Roads built by workers? Poll

[Vincent_lacruz]

CIV 6 system was both good and bad... Good because it could create internationnal roads without having workers go all the way. Bad because you had absolutely no control on the path, nor on the duration of the trader (so it took ages to have you roads ready before commercial districts.......).

I would really prefer a mix between CIV 5 and CIV 6 system:
- Trader will create roads, but slowly. The more traders passing through the same path, the faster the road will be built. This would create the internationnal roads, but slowly, and would gradually increase the range of those roads (instead of the trading posts).
- When sending a trader, you could select tiles they have to pass through.
- Civil units (builders or civil servants, whatever you want to call them) could be used to produce roads up to optimal technology.
- Building roads with civil units won't cost charge (if they retain the system...), and could be ordered automatic roads (from:, to:, intermediate tiles). Same for railroads. (The CIV5 system was almost perfect, but without intermediary points).

 

[Kwami]

Manually building railroads in VI reminded me of how tedious it is to manually build roads in the other games. I'd prefer automatic roads in VII.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I lean towards a hybrid system. Automated roads, but the ability to manually do them (probably with added costs, such as upkeep).

 

[AffineConstant]

Manually building railroads in VI reminded me of how tedious it is to manually build roads in the other games. I'd prefer automatic roads in VII.

I think this is the real problem with infrastructure in Civ. Infrastructure is a huge historical influence, eventually moreso than armies, how else do you build armies if you don't have the resources to do so?

But like, you need to make it interesting and fun to manage the infrastructure in the game. Building roads manually sounds tedious.

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

I lean towards a hybrid system. Automated roads, but the ability to manually do them (probably with added costs, such as upkeep).

I would complete you sentence:
- Automated roads that are weak (represents roads used by merchants, that are good for a caravan but not an army)
- Manual roads that give the best movement bonus (represents actual road network you could use with a force of several undrer men and their equipments, à la roman roads)
- But, please, the manual route can be ordered from point A to point B, so that you have not to place every damn tiles manually (like in CIV V, that was perfect)...

 

[KayAU]

I'd like to build them myself please. As far as micromanagement goes, building roads is not the kind I want to reduce. For one thing, it gives you meaningful decisions: when should I prioritize roads instead of other tile improvements? Where should the roads be? For another thing, it ramps *down* in the late game, not up. Building roads is fine.

Some games take the approach of just creating roads between points of interest automatically, either for free when you unlock certain techs, or by having you pay the cost of the connection. This approach is also okay to me.

Civ 6's way of creating roads is the one I'm least happy with, as it's kind of indirect. If you want a road between two points, you have to re-assign a trader to work a trade route there, and even then, it may not do what you need it to do. If I recall correctly, if the points you are trying to connect are on the coast, the trader will go by sea, and your road will have to wait until you get to military engineering in the medieval era.

 

[UWHabs]

I'd like to build them myself please. As far as micromanagement goes, building roads is not the kind I want to reduce. For one thing, it gives you meaningful decisions: when should I prioritize roads instead of other tile improvements? Where should the roads be? For another thing, it ramps *down* in the late game, not up. Building roads is fine.

Some games take the approach of just creating roads between points of interest automatically, either for free when you unlock certain techs, or by having you pay the cost of the connection. This approach is also okay to me.

Civ 6's way of creating roads is the one I'm least happy with, as it's kind of indirect. If you want a road between two points, you have to re-assign a trader to work a trade route there, and even then, it may not do what you need it to do. If I recall correctly, if the points you are trying to connect are on the coast, the trader will go by sea, and your road will have to wait until you get to military engineering in the medieval era.

I think if they just found a way to reduce some of the micro, building manually can work. Like, for example, say it uses 1/4 of a charge from a military engineer per road tile, and they were given a "build road to..." function which simply moved a tile, built a road, and continued on a straight path to a specific city or tile.

As long as there's a cost, so that you're not too incentivized to place them on literally every tile in your empire to max it out. But in 6 they're too expensive to place manually, and then when you finally unlock railroads, the micro to build them just often is not worth the bonus you get from building them, it's just a pain.

 

[AriochIV]

I don't mind roads being laid down automatically by trade routes, but I don't like that workers can't also create road tiles manually. I'd rather not have to dedicate a profitless internal trade route for goodness knows how many turns just because I want to fill in the gap between two nearby cities.

And no, I don't think that having to wait until the late Medieval era for Military Engineers that can only create 3 tiles each is an acceptable alternative.

 

[KayAU]

I think if they just found a way to reduce some of the micro, building manually can work. Like, for example, say it uses 1/4 of a charge from a military engineer per road tile, and they were given a "build road to..." function which simply moved a tile, built a road, and continued on a straight path to a specific city or tile.

As long as there's a cost, so that you're not too incentivized to place them on literally every tile in your empire to max it out. But in 6 they're too expensive to place manually, and then when you finally unlock railroads, the micro to build them just often is not worth the bonus you get from building them, it's just a pain.

Yeah, in early Civ games, there would be roads everywhere, because it was a tile improvement that cost little (just the time it took to build), and provided yields.

I honestly think 5 does it very well though, and would be happy if they went back to that. Roads can be built from very early on, and in the early game, micromanagement is not much of an issue. There's a time investment in building them, which you have to balance against other uses of your workers. There is also a maintenance cost which means you don't want unnecessary roads, and you have to weigh the cost against the benefits. There are clear benefits to making city connections, such as a gold income which ramps up as the cities grow, improved tile yields for villages and towns on a connecting road, more easily being able to move units, and also an impact on happiness (that may only be in VP, I don't recall if it was in vanilla). The maintenance costs start running when the first tile gets a road though, while most of the benefits only come once you have a complete connection. This means you have to put some thought into it. For example, let's say it's the early game, and you have settled a city far from your capital, to secure some resources or some strategic location. You probably want to connect it in order to be able to quickly reinforce it if it comes under attack, but there could be real concern about the cost of that, as it is going to take both time, and cost a significant amount of gold. Once the road is built, you will get some income, but it may take a long while until that income matches the cost. To me this is all meaningful gameplay, and I'd rather they'd kept it in. If they were to streamline it though, I would have preferred something more direct.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I would like a system where the player can just click on tiles and spend resources to build a road on that tile. That would allow the player to control where roads go but in a way that reduces micro. I DO NOT want to go back to having workers/builders manually do roads. That just adds a ton of micro. I also don't like just automating workers/builders to make roads because then they spam roads on every tile and it looks ugly.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Roads and navigable rivers (as in Humankind).
Also manual uses of workers to build TI is too micro to me. isn't it better to build TI using city commands with TI points? (spends whenever to build or to repair damaged ones, multiple TIs can be built in one turn, road can be stacked.
though Railroad rules had to be reworked abit...

Rather reducing movement costs, it should instead provided free movements equallly on each units (or army) that uses the train. Normally a speed of troop train is independent to unit types. but rather dependents on rolling stocks, track and roadway conditions and, loading gauge and max speeds. as well as locomotives hauling a train. (it should increases whenever newer tech becomes available, yes the first locomotives (of 1830 AD) are about as fast as a stagecoach but can haul a freight volume of a river barge. within a decade a train becomes increasingly fast, until.. well i don't know when, when regular train speed on standard gauge has reached the limit (of about 200 kilometers per hour, excluding specialized highspeed passenger trains).

 

[AffineConstant]

What if roads were automatically built in logical places based on where you built other things, what your diplomacy with other places is, and what your culture (whatevers) are?

I.E. You build a resource gathering spot (farm, woodcutters camp, whatever) and have a citizen from a city working that tile. You automatically get a road from that tile to that city (and/or a tiny boat going up and down a connecting river!).

One thing that bothers me is that your cities are self contained in Civ, you have one mega farm city, and all the food in practical terms (unless you want to waste an entire trade route) can only be used by that city. Which is both uninteresting and a-historical. What if you could send food from that city to another city where you actually want it (this city with little food but a ton of other bonuses). Then once you do that, you get a road between them.

If you have a city near the border with another civ/city state you might have "closed" or "open" borders with them. Not military but "do you allow cultural influence from this civ in exchange for a small bonus to gold/similar?" If the border is open for trade, the two cities get a road(river boat?) between them without you having to do anything.

It makes roads (useful for moving troops/etc. around) feel natural, like they happened in history, feel like you have control over them (your actions cause roads to appear) but don't require any fiddly micromanagement on your part.

 

[AriochIV]

What if roads were automatically built in logical places based on where you built other things, what your diplomacy with other places is, and what your culture (whatevers) are?

If roads are built automatically, and there's no decision to make at all, then there's no point in even having them in the game. They'd just be a graphical effect.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

If roads are built automatically, and there's no decision to make at all, then there's no point in even having them in the game. They'd just be a graphical effect.

I'd honestly be fine with roads being reduced to a cosmetic element, save for the exceptions where they'd be surrounded by complete wilderness. It's not like paved long-distance roads were considered essential infrastructure in most pre-industrial civilizations; ancient Rome was kind of an exception in this regard, at least in Europe. Also, pop history's tendency to put more emphasis on roads than what may be considered accurate, could be a side effect of the automobile industry's overwhelming influence over modern society; car dependency can seriously mess with people's perceptions of pretty much everything, including the past

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

I'd honestly be fine with roads being reduced to a cosmetic element, save for the exceptions where they'd be surrounded by complete wilderness. It's not like paved long-distance roads were considered essential infrastructure in most pre-industrial civilizations; ancient Rome was kind of an exception in this regard, at least in Europe. Also, pop history's tendency to put more emphasis on roads than what may be considered accurate, could be a side effect of the automobile industry's overwhelming influence over modern society; car dependency can seriously mess with people's perceptions of pretty much everything, including the past

Roads were not just the material itself. It was above all a network of services (inns, relays,...) and security for safe travel for merchants. So even if the material was not as perfect as roman roads, the routes used by merchants were far above mere dirt roads.

You could say the effect of roads in CIV reflect that. When the road is efficient (meaning you have all the infrastructures such as relais and inns) you can travel further.

 

[King Flevance]

I would like a system where the player can just click on tiles and spend resources to build a road on that tile. That would allow the player to control where roads go but in a way that reduces micro. I DO NOT want to go back to having workers/builders manually do roads. That just adds a ton of micro. I also don't like just automating workers/builders to make roads because then they spam roads on every tile and it looks ugly.

This is my preference as well. You spend say 5 and there is a construction graphic on the tile and in 3 turns a road appears. Or something of that nature. And you could even cap it to say only let you build 5 roads per turn or something to avoid exploitive mechanics.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I'd like some kind of automated system to make the roads. Making roads in the older games were MM hell.-

What, you don't want to spend the entire early industrial period moving around stacks of workers to upgrade all of your roads to railroads?!

 

[AffineConstant]

If roads are built automatically, and there's no decision to make at all, then there's no point in even having them in the game. They'd just be a graphical effect.

They still have the effect of units moving faster along them, same as in VI.

 

[AriochIV]

They still have the effect of units moving faster along them, same as in VI.

If it's something like all hexes within a certain distance of a city are considered to have roads and give boosted movement, then that's just an attirube of cities and roads aren't really a thing. just a cosmetic representation of a city's "aura." But if it's more than that, then that's a problem. If where roads go is important but the player has no say over where they go, then that's a serious design flaw. Games are supposed to be about making interesting decision, not watching the game play itself.

 

[Naokaukodem]

If roads are built automatically, and there's no decision to make at all, then there's no point in even having them in the game. They'd just be a graphical effect.

But they are ALREADY automatic in Civ6. What makes them here or there are the trade routes. Nothing wrong to replace trade routes with finding new trade partners, districts placements, internal trade, external trade, etc. The only problem I can see with all these sources of roads making, is that it could look like the old games spaghetties, which are disliked by a lot of people. (not me though)