Stupid Question about roads

[Unimatrix11]

Originally posted by Willem


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.

...when everybody knows that you only live in igloos from march till november (for religious reasons)

[Willem]

Originally posted by Henrik
A secondary road network is the same as a civ road?

A road is a road in the game, it doesn't make any distinctions.

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

Any kind of road will do that. Take a look at some WWII footage sometime. Many of the roads they had to pass were little more than dirt tracks, yet they advanced entire armies down them. They're all going to be travelling in the same direction after all, it's not you'll have to worry about oncoming traffic.

[Jaybe]

A substantial road network allows you to move multiple columns so deployment at the destination is more direct. A single road makes for a single very long column, a mile long for a legion in Caesar's day, a couple miles for a single bare mechanized battalion today.

Roads in Civ4 are not required for commerce (e.g., a town or food from a farm). Therefore, I must disagree with the concept that "any road will serve;" it must be a road network, preferably of good quality. Sure, in WWII they would use a track if necessary (especially in Russia, where there was rarely anything better), but it created logistical nightmares to do so and would prefer a well-maintained 2-4 lane paved highway.

[sparkyal]

I like roads, I build them everywhere. Why? I get bored with my workers and send them off to do something. Plus, when I need to send the troops off to fight, they sure are useful. I think this was discussed at some point. I commented about certain cities having rather good road systems for military purposes......

sparky

[Virdrago]

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.

Actually, Willem, Nunavut has no roads. The Yukon and Northwest Territories do, but Nunavut has no mining. It's technically a large Inuit reserve. Everything from fuel to food comes via plane or sealift (I'm quoting the Nunavut government website here, not CAA).

Anyway, I don't want to get into an argument. We both know we're not backwards. I even have electricity in my igloo (or I wouldn't be typing this).

[VonSharma]

Just my 2 cents and being a New Yorker, when I try to relate terra earth with terra civ, I like to think that New Jersey is about 2-3 squares, Westchester 1 sq., LI 1 sq, and Connecticut about 2. Philadelphia, although a great city, is more like a very, very rich town of New Yorks (sorry philleans =P
This area definitely would be prime, prime land in civ (I'm thinkin grassland hills, some cows, some iron, good stuff).
Boston and DC would be the next cities around (Baltimore would be a town of DC).
My apologies to my European and S. American friends if you can't relate. You can czech out google maps I suppose.

[sparkyal]

Hey, I grew up in Philly!

I undersrtand what are saying that, in order to ge the proper size, you would need to build Philly and NYC inside the 3 tile limit in order to get the proper perspective. And with DC and Baltimore being right next to one another (about 40 miles seperates them) you have the same problem. although, DC's population is signifigantly smaller then Baltimore's.

sparky

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Willem
Take a look at some WWII footage sometime.

Presuming a bit much are we?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Virdrago
The Yukon and Northwest Territories do, but Nunavut has no mining.

IIRC, it's in Nunavut where those big diamond mines are located. I could be wrong though.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Henrik



Presuming a bit much are we?

Sorry, but I haven't a clue what you're implying by that comment. Are you suggesting that WWII was faked and that all news footage was actually produced in Southern California?

[Nikolai]

I guess he means that you can't possibly have seen some of the roads over here in Europe(and certainly not some of the ones in the north).

[Dis]

Originally posted by Willem


Sorry, but I haven't a clue what you're implying by that comment. Are you suggesting that WWII was faked and that all news footage was actually produced in Southern California?

I think he's saying everyone has seen ww2 footage. As we all have at least some interest in history (why we are playing this game), we are most likely to have seen ww2 footage.

[Garth Vader]

Originally posted by Willem


IIRC, it's in Nunavut where those big diamond mines are located. I could be wrong though.

You are, gold and diamond mines are in NWT. Nunavut has nothing, I don't even know why they split it from NWT.

[Blaupanzer]

The AI is programed to keep workers busy. They are all "automated." Those workers will build farms and windmills on tiles outside the "fat cross" of any city. Thus, they road everything. This is not meant to be an historical commentary by Firaxis on the state of the earth. It's an artifact of the programming.

In the early game, you can use roads to channelize enemy approaches through hills or jungle. Don't build roads for the sake of keeping workers busy, for gosh sakes. Later, roads serve as the base for railroads, which do look better in Civ IV than in its predecessor. Again, don't build rails for the fun of it; work with a purpose.

In contribution to the debate, Antarctica ia almost completely roadless, as are considerable stretches of Africa. But at 200 - 300 miles to the tile, only a few places on earth have "no" roads whatsoever.