Stupid Question about roads

[Garth Vader]

Ok, I gotta ask this now before I go crazy.

I just got Civ 4 and it doesn't look like roads aren't giving the +1 commerce like they used to.

Did they do that in Civ 3, or am I just flashing back a really long time?

[ElConejo]

They did that in Civ3, but alas no more. I actually like the new way roads work. A road connects two (or more) cities together. By virtue of being connected together they gain a 'trade route' which increases commerce. Use roads to connect cities instead of putting roads on every tile.

[Dis]

though the AI still puts road on every tile.

This can be useful for defense and offense in wars. But it still doesn't need to be on every tile. Just make sure to have more than one route to and from every city in case a road gets pillaged.

Keep in mind that later on railroads will give a bonus in hammers (shields) to certain improvements. So if I have nothing else to do, I'll go ahead and build roads on forests and hills, and other mined squares. That way I don't lose all of a turn's movement moving onto the square just to build a railroad.

[Nikolai]

Roads on (more or less) every tile. Can't understand what some people have against it.

[ElConejo]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Roads on (more or less) every tile. Can't understand what some people have against it.

Nothing against it, other than it just LOOKS dumb and unrealistic. But in game sense I think its alright if you can have the time but its not needed as it was in CivIII

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by ElConejo


Nothing against it, other than it just LOOKS dumb and unrealistic. But in game sense I think its alright if you can have the time but its not needed as it was in CivIII

It's always been rather abstract how many kilometers (or "miles") are the dimensions of a "square" in Civ, but I would hazard, that in civilized countries, if you would consider major and minor road nets; and railroads, every "square" in such countries really would have roads, real world.

[zeace]

I'm still trying to break myself from the roads everywhere habit. It's not that the roads hurt, and in fact you can even find uses for them ("It'll help me defend!"), but there's usually something more productive that the same worker could be doing somewhere else. And if that worker couldn't be used somewhere else, you probably have to many workers.

This is early to mid game, of course. At some point you'll likely have a bunch of workers hanging around waiting to build windmills, lumbermills, or railroads. It's easy enough to go back and build some of the missing roads then.

[Prussia]

If your so upset about the roads on an empty square, put a fortress on that square and put excess offensive units there as a sort of base for your attack.

[Saurus]

Originally posted by Dis
though the AI still puts road on every tile.

This can be useful for defense and offense in wars. But it still doesn't need to be on every tile.

My workers do this also when there is nothing else left for them to do. Spamming roads is still better than standing inside a city doing nothing.

Though, like in CIV3, both roads and railroads are very uggly and spamming them everywere is also unrealistic.

I really liked the concept that was present in Colonization (witch STILL is the best game ever created IMO). In Colonization, each road used up 20 "tools" ... A pioneer only had 100 tools. After this you have to buy more tools for them and this became increasingly more expsneive the more you did this.
Thus in Colonization I only had road were they were truly needed - they certainly did not run through every farm and square I owned.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Prussia
If your so upset about the roads on an empty square, put a fortress on that square and put excess offensive units there as a sort of base for your attack.

[Blaupanzer]

Especially now that the bad guys can't use those fortresses against you as long as the forts are in your cultural area.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Saurus

...Though, like in CIV3, both roads and railroads are very uggly and spamming them everywere is also unrealistic...

Okay, Finland is a "civilized" country, maybe in many ways more than my own. But it is also notoriously wild in its hinterland, (which helped a lot for it to stay free in WWII and the Cold War.) And referring again to the comment I made above when the last guy said roads everywhere is "unrealistic," that really isn't true in countries with fully developed infrastructure, like the U.S., or most of Western Europe. In these countries, where you don't have a major road, you have a minor road, (Civ doesn't distinguish) or a railroad. Roads are everywhere, once your country is fully settled and developed.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Generaldoktor
.... Roads are everywhere, once your country is fully settled and developed.

Paved roads everywhere, like in Nevada or Utah, or even Arizona, connecting in every direction? Are you talking 160 km tiles here (or 10,000 sq. mi.)??

You are exaggerating for effect, or do you live on the east coast where such ignorance is excusable?

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Jaybe

Paved roads everywhere, like in Nevada or Utah, or even Arizona, connecting in every direction? Are you talking 160 km tiles here (or 10,000 sq. mi.)??

You are exaggerating for effect, or do you live on the east coast where such ignorance is excusable?

Watching those CSI reruns, it seems you have something of a considerable secondary road net in rural Nevada.

BTW, the flaming is unnecessary. We're talking about roads for chrissakes. If you disagree with me, just say so.

Yes, I live in Florida. Even the Everglades has a fairly extensive road net now.

[Jaybe]

Me?? Flame??? I know I am ignorant in many things, some of which may NOT be excusable.
Such as how to (or not) interact with fellow humans ...

Well, never having seen CSI, I suppose they filmed near the roads. There's all that gear they have to drag along to film it.

Yeah, I suppose I have to say I do disagree with you. As an extreme example, if you look at a map of the Grand Canyon, you'll see there is no north-south connector for 150 miles, no east-west connector for 100.

In Civ4 the Grand Canyon would probably be depicted as 'peaks'.

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edit: In other parts of the west that I looked at, there seem to be many areas without paved roads for 60-100 miles.