I actually really like the current system. Everyone can use a commander to build roads; The trait is at the very start of the tree and it provides for varied options of how to utilize a commander (city management or troop buff). Being a roadie can be a very useful occupation for a commander In addition, factions with mancer blood can train road-building troops, which is a very nice and unique faction trait.

The only problems are that some faction traits seem much weaker in comparison and have to be re-evaluated, champions should earn xp by building stuff in cities and traversing the land and that the fame mechanic needs to better account for when you need new champions.

I prefer this system over the typical approach where everyone can spam road-building units and roads.

You picked a faction with mancer blood, their pioneers have the road-building trait and you can choose the trait when you design a new unit.

Again, you can always use a commander to build roads. That way they are really worth something beside their buffs on your armies and can actively do something for your cities.

 I do agree that the roadbuilding logic/calculator needs to be tweaked; I'm seeing the same craziness with some road paths that has been discussed to death.

This is more of a 'wish list' thing, but I wouldn't mind seeing roads being tied to resources (specifically materials).  Each road section takes one material.  Also, you start with a path, which gives you a lesser movement bonus, and when you upgrade to stone, you get a greater movement bonus.  Finally, no roads are not automatically placed; players choose where they go.

I'd love to see road sections require units physically on site for construction.  Having Scouts do this sounds like a fine idea, at least for paths.  Upgrades could be handled by Pioneers, Commanders, or whatever other unit might be handy - "Hey Guardians, the Sovereign is sending you out on road detail...".  Militias would be great for this!  The rate of construction I'd recommend would be 1 square per turn per unit.

This opens up some interesting tactical situations, as road crews will need to be wary of attack by creatures and other enemies.  This might be a little too micro management for some of you, but since I've had to do this in most other 4x games I've played, I don't see a problem.

Since we seemed to have went away from the 'workforce' model in Elemental, the 'Outpost' method (Sierra game) wouldn't work well, but it was a mechanic I liked.  In that game, factories produced road sections, and when you placed them on the map, a certain amount of population was taken out of the 'workforce pool', possibly limiting worker availablility for other projects.  Plus, in that game, road sections took multiple turns to build, so the workers wouldn't be available again for a bit... the workforce mechanic did make for some interesting management choices in that game, however.

Again, more of a wish list/future expansion thing, but I felt the need to share.

and give roadbuilder a horse, and roads get built 3-4 squares a turn...

I'd rather open road building Tech that could be attached to units I designed than to have the current system where the roads appear out of the ether in a manner that (far too often) doesn't make sense.  Much like the OP mentioned.

I'm fine if they are free.....but they should cost upkeep.

Here's my thoughts: It's been quite some time now since my oringinal road bulding proposal. Doesn't seem like SD is going that route, so I'm going to offer up the next best thing.

• Have an Engineer unit right from the onset of the game.....or a latest, coming with the Trades tech.
• The Engineer unit can make or destroy roads on a 1-tile per turn basis.
• Roads are color coded and owned by the faction that built them. That means that you need a treaty with another faction to get their road movement bonus. (that also means that you cannot utilize enemies roads during war)
• Roads cost an upkeep of 0.1gp per turn. If cities are an average of 10 tiles away from eachother, that means roads cost an average of 1gp/turn to connect them.
• Any independantly connecting linkage of roadway connnecting two cities together generates 1gp per turn from trade revenue.
• (note the above two points encourages meaningful roads to be built...and roads that are strategic have base cost to them)
• (yes, that also means that if your road is only 7 tiles in length connecting two cities, then you net profit 0.3gp/turn.)
• Any road within the ZofC of a conquered city converts along with that city.
• The Engineer unit could have a learned ability to demolish other factions roads.....to be brainstormed....

The overall objective of this proposal is to give complete control to the player in where to build roads, but to make the player very conscious of the fact that roads DO cost upkeep and that spamming roads WILL sink your economy. Obviously, the AI would need to be able to operate under those conditions as well so that they don't sink their economy be accident.

Thoughts? Comments?

Never played civ V so I cannot say or compare.

Auto-roading could still be done as theoretically they do connect to cities as soon as Trade tech is obtained. I think it would be just fine if auto-roading didn't happen though. Really, it's the meaningful road building concept that is meant to keep road spamming in line.

Roads that you built are yours. Roads that your opponent built are his. If you conquer a city, all roads within its ZofC become yours. Any roads still outside of ZofC would still be his. This is why I mentioned that the Engineer unit should probably have a demolish ability so that you can take over or rebuild road paths that may be incomplete.

Economic treaties would be separate from road economy. You only gain the 1gp per two cities of your city connections. Interacting with AI would still require treaties and the treaty amounts should be balanced such that they can accomadate some road fees.

To wrap up, never played with civ V roads. I have played with all the predassessors though and the aspect of civ road building in general that I really did not like was their ability to be spammed like crazy such that every tile eventually got roads and rails. There was no upkeep. There was no moderation. There was no balance.

As I understand it, RoadLevelDefs.xml is for the caravans only.  The more trips caravans make the higher the road level for trade profit only.

My ideas for roads.  I dusted off MoM and rediscovered their engineers.  Not every race gets them (but then if you conquer a race that build engineers, you can build that engineer).  I don't think roads cost maintenance, they certainly don't cost to build.  But they take LOTS of time to build.

I do think more than Mancers and Commanders should get road building, but not everybody.  I think road building should take many turns to happen and be different depending on terrain.  If a 2nd road builder shows up it can go twice as fast - and that's where stacking ends, with 2.

There needs to be a mechanic to be able to build an engineer if you conquer a city of a race that has road building.  (Heck, cities should remain the race they were founded as anyway, but that is OT for this thread.)