How soon do you build roads?

[Rubruk]

A backbone road network has priority for me. It connects ressources, allows fast troop movement and spreads my religion (if I have any).

 

[Juardis]

Question: do roads/railroads on your cottage tiles speed their growth? I remember reading that here someplace, but I can't seem to find it.

If not, do all cottages grow at the same rate or is there some other variable that speeds their growth? I thought roads/railroads were that variable and for that reason, roads are fairly early in my Tech sequence. But if not, then I have to rethink some things.

 

[Nestorius]

Roads do not affect cottages.

Railroads only add +1 production to lumbermills and mines.

 

[pholkhero]

A good rule of thumb i use is that the very first action of the very first worker each new city produces is to connect the city to the capital via roads.

obviously, too, we don't need roads everywhere b/c they no longer give any benefit, but i still do that? Odd.

 

[lawren65]

roads in the early game? I guess they might be useful for getting my workers to the forests to chop them down

Seriously, roads are great for spreading luxuries/health resources and for troop movements, but in the early game I find I don't have the luxury or need to have them building roads.

I find in general:
at lower levels my cities don't need lux/heath resources right away so my worker are busy doing something else (such as spamming cottages)
at higher levels (emporer) my workers are too busy chopping (often other workers) just to keep up that I rarely have time to build roads -- so as high levels i try to use rivers and ocenas to connect as many cities as i can

 

[JerichoHill]

to the op, if yorue stuck in a war strat youneed to learn other strategies

 

[ownedbyakorat]

I tend to build roads on the squares diagonally adjacent to the capital as soon as there is nothing more obviously productive to do with the worker, for mobility purposes - it doubles the "reach" of any unit in the capital. (There's no advantage in moving horizontally or vertically vs. moving diagonally absent other factors such as enemies or impassible terrain.)

Also as soon as a new city is established, a connecting road is a priority for both economic and military purposes. Often I will build roads in anticipation of founding a city as described by another poster above, as well.

 

[S.ilver]

obviously, too, we don't need roads everywhere b/c they no longer give any benefit, but i still do that? Odd.

I dunno. I find the added mobility very helpful, especially when you're moving something other than workers, which now have 2 movement. My rationale is if I can help a unit get somewhere faster, I might as well do so. Besides, it seems that workers can still improve terrain faster than cities can grow, so it's unlikely you'll get behind in improvements if you road the place up.