#The roadlayer should not benefit from the road

80 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

opal bough
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I think it hurts some of the cool terrain gameplay if a player can just click the road button to automatically benefit from roads. They should be required to use a roadlayer unit first who does NOT get the movement bonus.

For example, let's say I put down a bunch of forests with the Create Forest spell to slow down my opponent. That's cool! He's a materium dork and he counters by building roads through it. Also cool. However, even his roadbuilder benefits from the road move bonus, which makes the forests a bit pointless. He should have to slog through the forests to build his roads, then everybody behind that first roadlayer should benefit.

TLDR: Having the roadlayer benefit from their own roads hurts the cool terrain gameplay of AOW4 and ruins some fun terraform dynamics.

opal bough
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another thing i don't like about this is it encourages you to always use roadbuilding to move, which means a lot of the land just becomes coated in roads

river storm
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I 2nd this actually

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It makes more sense because then you could utilize scout units more to build roads

mild minnow
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Yeah, it looks ugly and I use it to cheese my way out of situations I really shouldn't be able to.

worldly frigate
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No, that just increases micromanaging. If i have 6 cav units i would send each one 1 hex further than the last to get Max movement. If i have a Flyer, i would send them to build roads.

All this would do is multiply the number of clicks to Max movement.

mild minnow
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Then make it so only scouts can do it. Best of both worlds: Simplified in comparison to previous games in the franchise; minimizes what, frankly, should be classed as a bit of an exploit.

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Because, I'm sorry, this should not be legit.

rough wigeon
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As silly as it is, I agree with Terrkas that on a gameplay level, all it would do is add additional micromanagement and frustration. If you don't go for only mounted units or Athletics, movement feels really slow on the world map without roads.

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And I definitely wouldn't call it an exploit. Seems to be working as intended.

ripe yew
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I like this idea although i feel like scouts would definitely be the way to do this..mid-late game the scouts become useless but this would allow them to maintain usefulness while not diminishing defensive landscapes. I’d also like a way to destroy roads through terraforming or scout destruction.

mild minnow
rough wigeon
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Yay. Tedium.

mild minnow
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If you just want free movement points, the game gives plenty of ways to do so without simply paying a pittance of gold for a get out of jail free card. Forced march, swift marchers, favorable winds, etc.

spare pivot
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The game is a strategy game with with different movement costs depending on terrain. You shouldn't be able to ignore that simply by hitting the build road button.

mild minnow
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Correct. It was always goofy to be able to mitigate, if not outright invalidate, a major strategic factor on-demand and at such an affordable cost.

rough wigeon
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You could still ignore it though. A flying unit ahead of everyone else.

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It's just introducing tedium in the order of operations that you'd have to move your armies and add an extra layer of busywork

spare pivot
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Like people were saying earlier they could make it so only scouts can build roads. Another option would be to add a builder type unit like in aow3. Or if all that is too annoying they could always require you to have a full stack in order to build roads though I don't know if that's harder to implement.

fervent cosmos
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booooo, roads are needed to make the mid game less tedious

mild minnow
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No one's saying that roads should be removed. The games have always played fine without the ability to Looney Tunes your way around.

worldly frigate
# spare pivot Like people were saying earlier they could make it so only scouts can build road...

I doubt stuff like settlers and builders will come back. That would just add tedium again. Now heroes are needed for outposts. There is surely a reason towards ease of use for why we dont have builders anymore. And keeping that in mind i doubt the devs will limit roadbuilding.

Even if only scouts can make roads is possible, it is just more tedium. Every army needs a scout roadbuilding ahead. Scouts arent battle units and most likely get defeated on contact with the enemy. Then you need spare scouts to continue roadbuilding. Thats quite a lot of extra work.

spare pivot
mild minnow
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Just make it a scout-only function. Seriously. Nothing but positives.

+Gives scouts a use when otherwise they're wasted assets after the first, like, ten turns.

+Rewards foresight in a strategy game.

+Makes terrain matter for armies.

+Doesn't require new graphical assets.

opal bough
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i used this function again in an MP game today and it just feels so bad

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i need zero planning at all

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you just click the button and pay 3 gp a tile and you have instant roads for every single unit regardless of current map/road structure

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it really trivializes terrain too

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terrain could easily be such a massive part of the game and this design alone removes a good chunk of it

opal bough
lost gate
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Id say make the construction of the road take 1 or 2 turns by default , with the option to reduce the time it takes with say a new trinket infusion requiring arcanium ore or a free passive when choosing a fitting materium tome. This way you will have to plan ahead but you dont need to use special units to do the job

void patrol
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If I had to choose, I'd remove road laying altogether.

Instead, make them be organically generated between outposts/cities and rework the road laying empire development to increase the "range" of when this organic road laying happens.

This would increase the value of outposts in non-resource node locations by adding another benefit.

naive cedar
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Plus roads can't be built in enemy territory. If you plan your cities province annexation defensively it will hamper enemy movement.

mild minnow
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Whether or not roads can be built in enemy territory has little to do with this. Having specialized units to build infrastructure isn't a bad thing. In fact, that's how every game before has done it. Using the scout just eliminates the old school builder while giving scouts more utility past their early game value.

Seriously, just plan ahead.That's what you should be doing in a strategy game, anyway. Every other 4X game I've ever played either has units build roads, or automates it with traders or some other similar function. Honestly, I hate the way that this game automates roads, and would rather it just be left to the scouts.

It isn't like your armies are immobile without roads, anyway. There's tons of ways to get more move points. Further, given that map terrain is one of the larger strategic factors to troop movement and player interaction with the world, the fact that it can be nullified by turn 7 or so at the latest is silly.

naive cedar
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I'm sure a mod can be made to limit road building to scouts only, but I don't think this is a planning issue. It's unneeded micro that adds very little to the game. Every game from after this would be implemented would just have you move one additional scout ahead of the main armies and you'd need to pay slightly more unit upkeep. That's literally all this would accomplish. I don't see how that meaningfully adds to the gameplay without being tedious.

Item juggling was removed from the game precisely for that reason.

worldly frigate
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Limiting roadbuilding sounds like anti-QOL i dont expect the devs to do that.

Builders in 3 were annoying anyway.

opal bough
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I feel what would be gained has been explained ad nauseum so i don't understand that response

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if your roadlayer is killed as your army tries to build roads, that just makes terrain even more important

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because obviously it shouldn't be easy to build invasion roads into hostile territory

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that's not tedium, that's strategy

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basically we have players who want terrain to matter in a strategy game, and people who mysteriously do not

opal bough
ripe yew
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Also i feel roads partially defeat the purpose of terraforming terrain

opal bough
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yeah

mild minnow
wary drum
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Oh man, I would love if it terrain felt like it had a bigger impact. Roads are a big reason why they don't

neon blaze
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Limiting road building to scouts is not the answer. That adds busywork, as well as another thing that the AI needs to be taught to do, for very little gain in terms of strategic depth or fun.

I like the idea of roads generating automatically between cities and outposts.

mild minnow
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That wouldn't be bad. However, the current manner in which roads are generated is horrendous.

frigid magnet
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The easiest remedy would be to increase the cost. I'd suggest increasing the cost to 10 (maybe even 15) mana instead of 3 gold (swapping to mana for verisimilitude reasons, instant roads that build before you as you walk actually makes sense as a form of empire-scale magic)

If you want to make road-laying harder you have to make it less efficient more broadly, a simple fix like making the laying unit have normal movement has ways of circumventing it as has been described.

I figure, to make the road-laying less immediately useful you have to delay the build by a turn, this makes it more of a thing you do when going way out somewhere you want to return from more quickly or a tool for creating generally useful shortcuts.

frozen sentinel
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have to say, delaying the stack performing road construction by a turn is a quick fix that seems to have the least consequences tbh. maybe even something like a stack building a road uses the same number of mp/hex as mountains/lava chasm would do

opal bough
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emphasizing planning would also lead to cooler road layouts

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my worlds are often coated in roads as my armies build roads @ road speed (i.e. max speed) as they move through new territory

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looks horrible in addition to being mechanically shallow

neon blaze
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Making the road builder move slower is interesting but wouldn't it result in micro where you detach one unit from the stack, send it to build roads as far as it can, then send a second unit along the road to get a little further?

frozen sentinel
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maybe the road shouldn't be functional til the next turn then, it could be some kind of "road under construction" til then.

mild minnow
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I like the roads needing one round to build.

ripe yew
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I like the idea of scouts building roads or the 1 turn to build roads. Either of those solutions sounds good to me

naive cedar
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This is mod territory. Forcing it on the entire player base is less than ideal.

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If you really want terrain to matter but not make the game tedious roads should give a movement cost discount and not have their own movement cost value

mild minnow
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If this is about "streamlining the experience," then just remove terrain altogether. Of course, I would rather roads just require planning, which is how every 4x that doesn't automate the process does it.

frigid magnet
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I'd love it if roads outside your own territory was a reduction in movement points cost rather than a flat value. I'd like roads within your city domains to remain more advanced highroads though. And then the option of only allowing you to build low-tier roads yourself would drastically reduce the road-sprawl.

(Though I will point to Civilization 4 as an example of a 4X where you just road everywhere once you're out of the early game)

naive cedar
mild minnow
opal bough
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Yeah the conversation is going in circles a bit coz nobody reading all that lol

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the original proposal was flawed because, yes, it would increase micro as people try to push the road just a little bit farther each time

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so the only fixes that really make sense are 1) one turn until roads become usable, or 2) dedicated roadbuilder unit type

short ibex
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While the builder unit was a little annoying to use in aow 3, I still kind of like it. But most of all, I loved the terrain implications more in that game than in this. Being able to use a spell to create a forest, slowing the enemy before they reach you was an awsome feeling, even if it wasnt the most impactful maybe, it just FELT great.

And the rivers were awsome, needing to traverse the river in order to cross it, making it like a small barrier for your cities were awsome. And if you felt like it, you could build a bridge over it with a builder unit, wich some might feel tedious, but I found subtle enjoyment in.

river storm
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My biggest thing is that terrain needs to matter. Because as of right now the only terrain that DOES is mountains.

That said, if everyone wants more terrain significance, you can turn on volcanic heat for desolate provinces and I forget about the other ones

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Maybe that's a great solution as well. What if it's a realm trait where roads take longer to build or only scouts can build them?

dawn lantern
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Im guessing theres a technical reason the road benefit applies to the builder so I guess if that's true the solution I'd not be opposed to is working like when you first embark on a boat. Definitely opposed to dedicated road builder though...i mean, romes roads were built by its armies...its simply efficient

mild minnow
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I do wonder if it would be a matter if moving code around so that the unit spends its movement points before the road is applied. That way, armies can still build roads but they just don't get the immediate benefit by constructing them.

fervent zinc
neon blaze
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One solution to that is for roads to have a one turn delay before they start providing movement buffs

ripe yew
neon blaze
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It's weird but it does solve the problem and doesn't encourage awkward micro

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The only problem is that the AI wouldn't know how to use it because it's bad at planning ahead

frozen sentinel
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I don't think the ai manually builds extra roads as is, so nerfing manual road building by making them only work after one turn wouldn't be a negative ai wise (I am assuming roads within citiy domain generate as normal)