Frogboy writes:
Quoting , quoting post* We don’t currently like how roads are being built but don’t want players to be forced to building “workers” to build the roads. If anyone has any suggestions we’d like to hear it.
In regards to roads the current method is encountering problems/concerns. Well here's my recommended solution:
1) Don't allow the game to try creating the road for players because some players may want a road with the shortest path or the fastest path or the safest path or even a road which is just a decoy. AI players will naturally need help creating their own roads.
2) When a player clicks the "Roads" button allow the cursor image to change to perhaps a wheel or whatever you feel is appropiate. The player then draws the road on the main map he wishes to be created thus taking only about 12 seconds for drawing a road.
3) Large cities can build roads faster than a small village. If a road is connecting a large city and a small village the large city may do 75% of the work since it will have more workers.
4) The first step is clearing the terrain so a dirt road is available allowing faster movement for armies and moving of caravans. Once it's an official dirt road the player may choose to upgrade the road to gravel so the caravans can move even faster. Once it's an official gravel road the player may choose to upgrade the road to pavement so caravans move even faster. Feel free to link these with technologies if Stardock desires.
5) The game still builds the roads... the player merely draws how they will be built.
6) The player pays a very small upkeep cost for road maintenance depending on the length of the road and type of road. The player should be allowed to drop upkeep costs for a specific road which is no longer desired. Once the upkeep costs are terminated the road gradually degrades back to a dirt road and then fades by the terrain, weather, battles, etc., . The dirt road has the lowest upkeep, then the gravel road and finally the paved road. These road upkeeps should be relatively small, but enough so a player doesn't spam roads everywhere carelessly.
IMPROVED BENEFITS:
A} The player has more options such as a road with the shortest path or the fastest path or the safest path or even a road which is just a decoy.
B} The player can easily build roads any direction and even to other map structures.
C} The player spends very little time building roads and gets exactly what's wanted/needed for the nation. Think of the cursor as a magic marker on the map. Drawing a road from one location to another is only about 10 seconds.
Hope this helps solve the problem with roads.
Hmm, I like it. I just came from the thread with that post from Frogboy and I liked the idea of having soldiers build roads, but this seems even better. I wouldn't call the highest tier 'pavement' though, that doesn't seem very fantasy-ish
And one other thing: I would actually like to see road upkeep and/or construction be fairly expensive. In Civ IV, for example, the entire map would end up covered with roads/railroads - pretty much every tile! For a game that progressed into the modern age and beyond, fine - but I would hate to see anything like that happen in Elemental. I would like road costs to be prohibitive enough that people won't even have a road-of-shortest-distance between every permutation of cities. I'd love to see major thoroughfares running across nations, connecting with the larger cities, and smaller roads branching off to meet up with less major cities/locations.
I love the idea of a living environment that changes. A centuries old chaneller should be able to come across the remnants and ruins of past abandoned or failed endeavors. Besides, if I whip-out that other kingdom, I want abandoned stuff to crumble and not just hang around.
I like this idea, kind of the SimCity solution. You could have the issue of building roads over mountains/hills at a significant initial cost and upkeep, versus going around them for production delays but at a much lower cost. The neat part of drawing them like Sim City is that the decision is the time-consuming part. In Civ games, you make the decision to build the road, and then so much of the time is spent micromanaging the settler. And since you have to tell the AI how to build them anyway, an auto-road function would hopefully be pretty easy.
Not bad Jedi. I was just about to make a post regaurding this but you beat me to it. I have some more options to toss into the mix of ideas. Quoting myself here:
I don't know about fantasy-ish, but even the Romans had paved roads. Think more cobblestone or flagstone than asphalt.
Yes - and I'd rather that they be called cobblestone or flagstone roads, or just stone roads than pavement. I'm aware that those are all technically forms of pavement, but when I hear pavement I think asphalt, and asphalt was not used for roads until modern times. If I were watching a medieval fantasy movie and noticed a paved asphalt road, I would think "wow, this movie's production value is really bad." It just doesn't belong.
All I'm saying is we should avoid words that conjure up images associated with exclusively modern things...
I really like this idea, NT, it would be neat to see roads curve around mountains, through forests, etc. "hand drawn" roads would seem more realistic in the world as well!
Agreed! This infuriated me about civ as well, and it doesn't seem very fantasy like.
I like this, except that there should be a button that will automatically build along the most direct route, if the player so desires.
This is exactly what I was thinking when I read Frogboy's comments on road building.
I'm hoping we can get some "Dwarven Engineers" and make a Tunnel Through a Mountain. Either with Dwarves or maybe even with Magic or a Monster that we recruit.
I recently saw a Developer Thread asking about roads... so I'm bumping this topic. Hope it helps.
This is an elegant solution. I propose a couple of possible improvements.
1. Place a limit on roads connecting two cities (i.e. 1). This should hopefully allow the upkeep to remain low, rather than using expensive upkeep to limit road building.
2. Include higher tiers of road type that are magically enhanced/enchanted, and possibly have the best road type be something like instant magical teleportation. Enchantments on roads could have benefits ranging from improved speed (movements) to providing some measure of safety to caravans.
Other than that, I think it's the way to go.
Fantastic! Here's why (IMO):
1. adds real tradeoffs and strategic importance to the selection of where to build roads (I've played a lot of games, and I can't think of any that did that well)
2. greatly reduces or even prevents that ugly and unrealistic 'road spam'
3. makes large swaths of the world feel much more organic - in both ways. Unmaintained roads slowly falling into disrepair is an awesome idea, especially as defeated opponents roads crumble. In the other direction, having more advanced roads will really underscore the effect your civilization is having on it's surroundings (especially non-cloth map), and the relative importance of different areas of your empire, as shown by your level of infrastructure investment.
It could also add the possibility of a cross-domain road negotiated between nations. Might be hard to lay out, though...
Last, I wonder if the pace would be slow enough and road usage important enough to justify fortresses?
I forgot to mention: the actual road construction should take not only time, but a portion of the nearest city's production, possibly with an additional gold layout (especially for some of the road upgrades). I think this is the direction that roads are going in anyway, but hadn't been mentioned in this thread (I don't think...)
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