Roads are fundamentally flawed in game.

[Bigv32]

One thing I remember hearing when CIV IV came out was that you would not have to necessarily spam roads like in CIV III. Now that I have played it for a couple of years, I was wondering if anyone else felt the same way and if there was some way for this to be changed by a very begginer modder (Like me lol).

The basis for my argument is based on the game Rome Total War. In the game, roads are preset (can't be built or moved) and can be upgraded to provide faster movement and better trade. This leads to roads being very important as you can blockade a road and prevent the enemy from using it (you know like in real life). The enemy can go through the country side, but they suffer is loss of movement points.

My idea for civ would be that roads are limited in how they can be built. Rise of Mankind did something to help this by making advanced roads cost more, but at a certain point, it was still pointless.

I think roads should cost money to be built (enough to make you be smart with them) and cost more money for being built in hill etc.

Now here is the main kicker to the idea. Any unit can use the road regardless of where it is. This means an enemy tank army could come barreling down the highway to your city. Roads should be able to be destroyed by air units (or seige equipment if you have ranged bombardment) in order to add a true layer of strategy to the game. Should you destroy the road to slow the enemy down now, or should you keep it around to speed up your future counterattack, etc.

A couple of things I would advise is that workers ignore terrain costs because there would not be roads everywhere. Additionally, I would advise that as long as a resource is within the BFC of a city, no road is needed to connect it to the empire. A road would only be necessary if the resource was outside of the BFC.

EDIT: The enemy could be limited to only three road tiles moves per turn regardless of movement points to keep mounted rushes from being overpowered.


So, what do you guys think? I believe this would add a nice layer of additional strategy to the game. The idea could be refined a little I am sure. I guess I should also ask if there is already a mod out there that actually does this, or if it is even possible to do with CIV IV? Off hand, I would expect getting the AI to use this idea properly could be troublesome.

 

[z0wb13]

can you restrict what tiles will take roads?

modders, i'm asking you.

 

[z0wb13]

the difference between RTW and civ is the random maps. RTW is always the same map. you could restrict roads in civ, but only on scenarios like earth18.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

No i will build roads on every single tile in the game.

 

[Bei1052]

his means an enemy tank army could come barreling down the highway to your city.

I definitely remember it being like this in Civ 2 (didn't play 3), where the AI was able to use your roads. It was hell, as the AI could literally DOW you, send an inordinate number of troops barreling towards your border city and capture it in one turn with you getting the chance the react.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Eh? It's not like we haven't roaded most of the tiles in real life (well, at least where people live)

Perhaps they could have more expensive roads and even higher speed roads in the form of highways, but this is reflected in civ as railroads.

Plain roads should stay the same.

Also, the enemy being able to use your roads is horrifically imbalancing. Mounted rushes would be obscene. Barbs aren't gonna be very fun either.

 

[NetGear]

didnt earlier civ games let you use enemy roads? i cant think back on civ3 anymore since its been about 10 yrs since i last played it.

kinda makes me wanna install it now.

 

[Bigv32]

I made an edit above, but here is what you could do.

The enemy would be limited to only 3 road tiles per turn when in enemy territory regardless of how many movement points they have.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

You do realize you could strait up every single city of someones in 1 turn right? It would be strait up ******** in MP too.

 

[vicawoo]

Well, roads cost worker turns, which means either an opportunity cost of food/hammers/commerce from improving tiles, or you build more workers. Good micromanagement means you can skimp on workers, the 1.5 workers per city is usually because people over-road. So usually extra roads end up costing people food/hammers, and they don't provide great value.

I usually don't even bother to build roads except to buffer in between movement, until I really need the commerce from trade routes or I really need to hook up a resource (mostly a factor with happiness turns 50+, and once you get currency). I also road in rushes if the production from cities outweighs chopping, per unit worker movement:

chopping is 20 hammers in 4 turns. 2 tiles of roads save 1 movement point, so if the road speeds up reinforcements from 1 city that produces 20 hammers per turn, it's worth it. Or more realistically, if 2 or more cities use that road for reinforcements and they combine for more than 20 hammers per turn, it's worth it.

Also you don't need roads except for the last wave of reinforcements before you attack.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, roads cost worker turns, which means either an opportunity cost of food/hammers/commerce from improving tiles, or you build more workers. Good micromanagement means you can skimp on workers, the 1.5 workers per city is usually because people over-road. So usually extra roads end up costing people food/hammers, and they don't provide great value.

This is why I don't have a problem with road spam in civ IV. Although the value of roading everywhere *is* worthwhile...just after other improvements are done and you have a lull between that and new available improvements you want. A good road network is a serious boon in MP, but again not at the expense of massive amounts of and .

"anyone can use these" is indeed an interesting concept for roads. Without something wonky like reintroduction of ZoC though, it would make mounted absolutely ludicrous, especially after engineering.

 

[jordiflor]

Somehow tangential to this thread, there is definitely a flaw in railroading mines and lumbermills. You get +1 on a mine only because a railroad segment on a hill that leads nowhere. I think you should get the +1 only if the railroad connects to a city.

 

[ahcos]

Nah, seriously, i like the fact that you can road everywhere. It kinda reflects real life much better with roads everywhere. Civ5 has maintenance costs on roads, which means you end up with only a few roads and units blocking each others path or taking forever from one side of your empire to another because you don't want to spend additional maintenance costs and oh wow ... Just feels like you're managing a backward "city association" somewhere in Siberia rather than an EMPIRE. Just look outside your window, and you'll see tons of roads leading to everywhere. You won't have roads on every tile before the lategame anyway, as you most probably need your workerturns on other things before that.
And on the "enemies can use your road" topic, i don't like that. It's already extremely annoying to fight off AIs that swarm your territory with mounted units, but it'd be very hard if not impossible to fight off an Immortal/Deity AI that just runs with knights toward the center of your empire where your cities are defended with warriors. You, otoh, could not do that, as every AI city is defended with at least several archers. The whole concept would require a complete mechanic/AI overhaul.

 

[coanda]

I definitely remember it being like this in Civ 2 (didn't play 3), where the AI was able to use your roads. It was hell, as the AI could literally DOW you, send an inordinate number of troops barreling towards your border city and capture it in one turn with you getting the chance the react.

AIs were strictly amateurs at that in Civ2. You could move your armies infinitely far, because railroads cost 0 movement... and you could move onto a tile and build a railroad in 1 turn with several engineers on common terrain. A human with some engineers to bridge any gaps in the railroad network, good pre-war scouting, and a modest military edge could overrun an entire enemy empire the same turn that they declared war.

Fond nostalgia for broken game mechanics aside, roads in Civ4 work fine. There's no penalty for having them, but there is a cost for getting them - worker turns. Since redundant roads are nearly worthless, there's no real point to paying that cost until and unless worker turns also become nearly worthless in your game.

 

[Cort Haus]

I played a Civ 3 MP team 'democracy' PBEM game which lasted for a couple of years. My team's Civ attacked another, alone on a continent with enough Marines to bust the shell on the coast, then zipped around the railroads gutting the undefended empire within all in ONE TURN.

They weren't too happy to open the save to find insane amounts of work destroyed without warning.

 

[pigswill]

iirc no-one can use roads in enemy territory (unless they have commando promotion) though anyone can use roads in neutral territory. Roads can be blocked by having a defender on any tile on the road. Roads can be pillaged by military units like any other tile improvement.

 

[JustBen]

Somehow tangential to this thread, there is definitely a flaw in railroading mines and lumbermills. You get +1 on a mine only because a railroad segment on a hill that leads nowhere. I think you should get the +1 only if the railroad connects to a city.

Back in Civ3 (and I believe the earlier two), roads gave +1 commerce to the tile regardless of whether or not it led anywhere. The switch to cottages and trade routes was a huge improvement. The railroad to nowhere is a weird holdover, but Civ roads have always been a bit symbolic. It represents infrastructure that requires technology and worker turns to exploit rather than city-turns. Worker techs didn't really exist pre-Civ4 (at least in the base game), so that production bonus on railroads was a unique bit of late game city development.

Roads in Civ4 are very well implemented, and could not be changed without significantly changing the game.

 

[Cort Haus]

I think rails gave tile bonuses in Civ 1. Even food, IIRC.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

in Civ III, rails gave +1 to whatever improvement was below it (irrigation or mines). the irrigation one was replaced by the biology tech in Civ IV.

 

[vicawoo]

And I'm not saying that civ IV has the ultimate incarnation of road resources. Ultimately it is tied with how it uses workers to continually create tile improvements.

You could create a one time cost to building roads, but then you should do that with all tile improvements. Or you could change it so workers can only improve a set number of improvements, or that they cost (more) upkeep, but given how roads are already a lesser, though situational improvement, there's no point weakening them relative to other improvements.