Improving Infrastructure

[MagisterCultuum]

It has never seemed right to me that all roads in an empire are equal. Improving technology should allow better roads to be built, not just speed up movement on existing ones. What if early on you can only build paths, which can be upgraded to trails and then to real roads later. It doesn't take a specialized worker to beat out a rudementary path, so either most units should be able to build them, or perhaps they build themselves if enough units move through a tile. Weeled and maybe mounted units could require at least a path in order to ender a tile. Late in the game you could built a King's Highway-basically like a railroad in Vanilla, maybe with slight defence and/or healing bonuses, but which cannot coexist with other improvements or terrain features like forests. Perhaps there could also be toll roads, which require other civs to pay the roads' owner for the privalege of passing. Last but not least, religion specific roads: RoK civs with Arete can build tunnels or mountain passes which allow their units (only with RoK promotion?) to move through impassible terrain. FoL civs can build hidden paths (you can guess what tech this needs), which grant their units invisibility and commando while on the road (letting FoL units move freely in rival teritory), but can only exist in Forests, Ancient Forests, or Jungles. Perhaps only civs with FoL can see that these exist. To make these useful, you may need to let workers build these from 1 tile away (like some spells work). Because of the obvious qualities of hidden paths, these changes might be perfect for Shadow.

 

[kenken244]

with enchantment or dimensional mana you could build magical roads or something

 

[sixs_monkey]

I very much enjoyed the 'enchanted roads' in "Master of Magic", esp after my friends and I found the bug that allows bridges across large water. If those were introduced into Civ, it would make defensive and offensive strategies quite different.

 

[Don Pelayo]

That would be great, I think.

 

[mport2004]

it would help for defending my large borders and moving troups around however the roads could generate more money like towns do

 

[hamtastic]

Here's an idea: building better roads requires some sort of resource. The only way you can get the resource is by building a project in a city, but the project is costly AND disappears after a short while, forcing you to build it again if you want to build more good roads.

 

[sixs_monkey]

A "Cretian Cement works" comes to mind. I like it, esp since I'm a mad builder. Getting an output bonus would be icing, and if it comes in the mid to late game it needn't destroy the fantasy feeling.

 

[Ranbir]

Weeled and maybe mounted units could require at least a path in order to ender a tile.

I really like this. As in most cases for war, special units were sent to create routes possible for tanks/vehicles to travel across. This also opens the possibility of guerilla warfare of sabotaging these improvements to slow down the impending tanks/artillery of doom. It would certainly make modern war interesting, usually I find it a bit too easy.

Edit: Obviously the tank example isn't for FFH directly(just noticed where this thread is!)

 

[kenken244]

maybe have roads upgrade like cottages when worked?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I like the idea of the basic roads auto-upgrading like cottages, but there should be special roads that must be built seperatly. Also, the roads should be buildable in their upgraded forms for inter-city transport, and either way should require different levels of technology.

 

[kenken244]

heres another idea:
you could build basic roads with any tech, once you recearch exploration they can upgrade like cottages one stage. after you get masonry it will upgrade another step witch will be faster if you have acess to stone they go up another step and after that another step if you have construction. the road upgrades could require a certan population in the city and possible leaders with the industrial trait could have theese upgrade faster

once it reaches that level a worker can build over that with a new road, requiring stone and the engineering tech that will upgrade without the requirement for techs slowly and once it reaches the final stage, if you have enchantment and dimensional mana you can upgrade them to magical highways with a mage and they give incredibly fast movement but take a long time to build and enemy arcane units, spells and a few sommoned units can use them even without commando promotion in addition the nexus wonder could have a small chance of this happening automaticly

maybe the enchanted roads could be upgraded even further if you have one of the towers of the different areas of magic but no road could have more than one of these
tower of necromancy - the road would have further movement bonuses for undead
divination- better movement for diciples
alteration- beter movement for arcane units
elementalisim- units on the road get a small boost to elemental defence

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I can agree with the first paragraph, but little in the second. Perhaps you could build your magis roads too, but I prefer the religions/civic specific versions and their special effects. They would be better if not built over you old roads (since they might be in impassible terrain or in enemy territory). The possible benifits should include more that simple movement inhancements. Perhaps good civs could build sacred streets impassible to demons, while Ashen Veil civs could build 'Road to Perdition' or 'Highway to Hell' (paved with shuet stones, of course) which would bring units that die there bach as sketletons/demons and spread hell terrain. The chance that an enchanted road would give a wonder as valuble as the Nexus would need to be a very, very small one. I would prefer none at all.

 

[daladinn]

maybe i am a liittle slow on the uptake , but why do we need special roads again?

you have several methods of increasing your movement rate.

1 - build roads
2 - terrain specific move types
3 - teleport from city to city

honestly the upgrade from roads is the simple fact of not needing them.

*** take all comments with a grain of salt .... i STILL have yet to DL the latest .... not enough time IRL atm

 

[kenken244]

I can agree with the first paragraph, but little in the second. Perhaps you could build your magis roads too, but I prefer the religions/civic specific versions and their special effects. They would be better if not built over you old roads (since they might be in impassible terrain or in enemy territory). The possible benifits should include more that simple movement inhancements. Perhaps good civs could build sacred streets impassible to demons, while Ashen Veil civs could build 'Road to Perdition' or 'Highway to Hell' (paved with shuet stones, of course) which would bring units that die there bach as sketletons/demons and spread hell terrain. The chance that an enchanted road would give a wonder as valuble as the Nexus would need to be a very, very small one. I would prefer none at all.

i have a few comments about this post:

1. religion specific roads sound good to me and so i propose a new idea: a preist of a certan religion can enchant roads with his religion and give the road its special effects but if that happens the road will not be able to become enchanted but can still upgrade to the non enchanted types therby giving th eplatyer a choice if they want really high movement or a little less movement but a special effect

2. i dont understand your post about roads in impassable terrain, a road will upgrade slowly like a cottage dependant on the technology so the road could never be on impasible terrain anyway and then you have to take a worker over the fully upgraded roads and work them again (they have to be built on a space with the old roads and not on just any space) so they can upgrade further

3. i never said that a enchanted road would give the nexus, i said the nexus would have a chance of turning a eligable road into a enchanted one instantly. continuing on your idea about the religious roads what if the shrine for the religion would have the same effect for religious roads?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

2. i dont understand your post about roads in impassable terrain, a road will upgrade slowly like a cottage dependant on the technology so the road could never be on impasible terrain anyway and then you have to take a worker over the fully upgraded roads and work them again (they have to be built on a space with the old roads and not on just any space) so they can upgrade further

That is probably because you didn't read the first post of this string. My special roads each had a special bonus that would facilitate a different game stategy. The special bonus I had in mind for the Runes of Kilmorph was that they could be built through peaks to allow RoK units to cross through this impassible terrain. The special ability I proposed for The Fellowship of the Leaves was stealth-FoL units on the road would be invisible and have commando (so they could use these roads, even in other players territory, without being seen). Both of these bonuses would be far more effective if they did not require a pre-existing road. There is no real reason why my original 2 special, non-magical, non-religious roads should not require a road already

3. i never said that a enchanted road would give the nexus, i said the nexus would have a chance of turning a eligable road into a enchanted one instantly. continuing on your idea about the religious roads what if the shrine for the religion would have the same effect for religious roads?

Sorry, I clearly misread your earlier post. I'm fine with this idea. However, the religious roads as I concieved them would almost priceless in certain places and almost worthless in others. You would be strategically better if you could carfully control their placement.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

Lets do not exaggerate here. In vanilla civ you had only 2 kinds of roads. Plain 'road' and 'rail road'. There was also some ultra fast new technology transit roads in Call to Power IIRC. There was no need for more and FfH does not need t also.

I can imagine that ppl want more but lets stay on the ground were the roads place
I can only propose that there would be an 'Imperial track' road enchantment. You could upgrade your road leading from the capital [then later also form forbidden castle] to another of your city. It would cost you money, i.e. 5gp for each title but it would increase movement a normal road give by 50% and cities connected with that road would get a bonus to a trade route between them. You could then build the 'Imperial track' also from a city that has it attached.

Nothing more, no magical effect, no wonders! We are talking about roads here. It is a fantasy world but not everything has to be magical you know.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

There wasn't anything magical about the roads I originally proposed. The basic roads were just roads with different widths/quality of pavement. A Kings Highway would just be a high quality road with stops along the way where government officials could rest and change horses. I've yet to notice anything magical about a toll booth either.
The first religion specific roads I proposed are based on ideology, not magic. Since they are so close to nature, FoL units should be able to conceal themselves in their hidden paths trough the woods. Since RoK has such reverence for the earth, and is so closely related to mining, thesir mining techniques could be extended to tunneling through the mountainsides. Personally, I think that this should also allow such civs to build mines (or even act as mines) in the impassible terrain, which would have a higher chance of revealing metal resources or gems.
I'm not strongly against having special spells to enchant these roads, but it really isn't necessary. In short, blame kenken244 if you think that the magical ideas have gone too far.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

If none of these ideas can be implemented and if building through mountains seems to powerful, how about letting great engineers sacrifice themselves to build a tunnel through the mountain, making it possible and possibly discovering marble, gems, or a metal resource there.