Roads and Railroads

[Venger]

There isn't much info in the book or civilopedia on this, but I think I have determined...

That ALL roads and railroads do is effect movement - correct? No longer do you receive a commerce bonus from roads, and production bonus from railroads - can this be totally confirmed?

If so, it's GREAT news - except for one thing. I had long argued (and tried unsuccessfully to do this in Civ3) that roads and railroads should be move only, in order to allow the map to look like a map, and not Civspaghetti. I noticed in my last game that when I automated my workers... they roaded and railed every tile on the board.

Is this an artifact of the old worker routine to do everything to every square? Or do road/rail gives bonuses I am missing? The book is woeful without an index (grrrrr), and the Civilopedia give just a little info.

Any insight welcome!

Thanks...

Venger

[Bill3000]

Roading every tile still gives flexibility to movement, however.

[Venger]

It does give some, yes - but also potentially to enemies!

I have always disliked the look of all the roads - perhaps a good way to fix this is to charge rail upkeep, 1/10th gold per square. Now you might think twice about all those railroad squares to nowhere...

But, sounds like the roads are move only now...

Venger

[Bill3000]

Eh, there's no point... If there arn't advantages other than movement, then continuously creating it is still a waste of time, even if it does provide a small advantage in flexbility. No need for upkeep, as workers being prevented from doing other tile improvements (And I'm suprised that there are so many tile improvements now . ) is going to be a disadvantage.

[ZanThrax]

Paving every city radius should hopefully be the workers "I've got absolutely nothing else to do" activity. Not counting connecting up cities & resources.

Having fewer roads should allow them to be used tactically when defending too.

[ajbera]

You can try raising the number of turns required to build road, that should ease the tangle of roadways somewhat.

[Dominae]

A dense Road network favors the defender, because you cannot use enemy Roads in CIV.

If you Road network is too sparse, you're more susceptible to it getting disconnected in times of war (through pillaging). This can cause all sorts of troubles like loss of trade, loss of access to important resources, and reduced response time for reinforcements.

The AI is especially prone to Road loss, which is why it likes to spam them on every single tile. As it happens, many veterans players do this too, for security.

I agree that it's ugly if you have the romantic notion that single roads connect cities in the real world (have you looked at a road map, lately?), but you get used to it. Railroads, at least, look at lot better than they did in Civ3 (and Civ2, ugh!).

[ajbera]

I have no problem with lots of roads in the modern age, but not in the middle ages. That's just silly.

[Aeson]

Railroads give bonuses to certain terrain improvements.

[Akaoz]

Originally posted by Aeson
Railroads give bonuses to certain terrain improvements.

What bonus and on what?

[Aeson]

+1 Production for Lumbermills and Mines. (Maybe Forges too, not sure on that.)

[kaitanan]

If you have no rivers or oceans connecting your cities, roads are the only way to have trade routes for goods and such