Road changes

[joseasoler]

With regard to roads, currently the game is very limited. There is only a single path type (road) which gets a flat reduction to movement with Engineering. The current system does not scale much with technology, and it does not make much sense to prevent Raiders/Commando units from using enemy roads as effectively as the enemy would if they have Engineering and the raider civilization does not.

I suggest a system with three different path types:

Path: Available at Exploration. Equivalent to the current roads without the Engineering change.

Road: Available at Construction. Equivalent to the current roads with the Engineering change. They require twice of the building time of Paths to be built.

Paved Road: Available at Blasting Powder. It increases road speed in the same amount again. They require three times the building time of Paths to be built.

Machinery: This technology will increase worker speed in some amount.

This system makes the speed improvements of roads scale faster with technology and reach higher values. The player can decide to improve certain roads (with a cost in time) to increase the speed at which units can move in their own territory, but this also opens the possibility for a smart invader to make use of this improved road system even if he lacks the technologies to build these improved roads.

[Tasunke Witka]

I would prefer that Road is twice the expense of Path, and that Paved Road is three times the expense of Path.

I would also almost prefer that Path not even have a tech requirement.

Perhaps change the Paved Road tech requirement to Blasting Powder rather than Machinery?

[joseasoler]

I have updated the proposal with the suggested changes. I think that I forgot to mention in the forum thread that I prefer to keep Paths at exploration to give civilizations that start with this technology the bonus they are meant to have at the beginning.

[Tasunke Witka]

I'd really love to test out this new road system ^_^

[Former user]

:vomit: I hate this whenever I see it in a mod. It's unnecessary bloat, unnecessary new worker turns right at the time when they're getting tiresome (and automation will not have them connecting cities with correct focus and so on, so for anything approaching optimal play you need to command them exactly) and what exactly are its justifications? That raider civilizations are disadvantaged in a few edge cases (as if raider civs aren't powerful enough already, especially in the mid to late game) and that they don;t scale well with time (which they do! Because speed improvements are unlocked - mobility, haste and so on - which quickly speed up troops to the point where I would say that if anything, units need to be slowed down more in the late-mid to late game.)

[joseasoler]

The main justification is that the late game gets so extremely slow when playing big maps that my group and I sometimes end up abandoning games. In Fall from Heaven 2, unit speed scales very poorly (or not at all) with technology and as a result it never gets to a point in which wars in big maps are manageable. These wars always end up consisting on an SOD with no feasible possibility of reinforcements attacking by surprise and trying to take a whole civilization. Your perception may be different if you don't usually play in big maps with little sea.

I started looking into increasing the number of mobility promotions and cheapening their requirements, but after the feedback I got convinced me of it being a bad solution I settled on the road changes as a way to at least alleviate the problem with moving troops nearby enemy territory.

With regard to the speed improvements you mention, Mobility I ends up being a hard requirement; all of your units need to have it in larger maps, permanently burning one of their promotions away. When you are forced to take a certain choice, then why consider it a choice at all?

With regard to Haste, I would argue that ordering workers manually to improve roads requires an amount of micromanagement that is negligible in comparison with having to cast Haste manually all turns and being forced to move your stacks in small steps instead of being able to order them to move far away.