A comment on roads

from Elemental Forums

Since Elemental's release, the road mechanic has been underwhelming. Yet, before we can discuss how to possible solutions to make the mechanic more interesting, it is important to understand why roads are not as useful as they could be. To this end, we shall outline the current road system and some of its shortcomings.

1. Roads can only be built by caravans. In general, this seems like a reasonable mechanic, as it is trade that usually pushes a society to create and maintain road system at all. Yet, in game terms, this requires a player to develop the trade technology, build a caravan, and send the caravan to some selected city. This system adds player incentives to rush to caravans over all other game aspects as the trade and movement bonuses are incredibly necessary for early game expansion.

2. Roads can only be upgraded by caravans through use of a trade route. Again, this mechanic appears reasonable as a route traveled by caravans would slowly develop over time. If you consider the slow development of any major road system, the trade traffic plays a crucial role in the expansion of both the road and the surrounding economies. Yet, trade is only one of many factors to this development, along with population and military movement. In game terms, a road is upgrades slowly based on the number of back and worth trips of a caravan and each caravan along a particular route only upgrades its particular route. This therefore cause the effect that two caravans on two different routes can travel the same road without both effecting this particular stretch of road cumulatively.

3. Roads can only be built between two cities. Since only caravans build roads along their routes between cities, then it is impossible to build a road to anywhere other than another city. This effectively prevents players from creating roads for any other purpose than the transportation of caravans from one city to another. If  player wants to expand his road network to create military paths to the front lines, the player is forced to create a level 1 city near the front and create a caravan from that city back to his production centers.

4. Roads are laid out based upon some underlying set of mechanics and can not be directly altered. Whenever a caravan makes it to a city and a road is created, the underlying system determines the ultimate path of the road. Sometimes, these path go through safe passes, and other times they cut right throw a mob infested forest. In either case, the user has no direct method of modifying the path his roads take.

Generally speaking, the possible solutions I can think of to these shortcomings are as follows:

1. The easiest way to make road development better is the creation of a worker unit which is user created and has the ability to specifically lay down roads on empty tiles. Yet, as has been seen in every civilization game, these units become a tedious chore to manage overtime and eventually outlive their usefulness. Personally I would not care for such a road building unit, as it tends to lead to road webbing which is ugly and inherently beyond any level of suspended disbelief.

2. Another idea is a user paint option. That is, a user can tell a city that he wants a road between a city and other city or point, then the user paints a path for the new route. Under this system, it would still be possible to have travel upgrade a road but it would probably be more interesting to have it so that every unit entering a square slowly upgraded the road and every x number of turns downgraded the road. This would keep add a strategic level to roads as unused roads would eventual fade away while well traveled caravan paths would be promoted and become better.  On top of this the number of user painted roads could be determined by some tech requirements/city requirements, this way a player would be prevented from sending huge amounts of roads out of a newly built city.

3. A last idea would be to continue to allow caravans to develop roads, but to give users the ability to modify these paths to circumvent certain situations. Here one could add a path paint option or something as simple as path conditions for determining the way the path is built, maybe through the use of sliders or user settings.

These are just some of the possible options for road changes. I am interested to hear what other people have thought of or any modifications to these. In general, I think that roads like all other game mechanics deserve a real conversation from the community on its own.

elemental
23,792 views 27 replies
Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Ro-ads Rooo-aadds....road is a funny word. 

 

I want solution 2. 

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I think the second option is best too, though I am aware that it would probably be the hardest to implement given that there is current no path drawing at all in Elemental.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

didn't someone say it's bugged anyway? (or at least road warrior bit)

 

has anyone seen roads upgraded btw? i haven't played long enough to see it (usually give up on some excuse like bugged quest)

 

oh yeah.. point 2 is very valid.. solution 2 sounds good but need to make sure caravans follow routes rather than do their own thing. mind you... what are the chances of someone marching a unit between cities to "improve" roads

 

 

also not sure if anyone noticed this.. in the campaign, must be the 3 or so city where you hunt some trolls amongst the woods.. there's a tile with something (well?) that's surrounded by forest tiles and inaccessible? 

funny thing is that i built a wad of (custom made) pioneers and spammed them and caravans everywhere... one of the caravan routes seem to have been built over the tile and the thing disappeared. that said.. i think the woods turned accessible at some point.. didn't pay attention to when the route started covering the thing.

wouldn't be surprised if roads cover other stuff.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Roads do upgrade, very very slowly.  I've seen some stretches upgrade over the course of an entire game.  It's so slow as to be basically worthless.  And that was WITH Road Warrior, which I thought was bugged, but I've since been informed that it does actually work.  Technically.  It's still basically a non-factor in the game.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Roads do in fact upgrade. Upgrading a road is not as straight forward as it might seem. In the current version, there exist 2 different concepts. The first is a road which modifies the move cost of the tile it is part of, the second is the route actually taken by your caravans. Now, a caravan does not upgrade the road directly, but instead upgrades all the roads along its route after its route hits a certain amount of trips. That is, a caravan between city A and B will upgrade the roads based on its route level. That is, a caravan's route level is determined by the amount of times (50 for level 2 roads) it has gone from A to B to A. If the roads along its route are at its route level or above it does nothing. You can speed this process up, by setting another caravan to the exact same route but from B to A to B. Now, say there are two caravans the first goes from A to B to A and the second goes to a city C on the far side of B from A. This second caravan will have no effect on the road from A to B even though it might travel the road, simply because the first caravan will travel it faster and its route will upgrade the road. If either caravan is destroyed, the road will stay but the route must start from the beginning when a new caravan is built. This whole process is really kind of bizarre as you would think that both caravans would have a hand in upgrading our A to B road. In general, it is actually best to build small routes between close cities for a while simply to upgrade the road between them. This will actually help all other caravans as they will then be able to travel even faster on the newly upgraded road. Long routes tend to never see an upgrade or maybe only the first ( there are several levels of roads in fact ) due to the sheer length of time it takes these caravan to make the back and forth trip.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

My take on roads.

(the option to build them manually but to tie building / upgrading to actual work invested - without micromanaging road building units)

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

The caravan > roads system seems to be a spinoff from the "organic roads" discussion in beta. The idea was that paths (or dirt roads) should develop automatically as people travel back and forth between your cities. That's the part that you're seeing, and since these roads are simply beaten down trails by people travelling on the same route, they don't cost maintenance.

But most of those ideas also had a road construction option where you could build a better road if you mapped out and paid for it.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

The "paint road" idea is probably the best (if the interface will be easy), but also the hardest to implement, and I doubt anyone will add it.

 

I suggest a compromise: When you get to a city, a caravan can use an option to "create trade route". From there, the user will get 3 options:

1) Fastest route: As things are today.

2) Safe route: A route that doesn't pass through forests (or any other monster spawning areas)

3) Country road: A safe route that passes only in your area of influence.

 

One more point: Since the longer routes are also the safest, it is important that whatever bonus the player gets will be per delivery and not per turn regardless of where the caravan is.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't think anything is wrong with the current setup, one of the things I dilike about he latest Civ game is how much time and effort it takes to make roads

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

I suggest a compromise: When you get to a city, a caravan can use an option to "create trade route". From there, the user will get 3 options:

1) Fastest route: As things are today.

2) Safe route: A route that doesn't pass through forests (or any other monster spawning areas)

3) Country road: A safe route that passes only in your area of influence.
End of quote

I think this is an interesting idea, but I think this could be simplified down into only two options. The first option, "Fastest route" is seems like a given in all three, in so much as you want the fastest safe route or the fastest country road. The second option could be some kind of setting which says, "Avoid Forests and FoW areas", while the third could be "Use AoI only." While this seems like a restatement, the idea here would be to allow caravans to both avoid forests and use AoI only. I think the idea of having some kind of user settings on caravans would give the user a lot more control over them and would prevent a silly caravans from traversing headlong into a dense forest or the FoW.

 

The caravan > roads system seems to be a spinoff from the "organic roads" discussion in beta. The idea was that paths (or dirt roads) should develop automatically as people travel back and forth between your cities. That's the part that you're seeing, and since these roads are simply beaten down trails by people travelling on the same route, they don't cost maintenance.
End of quote

I think this idea of "organic roads" may be interesting to revisit now, considering the new specialist system being introduced in 1.1. From what we have been told, this resource will be a global thing and so it would only make sense that roads would naturally develop between cities.

Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Quoting random_target, reply 10

2) Safe route: A route that doesn't pass through forests (or any other monster spawning areas)

End of random_target's quote

This is the only thing lacking in my opinion.  Given the choice of safety of route vs. quickness of route, safety should be the determining factor.  Caravan roads should avoid spawn areas if at all possible.

Of course, I would argue for being able to arm/armor caravans as well.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Point 2 is actually a good point  - but also, there needs to be a better way to deter or intercept attacks against caravans.  Too often  I have guards near by a route that I know is problematic and still cannot intercept the baddies fast enough to save the caravan

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

I like the caravans developing roads, but I would like to be to make a road where ever I want.  So I am for both methods.

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

I really, really don't want the spider web of roads that develob in other games like Civ.  I want to be able to connect cities with roads and put them where I want, but not have them every damn where.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lord, reply 16
I really, really don't want the spider web of roads that develob in other games like Civ.  I want to be able to connect cities with roads and put them where I want, but not have them every damn where.
End of Lord's quote

excellent point, point I want to be able to build a road to absolutely no where.  Just wander off into the wilderness.

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

Sorry not to be funny, but your argument negates your conclusions.

 

Argument

 

Roads are built through the need for commerce.

 

Conclusion

 

Roads cannot be built to frontlines for war purposes or exploration. Fix.

 

That is completely expected and what you state does not really pair up together. The current system works well. If you want to move your road system along then build a forward settlement. There is nothing there that says you have to build it up, just have it as a station point. That is pretty normal and would happen realistically.

Like you say roads developed through trade. Why would anyone want to arbitarily just build roads all around the place (apart from local governments with end of fiscal year budget to burn!), roads cost a lot to build in reality and it seems a little senseless.

 

Also if you want a fast track to another empire, send a caravan before you declare war, therefore you do not need to manually build a road to them. It requires a little forward planning. Although, if you are playing against a decent opponent and your attack fails do you really want their counterattack to have a direct fast route to you?

 

To be honest, the current road solution I find in this game is very elegant and one of the best in TBS. There is no micromanagement apart from making sure that your caravans are not attacked.

 

I find this solution a step backwards and one that makes little sense, the gameplay already allows for most of your suggestions. Building roads just for exploration purposes would require to introduce some kind of upkeep for road building and have a lot of manual interaction. I would rather that mounted troops were commonplace and that I could ride my big dragon instead of having a over complicated road mechanism. If you want to surround your entire city with a criss-cross of senseless roads we could just play CIV.

 

TLDR

Arguments

1. Correct, no problem.

2. Correct, no problem.

3. Correct, no problem.

4. Then route your caravans via cities that are safe paths and you build the path you want. Don't say you have no control over pathing, because you want to send it to your capital through some bandit infested path and you don't send it to a safer city. That is risk/reward.

 

Conclusions.

1. Already Civ and mostly annoying mechanic that involves lots of automation now and still requires too much management, this is not Civ.

2. Again too complicated, you now have to manually send your units along the road.

3. That option is OK, for an improvement over the current system,

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

Roads, where we are going, we don't need roads.

 

Sorry

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

Argument

Roads are built through the need for commerce.

Conclusion

Roads cannot be built to frontlines for war purposes or exploration. Fix.
End of quote

Not to come across as defensive, but this was not my argument/conclusion.  The argument is clearly stated in the first sentence where I state that roads are simply an underwhelming mechanic. As for a conclusion, I intentionally did not make a clear conclusion so as to allow for a healthy discussion to form. What you have pointed out are two different backings for two different points I was making.

To be honest, the current road solution I find in this game is very elegant and one of the best in TBS. There is no micromanagement apart from making sure that your caravans are not attacked.
End of quote

I agree that the lack of micromanagement of roads has its appeal, yet I would say that the roads of Elemental obviously has some issues considering that two different players believed that an working road mechanic simply didn't exist. While I can imagine there are stupid players in the world, the mechanic these players failed to recognize is not incredibly intuitive, which I outlined above.

If you want to surround your entire city with a criss-cross of senseless roads we could just play CIV.
End of quote

1. Already Civ and mostly annoying mechanic that involves lots of automation now and still requires too much management, this is not Civ.
End of quote

Comments like these show that you only skimmed the OP as the backing statements for the first solution says basically the same thing that you have posted. Obviously you are very passionate about the OP, but I think it would be far more constructive for this discussion if you expanded upon your own ideas which you started to discuss.

Building roads just for exploration purposes would require to introduce some kind of upkeep for road building and have a lot of manual interaction. I would rather that mounted troops were commonplace and that I could ride my big dragon instead of having a over complicated road mechanism
End of quote

While I can get behind dragon mounts as just being cool, I think you missed a key point I made about roads. I think that roads should be able to de-level. An unused road might lose a road level if it is not travelled upon for 20ish turns. I think this would make manual interaction or upkeeps unnecessary since they would continue to be dealt with automatically as long as the caravans continue to go.

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

Next complaint will be road spam.

Reply #22 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm for 2. or some variation of it.  I have been repeatedly frustrated by being unable to control placement of routes.

An example: in a recent game I had this situation-

                     B

                      l

A                    C

Where B was connected to C by road and I sent a caravan from A to B.  What happened was that a road was created from A to C!  My route was appoximately twice as long as the one I expected direct from A to B (and it was important because A was my capital and my future expansion was off beyond B ).

Reply #23 from Elemental Forums Top

There is road spam in Civ because roads = +1 commerce and that drives everything. Now Microprose was responsible for both MoM and Civ1: any road spam in MoM? No. Why? Because the only point of roads in MoM is to speed travel. The whinging about potential road spam in Elemental is, as far as I can see, all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Road mechanics are very underwhelming in Elemental but hardly a game breaker. But commerce followed the Roman legions, not vice versa. Can't see why this shouldn't be possible in this post apocalyptic medieval world.

Reply #24 from Elemental Forums Top

1. Roads can only be built by caravans. In general, this seems like a reasonable mechanic, as it is trade that usually pushes a society to create and maintain road system at all. Yet, in game terms, this requires a player to develop the trade technology, build a caravan, and send the caravan to some selected city. This system adds player incentives to rush to caravans over all other game aspects as the trade and movement bonuses are incredibly necessary for early game expansion.
End of quote

 

Probably the greatest road building empire was the romans and they did so primarily to move their armies. Nazi germany built the autobahn for the ability to quickly deploy their army to their eastern and western fronts. The american highway system was also built by Eisenhower for its ability to both be used for normal military transport and to be used as potential airfields anywhere in the U.S. if we should be attacked with nukes. You could make an argument that military needs drive road creation and that as a secondary effect trade arises. This is mainly because road building is typically a state project and privatized traders rarely have that much influence over state budgets.

Reply #25 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Anglophile, reply 23
There is road spam in Civ because roads = +1 commerce and that drives everything. Now Microprose was responsible for both MoM and Civ1: any road spam in MoM? No. Why? Because the only point of roads in MoM is to speed travel. The whinging about potential road spam in Elemental is, as far as I can see, all sound and fury, signifying nothing.
End of Anglophile's quote

Actually roads connecting to another city provided a .5 trade bonus to gold in MoM, doubled for the Nomads. The reason you never got road spam was because it was about the only thing engineers were useful for, and most of the time you'd rather spend your income on something more useful :P

 I don't know why they don't just make road infrastructure part of the city improvements, with roads auto building between two cities once they both had a given road network built. As an added bonus, tie up some specialists to maintain it, so you get to choose between more troops/buildings or a movement bonus.