[Poll] Insta-roads and city snaking

I like bacon.

1) for me. The time it takes to build those roads is the time you spend researching trading. And snaking is something I don't encounter, since I use auto-placement. I'm completely fine with only being able to build river- and forest-buildings on those tiles when they are adjacent to the city core. I am grateful that it enables me to ignore internal improvement placing.

Both mechanics work well as is. I do wish that the roads were documented better though, as it isn't obvious why you suddenly have roads in your kingdom when they pop up.

My advice is (1). 

My feelings are actually closer to (2) but only because the instant roads are amazingly inefficient and offend my min-maxing instincts. I'd like to be able to have a way not only to build my own, but to also demolish roads that I do not like.

I love snaking, because it allows me to pull a variety of tricks, and because, old engineer that I am, I find beauty in a shape that's crystallized function.

My vote is for option #1.

As far as I can tell, the roads are fine, and I didn't know about snaking until last week, and I intend to use this "feature" to my advantage.

Sort of Number 2. I'm ok with it as is (so number 1), but I don't view it as ideal. 

If I had my druthers,the only change I'd make would be to limit insta-roads to each player's ZOC. If players want to connect a city whose ZOC isn't contiguous to the rest of the faction, the player can build outposts to do so. You could alternatively connect it via the road building faction trait or governor perk, making them more useful. Also, the only way another faction should get to insta-road in my ZOC is if I expressly allow them to via economic treaty. 

Then, should I count your answer as 1?

(2). Dislike insta roads. Don't mind about snaking if done right (i.e you can add a tile only if 3 others tiles are built)

3.

I don't want to be bothered with trying to figure out the best placement for an improvement. Obviously there are advantages to snaking, but I don't like the mechanic or the idea of ridiculously shaped cities.

I like that snaking is an option, so if someone else wants to snake, it certainly doesn't affect my game. However, the poll answer reads "I don't like snaking..." so that is my selection.

Hate snaking, and I'd also like another system where pioneers build the roads. Of course it would have to be limited by an upkeep cost for every tile with a road, like in Civ5. 

....But when it comes to snaking it's not an issue anymore if you play auto-placement of city improvements. If some players absolutely want to play cheesy by placing them theirself to get an exploitive unfair advantage over the AI with absolutely no strategy involved, then be my guest. 

If I myself absolutely wanted to place the improvements myself (then purely of esthetical reasons), then I'd see it as a problem that this option doesent have the same placement rules as the auto-placing option (you know, the temptations of exploiting the possibilities......).

I don't mind snaking, as it is a toggle option, so you can choose which is always the best.

I'd love to have more control over my roads, building and destroying would be great. ie : destroying a road on a river to bog down an invasion. (bridges ! My shrubbery for bridges ! I ain't got a kingdom to offer...)

My answer lies with #4.

However, Parrotmath's mod fixes the city snaking issues I had.

I don't like road spam. Having a unit to build roads is too tedious. So in that aspect, I like the insta-roads. What I don't like about them is that you have no control over where they are linked. Not 'how'....'where'. I care a great deal more about the where than I do about the how. Sometimes it's not going to choose the most efficient path....but that is a reality I am willing to live with. I do want to be able create segements of road between different cities and outposts through the city queue.

I don't play with snaking, so I don't care about it at all.

I would love a mechanism where you could "paint" the roads ala simcity.  Then automated units would travel your painted path and build the road as they moved. 

- If they were attacked by monsters they would embark again from the nearest connected city. 

- If they became stuck or were blocked by another unit a message would be displayed to the player that the road could not be completed.

- Roads could be erased and redrawn using the same principle (automated units would move to the location and remove the road).

IMHO, that would be a lot of fun and would be a fair compliment to the building of cities.  But it's almost a game within a game and would require a completely new interface.  I feel like the effort involved from Stardock to make something like that a reality dwarfs any desire they have to address the issue.

Roads, as implemented, do not interfere with the game.  They're ugly, klugey and completely shatter immersion, but from a utilitarian perspective: they work. 

I don´t care too much about manual placement of buildings. But I definitely care about getting building options for resources that are touchedf by city buildings (for example gatting lumber mills as building option, as soon as your city grows so large, that your city buildings are adjacent to tree tiles ... or getting the option to build harbors, as soon as your city growths reaches a river).

Either this or having the radius for which resources are considered to be "within city radius" expand with increasing city level.

As for roads ... I definitely liked the system of Elemental: War of Magic, where the travel of your trading caravans between your cities would create first trails, that later (with repeated travels of the caravans) would improve into better and better roads.

Therefore, if given the choice between instaroads and the system of Elemental: WoM, I would prefer the latter.

#1 for me

That is true, it is an option for the player using it ot not. It's a good point.

I agree too. They are free with the tech, and you bypass the trouble of building them.

But on the other side...

I find that here, the options given are insuficient: mancer blood, a governor hero with some levels and luck, or research untill economics and spam outpost/monoliths to get the closest to build your own road...

Don't forget to vote, please

I'm with Tuidjy  #1

I wouldn't mind the ability to build and destruct roads but not a high priority item for me.

4, I hate snaking, and the insta-roads are awful.

Surprisingly, even though we couldn't be apart in our feelings about snaking, I agree with GFireflyE about how to handle roads. Make 'build road to...' an option in the city building screen, and then enter it in the city queue.

1. Because roads are essential for movement on larger maps unless you want to cloud walk everwhere, and building a network of roads manually is a pain in the neck. I've never had any problem with snaking. Turn on autoplacement if you hate it so much *shrugs*.

3

I would say limit snaking to two tiles at most from the city which would allow some snaking - such as getting that logging camp or pier 1sqm from the city - which improves locations to settle quite a bit.

I would rather have old Civ Call to Power roads - that is, i "buy road" then click each tile to manually build my road from point A to point B. Especially in a game like this.

Wagons would be better because instead of using awkward paths randomly created, the roads would be manually placed. This would also increase the value of gold because even at 10g per road, 20 planks is 200g.  This would cause the "development" stage of gameplay to last longer and if one has to travel a bit farther to settle, then they have to buy more roads to account for that. Thus it also increases the strategy of placing. The only flaw is the AI might be inclined to burn gold making giant civ4 roads on every tile but that shouldn't be too hard to prevent.

#1. No problems with either.

#1 Definitely. 

#1 -- I like both features

It's 1 for me.