with regards to cherry picking, how fast are you expanding? it's easy to forget about expanding/ building more cities by focusing too much on questing and killing monsters.

since the last beta change or two, i've gotten into the habit of building an upgrade, either building or world resource, something that take 11 turns or less, followed by a pioneer then a military unit. then maybe another building, a pioneer, then i see what i need.

i research a civ tech, then either military or magic, followed by 2 more civ.

you have to scout around in circle from your main settlement to see where you want to go, picking up gear along the way from battles and looted sites.

your game settings have a big influence on the game, don't worry if you have a low faction power rating.

When you research Trading, it should only unlock roads within your own empire.  It should not give you roads that link from your empire to your enemies', and if it does then that's a bug.

Im gonna say nope, and... nope again.

I just finished (without actually finishing) to my liking.  The only road problems I ran into was 4x4 roads, and early on the AI did not want to take the roads.  For some reason they thought going along side the hills was a quicker route.

A hint.  Dont link your city to any other AI capital until you know exactly where the the road is going to be.  The road leads directly to your capital.  Not a good idea if your not on the best of terms with the guys who live next door to your best friend in the world.  Your friend gets slaughtered and... well... thats a road right to your front door.

I went the whole game on hard with 5 AI.  Only ever went to war with 2 of them.  Tarth was in the lead and the only one I had not seen but still at war with.

No reason to complain about that 3 day game.  It was one of the best starts I've had in a long time, but heck.

It is possible to win.  Im currently steam rolling with a dragon on one side and my dear leader on the other.  I just wish something would pop up right now that made me care about the last 5 towns I just burnt to the ground.

math for testing

after turn 150 and over you conquer 3-4 towns in under 20 turns you have a 1 in 3 chance of turning everything around in the world.  A plague, The Creator appears, or something to keep you paying attention.  Its an impossible request I know.

Anyway I had a great time.  You cant win every game.

Congrats on finishing your one game

This would be relevant if I'd even had Trading Technology at the time, which wasn't the case, nor had I been offered or done any trades with any of the AI opponents.  Just BAM, roads all over the place.  IMHO, if an AI wants to do Trade routes with another AI, the pathing needs to find another route than through everyone elses city structure.  If it can't then they shouldn't be able to make the treaty.

The rest of your paragraph wasn't relevant, but sounded like a good time.  The road issue I've encountered hasn't happened in every game I've played, but when it does it's a raw deal.  I never noticed this behavior during the beta, so not sure what the deal is.

To be clear.  I've completed dozens of games and this behavior has happened about 1 in 5 games. 

@ Others; I know how the game works on "hard", so stop presuming that I'm some noob coming to vent.  I can appreciate those responses were probably in an attempt to be helpful, but really don't add to the conversation.