I really like the new movement system which makes forest, hill tiles together with road network very important for war and movement purposes even in the late game, and the road network builded by traders is a great idea.
However I have a small complaint as I started to see in most of my games like in civ2 roads almost everywhere after a point because of the trade. Although in normal map they are still sketched nicely, in strategic view it started to annoy me, and more importantly it started to prevent the joy from the new movement system as almost everywhere become roads again as in Civ2.
Although I didn't analyzed deeply, it seems when the roads are calculated it takes the closest path between cities. This can be improved by calculating the closest path including the movement costs, which may lead to roads that are not always strict lines. which is also what is in reality (i.e. omitting hills and forest where applicable), and even make use of the already available routes (which is also one of the main reasons of the roads everywhere, since there is lots of neighbor parallel roads) in the calculation.
Furthermore the system can be implemented easily by varying with the eras I guess, and even include already complained issue of omitted railroads.
So for example,
-the ancient era roads may be only placed on flat tiles, so may even not allow some trade routes, even the cities are four tiles away.
-the classic era or a different tech may allow using bridges, allowing roads on hills, forests, jungle etc.
-the road cost on forest, hills may be different and scaled by era, so for example a road may have to be placed around a hill tile instead of going over directly, in earlier eras, while a more straight road may be build in later eras, and more importantly only if the straight road will be a better choice than using the some of the earlier roads with a curvy road.
-in different eras the traders can build different types of roads, maybe railroads after industrialization, which does not account previous roads and built from scratch and still curvy until another era. So you will have both ancient routes and more faster roads at the same time depending on the trade.
What do you guys think?
However I have a small complaint as I started to see in most of my games like in civ2 roads almost everywhere after a point because of the trade. Although in normal map they are still sketched nicely, in strategic view it started to annoy me, and more importantly it started to prevent the joy from the new movement system as almost everywhere become roads again as in Civ2.
Although I didn't analyzed deeply, it seems when the roads are calculated it takes the closest path between cities. This can be improved by calculating the closest path including the movement costs, which may lead to roads that are not always strict lines. which is also what is in reality (i.e. omitting hills and forest where applicable), and even make use of the already available routes (which is also one of the main reasons of the roads everywhere, since there is lots of neighbor parallel roads) in the calculation.
Furthermore the system can be implemented easily by varying with the eras I guess, and even include already complained issue of omitted railroads.
So for example,
-the ancient era roads may be only placed on flat tiles, so may even not allow some trade routes, even the cities are four tiles away.
-the classic era or a different tech may allow using bridges, allowing roads on hills, forests, jungle etc.
-the road cost on forest, hills may be different and scaled by era, so for example a road may have to be placed around a hill tile instead of going over directly, in earlier eras, while a more straight road may be build in later eras, and more importantly only if the straight road will be a better choice than using the some of the earlier roads with a curvy road.
-in different eras the traders can build different types of roads, maybe railroads after industrialization, which does not account previous roads and built from scratch and still curvy until another era. So you will have both ancient routes and more faster roads at the same time depending on the trade.
What do you guys think?
