You gonna build that road or not?

[lissenber]

Title says it all.

I`m just wondering how many people are going to build roads during early-game. It might be a viable strategy not to build them in order to cash in more money.

Also I`ve heard that resources require no roads anymore. Could that mean it isn`t necessary to connect cities to get happiness bonus?

 

[Thormodr]

Depends how much trade route bonuses/bonii are. If it is more substantial than the maintenance cost then I'd wait until my second city is founded then build a road to connect the two cities.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Depends on how much money I'm making. I can't get a feel for whether 1 gold is a lot of money or not.

 

[Babri]

I'll build roads atleast to connect cites with the capital & maybe to a fort/citedal too (only if they are useful this time around). This will not only make profit for you via trade routes but you can reinforce your cities much easily when needed.

 

[wapamingo]

I'll build roads everywhere.

 

[Disgustipated]

Tough to say. We will learn soon enough when the ai will launch it's first attack (in civ4 they wouldn't attack you before a certain point). So you will want to get some roads up before then. But with 1 upt, roads may not be as important? As you'll want your army in the fields, not stacked in a city. So getting them to the front line is less of a concern (although you will want roads to get reinforcements to the front line quickly). You can gradually build up units and get them in position before the war starts. So they will protect you from a surprise AI attack. So you don't necessarily need roads to get your units in position before the war.

But like I mentioned you'd want roads to get reinforcements to where you need them, or if the AI does something sneaky like an amphibious attack behind your front lines into a weakly defended city. So a lot of our behaviour will be dependent upon AI behaviour.

I imagine having your cities connected by one road will be the reasonable course of action in the beginning.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I'll probably connect inland cities for trade routes and then connect major cities to the front line gradually. The goal is to not overspend, but to take advantage of a cash surplus for extra roads.

 

[MrBanana]

It'll be like Canada in South Park: just one road to get to each city.

 

[dpaajones]

Can roads be built outside your territory and if so, who pays for the roads between territories? If it's the person who built it then how would that person be able to stop paying for those roads? Pillage them?

Another question: does the same apply to railways? (or "railroads" as you colonials call them.. )

 

[Polobo]

Can roads be built outside your territory and if so, who pays for the roads between territories? If it's the person who built it then how would that person be able to stop paying for those roads? Pillage them?

Another question: does the same apply to railways? (or "railroads" as you colonials call them.. )

See this for discussion:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=374880

It appears that they can be built and do cost maintenance. We do not know whether or how you would "stop paying" for them aside from pillaging them - other than the assumption that if they fall into another civ's culture that civ will take over paying for maintenance.

 

[Helmling]

So do we know exactly what effect roads have on Trade routes?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I will only build roads to connect resources and cities when they are not reachable by water.

 

[Sonereal]

I will only build roads to connect resources and cities when they are not reachable by water.

This and build them to connect them to border forts.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I will only build roads to connect resources and cities when they are not reachable by water.

While I feel that'll initially be my plan, I'll probably build later roads to facilitate troop movement (in a war, it'll still be helpful).

 

[paradigmx]

It'll be like Canada in South Park: just one road to get to each city.

In all reality, it pretty much is like that up here, the Trans-Canada Highway pretty well connects every major city, though I don't know if it can really be considered as one road seeing as it's split off in many areas. It's 5000 miles long.

And on topic:

I intend to use roads realistically, in the early years I would try to settle along rivers and coastlines, and then start moving inland, roads would be initially for linking settlements unable to trade though waterways and then when my budget allows for it I would start making roads in more places. Even in history it was typically faster to jump on a ship than travel on a road anyway, that is, until the advent on the automobile.

 

[Dbob]

I will only build roads to connect resources and cities when they are not reachable by water.

I thought the general consensus was that resources didn't need to be connected by roads to obtain them.

 

[JonoLith]

It'll be like Canada in South Park: just one road to get to each city.

Dude. That's how it works here. For Real.

 

[The Leviathan]

It'll be like Canada in South Park: just one road to get to each city.

Isn't that how Canada is in real life?

 

[Perfection]

It'll be like Canada in South Park: just one road to get to each city.

Canada really is that way!

 

[lissenber]

I will only build roads to connect resources and cities when they are not reachable by water.

In Civilization V it seems you do not need road resources to get the bonus in city. I`m not sure how this works globally but I`m guessing that you don`t need roads to spread the resource into your other cities.

Edit: looking at the following screen I`m beginning to think I will build roads in my first game.



He spends 35 gold on tile maintenance and gets 75 from city trade routes. 35 roads can connect about... 7 cities if you build them as close as 7 squares or about 12 if you build them as close as 5 or 6 squares. I`m guessing he has 12 cities because of his huge ammount of units. Or maybe he even has some unroaded cities. It would make sense to have your rivered or coastal cities unroaded because you still get a bonus from them.