Bigger Roads

[Pauly7]

I've thought for a long time that one of the visual problems with this game is that buildings get stacked too close together, almost looking to be on top of each other, obscuring each other's view. It gets worse the further through the game a player is and one aspect of this is the size of roads, which stay the same throughout the entire game.

In chapter 1 and 2 they look perfectly proportioned compared with the buildings, but it quickly becomes less so, to the point that in many cities not a single road can be seen as they're all buried somewhere between skyscrapers.

My suggestion is for a double width road to be introduced, somewhere in the later stages (perhaps about chapter 12). No one will want to build them, I hear you cry, but I would give these roads extra properties. Particularly, that any residences which touch one would get a 25% boost to the population they are holding. I haven't done the maths properly, but it should be something that makes the population level a tiny bit better than having used the small roads and fit in more buildings. The same percentage increase could apply to supplies output in workshops or anything else potentially, though I would make it apply to only certain things so as to keep variety in construction.

I know that this may only appeal to those who are interested in the visual aspect of city building. I am definitely one of those (perhaps a rare breed). Right now I waste a lot of squares putting spacers between things to keep all the buildings in good view. OK, that may be a rare tactic, but perhaps the above could still be of interest to many.

 

[Silmaril]

@Pauly7 So very much like the roads in Forge of Empires evolve?
The only thing that would personally put me off would be they would take up even more squares of space, to go from 1 to 2 squares wide.

 

[Pauly7]

@Pauly7 So very much like the roads in Forge of Empires evolve?
The only thing that would personally put me off would be they would take up even more squares of space, to go from 1 to 2 squares wide.

I don't play FoE so I'm not sure.

The roads would take up more squares, but that's why residences adjacent to this type of road would receive the percentage population boost... So they would be worthwhile to build.

In fact I'd see each road 'piece' being 3x2 or 2x3 in size (two squares being the road width). This would just stop people doing something strange like placing one tile of the big road against the corner of a house and then filling in the gaps with regular road. How do they handle that on FoE?

 

[Silmaril]

The FoE are 2x2 in later ages and do look epic as well as provide culture so some buildings can go. It still allows a mix of 1x1 and 2x2 with some of the later age buildings having to be placed by a 2x2 to function. So add another level of complexity.

 

[DeletedUser5037]

NAH! Remove roads entirely! ^_^
They waste too much space!

INNO should make it thus;
One side of a building against another - 25% production or culture.
Two sides of a building against two others - 50% production or culture.
Three sides of a building against three others - 75% production or culture.
Four sides of a building against four others - 100% production or culture.

That will get people thinking about city design! I know that my city would look 100% different than it does now!

 

[RainbowElvira]

This would just stop people doing something strange like placing one tile of the big road against the corner of a house and then filling in the gaps with regular road.

Aww, that's exactly what I was planning to do

 

[Deleted User - 2044766]

Aww, that's exactly what I was planning to do

 

[Pauly7]

NAH! Remove roads entirely! ^_^
They waste too much space!

The point of the system is it doesn't waste any space because you are getting the equivalent stat boost from buildings adjacent to the road.

That will get people thinking about city design! I know that my city would look 100% different than it does now!

If you have a city without roads I don't think you could call it city design at all. Just an exercise in squeezing the most amount of objects into a given space. You might as well have a big block labelled 'culture' with no other graphics.

If there were no roads I likely wouldn't play the game at all.

 

[Pauly7]

Aww, that's exactly what I was planning to do

Haha. I knew people would want to go down that road (excuse the pun) straight away.

 

[Gargon667]

How about roads that give something else than culture? Your idea to give adjacent buildings a boost is a step in the right direction, but I don´t like all these buildings depending on other buildings to function (it would basically turn your residences into a kind of set building to get max bonus and I don´t feel like I want more set buildings, it is annoying enough fooling around with the ones I have, but I do it because they are among the most efficient buildings in the game). I´d rather have buildings (or in this case roads) that have a value of their own. If they produced a serious amount (not like 1) of orcs/mana/seeds I bet a lot of people would be interested. I unfortunatley not so much, since I have a pretty good production as it is and I always use high efficiency buildings, and the roads most likely would not stand the per square comparison.
The other option is as mentioned before to force this thing in future chapters by requiring for example the limited buildings (MA, Barracks, ...) to be connected to the MH by such a road. Or if one wants to do this Amuni style: The roads could produce "prestige" which is is required for MH upgrades etc. Obviously would have to be called something else, but I mean the principle. But even with this option I would go for the resource producing roads option, simply because otherwise the game has to account for the space usage and space is something the game does not want to hand out more than necessary.
If the idea is kept voluntary I will pass and I assume most others, too (which would be a waste of work hours for developers), then again I am not planning on playing any more future chapters either unless they come up with a "must have" 17, but I assume most people keep playing chapters simply for the sake of playing chapters (people that stop guest races for tourney performance are probably fewer than people building pretty buildings).
I don´t think they would implement something new into an old chapter, Inno has to sell new things! Besides it would need far to much rebalancing everything. But good luck for the future guest races

 

[AstralSoul]

I see roads producing mana, maybe seeds if you stretch it a little... but orcs... hard to swallow haha. Culture makes sense though.

 

[sunrae]

This is a great idea, it would make the city look more realistic and provide extra benefits. At the moment I don't really bother with some of the new roads offered as they get lost behind the buildings.