Road System

[CalPal]

The idea just came to my mind as I was thinking about the caravan glitch where people wouldn't walk to a saloon and buy your stuff. I built my settlement in the very middle of the four cities of Trader's Post, Eyesocket, etc., by those rock formations, so I assume, along with a lot of bandit activity, that there would be caravans walking all along those regions.

Then I thought to myself "I have a group glitched in the rock formations near my camp (caravan glitch); why don't they go and find a better path to my settlement rather than chill in the rocks? In fact, why aren't there road systems for them to follow?"

So this is what my feature request is: there should be a road system of sorts, where everyday travellers and especially traders can follow to get them to the major cities. Obviously, such routes would be bigger targets by the bandits, who can attack people on the roads, loot them, then run back into the wilds before anyone can try and hunt them down, but the plus side could be either you can walk along roads faster, or you have a better chance of coming across friendly units on the road than in the wilds.

I think it would also be especially helpful to be able to build roads that can connect your settlement to the major road systems, so that you can get travellers dropping by your region and, after buying all your goods, walking off and continuing on their way. You don't necessarily need to have roads in the big cities themselves - perhaps the bigger cities can have paved ground? - but just a weaving system of roads to get people somewhere more efficiently would be useful.

[Meynolt]

Not sure how useful roads would be in a world where there are shifting sand dunes. That said, it won't be all sand and sand dunes in the final version, so perhaps Chris already has some idea for this.

[iSuck345]

Well the aztec empire had roads that were constantly mantained, and therefore they were marvelous. Also they built structures to prevent rock slides, and the desert isn't gonna be the only biome, there will be others.

[Dongsmasher]

Not to mention that "road" doesn't necessarily need to mean "street". Maybe a fenced-off avenue to lead travelers to their destination, or... hell, I don't know, I'm no desert architect. I do like the idea of having some sort of visual marker to show which path a group of merchants would use to enter/exit your settlement, though, so I agree with that.

[Edril]

I like the idea of some kind of roads, however there are areas which are more likely to have them than others. The desert area with large sand dunes to the North in between Brink, Clownsteady and Shark seems like an area where you wouldn't be able to build roads, however the area between Trader's Edge, Port South and Eye socket seems like the perfect place to have roads.

Those roads would be a prime target for bandits, but would also be patrolled regularly by some kind of police force, allowing the lone early game trader trying to make a living but absolutely incapable of fighting bandits to follow them from one city to the next to stay safe.

I like this idea very much.

[Paddy]

Roads in my Opinion shouldn´t be static.

Roads should be build createt as the game progresses. If a Route is walked often by Merchants and Soldiers it could start being a Trail / beaten track/Path. And further evolve maybe to an street.

So there would be no impact if worlds get generatet at start. And you could have an impact in creating and cahnging the world.

may give the option to improve streets using your ressources and get an 5-10 % bonus walkspeed on stone streets or stuff.

[iSuck345]

Roads in my Opinion shouldn´t be static.

Roads should be build createt as the game progresses. If a Route is walked often by Merchants and Soldiers it could start being a Trail / beaten track/Path. And further evolve maybe to an street.

So there would be no impact if worlds get generatet at start. And you could have an impact in creating and cahnging the world.

may give the option to improve streets using your ressources and get an 5-10 % bonus walkspeed on stone streets or stuff.

shouldn't*
created*
generated*
changing*
resources*

Also, it may atract traders

That is all.

[Sprayer2708]

I'm not all too sure about this, but didn't chris state somewhere, sometime that roads will be added to the game?

[Skullkid]

shouldn't*
created*
generated*
changing*
resources*

Also, it may atract traders

That is all.

Attract*

Good try.

[aManNamedJin]

Roads in my Opinion shouldn´t be static.

Roads should be build createt as the game progresses. If a Route is walked often by Merchants and Soldiers it could start being a Trail / beaten track/Path. And further evolve maybe to an street.

So there would be no impact if worlds get generatet at start. And you could have an impact in creating and cahnging the world.

may give the option to improve streets using your ressources and get an 5-10 % bonus walkspeed on stone streets or stuff.

I'm all for this. That would be really cool. Maybe hard to implement, though.

[Dongsmasher]

shouldn't*
created*
generated*
changing*
resources*

Also, it may atract traders

That is all.

Nobody likes a grammar Nazi. Stop that.

[Death _Saved]

Also it would be great if a player can build an outpost near the road and donate it to the army/city guard to add more patrols to that stretch of the road depending on the size of the outpost.

[Sprayer2708]

Also it would be great if a player can build an outpost near the road and [donate it to the army/city guard to add more patrols to] place some brutes in it to raid traders using that stretch of the road depending on the size of the outpost.

Fixed it for you.

[iSuck345]

shouldn't*
created*
generated*
changing*
resources*

Also, it may atract traders

That is all.

Attract*

Good try.

So close...

[Jake_j_a]

No, no, they'd patrol the road and protect it from raiders (at least weak ones,) they'd just umm.. charge a, er, road tax, yea thats it, a very hefty road tax.
Anyway, awsome idea, should be able to choose either option though.

[Rolandk]

Roads in my Opinion shouldn´t be static.

Roads should be build createt as the game progresses. If a Route is walked often by Merchants and Soldiers it could start being a Trail / beaten track/Path. And further evolve maybe to an street.

So there would be no impact if worlds get generatet at start. And you could have an impact in creating and cahnging the world.

may give the option to improve streets using your ressources and get an 5-10 % bonus walkspeed on stone streets or stuff.

Aside from the spelling this is a fantastic post. Great idea, maybe have the traders behave like ants. As in they try to follow the trail left behind by a previous caravan, unless it's been a while since that caravan passed through that way. It would be a very natural and (I'm assuming, I have little experience in coding) easy to code.

[Paddy]

Sry for my bad english and i feel sorry to for the people with the main goal to correct people rather staying on the Topic.

I not sure how the AI behavior will change over time or what is planned for it, but if the game checks how much certain parts of the map are walked on and creates streets/path like this, it could let the AI check for "popular" ways then try to rob traders and stuff.

[B-weasel]

There are some really great ideas here. I would like to expand on the idea of roads being created as travelers walk them. Could there be a map view that shows a traveler his own paths. Maybe the lines of travel could change color as they age (or as they are forgotten in the game world). Mathematical equations could be generated around lines of travel for all characters to determine intelligent bandit raid places, and so forth. Travelers would avoid bandit hot spots and new paths of travel would be created, resulting in an ever changing, possibly realistic, 'road' system.

[Aku]

Computer logically thinking, I'm not sure this is an "easy" task, and in some regards, would have to use "hidden" knowledge, as in, something an indvidual really shouldnt know, but as a computer AI could know.

First, you would need to know if anything went "where" you went. This could be a direct route to a city, but that would lead to boring roads, or a waypoint system, which would be more resource intensive, but may result in more believable roads. For instance, lets say a group of travelers encounter a bandit camp at waypoint f3, then those travelers will "flag" that waypoint as "turn sooner" so that any other travelers using that waypoint will turn to their destination at waypoint d3 instead.

Next would be the deterioration of this information, and it would probably be on a scaled model, meaning, the smaller the road, the less accurate information is over time. So, early in the game, any roads that are forming are very temporary, because you're essentially making them every time something travels, but as time goes on, and the safest routes are found, those temporary paths grow into actual roads but if that road isnt traveled for a significant amount of time, then it too will deteriorate.

[Sprayer2708]

Aside from the creation/removing of roads, what benefits would a traveler get from traveling a road? I think it would be cool to be able to travel a road quicker and less tiring than the desert. I think everybody knows the difference between walking/running over sand and solid ground.

If the roads become somwhat permanent, since the route is secure from bandits and sufficiently quick to travel, and hunger/thirst is added to the game, would some people build wells at the road? If two roads with high traffic cross would, over time, a village be founded at that location?