Crazy road paths

from Elemental Forums

Instead of a direct path between cities, I got one that looped around a mountain and was longer by several tiles.  Another faction built a city on the road and severely restricted its utility.

Figured out that the criteria for the path was what a pioneer would take thus choosing tiles that do not slow down movement.   A shorter path would be obtained by choosing the path that a scout would take.  If I were using a pioneer to build the road I would still choose the shorter path even if it would take longer to build.

Suggest having Engineers to build roads.  Have a switch to turn on road building so that all you have to do is move the Engineer.  Could be used for other tasks like draining swamps, digging canals for irrigation, and building city walls.

8,409 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top


I would favor this idea as Civ does for the most part, but I still hate most end game maps that have crazy roads  that go everywhere, the continent with roads in every grid square.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Until better road building options show up:

1.) Play mancers

2.) Train a hero to get road building

 

Maybe stardock should bring road building much lower on the commander tree...

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm of the opinion that road building needs to be more universally available. It should be available to any faction that builds a scout with the trait. It's just too important to not have and because of the way auto roads build, the game can be a bit frustrating at times without road building.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Suggest having Engineers to build roads.  Have a switch to turn on road building so that all you have to do is move the Engineer.  Could be used for other tasks like draining swamps, digging canals for irrigation, and building city walls.
End of quote

This is an idea I'm not for for a lot of reasons mentioned here as well as on other posts. An engineer unit would create a greater degree of micromanagement and road-spamming ability that is unnecessary. While I do agree that the road system is a bit arbitrary in how it decides to connect your empire (I have been frustrated by it on multiple occasions), I think the best solutions I've seen have been suggested here:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/442254/page/1/#replies

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting davrovana, reply 2
Until better road building options show up:

1.) Play mancers

2.) Train a hero to get road building

 

Maybe stardock should bring road building much lower on the commander tree...
End of davrovana's quote

and that's the problem. If you don't want to limit yourself to 2% of the games potential, you're in with the other 98%: Screwed.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting animageous, reply 4
An engineer unit would create a greater degree of micromanagement and road-spamming ability that is unnecessary
End of animageous's quote

Present road building by a Commander is terrible micro management.  You have to repeatedly move and click Road.  Takes forever.  Also takes forever to get the Road Building trait.   If I'm going to move a pioneer into position to settle a city why not let it build a road at the same time?

Being able to switch it on&off would lessen any spamming that offends your esthetics.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting FuzzyGold, reply 6
Present road building by a Commander is terrible micro management.  You have to repeatedly move and click Road.  Takes forever.  Also takes forever to get the Road Building trait.   If I'm going to move a pioneer into position to settle a city why not let it build a road at the same time?
End of FuzzyGold's quote

You misunderstand. I'm not saying that the road building trait is any better. It's absurd that if you're Mancer, you can spam roads everywhere your units walk, and it's even more absurd that if you're NOT Mancer, you're absolutely screwed because getting road building takes the longest time ever. I mean, you have to level up a Commander hero, but not even that, a Commander hero in the admin tree. Basically, you have to babysit him, and babysit him, and babysit him, and by then you don't even care that you can build roads. It's stupid.

I like the idea of being able to queue roads in the city building screen, I think suggested on that other thread by GFireflyE. In his method, you have road segments, defined as between a city and a city or a city and an outpost, and you can queue these preset routes, with the production cost scaling with the length of the road. It's a neat solution which prevents spamming.