Roads and how they should work

We recruit units from our population, which means that somehow that should reflect when assigning patrols to roads, watchtowers... And in any case, a patrol of 4 * men will mean nothing to an enemy army (unless they are... the fantastic four ninjas in disguise!)

* be it 8 if you prefer but it's not like you are going to use a whole army to patrol the road. Especially not a single part of the road. Hmmm Maybe have little militar detachments that lower the enemy movement in their influence are unless destroyed. But still not convinced.

In civ4 you can't use roadds in enemy terittory. The commando promotion let you use them. That would be good to have such mechanism in elemental I think.

That doesnt make sense though, a roads a road. Just because it is in enemy territory does not mean you can't use it.

If by "integrated patrols," you mean something more-or-less automatic, I don't want that.

I'd like to be able to assign units to patrol either a specific roadway or a set of waypoints and I'd like to be able to build forts along isolated stretches of roadway. Having roadway security automated would remove a fun set of strategic decisions and possibly force a needless budget burden on players by making them pay for patrols on roads that are very unlikely to be attacked.

Heres an idea:

(This only works if line of sight/fog of war is used)

Have roads increase movement speed by a set %, and have them always bo "Explored" so if an empire uses your road system to invade your kingdom you will see them coming, but iof they travel off the beaten path you havfe to rely on scouts and outposts to locate the enemy.

If you can spread caltrops and burn bridges down with your patrol, they'll do a hell of a lot to an invading army.  That's the logic for units not being able to use enemy roads in Civ, your civilization takes out infrastructure as they come.

Shouldn't that prevent your own civ from using the roads, too?

Yes, it should. At least until you've been able to spend the time & resources to clean up afterwards.

I just think that when I build a road it should advantage me more than my ennemy.

There as to be a way to implement that

a road is a road.  Your roads aren't giving your enemies the economic bonuses that they are giving  you.  So your criteria is met.

OK I agree. Now is there a way, when my ennemy uses it it gives me a tactical advantage.

Meaning for exemple in a book I was reading a party of adventurers where using a road to get to a major city and came face to face with the millatary. They were asked their business and before they could get on their way had to give reason for being on the kings highway.

I would like to have something like that in place. Meaning that a road is just not a road it's also protection from theives and from advancing bandit and things like that. Can this be done in a game or is it to complicated?

It could be done in the form of spawning bandits and raiders who use your roads to prey on caravans and traveling citizens.

But bandits and raiders do both parties, not just enemies.

A road is something inanimated, anything that happens on it is due to people (and/or animals). An enemy solider is not going to have problems using any road unless in that road:

• Bandits: they can attack anyone who they think that they can beat. Problem, won't stop armies (won't even attack them) and attacks just anyone and not only the nation's enemies.
• Magic: with proper magic, your roads could be "slower" for non native units. As a possibility, they could be full of magical traps that only activated when non sanctioned people uses them (they don't have a sanctioned magic travel seal, for example). Problem: expensive deployment and maintenance (traps can be triggered by wild animals, unprotected and innocent travellers that don't know about your protections, shit happens...)
• Garrisons: militar presence can control road travel. Armed forces can stop any small group, prepare the area for its defense... They might not stop an army but they can slow it (until destroyed). Also used to keep (or at least to try) the roads free from bandits.

I'd like to restrict the movement of the opponents in my territory but in different ways.

In times of peace they cannnot enter my lands. If they want to cross my lands, I can sell them some different types of Travel Papers (only valid while in peace with me):

• Travel Papers that allow merchants to use my roads and trade in my cities.
• Travel Papers for his armies (Heroes, Sovereign, units) but restricted to only use the road. They could actually get out of the road but that would cause a diplomatic incident (including war).
• Travel Papers for his armies that allow them to go anywhere in my lands.

We could have policies so we could order our road patrols to check the travel papers of some nations more often than from others, actually reducing the movement in the road of units from the selected nations (minimum always 1). In any case, and depending of the movement rate of the unit, travel paper movement along a road is less than normal to a native unit due t the travel paper controls along it. Travel through the country cannot be hindered except when in the area of influence of a garrison or city.

This is an ellegant solution and should be perfectly sufficient.  So yes, roads give the invader an advantage, but you a greater advantage.  What's more, if the enemy uses your roads, then they are essentially having to pay for it.  I might give them slightly smaller benefit of movement than the native soldiers would gain on their roads.  You might also add magic roads later that disappear or turn to rubble when foes are on the march.

You know? I'm cool with invaders being able to use roads.

Well roads is a road, or a trail if you perfer. There shouldnt be no rules against it, we all should be able to use it but not pillage it. If there a bridge, you can destroy it if possible, but only with the right tool not by hackin it with a sword.

Given what you say about bridges, I'm guessing you really mean something more like "disable" when you write "pillage" here. I think that a given unit's ability to disable a square of road or a bridge should depend on the unit's abilities and/or equipment. If the game includes sappers of some sort, bridges should be fairly easy to break by late-mid to end-game, and ruining a small stretch of road shouldn't take that much time either. But I'd rather see the real question end up being whether the attackers have applicable magic and whether the defender has invested in corresponding protective enchantments.

I think it's far more important to simulate supply lines than to do road use. Scorched Earth is fine but I'd rather have the developers concentrate in other areas.

EDIT: Not that roads have nothing to do with supply lines... but I'd rather have roads be a part of supply lines rather than supply lines be a part of roads.

well i wouldnt think roads are important issue here either, that can come later once get all the most important things done.

First in CivIV I found it stupid that enemies moved slower on hostile roads since liek someone else said a road is a road.

Things such as needing travel papers are nice and will slow down people pass throught your lands legaly. But if the dude is comming to kill you that won't slow him down.

Control of roads can and should only come from actual troops on the ground. This could lead to the creation of a road outpost: an outpost would be a small fortification you can build on a road after "X" distance from near city or on intersections. These could ahve a sone of influence that would slow down enemy movement around them. (like in CivIV you could only move 1 space around a hostile city even if you could normaly move 10 spaces.)

Traps and magical speels sound ilogical, and out of the EWoM theme form what I can fell form it so far.

What I coudl see magic playing a function with roads is that you road is enchanted to provide you with vision of everything that happens on it. So if your enemy uses your road you will see him. This could also add int eh function to steal/take roads as one own with you own magic to dispeel the enemy's vision magic and replacing it with your own. (That is for areas outside of your zones of influence.)

heh dont think those traveling papers will stick, anyone can make those, just need an artist to forge them.

It might work if it was only a technology that unlocks and gives you outpost on roads with some millitia, They would not stop an army but they could at least warn you.

Maybe we could keep it simple.

Yeah keeping it simple is better. I'll clear out idea for booth road magic vision and road outpost.

Road Magic Vision:
-It gives vision of the tiles the road is built on. So any unit that steps on to your road will be visable. Quite simple realy, that that you can add this: Proximaty warning, for the tiles adjacent to your road you can get a warning icon, a warning icon would be identical for all units that it might be revealing teh presence of. So you know somethign si ther ebut you do not know what it is until it steps on your road.
-Roads should be "capturable", basicly with teh use of magic of your sovering (or heros) you can uncast the magic vision speel of a player ona  road and replace it with you own, hence making you the now proud owner of said road. To be able to captuer a road you should have a zone of influence of your own touching the road. (IE, you can't start stealing roads in the heartland of your enemy's terrytory. You'll have to work your way in.)

Outpost: (inspiered from Starbase in Sins and the Ruined tower in LoTR where Frodo got stabed by the Nazgul)
-Outpost can only be built on roads (what do you expect). They can be upgrade by 2 way that I can imagine, first more traditional is a build upgrade your puchase for it that takes time to build and increases defence and so on. Second, more original way is to have it being reinforced with troops, when reinforcing the troops now become part of the outpost (you lose control of them) and the type of troops determines what type of upgrade the outpost gains. (type of upgrade is left to imagination and debate)
-Outpost have a small 360 zone of influence aroudn them that will slowdown any hostile forces traveling throught it. This zone is uncontestable (EI you can claim teh tiles unlest you conquer the outpost) and this zone can not contest teh zone of influence of other players, you will need to conquer the enemies influence via teh otehr means the game has. (Ei you can not build and outpost next to enemy teritory to steal the teritory. It's not a terrytory stealer.)
-Outpost should provide protection for your road vision magic for around double the distance of the zone of influence. (So your roads cannot be stolen right up to your front door.
-Outpost strenght? Dunno how strong these should be but they should not stand up to armies, maybe only small gangs and such. (IE much weakear then the SBs of SINS in tearm of firepower and defence)

The reason why enemies can't use your roads in Civ 4 isn't for realism reasons (because it obviously makes no sense); it's for gameplay reasons. A game where you can build a fast force and then use the enemies roads to rush directly at towns on the far side of his empire (where the defenses are weaker) would be frustrating. Since the enemies can't use the raods, what you get is they have to either go around say by sea, or go past the border towns where presumably a stronger garrison will be available.

So, if you're looking for a realistic modeling of how an enemy army would use roads, stop. Instead, look at what can be done that isn't going to drive players nutty when the computer does it to them.