In Search of Perfection II Water Roads

[Laser77]

By putting Settlers on a transport unit you can build roads and Railroads on water squares. Using the „fast settler“ exploit you can easily railroad your whole 20square cross. Fish squares will produce one bonus food and one bonus trade when railroaded. Regular ocean fields will produce one extra trade only.

The roads on water have no effect on ship movement. They cannot be used by land units either.

A fully developped city on the coastline can almost double the trade output and will be a good Partner for a trade Route.

 

[Posidonius]

The roads on water have no effect on ship movement. They cannot be used by land units either.

They can be used by land units. You may transfer a land unit from one boat to another if they are adjacent and the land unit has movement potential left. A ship-to-ship transfer of a normally land-based unit ends that unit's movement for the turn if both boats are on open water. If one but not both boats are on an un-roaded water square, the transfer ends the land unit's move. If both boats are on water squares containing a road, then the land unit uses only one of it's "road movement" points. If it is a Settler, for example, it has 3 moves per turn on a continuous road. If it starts its turn on a boat in empty water, then that boat moves to a water square containing a road, you can un-sentry the Settler and move it onto another boat in an adjacent water square with a road. The Settler will still have 2 moves left, even if the second boat carries it away.

Similarly, ship-to-ship transfers of land units between boats both occupying railroaded water squares use zero movement points. In the late part of a long game, we want to have a navy of strategically stationed boats for freely moving Caravans and Diplomats. If there is a transportation route which gets used frequently, will take the time to improve it. Every time a Settler makes that crossing, they drop one road then continue on their way. Eventually, you can link all the world's land with about 7 boats.

 

[Valen]

If you have two ships on adjacent water squares with rails, a land unit can move from one ship to the other without spending any movement points. The visual effect can be jarring the first time you do it. Both the ship and its land unit disappear from the display. No need to panic, they are still there. The land unit can move back to the ship it just came from. The ship you just left reappears, but the ship that you just boarded disappears. Interesting once you get used to it. So why would you want to do this? When an "invisible" land unit enters a city, it is sentried, ready to wake up and continue its turn. A string of ships on rails can act as a bridge and land units can move freely across two continents almost as though they were one.

 

[Tristan_C]

I thought the ships themselves had to move into the city carrying the units, though, which ends their turn. The units can be activated. Either that or they unload (u) units into the city from the sea square which ends the units' turn but allows the ship to keep moving. Is this something different?

 

[Valen]

Ships like to move around in pairs anyway to make full use of the sentry trick. A unit moving from one ship to another then immediately into a city (both ships on rails) is able to resume its turn in the city. The ships also keep moving.

 

[Tristan_C]

Alright, I get it now. When the unit moves onto the city tile following your procedure, it becomes Sentried, rather than have its turn ended, and is thus able to reactivate for land travel that turn. Useful!

 

[AyCe]

Same is possible in Colonization

 

[tupi]

Strange that they foresaw 'build a colony' in the ocean with that sarcastic 'It may surprise you to learn that colonies cannot be built at sea" but not a road in the ocean. Until today I thought that you can build roads in ocean only in civ. When you try to plow, game simply ignores it. At least ocean roads are not shown on the map in Col, so it is not looking so wierd.

 

[AyCe]

@tupi Exactly! No idea how they did not think of that when they DID think of colony building! Water-roads in Colonization give more fish btw, and ships do move faster, as you would expect, goto-pathfinding also respects them.