Roads and gold

[Theov]

I was riding to work the other day - like I do 4 times a week, so nothing special there - and thought about that the internet, a human brain cell, the universe and a road network all look alike... but not in Civ.
In civ, you road every tile - for the income. Actually, it's a pain, but you do it because it works and the thing is - the AI isn't very good at it IMO. So score one for humans! What's that you say? Humans built the AI?! D'oh!!

I say it would make sense to add one gold to every tile by default and have the roads there only for transport and road network reasons.
It would also be more pleasing aesthetically.

So. I'm going to add this part to my Earth map, and will let you know how that works out.

On a side note... anyone knows if it's possible to add the gold that is worked within the borders of the civ, instead of only the borders of the cities?

 

[Puppeteer]

Some random thoughts:

• Fewer roads and intersections would simplify trade route calculations and probably speed up interturns on big maps and late games
• The road may still be worth it in worker turns if a worker may come back later and change or add improvements.
• Rails...you currently need a road to build a rail, and rails increase mine and irrigation output
• In life busier roads have more commerce. I wonder if you could give a city more commerce based on its size, aside from the city-square bonuses?
• On Monarch and above, you're snowballing the AI's growth advantage and discounts by increasing their income for free.

 

[Bowsling]

In Civ4, workers are given a movement of two, and roads provide no commerce bonus. Instead, workers can build cottages, which add 1 commerce then grow into hamlets, villages, and towns, increasing the yield by one each time after they've been worked for a certain amount of time.

Don't shoot me for saying it, but the system works much better than it does in Civ3.

 

[MPK]

I tried to figure out a way to play without the endless spider web effect that is a necessity of Civ3. I gave up in the end. You could always replace the Roads with something else, such as the Civ4 cottage effect mentioned by Bowsling. I would gladly have this effect to replace endless Roads.

As for Railroads, I think they look even worse than the Roads. I have in a Test Mod where I have taken away the Trade Bonus for Railroads. I replaced it with a Train Station. Just give +50% Tax output. Was hoping to get extra $$$$ from already roaded tiles. I just use the Rail Tracks to join cities or to get to certain points on the map where I wish to advance quickly to.

PS: you could increase the Production ??