@GFireflyE: While I personally have absolutely no problem with the engineers build roads micro idea, I REALLY like the idea you put forward. It places emphasis on the fact that roads are tools that cities use to interact with their surroundings.
The current system is awful. Not sorta bland, not irritating. Awful.
Caravans Blocking Movement = Awful
Friendly Caravans should not block movement. ENEMY caravans shouldn't be able to move through your territory, period. Can you imagine if Iran put tanker trucks of their oil on US soil? We would snatch that up so fast their heads would spin.....
AI not choosing to use roads when it is way faster = Awful
Wasting three to four turns moving through woods or swamp when there is a road that would do the movement in one turn is really lame.
AI choosing to use roads when it is way slower = Awful.
Wasting three turns moving on a road when one turn across grassland would get you there is also lame.
Not being able to connect nearby cities with roads, leaving the only connection turns out of the way through another city = Awful.
Much like the above. Having to move three turns through a city on roads so you don't have to move three turns through forest when a road would make it one turn is very very poor.
In short, players need, NEED, at the very least to be able to dictate when roads are constructed (if at all), which general routes those roads take, and be able to destroy those roads if they no longer go anywhere useful.
