[MOD] MagisterModmod

[Imperator Knoedel]

If you don't have multiple players of the same name in the game, I'd guess that maybe Jonas is not at war with Beeri yet but is preparing for war. Maybe it lets you bribe him to cancel those plans? I don't really know.

There is only one Beeri, and at that time Jonas was at war with him and has been for quite a while. I have seen the same thing happen with another leader but can't remember which one.

Maybe some bonus's are due to the Mulcarn Constellation event, which boosts the temples. I'm not sure if it applies only to those already built or also those built later.

I did get that event very early, but doesn't it only give a single extra hammer?

 

[Akbarthegreat]

GameUtils.py can adjust the costs of units and buildings, but it would take a DLL change to let me adjust the costs of rituals in python.

There is no way (short of a major DLL overhaul) to let python change what resources give production bonuses to rituals.

I could however remove from projects currently in progress without too much trouble. It would require adding only 8 more lines of code (including one to inform the city owner what has happened) to the 254 lines currently used for the Crucible per turn effect.

It would be impossible to keep track of and restore that production for once the Crucible is destroyed, but I don't think that matters.

A bigger problem is that the AI would not understand why the rituals are not proceeding, and might keep trying to complete a ritual that cannot be finished and so remain unable to use a city for anything else.

It would however be trivially easy to make the Crucible block only AI players from building rituals.

This would be better IMO. My original complaint was due to the possibility of the game being less fun due to banned rituals anyway.

I had to cheat a few times to survive this long. (Playing as the Sheaim also got a little more difficult because I decided to give the gate creatures tech prereqs, so I could not get a Mobius Witch to use mage level spells at Knowledge of the Ether anymore but had to wait for Sorcery.) First I granted myself the Octopus Overlords holy city, since I was irritated when an AI founded that religion only a couple turns before I could. The same thing happened with the Ashen Veil and Council of Esus later on. By the same logic I could have given myself the Museum of Maponos, but since I had Creation mana from the Bones of Eurabatres right next to my capital I decided to let the AI keep that. Then, I granted myself 100 turns of Sanctuary to prevent Arcturus Thornes' massive army of Trubuchets and Soldiers of Kilmorph from conquering me before I had even built my second city. After that I managed to go without cheating again until after using The Tower of Divination to gain Strength of Will and upgrading a Mobius Witch into an Eater of Dreams. At this point I had large Khazad and Illian armies next to my capital, and I decided to give my first Eater of Dreams all the available spell spheres and use worldbuilder to let him cast a couple dozen times without Consuming the Souls of everyone in my city. After clearing that threat I barely managed to go on without cheating for long enough to finish the Tower of Mastery.

I don't remember when The White Hand was completed, but I believe it was around the same time that The Council of Esus was founded. Ascension was finished on turn 340.

Well I guess I just got a disappointing Auric then. The deity AI though




On another note, I started a monarch game as Auric a while ago. The AI seems hell bent on dogpiling you if your power rating is less. Even if they have absolutely no plans of invading (Mahala sent over four beastmen in 50 turns) they refuse to agree to a ceasefire. Kandros Fir also seemed hell bent on spamming SoKs. I killed 31 of them for just 6 of my own units. He still refuses to make peace without taking a city. It would be nice if the AI considered the tide of war during negotiations. After an invasion that ends so disastrously its annoying when they still refuse to make peace and send ocassional mini-stacks of SoKs over, despite it serving no purpose whatsoever.
/rant over

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Oh yeah, I also noticed that the AI is absolutely insane in peace negotiations. I can blitzkrieg through them and capture half of their cities without a single loss and the best they offer is still just a white peace. That's not a joke, that is literally what happened when I conquered the Clan and Luchuirp in my game.

 

[Sezneg]

Well, I don't know. I sometimes find Mobius Witches overpowered, not so much for their offensive or defensive capabilities as for spells like Fertility that let the cities develop faster and make a big difference in the long run.

There are several ways I could address this.

I could split the difference and make them require Necromancy or something, although at that point you might as well start pumping out Pyre Zombies.

Another option: Why would these demons have access to or use Creation mana? Maybe limit their mana to the "necromancy" mana types. That immediately breaks all of the building type spells and limits their role quite a bit.

EDIT:

Just realized I created this reply without reading your last idea, which is basically this idea. Well played! I'm leaving the above as a nice reminder to myself to read thoroughly before replying.

I agree that blocking the non-evil mana sources is the way to go here.

 

[yetagain]

The thing about the Illians is that you can't really balance them for all possible maps. The ability to turn crappy land like tundra or even barren desert into grassland-equivalent ice is always going to be amazing sometimes and near worthless other times. I wouldn't reduce the yield of ice, personally, but I agree with reducing the bonuses from the temple. I'd actually suggest you reduce the carryover further, personally. 50%, with smokehouse and granary, would make 90% carryover total.

 

[Sezneg]

The thing about the Illians is that you can't really balance them for all possible maps. The ability to turn crappy land like tundra or even barren desert into grassland-equivalent ice is always going to amazing sometimes and near worthless other times. I wouldn't reduce the yield of ice, personally, but I agree with reducing the bonuses from the temple. I'd actually suggest you reduce the carryover further, personally. 50%, with smokehouse and granary, would make 90% carryover.

Yeah, the problem with Illians is the temples bonus per ice mana. It scales too much.

I've been able to get Auric Ascended before turn 300 twice in games on Emp. The White Hand ritual basically guarantees a kill on your neighbor, and if the map RNG was generous in the mana node placement you are going straight to crazy town.

The white hand results are too strong IF you are already playing as Auric. If he's being summoned as a new civilization, then it's closer to appropriate. Perhaps he shouldn't be playable and only summonable? I dunno. I think the Illians are the most broken civ in the mod ATM.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Oh yeah, I also noticed that the AI is absolutely insane in peace negotiations. I can blitzkrieg through them and capture half of their cities without a single loss and the best they offer is still just a white peace. That's not a joke, that is literally what happened when I conquered the Clan and Luchuirp in my game.

Yeah that usually happens when your power rating is lower than your opponents (was it?). While it is often a decieving statistic, unfortunately thats the best way to make the AI read militaries I guess, short of rewriting the whole code

The thing about the Illians is that you can't really balance them for all possible maps. The ability to turn crappy land like tundra or even barren desert into grassland-equivalent ice is always going to be amazing sometimes and near worthless other times. I wouldn't reduce the yield of ice, personally, but I agree with reducing the bonuses from the temple. I'd actually suggest you reduce the carryover further, personally. 50%, with smokehouse and granary, would make 90% carryover total.

Well I'm kind of on the fence regarding this issue. While reducing the food would be a hard nerf, plus it would take a lot of balancing to do as well, this argument still makes a lot of sense to me:

While it's true that if anyone could gain something from working snow it's the Illians, it doesn't make sense that snow yields just as much food as grassland for them.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Yeah that usually happens when your power rating is lower than your opponents (was it?). While it is often a decieving statistic, unfortunately thats the best way to make the AI read militaries I guess, short of rewriting the whole code

I don't know what my power rating was, I am the God of Winter become flesh, raining down my divine wrath upon those who deny me! At least that's probably what Auric was telling himself as he massacred a path through corpses of orcs, elves and dwarfes.

 

[mickyd47]

One thing I've noticed about power ratings is soldiers of kilmorph seem to give quite a big boost to it. I assume it's because of all the free promotions they get. This tends to make the ai really aggressive when following the religion.

 

[Sezneg]

One thing I've noticed about power ratings is soldiers of kilmorph seem to give quite a big boost to it. I assume it's because of all the free promotions they get. This tends to make the ai really aggressive when following the religion.

Yes. Seeing a neighbor convert to Kilmorph is a good indication you are about to get stack rushed. By units that can walk over mountains and ruin your chokepoint defense.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

I don't know what my power rating was, I am the God of Winter become flesh, raining down my divine wrath upon those who deny me! At least that's probably what Auric was telling himself as he massacred a path through corpses of orcs, elves and dwarfes.

One thing I've noticed about power ratings is soldiers of kilmorph seem to give quite a big boost to it. I assume it's because of all the free promotions they get. This tends to make the ai really aggressive when following the religion.

Yes. Seeing a neighbor convert to Kilmorph is a good indication you are about to get stack rushed. By units that can walk over mountains and ruin your chokepoint defense.

Yep.. this time got a stack of about 50 SoKs.. Its stupidity really.
The AI obsession with certain cities it sets its eyes on is dumbfounding. As Auric, I started out quite close to Kandros Fir and Mahala. I made my second city at a spot roughly equidistant from our capitals. It was a good location for me (riverside ice) but quite pointless for Kandros. However for some reason he was hell bent on taking the city. I killed a total of about a hundred SoKs by turn 200. Due to spamming huge amounts of units in trying to get a city which was absolutely useless for him, he didn't settle a region on his other side which was empty and just grassland and resources. Not to mention how much it would have drained his economy, by the end of the rushes he was last in tech despite having started next to Yggdrasil.
I could understand a human obsessing over a single city (hurts my ego when my invasion is repelled ) but why the AI would do this I do not understand.



Oh and a few things:

--After adopting the white hand, do Blizzards randomly spawn in your territory?
--I noticed open border agreements seemed to cancel regularly due to no apparent reason.. why is that?
--I would strongly suggest modifying the mechanic by which Auric and the priests spawn. The mechanic of flipping the tile of Letum Frigus is kinda buggy (most of my units landed away from it on different tiles). Additionally if Letum Frigus is on an island or on the other end of the continent on a large map it is a pain. So I would propose two checks (I don't think this should be too hard to code, but I really dont know): Firstly Letum Frigus should be on the same landmass as the Illian capital, and secondly it should be within a certain (map-size dependant) distance of it (around 20 tiles should be fine on a Large map). If these two criteria are obeyed, the units spawn on Letum Frigus else they do so in the capital.
Also on a side note, have you considered reducing the number of axemen spawned? The unit and supply costs end up being huge.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The thing about the Illians is that you can't really balance them for all possible maps. The ability to turn crappy land like tundra or even barren desert into grassland-equivalent ice is always going to be amazing sometimes and near worthless other times. I wouldn't reduce the yield of ice, personally, but I agree with reducing the bonuses from the temple. I'd actually suggest you reduce the carryover further, personally. 50%, with smokehouse and granary, would make 90% carryover total.

50% it is.

Yeah, the problem with Illians is the temples bonus per ice mana. It scales too much.

I've been able to get Auric Ascended before turn 300 twice in games on Emp. The White Hand ritual basically guarantees a kill on your neighbor, and if the map RNG was generous in the mana node placement you are going straight to crazy town.

The white hand results are too strong IF you are already playing as Auric. If he's being summoned as a new civilization, then it's closer to appropriate. Perhaps he shouldn't be playable and only summonable? I dunno. I think the Illians are the most broken civ in the mod ATM.

Yeah that usually happens when your power rating is lower than your opponents (was it?). While it is often a decieving statistic, unfortunately thats the best way to make the AI read militaries I guess, short of rewriting the whole code



Well I'm kind of on the fence regarding this issue. While reducing the food would be a hard nerf, plus it would take a lot of balancing to do as well, this argument still makes a lot of sense to me:

One thing I've noticed about power ratings is soldiers of kilmorph seem to give quite a big boost to it. I assume it's because of all the free promotions they get. This tends to make the ai really aggressive when following the religion.

Yes. Seeing a neighbor convert to Kilmorph is a good indication you are about to get stack rushed. By units that can walk over mountains and ruin your chokepoint defense.

Promotions may be relevant, but I think the unit's base power rating is a bigger issue. I just noticed that Soldiers of Kilmorph had a power rating of 8 (equal to that of a Champion) and so reduced it to 4 (the same as an Axeman or Warrior).
Edit: Actually an ordinary warrior has a power rating of 3. Only the Doviello UU has a power rating of 4, like that of an Axeman, probably meant to encourage the thematic early game hostility.

Yep.. this time got a stack of about 50 SoKs.. Its stupidity really.
The AI obsession with certain cities it sets its eyes on is dumbfounding. As Auric, I started out quite close to Kandros Fir and Mahala. I made my second city at a spot roughly equidistant from our capitals. It was a good location for me (riverside ice) but quite pointless for Kandros. However for some reason he was hell bent on taking the city. I killed a total of about a hundred SoKs by turn 200. Due to spamming huge amounts of units in trying to get a city which was absolutely useless for him, he didn't settle a region on his other side which was empty and just grassland and resources. Not to mention how much it would have drained his economy, by the end of the rushes he was last in tech despite having started next to Yggdrasil.
I could understand a human obsessing over a single city (hurts my ego when my invasion is repelled ) but why the AI would do this I do not understand.

I believe I was told that even the vanilla Civ IV AI is programmed to focus on attacking one player at a time and mostly one city per player. I don't have anything to do with the AI though. Take it up with Tholal if you want.

Oh and a few things:

--After adopting the white hand, do Blizzards randomly spawn in your territory?

They can.

Tholal implemented the Blizzards code so that they can randomly spawn on Snow tiles in Illian territory. I changed the civ prereq to a sate religion one instead.


(I'm thinking of making units of the White Hand religion and state religion immune to Blizzard's damage, to give some non-Winterborn civs an incentive to use them.)

--I noticed open border agreements seemed to cancel regularly due to no apparent reason.. why is that?

I noticed that too and found it annoying. It is an issue for Tholal, not me.

--I would strongly suggest modifying the mechanic by which Auric and the priests spawn. The mechanic of flipping the tile of Letum Frigus is kinda buggy (most of my units landed away from it on different tiles). Additionally if Letum Frigus is on an island or on the other end of the continent on a large map it is a pain. So I would propose two checks (I don't think this should be too hard to code, but I really dont know): Firstly Letum Frigus should be on the same landmass as the Illian capital, and secondly it should be within a certain (map-size dependant) distance of it (around 20 tiles should be fine on a Large map). If these two criteria are obeyed, the units spawn on Letum Frigus else they do so in the capital.

That is basically how I used to have it work. I don't recall at the moment why I changed it, but I think there was a good reason.

Also on a side note, have you considered reducing the number of axemen spawned? The unit and supply costs end up being huge.

By Axemen I presume you mean Conscript units? Axemen are not among the units that they are given, but are a common conscript.

The ritual grants 1 Auric, 1 Anagantios, 1 Dumannios, 1 Riuros, 1 settler, 1 worker, 2 supplies, 1 Adept, 3 Hollow Men, 2 Javalin Throwers, and 1 Frost Speaker. (Formerly it also granted 1 Great Commander, but I just removed that.) It also grants a variable number of conscripts. The unit type is based on whatever would be drafted in the city that completes the ritual. That could be Axemen, or Archers, Longbowmen, or Champions, or various unique units. The number is dependent on how many other hostile or friendly units are already present in that area of the map. (An area may be an island, body of water, whole continent, or part of a continent separated from the rest of the landmass by a mountain range.) It used to equal a quarter of the enemy units minus a quarter of the friendly ones, but for the next version I reduced the first number to an eighth.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Promotions may be relevant, but I think the unit's base power rating is a bigger issue. I just noticed that Soldiers of Kilmorph had a power rating of 8 (equal to that of a Champion) and so reduced it to 4 (the same as an Axeman or Warrior).

That's great. It's what caused much of the problem.
Edit: I just realized, axemen and warriors have the same power rating? Why is that?

I believe I was told that even the vanilla Civ IV AI is programmed to focus on attacking one player at a time and mostly one city per player. I don't have anything to do with the AI though. Take it up with Tholal if you want.

I noticed that too and found it annoying. It is an issue for Tholal, not me.

Yeah I will.

Tholal implemented the Blizzards code so that they can randomly spawn on Snow tiles in Illian territory. I changed the civ prereq to a sate religion one instead.


(I'm thinking of making units of the White Hand religion and state religion immune to Blizzard's damage, to give some non-Winterborn civs an incentive to use them.)

Yeah that seems like a good idea too.

That is basically how I used to have it work. I don't recall at the moment why I changed it, but I think there was a good reason.

In my current game Letum Frigus was just way too far, and bringing the units manually would have been very hard (a lot of civs hated me and wouldn't give open borders, not to mention the supply costs). Eventually I just WB'ed Letum Frigus into my territory for a turn.

By Axemen I presume you mean Conscript units? Axemen are not among the units that they are given, but are a common conscript.

The ritual grants 1 Auric, 1 Anagantios, 1 Dumannios, 1 Riuros, 1 settler, 1 worker, 2 supplies, 1 Adept, 3 Hollow Men, 2 Javalin Throwers, and 1 Frost Speaker. (Formerly it also granted 1 Great Commander, but I just removed that.) It also grants a variable number of conscripts. The unit type is based on whatever would be drafted in the city that completes the ritual. That could be Axemen, or Archers, Longbowmen, or Champions, or various unique units. The number is dependent on how many other hostile or friendly units are already present in that area of the map. (An area may be an island, body of water, whole continent, or part of a continent separated from the rest of the landmass by a mountain range.) It used to equal a quarter of the enemy units minus a quarter of the friendly ones, but for the next version I reduced the first number to an eighth.

Yep that's what I meant. By "that area" you mean neae Letum Frigus?

 

[Sezneg]

The ritual grants 1 Auric, 1 Anagantios, 1 Dumannios, 1 Riuros, 1 settler, 1 worker, 2 supplies, 1 Adept, 3 Hollow Men, 2 Javalin Throwers, and 1 Frost Speaker. (Formerly it also granted 1 Great Commander, but I just removed that.) It also grants a variable number of conscripts. The unit type is based on whatever would be drafted in the city that completes the ritual. That could be Axemen, or Archers, Longbowmen, or Champions, or various unique units. The number is dependent on how many other hostile or friendly units are already present in that area of the map. (An area may be an island, body of water, whole continent, or part of a continent separated from the rest of the landmass by a mountain range.) It used to equal a quarter of the enemy units minus a quarter of the friendly ones, but for the next version I reduced the first number to an eighth.

The first thing I do when i complete the ritual is delete almost all of the conscripts.

KOTE is a quick tech that can be bulbed. By the time I get White hand founded, the AI on Emp difficulty are still using warriors. Then I show up with 4 ice elementals...

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Seem to have got a bug. My traits as Auric Ulvin have disappeared, even though Auric the unit is still alive.
A little while ago, I had Rivanna the Wraith Lord as a great commander so I used her to create an illusion of Auric (that died in a turn). Is it possible that messed with the code?

The save file is attached. Auric is in a stack in Hippus territory.

EDIT: Yeah that was the reason. Had to replay ten turns or so. Maybe do not allow the illusion ability to be used on avatars?

 

[Akbarthegreat]

In my game, for some reason all the Sheaim warriors I saw had undead and demon slaying. Is that a random event?

Additionally, in the middle of the game all my hollow men randomly became immobile for 2 turns (they were not in the same stack, or even close). Was it some spell, something to do with them being undead maybe?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm wondering about the Mobius Witch upgrade path, now that they have lost Channeling 2 in favor of Unholy Taint.

The issue is that an upgraded witch would not count towards the limit of how many you an have at a time, so upgrading to a Mage or Ritualist would allow practically unlimited free units. Upgrading only to Eaters of Dreams or Profanes would only increase the number by 4 each.

That's great. It's what caused much of the problem.
Edit: I just realized, axemen and warriors have the same power rating? Why is that?

Actually, no. The Doviello Beastman UU for Warriors has the same power rating as Axemen, but regular Warriors and all the other Warrior UUs have a power rating of 3. When searching I just happened to come across the Doviello UU first and then stopped looking.

Yep that's what I meant. By "that area" you mean neae Letum Frigus?

I mean the area containing Letum Frigus. Note that "area" has a technically meaning in Civ IV. It is a region of land or water completely cut off from all other such regions by the opposite plot type or by peaks. If there is any path connecting two plots, even if it passed through narrow chokepoints, then they are the same area. In some games the whole map may be a single area. It is possible for areas to have a really snaky shape so that most of the area is no where near that particular plot.

The first thing I do when i complete the ritual is delete almost all of the conscripts.

KOTE is a quick tech that can be bulbed. By the time I get White hand founded, the AI on Emp difficulty are still using warriors. Then I show up with 4 ice elementals...

I guess you tend to play very differently than I do. I usually try to get some altars of the luonnotar in the city before an alignment change makes them unavailable, and to get plenty of mana to help out Auric, his lieutenants, and the adept. Usually I wait at least until I have some dimensional mana, so Auric himself can escape quickly if he ever finds himself in a bad position. Giving him a high withdrawal rate may make that less important though.

Seem to have got a bug. My traits as Auric Ulvin have disappeared, even though Auric the unit is still alive.
A little while ago, I had Rivanna the Wraith Lord as a great commander so I used her to create an illusion of Auric (that died in a turn). Is it possible that messed with the code?

The save file is attached. Auric is in a stack in Hippus territory.

EDIT: Yeah that was the reason. Had to replay ten turns or so. Maybe do not allow the illusion ability to be used on avatars?

I thought I already made illusions loose their avatar of civ leader status, but just realized that the code that checks this runs when the unit is first created before the illusion promotion would be applied. I'll see if butting it in the Sluagh code works better, plus also make such units ineligible for the Illusion spell.

In my game, for some reason all the Sheaim warriors I saw had undead and demon slaying. Is that a random event?

Additionally, in the middle of the game all my hollow men randomly became immobile for 2 turns (they were not in the same stack, or even close). Was it some spell, something to do with them being undead maybe?

Demon slaying could have been granted by an event if you are at war with an Infernal civilization, but then it would apply to multiple unitcomats.

There is no such event for undead slaying.

Being built in a city with the Sidar Shrine of Arawn UB could grant undead slaying, but that seems unlikely.

Maybe the player just learned Way of the Wise early and thought the combat bonuses those promotions grant are worth the xp.


The Arawn constellation event damages and temporarily immobilize all undead units.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

I'm wondering about the Mobius Witch upgrade path, now that they have lost Channeling 2 in favor of Unholy Taint.

The issue is that an upgraded witch would not count towards the limit of how many you an have at a time, so upgrading to a Mage or Ritualist would allow practically unlimited free units. Upgrading only to Eaters of Dreams or Profanes would only increase the number by 4 each.

Hmm yes that does seem to be an issue. If you choose the mage path then you could increase to level requirement to 5 and/or increase the money required. Doesn't seem very intuitive though, they are supposed to be better than adepts after all.

Actually, no. The Doviello Beastman UU for Warriors has the same power rating as Axemen, but regular Warriors and all the other Warrior UUs have a power rating of 3. When searching I just happened to come across the Doviello UU first and then stopped looking.

Ah, that explains Mahala's having a high power rating. Does experience or the weapons you use add to it? Also out of curiosity, in which file is this data stored?

I mean the area containing Letum Frigus. Note that "area" has a technically meaning in Civ IV. It is a region of land or water completely cut off from all other such regions by the opposite plot type or by peaks. If there is any path connecting two plots, even if it passed through narrow chokepoints, then they are the same area. In some games the whole map may be a single area. It is possible for areas to have a really snaky shape so that most of the area is no where near that particular plot.

And this explains the large number of axemen I got. Still, the whole mechanic still seems weird. Is this because Auric and the units are supposed to fight out from Letum Frigus back to the Illian homeland?

Demon slaying could have been granted by an event if you are at war with an Infernal civilization, but then it would apply to multiple unitcomats.

There is no such event for undead slaying.

Being built in a city with the Sidar Shrine of Arawn UB could grant undead slaying, but that seems unlikely.

Maybe the player just learned Way of the Wise early and thought the combat bonuses those promotions grant are worth the xp.


The Arawn constellation event damages and temporarily immobilize all undead units.

Didn't know that about the constellation
I'm pretty sure the Sheaim werent at war with the Infernals. Using a lot of good xp to take demon/undead slaying seems weird. I'll look into this again.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

In my current game Letum Frigus was just way too far, and bringing the units manually would have been very hard (a lot of civs hated me and wouldn't give open borders, not to mention the supply costs). Eventually I just WB'ed Letum Frigus into my territory for a turn.

Pfft, why didn't you just conquer a path through those non believers like I did? On the way from Letum Frigus to Garduk Auric and his entourage subjugated three whole civs just because they were in the way in my game.

The first thing I do when i complete the ritual is delete almost all of the conscripts.

What a waste of perfectly good cannon fodder! And you call yourself a god?

I needed all those Javelin Throwers to garrison the cities I annexed, especially since I play with revolutions on.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Am I the only one who finds roads kinda useless in the early game? As so many civs have some or the other "double movement in x terrain", roads feel quite underwhelming till engineering. Provided they can an occasional hill, dwarves can move as fast as my own units in my territory.
The second problem this leads to is that as such civilizations, often (in your own territory) making roads makes no sense since in most cases your units can move 2 tiles anyway. I mean I know dwarves are quicker on hills, but shouldn't they get quicker with roads on them?
For this I'd suggest making roads cost a base 1/3, upgrading to 1/4 with engineering.

Pfft, why didn't you just conquer a path through those non believers like I did? On the way from Letum Frigus to Garduk Auric and his entourage subjugated three whole civs just because they were in the way in my game.

Well now that you say so
The only problem with that is I'd have to burn down all the cities in my way. And now I can't remember why I didn't do that