Roads done a little differently

[TheDS]

If any of you have ever tried to walk or drive up a mountain, you know it can be slow going, what from the inclines, the switchbacks, snaking around, and all the other stuff, going through mountains isn't the same as going across flat land.

In Civ4, Hills represent passable mountains, and normally cost 2 MPs to enter. Build a Road, and it costs only 1/2 or 1/3 MP to enter, and this is regardless of the terrain. Railroads are even worse, at 1/10 MP. But it shouldn't be like this.

Instead of a flat 1/2 or 1/3 MP, divide the movement cost by 2 or 3, or 10 for Railroads. This doesn't affect forest/jungle movement, only movement onto Hills.

The effects this will have:

• Hills will continue to be an impediment to travel, so it will be beneficial to build the road or rails around them.
• Using railroaded Mines as important rail links between cities will not happen nearly as much. You'll have to build an honest rail network instead of "cheating" by using Mines as part of the network.
• It's no longer a no-brainer to build a straight road; now you have to think about whether it's beneficial to build straight through or go around.
• Cities built on or hiding behind difficult terrain will now be more difficult to get to. You'll wind up needing a modestly larger reserve force to deal with unexpected incursions.
• The Guerilla promotions could have an additional ability to reduce or eliminate this new effect, making them desireable to have in some instances.

I would also like it if there was a difference between Rails used to improve Mine/Lumber/Quarry production and Rails used to improve movement through the square. This could MAYBE be satisfied by requiring double the build time for Rails built on such squares, or if the Rails come before the tile improvement, then the tile improvement takes longer.

It's a small change with modest effects that I think would enhance the feel of realism without detracting from gameplay, and programming it for AI use shouldn't be too hard, as it would be a similar algorithm to the one already used, if not just a re-weighting of terrain values.

 

[toft]

I like your idea, but to further prevent road/rail spamming there really should be an upkeep to each tile with road/rail.

 

[alms66]

I agree with both ideas in both posts above 100%, and I've thought it should be this way since civ2...

I'd go so far as to say that all tile improvements should have an upkeep cost to prevent spamming unnecessarily, as well as all buildings too to prevent building needless buildings in cities just to keep them busy. Now, I'm not saying get rid of city maintenance, that represents the costs of administering the city and I like that, but the buildings themselves need upkeep too!!! It just makes sense...

Also, while we're at it, how about some true movement? If it takes 2 movement points to cross forest, then I should have to take 2 turns to cross it, not 1 turn as it is now!!

 

[rysmiel]

I like your idea, but to further prevent road/rail spamming there really should be an upkeep to each tile with road/rail.

Why do people talk about road/rail spamming as if it were a bad thing ?

Seriously, if we're even slightly interested in a game representing progress and development and so forth, there should be about as many squares in a Civ game not roaded or railed by the modern era as there are ten-mile or hundred-mile squares in Europe that have no roads or rails in them. Which is pretty few.

 

[rysmiel]

I'd go so far as to say that all tile improvements should have an upkeep cost to prevent spamming unnecessarily, as well as all buildings too to prevent building needless buildings in cities just to keep them busy. Now, I'm not saying get rid of city maintenance, that represents the costs of administering the city and I like that, but the buildings themselves need upkeep too!!! It just makes sense...

Definitely bring back building maintenance. I am unconvinced about improvement maintenance, though. It would be difficult to balance against trade benefits accruing from better transit systems.

 

[TheDS]

Okay, first, my ideas probably wouldn't help road-spam too much. At most, they might remove a few unnecessary ones from Hills.

Second, why do so many people hate road-spam? Get yourself a map of the USA. Is every single road represented? No? Why not? I'll bet there are a lot of MAJOR roads that aren't represented either.

Now get a map of all the rail lines. It's missing just as much information, isn't it? Why would all these map-making companies produce such OBVIOUS LIES and stay in business? I mean, there's a lot of roads in Indiana, but hardly any in Arizona, but they don't look too different on a map of the whole country. One would think farmland and desert are about the same.

Could it be because we don't really need to know the obvious stuff, that roads are actually there, but we don't need to see them? Could it be that if we included them, we wouldn't be able to see what we wanted to actually see in the first place? Could it be that such a map would be indistinguishable from a black piece of paper?

I have anti-road-spam ideas, you can believe it. I even got to implement a successful one in Civ3 until the jackasses changed things in a patch. It was nice to see USEFUL information instead of spam, at least until railroads came along. Nice while it lasted. But this post isn't about anti-road-spam, it's about adding a touch of realism and a touch of strategic road placement.

Spoiler :

If you care, the change I made was to simply give all tiles +1 commerce and remove the commerce bonus from building a road. It made sense that all tiles in a city's radius should have roads already in them, and we didn't need to see them. This allowed ACTUAL roads to be used the proper way: as transportation and trade links. But when railroads came along, the AI spammed them again, because they gave every tile +1 production. I probably could have solved that problem the same way, by just giving every tile +1 Shield and remove that from Rails, but I didn't know how to do it.

They broke this in a patch by making it impossible to build roads where a tile couldn't have its Commerce increased by a Road, so Roads HAD to have the Commerce bonus to be built at all. Very stupid.

 

[rysmiel]

Second, why do so many people hate road-spam? Get yourself a map of the USA. Is every single road represented? No? Why not? I'll bet there are a lot of MAJOR roads that aren't represented either.

This is a lot of statements without a clearly defined argument linking them, but if you're making the argument I think you are making, I still disagree with you; because if the point of roads is as trade routes, in whatever form, if you want to do that with optimal efficency at any point prior to overlaying an interstate system on the whole thing, you have a lot to gain from a complete road atlas, and there are relatively complete road atlasses around to this day.

Could it be because we don't really need to know the obvious stuff, that roads are actually there, but we don't need to see them?

Not if you are starting from a position where there are no roads at all. This is just another argument for "have the game do this thing automatically/invisibly so we don't have to be bothered with it", which is a step away from Civ-as-game and towards Civ-as-toy; it's one more level of control lost, which is why I am so adamantly opposed to it.

Could it be that if we included them, we wouldn't be able to see what we wanted to actually see in the first place? Could it be that such a map would be indistinguishable from a black piece of paper?

If that's the principal scale of your objection, then it's a graphics issue, not a gameplay one.

 

[Onionsoilder]

I think that there shouldn't be road maintenance so to speak, but road "levels", with dirt roads coasting no maintenance, Paved Roads(either stone in the Classical age or pavement in Industrial) costing a small amount, and highways/railroads costing the largest amount.

The benefits of this would be that each road improves upon the first one. A dirt road would cut movement cost by 2. A paved road would cut movement cost by 3. In addition, every city connected by at least 1 paved road will get an extra trade route (having more then one paved road will not increase the bonus). Highways can reduce movement cost by 6. A railroad can reduce movement by 5 or 10, depending on how many lines are built(in the same tile). Cities connected by railroad also gain two extra trade routes.

In addition, Paved or Railroads can be connected to bridges and tunnels. Bridges would not incur extra maintenance, because they are connected to a road that already does. Tunnels, however, would, and go through mountains, however, they are VERY expensive, and are only buildable after Steel.

 

[toft]

No upkeep leads to roads everywhere, no matter the single time cost of building the road. Can I ask the OP, what your initial idea is any good for, when theres road/rail everywhere?

With an upkeep, you would actually have to think about where you place your road/rail, emphasizing your initial idea. Is it worth it to build around these hills for faster travel, but larger upkeep? Or should I save my money and suffer a little slower movement?

My hatred towards road/rail spamming is because its a no-brainer - its silly.

 

[alms66]

I think that there shouldn't be road maintenance so to speak, but road "levels", with dirt roads coasting no maintenance, Paved Roads(either stone in the Classical age or pavement in Industrial) costing a small amount, and highways/railroads costing the largest amount.

The benefits of this would be that each road improves upon the first one. A dirt road would cut movement cost by 2. A paved road would cut movement cost by 3. In addition, every city connected by at least 1 paved road will get an extra trade route (having more then one paved road will not increase the bonus). Highways can reduce movement cost by 6. A railroad can reduce movement by 5 or 10, depending on how many lines are built(in the same tile). Cities connected by railroad also gain two extra trade routes.

In addition, Paved or Railroads can be connected to bridges and tunnels. Bridges would not incur extra maintenance, because they are connected to a road that already does. Tunnels, however, would, and go through mountains, however, they are VERY expensive, and are only buildable after Steel.

I used to like the "different types/levels of roads" idea that you describe here, but now I prefer to simply have roads that start with say 1/2 movement, but later technologies improve this to 1/3, then 1/4, then 1/5, etc., while similarly there is only one "rail" improvement, which might start at 1/10, and improve with technologies to 1/11, 1/12, and so on. The graphics that depict the roads and rails can change when these "upgrades" occur, or not, I could live with either way.

 

[rysmiel]

I used to like the "different types/levels of roads" idea that you describe here, but now I prefer to simply have roads that start with say 1/2 movement, but later technologies improve this to 1/3, then 1/4, then 1/5, etc., while similarly there is only one "rail" improvement, which might start at 1/10, and improve with technologies to 1/11, 1/12, and so on. The graphics that depict the roads and rails can change when these "upgrades" occur, or not, I could live with either way.

I think, though, that having several levels of road/rail functionality which need you to explicitly go back and build over the roads to upgrade them is a better mechanism because of allowing you finer control; and the economics of how many workers you can spare to do that upgrading do seem equivalent to the upkeep cost notion toft is floating in terms of the effect being to require you to prioritise and make choices as to where you put your roads. Where I differ strongly with toft is that I firmly believe that every or almost every square should be fully developed, including road/rail, towards the end of the game; I am entirely in favour of it being necessary to make strategic choices as to where you develop first.

 

[rysmiel]

My hatred towards road/rail spamming is because its a no-brainer - its silly.

I strongly disagree here.

At the start of a game, where you put your roads takes thought, for optimal military transport, for reaching resources, for connecting your cities.

Later on in the game, where you put your roads takes thought, in order to get the road bonus on the tiles you most need to work.

Later on again, where you put your railway takes thought, to get a fast network through your empire.

It's only at the very end when one is filling in gaps that it becomes a no-brainer; and the development you do at the end of the game is about perfecting cities and improving their score anyway, no ? (Unless you're busy conquering the world and fixing the infrastructure the AI built, in which case the previous considerations still apply.)

 

[alms66]

I think, though, that having several levels of road/rail functionality which need you to explicitly go back and build over the roads to upgrade them is a better mechanism because of allowing you finer control; and the economics of how many workers you can spare to do that upgrading do seem equivalent to the upkeep cost notion toft is floating in terms of the effect being to require you to prioritise and make choices as to where you put your roads.

True, but I really dislike the tedium of workers and would like to see them go entirely, but that's another thread isn't it...?

 

[TheDS]

As I said, my suggestion isn't about getting rid of road-spam. I'm all for that, but this suggestion doesn't do anything for it. In some cases, it will decrease the early presence of roads on hills, but that's it.

When Worker-turns are valuable, typically in the early game or when you first get Rails, it makes sense to try to get the most efficient route possible. But once you've got that, and your Workers have nothing better to do, then it's a no-brainer to road everything on the off-chance you'll need the movement bonus there. There's no down-side beyond the ridiculousness and ugliness of it.

A lot of people, myself included, don't build an excess of Workers. Lately, under advice, I've tried building a lot more than I otherwise would, and the difference is pretty dramatic. I get my cities developed faster, but I also more quickly come upon the point where I've got a lot of Workers sleeping because there's nothing for them to do. And they cost upkeep, too.

The AI apparently never has anything better to do than build Workers and build Roads with them, because they've got Roads everywhere. Charging maintenance for Roads would probably get rid of Road-spam, but I'm hesitant to go to that solution.

If you still have questions about the topic of the thread, and the benefits I project, please reread the initial post. If it's not clear, or you disagree, feel free to ask about that. If you want to talk about Road-spam, please start a new thread, and I'll be happy to go into great detail about it there.