Roads, the bedrock of civilization

[hereticrick]

So, I found a post from awhile ago about people trying to organize a road system, and the roadblocks in the way of such a project. Namely, teleportation being safer, etc.

The lack of a road system and bridges (but that was before I knew you couldn't make bridges in the game), came as a surprise to me when I first started the game a month or so ago. As far as a social experiment goes, I think it's intriguing that HnH hasn't, apparently, been able to foster the growth of civilization. It seems like HnH is either a few large powers or many medium to large powers. It's interesting to me that either none of the alliances between these powers has been strong enough to allow for the growth of a decent infrastructure, or, indeed, that no superpower has evolved.

I'm assuming at this point it's largely a game mechanic issue. If large villages can create their own trade routes through teleportation and the like, what do they care about roads? This leaves an interesting divide between the "civilized" at the top, who have access to villages capable of trade, and the "barbaric" hermits or small villages who don't have access to the same routes. If roads were -necessary- for trade, would we see more cooperative road-building? perhaps even active policing to protect travelers using said roads? Would City-States me more likely than "countries" or regional "superpower" villages? I'm just curious, and asking for the sake of dialogue.

I also haven't been around very long, so am very out of the loop when it comes to in game politics. I've barely met/seen any of the big "powers" taht I'm aware of (NNN and pande, being the only ones i've heard of so far). In some ways, that's telling in it's own right. That major player groups can go unseen and unfelt by the small fries like myself. If I had never looked on the forums or discovered global chat, I would still have no idea there were ANY powers in HnH. So, anyway, maybe I'm wrong in some of my assumptions above.

PS. I hope this post makes sense since I'm typing it fairly quickly at work, and don't have time to reread it. I'll fix it later from home if it's too bad.

[MagicManICT]

A few things:

ANYONE, and I do mean anyone, can build and maintain a village charter all by themselves. It's nothing to produce the authority upkeep needed by a single village claim with no banners or statues. (I can maintain the 500k Authority needed for my village with two characters just because Int is a much needed stat now. Push some Cha and it becomes a breeze. Make sure to log out with those +Int and +Cha items on, too.) Simply get a wall big enough around that totem to allow others to teleport to your village, and now you're open for trade just like the big boys.

You can build bridges across rivers, however it blocks the rivers from being passable by people in boats without tearing the bridge down. Use rafts. Creative placement will let you hop from one raft to the other.

Roads are an issue because you have to manually navigate them for the most part. They do have their advantages, but they are offset by being slow and require a huge investment of man-hours to build. Some might make the argument of the milestone, but if placed improperly, carts and wagons will get stuck on them and break the pathing. I have never actually attempted to make a road using milestones, so I'm not sure if they can be 'fixed' in the middle without redoing the whole thing or not. If not, then then that would just be another reason to avoid building them.

[Flame]

perhaps even active policing to protect travelers using said roads?

I'm not against it but i'm sure it cant be done. Players are real people and cant have a DUE on a game. It's dangerous and hard to keep..and afterall is wrong. There should be metagame or npc but isn't something that fix well with this game.

Ny the way, i've started a road system in the previous world. There aren't so much things to do in this game once you have your claim, so i enjoied the "usefull things that no one care to do because need too much time".
Like a relaxin game, pick up your pickaxe and build a road, experiment the milestone functions and how those should be build to work well...and...if you don't have nothing to do or not fear the "too much time", enjoy it.

Actually i avoid roads, i'm not able to survive if someone notice me so i prefer hide.




I could build road with an alt..oh well, i still have to grow my city, so i have to do. Nothing against roads anyway, i often use them when i see some.

[hereticrick]

Well, as far as policing goes, I was thinking something along the lines of a Large Power Village creates a road system for easy trade. Bandits and raiders terrorize people using the road, so goods aren't making it to the Village to trade. Large Power Village hires/recruits players to be Road Rangers who patrol the roads for scents and to discourage raiding. Its' basically how it worked out in real life, anyway. Outside of the fact that teleportation makes it unneccessary, I don't see that it wouldnt' work...or that it's "wrong" in any way. I don't think I understood what you meant about having a DUE in game?

[Flame]

Well, a job. People often don't like to have a job in a game. It need time and if you arent logged in, something bad will happen. Not everyone are able to say "Who care, is a game", so mostly the people Refuse to have a job that is needed for other peoples.
hh is a game that need to be logged in to make steel work, to grant to the village the resources, so it's already an heavy game about the time he need fo others. I don't agree to give to people other job that, if not done, is a danger.

...mmhh.....i'm sleepy, i hope youve understood. Anyway imagine that a police is a real man and he'll log in when he want and do what he care in the game (and i think this is right.) Maibe that's all.

[AnnaC]

The lack of roads mainly comes from the sense that people aren't interested enough in it to put the effort into building them. Also the security aspects of having roads is another downside; a road leads to somewhere and if you're at the end of a road you may get more unwanted visitors. Also to provide security on a road is another thing, as security measures are almost always counterpoint to the point of roads: accessibility. The battle between security and accessibility is almost always favored to security.

There are some roads in the world, it just depends if people like to do that or not, and the time and resources to build them. Also the world is pretty big, especially when you're a new player (I remember when I first played, I thought I made a huge journey but later on realized I travelled maybe 6 minimaps tops ).

I still need to better secure my village, but I've been doing preliminary surveys of 3 major land roads in my supergrid; mainly roads that connect water networks. That is another issue, that waterways are already a speedy and efficient means of transportation; unfortunately connecting waterways to constructed land roads is one of those issues I stated above. To have the best transition you need to supply vehicles, but to do that requires them to be secured someway, which at the same time prevents them from being accessible to travellers.

Crossroads also marginalize the need for roads; but crossroads are necessary to the game until gates and walls are fixed (the key system as it is is useless and insecure).

I suggest if you want to start making roads, go explore and see where you think roads will be needed. Corridors to connect water networks are often nice; also roads to foraging or hunting regions are always good; think about the type of terrain you need to travel through as well. Open terrains are easy to travel on foot or with cart by themselves and make good natural paths you can add to a road route with little structural requirements.

I have never actually attempted to make a road using milestones, so I'm not sure if they can be 'fixed' in the middle without redoing the whole thing or not. If not, then then that would just be another reason to avoid building them.

I haven't messed with it too much since world 3, but from what I can remember it's usually a major pain in the butt to have to replace one link in a trail chain. But if you have some experience with it you should be able to predict any issues beforehand, and plan accordingly.

Which brings up another point; if you want to be a road builder, you'll need to travel the potential road's route ad nauseum. It's best to build a road in phases, and each phase you'll likely be travelling that route at the very least 4 times over. You need to make sure you know all the details of the area's geography, and plan accordingly.


My phases of road development: (I was gonna be more descriptive but it got very long-winded; I might make a thread for it all).
1. Travelling & Surveying (get a feel of the area and the route)
2. Clearing & Plotting (good phase to stop at and take a break/do other things when complete)
3. Plowing the roadbed (afterward, stomping to dirt and you can leave the road as such for awhile)
4. Paving (this is if you expect heavy cart traffic, or otherwise want to "civilize" your trail)
5. Milestones (if desired -- I haven't done this phase very often yet as it has it's special considerations)


Ok I'll stop there for now, this got really long-winded (I started working on this post before the first reply to this thread!)

[Sarchi]

Maybe if you could lay down stone for pavement instantly (like grass) it would be worthwhile to build roads. And if you could collect stones faster, perhaps...

Anyway, it's too time-consuming to build infrastructure like that, besides the fact that there are absolutely zero uses for roads and that game mechanics currently don't support more advanced civilizations. For this to happen, there will need to be a use for roads (as well as a sharp decrease in the time required to pave), there will need to be an increased ability to terraform (destroy cliffs), there will need to be a new village management system (ability to link other villages together to form an empire), a conquest system, new warring/siege mechanics, changes to how gates operate, new/faster modes of transportation, and the elimination of the teleport system. I think we'd also need new types of walls, new buildings (such as a palace I suppose), new authority objects, and perhaps new ways to customize your village in order to give it a distinctive appearance.

At the moment, you can build very impressive cities, but it could be much, much better. I am sorely disappointed that it's literally impossible to build a 510x510 "perfect" village that I designed due to cliffs. The game just does not support advanced civilizations.

[borka]

- snip - Also the security aspects of having roads is another downside; a road leads to somewhere and if you're at the end of a road you may get more unwanted visitors. - snip -

This is prolly the main reason for not having / wanting roads. (Some learned the hard way in W4 - roads to raid...)

When i was a fresh Noob back in W3 i enjoyed using the "Autobahn" that was in Ravenholm area a lot...