How do you pillage your own roads?

[Flamegrape]

I give up. I've tried using several different units. Is it that you can pillage enemy roads and not your own? If that's the case, that's insane. What am I not understanding?

(If this thread is in a FAQ, just delete this thread and drop me a PM. Thanks.)

 

[PublicEnemy]

I give up. I've tried using several different units. Is it that you can pillage enemy roads and not your own? If that's the case, that's insane. What am I not understanding?

(If this thread is in a FAQ, just delete this thread and drop me a PM. Thanks.)

Why would you want to pillage your own roads?

 

[Flamegrape]

Why would you want to pillage your own roads?

To hinder the travel of potential invading armies. In my game (on an Earth map) Arabia has built a whole bunch of roads on every single desert tile (on the Arabian peninsula). Now that my city of Kuwait has built up a bunch of culture and has pushed back the border, I want to get rid of all those roads. They're useless to me and only help the inevitable invading armies of Arabia.

 

[PublicEnemy]

To hinder the travel of potential invading armies. In my game (on an Earth map) Arabia has built a whole bunch of roads on every single desert tile (on the Arabian peninsula). Now that my city of Kuwait has built up a bunch of culture and has pushed back the border, I want to get rid of all those roads. They're useless to me and only help the inevitable invading armies of Arabia.

Anyone at war with you won't be able to make use of roads inside your cultural borders.

 

[Armorydave]

I have wanted to do it in the past when I knew my territory was going to be absorbed by another Civ's culture. As far as I can tell, you cannot pillage your own improvements (probably to stop what I was trying to do). One act of "self-pillaging" that I occassionally engage in is turning towns into farms if I know the territory is going over to an enemy. I have also seen the AI use that strategy in reverse.

I do think you should be able to pillage your own territory (but not for gold).

 

[jerVL/kg]

As far as I can tell, you cannot pillage your own improvements (probably to stop what I was trying to do).

You *can* pillage your own improvements, except roads. You don't get any money for it.

Personally I hate the "black spaghetti" approach the AI has towards building roads on every freakin' tile. I like to customize my road-building so there's railroads linking the mainlines between cities, normal roads for stuff off the beaten path like pastures & camps, and no roads at all in unused areas esp. forests & desert. Whenever I attack a neighboring civ, I make sure to pillage the roads to my liking before my culture takes over.

 

[Mutineer]

There practically no reason I can see to pillage your own road.

 

[Flamegrape]

You *can* pillage your own improvements, except roads. You don't get any money for it.

Personally I hate the "black spaghetti" approach the AI has towards building roads on every freakin' tile. I like to customize my road-building so there's railroads linking the mainlines between cities, normal roads for stuff off the beaten path like pastures & camps, and no roads at all in unused areas esp. forests & desert. Whenever I attack a neighboring civ, I make sure to pillage the roads to my liking before my culture takes over.

I can't stand it either. They said they were going to fix this in CIV4. I can tell a difference, but the AI still builds tons of unneeded roads.

I should be able to pillage my own roads. Also, I should be able to use my spy to pillage enemy roads. They need to fix this.

 

[Flamegrape]

There practically no reason I can see to pillage your own road.

So I shouldn't do it?

 

[The Tyrant]

I would love the ability to pillage my own roads. IRL, it would take less work to destroy a road than an entire town/farm/etc. Pillaging your own roads would be useful when you know that the territory will soon belong to someone else and you won't be able to retake it any time soon. There are two times I would like to be able to practice a full scorched earth policy:

1) Imminent cultural expansion of a neighbor. This usually occurs in recently captured cities that border a peaceful third party. Even with rush-buying cultural improvements, you can find that the peaceful neighbor has such strong culture in the area that you lose tiles to him. Check the percentages of population mix in each tile along the border and pillage everything in the tiles that will likely flip. If a city is in danger of flipping, pillage everything around that city that is still within your borders.

2) Imminent loss of city. I've had it happen in two games where I captured a city, left a garrison and pushed on, only to have my invasion force shredded. The enemy sent a counterattack to retake the captured city, and I could see it was strong enough to do so. When I see that I'm going to lose a city to an approaching army, I'll leave one defender in the city and set the other three to pillaging improvements (the most valuable improvements go first).

In either case, if I could pillage my roads I would be able to slow down troop movement in that area even after it becomes the enemy's, and tie up his workers re-improving the land rather than handing over improved terrritory.

 

[cymru_man]

I like black spaghetti, I do it myself. Just to ensure my units can get anywhere needed in an emergency. And as for self-pillaging, well the need for it is so rare or occasionall..and the AI will build it back again in the case of a loss of a tile to culture pretty instantly so what does it *really* matter?

 

[The Tyrant]

I like black spaghetti, I do it myself. Just to ensure my units can get anywhere needed in an emergency. And as for self-pillaging, well the need for it is so rare or occasionall..and the AI will build it back again in the case of a loss of a tile to culture pretty instantly so what does it *really* matter?

That's probably true on normal settings. I wasn't thinking in terms of normal speed when I posted above. I tend to play on Marathon speed a lot, at a difficulty setting I find challenging (which currently, for me, is Prince). The rationale is that if you play on a difficulty setting you normally can easily beat then Marathon makes the game even easier, but if you play at a setting you find challenging, Marathon punishes you for your mistakes, making you become a better player.

In Marathon games building a road takes six worker turns, which is six turns that worker isn't being used to improve that civ's economy. It also means that if you could pillage roads as part of a scorched earth policy, an incoming SoD doesn't get to use captured roads immediately. Trust me, when you're playing Marathon you'll look for ways to slow an onslaught by even one or two turns.

As for it being a rare need, I personally think if you're not losing at least one city a game, you need to bump your difficulty setting up a notch. So yes, I see a use for self-pillaging roads and would like to see that ability incorporated into the game, although it might be difficult to program the AI to know when it would be useful.

 

[Rast]

I, too, like the black spaghitti. I don't emphasize or anything - it's just after everything is built I tell all my workers to go nuts with the trade network.

I like having roads/rails on every time so my units can get anywhere in an emergency. Also if you're sending units from one side of your civ to another the most direct path often goes through the countryside.

Like I said, spaghetti is at the bottom of the priority list, but it's still there.

 

[Willem]

So I shouldn't do it?

No you shouldn't. No invading army gains any advantage from roads that are built within the civs's cultural boundaries that's being invaded. The movement rate is based on the terrain underneath as if the road didn't exist. So the only one to gain the advantage from them if you're attacked is you. Having roads everywhere in your empire lets your move your troops much faster through you territory, so it doesn't make any sense to pillage them.

 

[Carcosa]

The "spaghetti" look of roads might not be as elegant in appearance as single routes between cities and resources, but it does make a bit of sense aesthetically. Take an aerial look at modern roadways; you have various arteries going everywhere, rather than just single highways. I see the spaghetti roads as being something similar.

And obviously it helps you to get quickly to any point in your own territory.

 

[idle]

There practically no reason I can see to pillage your own road.

How about forests growing? AFAIK forests don't spread to a tile with a road.
I admit it's a poor reason, but it can be helpful in the early ages.

 

[The Tyrant]

How about forests growing? AFAIK forests don't spread to a tile with a road.
I admit it's a poor reason, but it can be helpful in the early ages.

Actually, just yesterday I had a forest grow over a tile I had built a road on two turns earlier. I was glad, too, as that poor city needed a forest. I think forests (and jungles?) can grow over roads, but not over other improvements. Makes sense, actually. I can see a jungle growing up around a road, but not in the middle of a town or farm.

 

[idle]

Hmmm, I stand corrected.

Never seen it myself, though...

 

[cabert]

never did I see a roaded tile grow a forrest. Are you sure, the tyrant?

 

[Andrei_V]

I also saw a forest growing on a road tile a few times. Jungle, too.