not 5.

There are a bunch of things about internal trade routes when you first play them that make you think you should use 1 or 2 per city, use them in the city you build them, spread them out to every other city to build roads, and then the benefit gets kind of spread out and seems pretty low-impact.

As with a lot of things in this game, the way the game teaches you to use them is not the best way to use them. Internal trade routes are strong when you build a lot of them. They are cheap, and you can move them around to different cities after you build them, which you can't do for most other economic things.

This lets you cheat the game in a lot of ways - get a lot of food to places that otherwise wouldn't grow, get a lot of production in a city without good tiles for it, build one city that gives a bunch of bonuses to trade routes and multiply that bonus a whole bunch of times by having all your trade routes go to it. The list goes on.

It's less that one trade route is good and more than if you max out your trade routes you get a super-district that you can put anywhere in your empire whenever you want to.
 
I don't think Internal Routes are too strong, and tbh I always prefer the Inernational ones for the huge amounts of gold you get.
But maybe I just like the shiny things.

Me too! But I seem to be in the minority on this. I still don't quite understand why people keep saying internal trade routes are so superior. Triangular trade affects all trade routes so that's a wash. There are some very solid boosts to external trade routes only via other policy cards which can be added on top of triangular trade. I often get yields of 15 gold or more on external routes plus some faith, science, or culture. I primarily use internal routes when I need a quick production boost or in cities that grow slowly but o/w I usually go external and just buy stuff with extra gold.
 
Internal trade routes are more powerful because gold is everywhere and easy to get.
Production, however, is always needed - in small and new cities as well as in larger ones. Want to build a wonder? Assign 2 trade routes from that city. Want to win the space race? Move all traders to the city with the space port and get those 50+ hammers here.
Food is usually plentiful in larger cities. But for new cities, an internal trade route is an incredible boost. It's essentially like it has 1 or 2 pop more than it has which means it grows much faster. There is also a policy card in the very late game that increases this food boost to an extent, that it really helps getting lots of cities to 30+ pop.
Roads to other civs also have a downside: you are easier to invade. With the current state of the AI, however, this downside is nearly non existent. And bear in mind that external trade routes have a much larger chance to be pillaged through barbarians or a declaration of war by another civ than internal trade routes which usually run a whole game.

That said, there are situations, in which external trade routes can shine: if you are suzerain of the right city states, if you are willing to put certain policy cards in your slots, city state quests and of course for the cultural victory - it's much easier with a lot of international trade routes here.

I actually feel, that internal trade routes need to be nerfed and international trade routes need a buff. Maybe the trade post can be made stronger to achieve that? Maybe not just give +1 extra gold, but also increase science and culture (if the city has the right district). And some districts probably should not increase internal trade route yields - that would be a nice nerf and may even lead to less popular districts being built more often.
 
Production, however, is always needed - in small and new cities as well as in larger ones. Want to build a wonder? Assign 2 trade routes from that city. Want to win the space race? Move all traders to the city with the space port and get those 50+ hammers here.

Well that's a bit of an exaggeration - you can't just instantly move all trade routes to your capital. Can you really do that? +2/4 hammers generally isn't really going to make that huge of a difference on single projects/wonders even with a few trade routes but I guess if you shift them there all in advance and pump stuff out of your capital you could create an uber production city. It just never seems to make all that much of a difference to me - it usually shaves a few turns off production per route.
 
No, you can't reassign trade routes instantly. Or I don't know how. But with some micromanagement you can switch around a lot to get the most out of it. It is however a bit tiresome to do that and it also involves thinking/planning ahead. Massing all trade routes to a single city does not make sense before space projects (at least to me), but there it is a huge plus. I sometimes do reassign some for wonder building, however. I never tried how it is if you pump out a large army in one city and use it for that - but why would you need a really large army anyway?
 
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