Military Roads

[O.O. Howard]

The Roman army approaches the enemy. Miles behind the siege ballistas are coming up.
The solitary Legion at the outpost is preparing for the fight. How?

By building a road through the marsh and then the forest adjacent to the enemy city

When the entire army arrives, and war is declared, the army moves forward rapidly. The cavalry unit sweeps deep into enemy territory. Meanwhile the enemy is pinned in the town by two legions and two ballistas which immediately find safe postions to fire. All in one turn.

A short war is the best kind.

A great success, the military road is useful and it gives bored Legionaries on the frontier something to do.

But after the war, if it isnt needed for commerce, it is an expensive monument to the war . As the years go by it will cost more than it was ever worth to the Roman Empire...

If I pillage the road will that solve the problem? Or will i still have to pay for the road?

 

[tpg0007]

You have to remove the road probably.

I wonder how the game keeps track of road ownership if the land changes hands a couple of times. Let's say you built road on land that was taken over, which eventually reverted to no owner due to city razing. Who then pays for the road?

It would also seem weird to let just anyone remove road in neutral territory. Then you can sabotage others' trade routes with no consequence.

 

[Cashew]

Don't you only pay for roaded tiles in your territory?

 

[DalekDavros]

It would also seem weird to let just anyone remove road in neutral territory. Then you can sabotage others' trade routes with no consequence.

The consequence is that I'm going to send out units to investigate when my trade route stops working and then I'm going to kill whatever units are doing the pillaging.

Pillaging roads is a pretty good guerrilla warfare tactic. The weird thing would be disallowing it.

 

[Valdyr]

You have to remove the road probably.

I wonder how the game keeps track of road ownership if the land changes hands a couple of times. Let's say you built road on land that was taken over, which eventually reverted to no owner due to city razing. Who then pays for the road?

It would also seem weird to let just anyone remove road in neutral territory. Then you can sabotage others' trade routes with no consequence.

They said during the live gameplay stream a week before release that whoever built the road is always the one who pays maintenance on it. I'm assuming the builder is the only one who can raze it, too, although it is possible for your trade routes to be disrupted by another civ/city-state's culture border expanding out over your road if you don't have open borders/friend or ally status with them.

An interesting question is who pays for roads built by a dead civ. I'm assuming whoever has them in their territory, but then what about roads from a dead civ in neutral territory? Are they ghost roads that pay for themselves? Do they explode? The world may never know.