Stupid Question about roads

[Generaldoktor]

I guess, for my part, I am still confused as to how big a "square" in Civ parlance might be, as I do suggest further above. It appears though, in the older, developed countries, that you can't go too many hundred square miles without encountering at least a secondary road net, but I'm not going to push the point. Let's all make up.

In my example of the Everglades however, a large, formerly quite wild "eastern" area; there are now at least three north-south roads running through that now, as well as one lateral secondary and the US41/"Tamiami Trail" and I75/"Alligator Alley," these last two both running near the north boundary and both major arteries. This though most of the "Glades" is still underwater. In "CSI:Crime Scene Investigation," America's most-watched television show for most of the last several years, they frequently do location shots in rural Nevada outside of Las Vegas, for variety and probably as a reward to the state for assisting the show by promoting in a different way its tourism. Filming gear transport may be one consideration, but some of the rural locations have been fascinating and do usually, even for plot purposes, include a road.

However, I don't want to go OT talking about commercial television. I was relying on that impression as, for family reasons, I seldom travel west of the Mississippi. Johnny Depp's film version of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998) also featured some footage of a bare, but existing, rural Nevada road net which may have led me astray.

[Saurus]

Originally posted by Generaldoktor
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.

Actually I was more refering to the visual point of view when spekaing about the realistic factor.

For instance, in Civ 3, once you built a railroad ... you could not even see the mine becaouse of the road blockin the view pretty badly!
You also had problem seeing farms becouse big railroads run in the middle of them.
So basicly, if you looked from the space...you practicaly saw nothing but big, big railroads ewerywhere! Witch is NOT a realistic view. You do not mine a road or farm a road! You build a road TO the mine and TO the farm.


The situation in CIV 4 is better but not much. You still see all the stupid roads everywere making a beautiful and developed landscape ugly.

[bjjb99]

Originally posted by Jaybe
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'.

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

Originally posted by Generaldoktor
I guess, for my part, I am still confused as to how big a "square" in Civ parlance might be, as I do suggest further above. It appears though, in the older, developed countries, that you can't go too many hundred square miles without encountering at least a secondary road net, but I'm not going to push the point. Let's all make up.

A standard sized map is 84x52 tiles, based on the information in this thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=147547&highlight=tiny+small+standard+large+map+size

The circumference of the earth is about 25,000 miles, which gives us a tile width of almost 300 miles. That's a lot of space in which to put roads, even in the western half of the U.S. A quick look at Google Maps shows that the separation between interstates and/or major roads are no more than about 200 miles in pretty much all of the U.S. If you look at Europe at this scale, it's nothing _but_ roads.

Even if you go up to a huge map size, you're looking at 128x80 tiles, which puts you at around 200 miles for a tile width.

BJJB

[Brael]

Maybe it's different in Vegas though I can't imagine it being that way, anyways... I only visited there occasionally but I lived in Reno NV for 16 years, outside of the city theres quite a few roads. They're not all major interstates or anything but they are there, and no... some aren't paved but they're still roads.

[Nikolai]

Here we go again...

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Saurus


Actually I was more refering to the visual point of view when spekaing about the realistic factor.

For instance, in Civ 3, once you built a railroad ... you could not even see the mine becaouse of the road blockin the view pretty badly!
You also had problem seeing farms becouse big railroads run in the middle of them.
So basicly, if you looked from the space...you practicaly saw nothing but big, big railroads ewerywhere! Witch is NOT a realistic view. You do not mine a road or farm a road! You build a road TO the mine and TO the farm.


The situation in CIV 4 is better but not much. You still see all the stupid roads everywere making a beautiful and developed landscape ugly.

There's a whole thread claiming Civ3 graphics are better than Civ4. You could really bash 'em on that thread.

I appreciate Brael's comments, but am going to withold further comments of my own until I can take my Vegas vacation.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Generaldoktor


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.

not the deserts in central nevada (where I live). Yet the ai will still put roads on deserts and tundras.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Generaldoktor


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.

I live in Nevada, and have travelled extensively. I don't actually watch CSI though.

There are a decent number of roads all throughout nevada. But is 1 highway enough to constitute a "road" in civ4 terms?

We have Interstate 80 that goes east west across the northern part of the state. And Us93 and Us95 that go more or less north south along both the east and west side of the state. And secondary highways such as Us 50 (the lonlinest highway in the world) also cutting east west accross central nevada. There are roads in the desert (something must connect the towns). But enough to classify as an entire road network?

I guess I'm shooting down my own argument. Nevada is not a good example. The problem is desert in Nevada is more built up (because of irrigation and ground water pumping) than deserts in poorer nations.

I think a better example would be the sahara desert. I haven't actually been there. But I doubt they have roads criss crossing it.

[Virdrago]

Up in Nunavut (a very large nothern territory in Canada), there's only one road in the whole territory. (I read it in a CAA handbook) It's our largest territory, much more than 300 miles wide. All transportation is by skidoo.

I don't think the Sahara has roads either at least not through the desert.

[Spaced Cowboy]

I wonder why they did not implement a maintenance cost for roads and railroad to discourage road spam.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Spaced Cowboy
I wonder why they did not implement a maintenance cost for roads and railroad to discourage road spam.

Because the AI would be terrible at prioritizing.

Not that I would mind 0.1 or 0.01 gold per road or rail tile, since I don't automate my workers, nor spam roads & rails.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by ElConejo
Nothing against it, other than it just LOOKS dumb and unrealistic.

Each tile is hundreds of miles wide. I don't see how that can be unrealistic.

[ElConejo]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Each tile is hundreds of miles wide. I don't see how that can be unrealistic.

As you can see in all the posts prior to yours, the thread already decended into debunking my statement and I hereby withdrawl that portion of it. I will retain the part about the look as I still believe it.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Virdrago
Up in Nunavut (a very large nothern territory in Canada), there's only one road in the whole territory. (I read it in a CAA handbook) It's our largest territory, much more than 300 miles wide. All transportation is by skidoo.

I don't think the Sahara has roads either at least not through the desert.

Well the CAA obviuosly hasn't been up in the North. While there may only be 1 "major" road, there's all sorts of minor ones all over the place. As for transportation by skidoo, that's a bunch of crap. Maybe the personal preference is by skidoo. but when it comes to bringing in supplies etc., you can't get very much on one of them. At some point trucks will be needed. Not to mention that's there's lots of mining companies etc. up there that would rely heavily on truck transport. Which also means they're going to need roads.

Obviously the CAA is doing a terrible job at displacing the myth that we are a backward country that lives in igloos all year round.

[Henrik]

A secondary road network is the same as a civ road?
A civ road is enough for a sizable army to pass through at higher speed than if it hadn't been there.