Hey Urza, sounds like a very interesting concept, especially if it can help to eliminate the barbarian wilderness path-spam problem (which I notice particularly since I like to play on totestra/perfect-mongoose maps with lots of desert and tundra and generally inhospitable areas). Question: are paths degraded to nothing? I would argue that in neutral (unowned) territory they should do so.
On second thought, perhaps all improvements in neutral territory should slowly degrade back to nature.
Yeah, they way I currently have it paths do eventually degrade.
The baseline rate of degradation is based on the number of units the player owns, calculated per end of player turn. I'm using that metric to calc the deg rate based on the assumption that the the number of units a Civ can support is a decent measure of their economy. I'd be up for trying to improve that mechanic if anyone has suggestions. I tested and rejected having roads degrade based on unit movement because it didnt feel natural to me, and honestly the units controllable in game dont really represent the bulk of actual road usage, so it also didnt feel symbolically appropriate to me. Idk if any of that reasoning is interesting to anyone, but there it is.
That background information was presented so that I can explain that, as-is, I have it so that each route has a chance to resist degradation based on the route type. These numbers are a big part of what I'm trying to balance and tune, but currently:
Jumplane -> Highway 70% resist chance
Gravtube -> Highway 50% resist chance
Electric Railroad -> Highway 25%
Railroad -> Paved Road 0% (this by no means suggests that railroads are degrading every turn, they just arent resisting the degrade check, every turn every tile has to pass two different rolls to degrade)
Highway -> Paved Road 60%
Paved Road -> Road 50%
Road -> Cart Path 37%
Cart Path -> Nothing 95%
I have two reasons that Cart Paths are so resistant to degredation. Firstly in terms of gameplay Cart Paths may be terrible for unit movement, but they connect resources and trade routes, its extremely jarring to have these disappearing all the time and suddenly be out of iron or something. Secondly it doesnt take much to maintain a Cart Path in real world terms, you pretty much just have to occasionally use it. I can potentially adjust this so that Cart Paths are more likely to disappear in neutral territory than in owned territory, but so far I have not felt the need to do so because the route spam seems to be under control.
I am also thinking of giving Railroad a tech-check so that if you have discovered Highway it will degrade into that rather than Paved.
@Pomphis, are we taking your thread off-topic talking about all this here, let us know, i'm sure we can open a new thread at your bequest if you feel this is not another solution to the pillage discussion you started... ?
Agreed, I apologize if I sidetracked, it may have been presumptuous of me to assume the solution to my needs would be the same as the solution to yours.