Roads, Fortress and the Great wall on the Strategic Map

from Elemental Forums

Admittedly some of these ideas has been mentioned by other forumers here.  Here is some of my wants about roads...

Roads should have its own progression of development.   Gamer should be able to make strategic decision on the design of road networks, especially as caravan is an important way to transport resources (and hopefully equipment during unit upgrade)

Tracks
Tracks are automatically generated due to heavy foot traffic,  may it be generated from repeated caravan traffic, or a huge army has just passes by.   There is no way to remove those tracks manually (short of casting some illusion spells), but they disappear if not used.   Negligible speed improvement, no upkeep needed.

Tracks appears between cities as trade/caravan travels between them, using a shortest path.  After gamer build a road to fine-tune their route, the tracks will eventually disappear.

Roads
Caravan travelling along a road will never leave it unless it is manually instructed by gamer.   This means gamer has a complete control of their trade routes by road construction.  Caravan will never take the shortest route to its destination when proper road is available, (e.g. to avoid anticipated danger).  Some speed improvement, upkeep needed to maintain it.  Costs $ to build.

Gamer can build road anywhere.  This can be used as an distraction strategy if wanted. 

Bridge: similar to roads. 

Forts
Forts provide defensive bonus; larger more expensive fortress provides higher bonus.  All caravan stops immediately at a fort.  When they resume traveling next turn, any unused movement point last turn is carried over , plus they got some extra speed bonus this turn.   Thereby, gamer can better protect caravans if they garrison troops in forts.  High upkeep.  Expensive to build.

Man-made walls
Walls are built between cloth map tiles, just like the river in Beta.  And up to 4 walls can be built by workers on 1 map tile.   Most Non-flying units CANNOT traverse to the other side of the wall.   There are infinite configurations possible with other on-tile structures like cities, forts, archer towers, mage towers, etc because walls will automatically connected to these structures.  For example, the Chinese Great wall can be easily simulated by a long row of map tiles made from a “wall+road+wall” configuration.  

Siege warfare on the Strategic map
Units with ranged weapon garrisoned on the Fort/tower automatically attacks nearby enemy without melee retaliation.   Normal foot soldiers cannot assault Fort/man-made wall unless siege equipments are researched & equipped (e.g. siege ladders, rams).   Siege weapons like Catapult, Giants`stone throwing can destroy a wall section and then allows normal entry. 

Workers
I like Workers unit.  I don’t like “Automated” workers unit (a la Civ4) as they never do want I want & too much micro.  EWOM should incorporate a “Way Point” system, this will reduce any need to have them automated.   Gamer draw a path on the map, the unit follows while performing one of the actions available; in this case, workers building roads & all other infrastructure outside city on the cloth map.

When workers are building roads/walls/forts etc,  a stream of caravan will supply the material needed e.g. stone.   This represents the difficulties of building structure in remote/enemy location.

Workers are usually not killed.  They surrenders and be captured by enemy instead.  They  can keep building fort after being captured, even if their new owner do not have the technology to build a fort.

10,626 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I assume based off of your suggestion that roads can be used as a distraction or to avoid danger, you are suggesting also that the player can choose the path a road follows, as opposed to the current system where it automatically does it. If you are suggesting that, I totally agree, although I think there should be an option to just do the automatic shortest distance method, so that if you are connecting interior, unlikely to be attacked cities you don't have to do anything.

As for your other ideas, I agree with them all except the workers. Personally, I hate worker units. Whether they are "automated" or not I feel like they just add unessisary micro. I don't know, I just don't see the point.

And a couple things to add to you Great Wall idea. I think you should have the option to build gates into the wall, that would allow for easier access to the road, at the cost of creating a somewhat weaker point in the wall. And it would also be nice to have roads with a wall only on one side. I'm sure there will be situations where one side of the road is pretty much secure from attack, so it would be a waste of resources/money/time/etc to have a wall on that side.

My $0.02

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting kyogre12, reply 1
I assume based off of your suggestion that roads can be used as a distraction or to avoid danger, you are suggesting also that the player can choose the path a road follows, as opposed to the current system where it automatically does it. If you are suggesting that, I totally agree, although I think there should be an option to just do the automatic shortest distance method, so that if you are connecting interior, unlikely to be attacked cities you don't have to do anything.
End of kyogre12's quote

Your understanding is correct… If I don’t misunderstood you.  Currently in the beta, using shortest distance to automatic connecting interior cities will mostly works.  But how about your border cities?  Where is the other end?

Regardless, gamers should be allowed to control how roads are connected.  Roads are also  important to strategic issues of warfare, diplomacy and trade.  Even my OP focus mainly on caravan,  complete control of the location of roads are needed.

Quoting kyogre12, reply 1

As for your other ideas, I agree with them all except the workers. Personally, I hate worker units. Whether they are "automated" or not I feel like they just add unessisary micro. I don't know, I just don't see the point.
End of kyogre12's quote

If there will be a “Waypoint” mechanism to move units in EWOM, I believe most of the Worker mico issue is resolved.   Worker, just like other units, need to obey whatever diplomatic/border mechanism EWOM will have.    Automatically ‘drawing’ a road to connects to your unfriendly neighbour is a cheap way to hasten your next assault to them.   But when worker unit is available, you probably need to send troops defending them when workers are building that road.  

Quoting kyogre12, reply 1

And a couple things to add to you Great Wall idea. I think you should have the option to build gates into the wall, that would allow for easier access to the road, at the cost of creating a somewhat weaker point in the wall. And it would also be nice to have roads with a wall only on one side. I'm sure there will be situations where one side of the road is pretty much secure from attack, so it would be a waste of resources/money/time/etc to have a wall on that side.
End of kyogre12's quote

This is definitely a great insight.  I have removed the initial “Walled Road” concept and update the OP with a way better concept.   Here it goes:

Man-made walls
Walls are built between cloth map tiles, just like the river in Beta.  And up to 4 walls can be built by workers on 1 map tile.   Most Non-flying units CANNOT traverse to the other side of the wall.   There are infinite configurations possible with other on-tile structures like cities, forts, archer towers, mage towers, etc because walls will automatically connected to these structures.  For example, the Chinese Great wall can be easily simulated by a long row of map tiles made from a “wall+road+wall” configuration.  

Workers
When workers are building roads/walls/forts etc,  a stream of caravan will supply the material needed e.g. stone.   This represents the difficulties of building structure in remote/enemy location.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

This track idea is very compelling, but my guess is that if you present this to the programmers of Elemental they will have your hide. Can you imagine all the computing power and programming needed to compute and save data on all movements on all tiles during a full game? And then based on this draw tracks and give upgrade to speed. If a large army makes tracks on one pass, then most of the map would be tracked pretty fast.

Your other ideas are interesting :)

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

each square would only need one number,  the number of people who have walked over it 'recently' the value dropes each turn *nature reclaiming the path if it's not walked on* if the square exheeds a certain value, and it's neighbour also exceeds that value, a track is made between them, passing between them is faster.

really not as hard as you suggest

 robbie price

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Robbie.Price, reply 4
each square would only need one number,  the number of people who have walked over it 'recently' the value dropes each turn *nature reclaiming the path if it's not walked on* if the square exheeds a certain value, and it's neighbour also exceeds that value, a track is made between them, passing between them is faster.

really not as hard as you suggest

 robbie price
End of Robbie.Price's quote

Except that he wants to take into consideration the size of the army as well.

Your number calc would end up with some strange tracks. If armies criss cross a bit on the map there could be a square in the middle of nowhere with a track just because this square was used a few times by chance by passing units.

And do you remember late game maps in CIV (earlier versions) when the whole map was covered with roads? Do we wanna go there :)

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I'd vote that you can set caravan distro to be 'automatic' or 'manual' so you can choose if you want them to manage themselves.  In a large game (much larger than the tiny map we are given here ) I don't want to deal with managing all my caravans.  

 

I figured there would at some point be a supply line feature.   Where wagons would have to carry supplies to forts and armies away from the city.  At least, I'd like there to be.  

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting landisaurus, reply 6
I'd vote that you can set caravan distro to be 'automatic' or 'manual' so you can choose if you want them to manage themselves.  In a large game (much larger than the tiny map we are given here ) I don't want to deal with managing all my caravans.  

 

I figured there would at some point be a supply line feature.   Where wagons would have to carry supplies to forts and armies away from the city.  At least, I'd like there to be.  
End of landisaurus's quote

I would like the opportunity to add soldiers to the caravan as escorts. This is an interesting choice in the game. How many soldiers would you like to "bind" to caravan duty instead of using them to expand your empire directly.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting joasoze, reply 5


Except that he wants to take into consideration the size of the army as well.

Your number calc would end up with some strange tracks. If armies criss cross a bit on the map there could be a square in the middle of nowhere with a track just because this square was used a few times by chance by passing units.

And do you remember late game maps in CIV (earlier versions) when the whole map was covered with roads? Do we wanna go there
End of joasoze's quote

 

Well yes and no,  of you take into account army size you just add more then 1, prehaps adding log of army size (1 unit the same as 5 units,  10 unites twice the damge of 1, but three time would take 100 units marching as one).  for example.

Also although you could tip the ballance by walking two armies across, you might generated one square with a path, but the squares around it wouldn't have one.   but once a path, even a small one is made, more units will tend to choose a route that uses that path, the result would be fairly organic and intuitive dynamic path making.  (Setters 3 has a bad example of this. which could easily be improved upon.) 

Personally I prefer drawing on roads with a pen tool and having them be build out each nearest town till they meet.  But This suggestion isn't hard to code if it's deemed preferable.

Robbie

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting landisaurus, reply 6
I'd vote that you can set caravan distro to be 'automatic' or 'manual' so you can choose if you want them to manage themselves.  In a large game (much larger than the tiny map we are given here ) I don't want to deal with managing all my caravans. 

I figured there would at some point be a supply line feature.   Where wagons would have to carry supplies to forts and armies away from the city.  At least, I'd like there to be. 
End of landisaurus's quote

In OP, I am  suggesting how to make it automatic (via road design), and allowing a way to manual only when in a as needed bases.

I have been suggesting using the caravan simulate 'supply line' for about half a year.  I don't want anything more complex, nor simplier unless I see some new insight on this topic.

I would like the opportunity to add soldiers to the caravan as escorts. This is an interesting choice in the game. How many soldiers would you like to "bind" to caravan duty instead of using them to expand your empire directly.
End of quote

I won't mind that, but I'll very much prefer using the Fort method in OP to product the caravans.   However, NTJedi or Pigeon has mentioned a Merchant Guild system that provide escort to caravan about 0.5 years ago.  That maybe even make EWOM more unique.  However, since this kind of big system require SD's endorsement, there is no point to talk about that (on top of what have been discussed) imho.

Personally I prefer drawing on roads with a pen tool and having them be build out each nearest town till they meet. But This suggestion isn't hard to code if it's deemed preferable.
End of quote

I really don't see why drawing on road is preferrable to a 'worker with waypoint' system.  However, if there is no 'worker with waypoint', drawing roads is probably preferrable to having just worker unit like the Civilization series.

 

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

I suppose if roads and other such "worker created" improvements cost significant maintanence, and more than one road between City A and City B is less than cost effective, worker units are perfectly fine.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

About caravan protection. I think the whole system should be done like this: you build 10 guardian units. Then you move it to a road, and depending on their size, they will be able to protect a road of max. length 4. Not to make the system more complicated, it will be done like this:

1. Build a couple of units.

2. Move them to some road which connects two cities (ie. there are caravans).

3. Select an option: protect caravans.

4. You will be presented with a screen displaying max. length of road that this unit can protect. You will have to be aware that if you choose a maximum length, your forces will be stretched, thus they will be able to provide only some of their strength. For ease of use, you will be able to select a different part of road to cover, so that you don't have to manually move your units there.

5. If your caravan is ever attacked, it will be protected by hired forces.

Of course such units will have upkeep associated with them, so you will probably only hire caravan protection in dire need. I also believe that there should be like 2/3 techs that would for example allow your forces to provide more cover (more % of force strength would be proveded), or such protection would cost less.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

I like the idea that tracks are automatically created over time, but that roads require some investment.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting red1939, reply 11
About caravan protection. I think the whole system should be done like this...
End of red1939's quote

While caravan protection is a great topic to discuss, I think your system has a problem that I'll like you to clarify.  When there are 5 caravans on the same road, does it mean 2 guardians are defending for each caravan?  or Whenever one of the caravans are attacked, the 10 gaudian will show up?  How about when 2 caravans are attacked in the same turn?