Possible disadvantage to roads on every tile

[Aussie_Lurker]

I would say that the slower speed is a combination of both an abstraction of 'wariness' and an abstraction of 'Supply Limitations' i.e. units move slowly in enemy territory because they need to allow for re-supply of food, spare parts and ammo. However, they did go too far in implemeting this, as I felt that roads should have-at the very least-cancelled out any terrain based movement penalties (i.e. 1MP cost for all enemy terrain-if traversed by roads or rail).
Personally, though, I would sacrifice the entire civ3 system in return for a proper supply line approach. i.e. allow units to use enemy roads-but not rail-at full speed, but limit the range in tiles which they can travel beyond their own borders (without creating a 'supply point').
Still, it does sound like they are at least trying to eliminate these problems.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Vietcong]

matinan is a bad idea... one gold for every tile with a road!? u whold go bankrupt!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I admit that 1gold per tile would be very extreme, but 1gold per X tiles (with X being based on map size) would work OK. However, I would only accept maintainance for roads if they provided an indirect financial benefit. i.e., instead of each road tile giving you +1gpt, a single road-connecting your city to the greater trade network-grants you a one time gold benefit based on the population of the city and the number of cities in your trade network. Such a system would adequately reflect the role of roads in trade/commerce without encouraging the 'roads, roads everywhere' approach.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Vietcong]

even 1 gold per 5 or 10 tiles whold get realy expensive in the mid or late game!!!! or if u expand to fast in the early game too!! it whold slow u down alot!!

allso u shold abe able to use enamy roads with out that specal ability any way!!!!!! roads are roads!!!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Sorry, Vietcong, but you make that sound like a bad thing!!! If anything, I believe we need to slow down early game expansion a bit more, as well as curbing the 'Snowball Effect'-and road/RR maintainance does both! As I said, so long as roads and rail provide some kind of One Off economic benefit, then I am completely happy with a small maintainance fee being applied to discourage me from building lots of uneccessary roads.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Brain]

RRs should cost maintanece and thus, hopefully, won't proliferate everywhere disrupting the beauty of the contryside. But roads are a different story; IIRC a tile in C3 is 100 sq miles, don't you think there should be a road within 100 sq miles?

As was already pointed out, such roads are below the level of abstraction of the game. You're not going to use small countryside roads to transport uranium for your nukes. Besides, we can't really interpret things so literally. Large metropolises occupy the same amount of space as small towns, but we know they wouldn't be physically the same size. In the end I think it's better to favor gameplay balance than consistency of the game abstractions.

And don't you think that the transport infrastructure would aid commerce?

Don't even get me started on the brain-dead commerce model. A road does not give increased commerce only by virtue of existing. The road gives increased commerce by connecting supply to demand. If commerce were a function of how many cities are connected together by the road then I would buy this argument, but a road by itself should not give any commerce bonus.

Just in terms of moving units (including workers) I want would every tile roaded. If you need to make a terrain improvement or change I don't want my workers to waste a turn just getting on the tile in question.

You're thinking too much in terms of what already exists. What if the game dynamics were completely different? In the real world, workers are not a highly mobile workforce that you can move around wherever you want. If you're talking about military, then yes, but civilian workers are not like this.

Futhermore, with the SOD playing less of a role and players being encouraged to spread their units out more, aren't you going to want to be able to move your units easily and spread them out to counter an enemy's dispersed units coming at you?

Defense is one reason you would NOT want to have roads everywhere.

Consider the balance between increased troup mobility and cost of infrastructure. Consider the balanced between increased mobility for your troups and for enemy troups on your land. Consider possible choke points that you can pillage to prevent enemy reinforcements and/or strategic resource use. Consider making road blockades useful. Why doesn't anyone else see all the increased possibilities? People have to stop thinking about how things used to work in civ and start thinking about how things could possibly be different.

even 1 gold per 5 or 10 tiles whold get realy expensive in the mid or late game!!!! or if u expand to fast in the early game too!! it whold slow u down alot!!

That's EXACTLY my point. You have to find a balance. If units cost no maintenance then everyone would build units endlessly until they would have a ridiculously large army. The game would be quite borring. Now, the same is true with roads. With road maintenance costs you would have to be careful not to overbuild roads, and might even have to consider whether it's worth connecting those backwater jungle towns or not.

I admit that 1gold per tile would be very extreme, but 1gold per X tiles (with X being based on map size) would work OK.

Either that, or have a "road support" per city just like unit support.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Very well said, Brain-I agree on almost 100% of everything you have said here. I feel a combination of the removal of the gold per road tile scam, combined with the addition of a 1-time benefit for road connection and road maintainance (with a similar system for railroads) will go a very long way towards beautifying the map throughout the game, whilst having that side benefit of reducing early game REXing and the late game 'Snowball Effect'!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Nyvin]

If roads cost maintanence, and you don't get bonus commerce from roads, then there would have to be some kind of way to get the extra money you'd need to support the roads. I mean, you still have your army and towns to support, and your not getting lots of money from the land anymore...so just where would the money for supporting the roads come from???

Instead of maintanence, how about it takes away a food point or something? That'd solve the problem of not wanting roads everywhere, and also there wouldn't be any wasting of money. Or the food loss could 'be' the maintence cost. Plus it's realistic, places with roads wouldn't be able to have large farms would they? Yeah, i guess they still would, but still, just an idea.

 

[Brain]

If roads cost maintanence, and you don't get bonus commerce from roads, then there would have to be some kind of way to get the extra money you'd need to support the roads. I mean, you still have your army and towns to support, and your not getting lots of money from the land anymore...so just where would the money for supporting the roads come from???

City improvements.

 

[Nyvin]

City improvements.

They'd have to add new ones then, because roads are available right from the beginning of the game, and stuff like banks and marketplaces aren't. Also Civ III is designed to function normally 'with' improvements. Adding the maintenence to roads would create an imbalance in the handling of the money.

If you suddenly have a drop in money from not getting bonus from roads but rather have to pay for them, it's a huge difference. If you make it so that an improvement (it'd have to be marketplace) gives like +150% commerce, then someone who 'doesn't build' roads would have a huge advantage over someone who does moneywise.

I don't think city improvements would be enough all alone to support maintenence for the roads. Unless there was an improvement specifically for supporting roads or something.


I thought of that, but it still doesn't work out.

Don't even get me started on the brain-dead commerce model. A road does not give increased commerce only by virtue of existing. The road gives increased commerce by connecting supply to demand. If commerce were a function of how many cities are connected together by the road then I would buy this argument, but a road by itself should not give any commerce bonus.

On a small scale this would be true, but in civ your talking about a worldmap. One tile could represent an entire region of land. The icon of a 'road' could just represent a well made transportation system in that specific 'region'. Which would increase commerce all on it's own. It'd be a good 'region' for trade. The connecting of supply and demand can be made in one area.

Not that I'm saying I'm supporting bonus commerce from roads in Civ, just saying it isn't completely 'brain-dead'

 

[Nyvin]

delete

 

[druidravi]

Don't even get me started on the brain-dead commerce model. A road does not give increased commerce only by virtue of existing. The road gives increased commerce by connecting supply to demand. If commerce were a function of how many cities are connected together by the road then I would buy this argument, but a road by itself should not give any commerce bonus.


You're thinking too much in terms of what already exists. What if the game dynamics were completely different? In the real world, workers are not a highly mobile workforce that you can move around wherever you want. If you're talking about military, then yes, but civilian workers are not like this.

Roads do not give commerce by just existing but when a citizen works on it.Now compare a citizen working on a tile which has a road and a tile which doesn't have a road considering the fact that he has to transport all the food shields and commerce to the center of the city. There should be obviously some loss in his efficiency if the tile is not roaded.
This could have been represented in civ 3 with a commerce loss if the tile was not roaded. Maybe in civ4 they will instead give a food /shield loss if the tile is not roaded i.e you would lose some food or shield coz of difficulty in transferring the resource to the city center without a road.


Maybe instead of maintance cost a more realistic model would be repair of roads . Let's say after every 40-50 turns or so the tile has to be repaired or reroaded otherwise it would disappear . Because of this you have to maintain a cerain amount of worker to road ratio throughout the game which indirectly adds to maintance cost. But this would be like pollution and quite unfriendly for play.Anyway thay promised to reduce the micro in this game so we need not fear this

 

[loseth]

...so just where would the money for supporting the roads come from???

I think it would be nice if Civ Governments got their cash/resources the same way IRL governments do now or did in the past:

a) Directly produce the resources (and sell them if cash is wanted) by owning slaves or forcing citizens to work for the government for X days per year.

b) Let private citizens produce the resources (through agriculture and manufacture) or the cash (through trade), then take (I mean tax) some of their produce or profits.

In game, this could be done really easily. Just have one slider for (A) which, when increased, gives governments greater production but decreased economic growth and unhappier citizens, and one slider for (B) which has the same negative effects as (A), but on the positive side gives the governments more cash (which can then be used to pay government workers to maintain stuff like roads or to pay private contractors to produce stuff like tanks).

 

[Stilgar08]

We have no idea yet, how trade and economics will be changed in cIV, therefore I would assume if you need more money just to be able to pay for ALL your stuff (road-maintenance, units, etc.) , there is a chance you'll GET this money... Brain's right! It's all about balance.. I'm in favor for maintenance cost as well...
And don't forget that if this is implemented it's purposefully implemented to raise incentive NOT to build roads everywhere you like but to choose! Makes it harder, but that's good, cause that is what this game feature is about!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Read what I said, Nyvin. The money would still come from roads-it's just that now it would be generated as a result of it linking into your nation's broader trade network. The difference is that it would represent a one-time bonus for being connected to the trade network, rather than a bonus gold for every worked tile with a road in it (which encourages road sprawl).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Nyvin]

Read what I said, Nyvin. The money would still come from roads-it's just that now it would be generated as a result of it linking into your nation's broader trade network. The difference is that it would represent a one-time bonus for being connected to the trade network, rather than a bonus gold for every worked tile with a road in it (which encourages road sprawl).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

This wouldn't work, you could have a highway system or something that makes each city connect to every other city, giving a huge bennifit. Like have two lines of cities then one long road down the middle of them, and an 'off-ramp' connecting each of the cities to all the others. The connection bennifit thing could be taken advantage of too easily.

We have no idea yet, how trade and economics will be changed in cIV, therefore I would assume if you need more money just to be able to pay for ALL your stuff (road-maintenance, units, etc.) , there is a chance you'll GET this money... Brain's right! It's all about balance.. I'm in favor for maintenance cost as well...
And don't forget that if this is implemented it's purposefully implemented to raise incentive NOT to build roads everywhere you like but to choose! Makes it harder, but that's good, cause that is what this game feature is about!

The amount they've given out so far indicates that the money system will resemble the older styles. I don't think there will be much of a difference. There hasn't been for the last four Civ games.

In some situations, road maintenance not only makes you not want to build roads everywhere, maybe you won't want to build them at all! especially if you just make a lot of fast moving guys or use the sea for transportation. Anyone who doesn't use roads would have an advantage over someone who does, with maintenence. The only time the advantage of the other would be seen is during wartime.

 

[joethreeblah]

If roads cost maintanence, and you don't get bonus commerce from roads, then there would have to be some kind of way to get the extra money you'd need to support the roads. I mean, you still have your army and towns to support, and your not getting lots of money from the land anymore...so just where would the money for supporting the roads come from???

You guys are INSANE.

You speak as if this is an expansion pack for Civ III. It isn't.

Do you think after rebuilding a completely new game, and after all of their play testing and balancing that they would forget to give you enough gold to build roads in a reasonable fashion?

It could very well cost 1 gold per tile or something (whatever works) in order to cause you not to build roads on every tile in the world. But maybe each city gives you enough extra gold to where it can easily support some average of 10 or 15 or whatever it turns out to be tiles of road for each city. Maybe you could decide to leave a city isolated but build a bigger army there, or not pay for some other thing and have a rediculous road network.

The point is that you can't say that some random (tested) gold cost for road upkeep is going to leave you at a 15 gold deficit. How do you know?

Don't panic.

 

[Nyvin]

You guys are INSANE.

You speak as if this is an expansion pack for Civ III. It isn't.

So far the resemblance to past games is pretty apararent, afterall, from civiliztion one to civ conquest, it's still the same style...you build settlers, they make towns, the town generate income, so does trade. you build a military, military usually cost money, and workers build 'stuff'. If they totally reworked the entire game it probably wouldn't be called 'civilization'.

Do you think after rebuilding a completely new game, and after all of their play testing and balancing that they would forget to give you enough gold to build roads in a reasonable fashion?

I wasn't saying they wouldn't, i'm just going against the idea that road maintenence would work.

Don't panic.

I'm just having fun

 

[joethreeblah]

So far the resemblance to past games is pretty apararent, afterall, from civiliztion one to civ conquest, it's still the same style...you build settlers, they make towns, the town generate income, so does trade. you build a military, military usually cost money, and workers build 'stuff'. If they totally reworked the entire game it probably wouldn't be called 'civilization'.

I wasn't saying they wouldn't, i'm just going against the idea that road maintenence would work.

We already know that roads do not give you a bonus per tile as they once did.

I don't think going one more step and having them cost per tile would cause the game to no longer be justified in calling itself 'civilization'.

I think you could safely assume that a city would be capable of easily supporting typical roads that it would need, and that going in escess would be a challenge.

Considering that roads not used to connect cities seem to now only have military purposes, they probably should cost something.

 

[joethreeblah]

In some situations, road maintenance not only makes you not want to build roads everywhere, maybe you won't want to build them at all! especially if you just make a lot of fast moving guys or use the sea for transportation. Anyone who doesn't use roads would have an advantage over someone who doesn't, with maintenence. The only time the advantage of the other would be seen is during wartime.

Maybe if you have one of those one-tile cities completely surrounded by an ememy, you could use its road budget to build your random roads off into the mountains