Tree Sprouting vs Roads

[pppp]

1. Make roads cost travel weariness
2. Make roads randomly stomp unpaved tiles between signposts as they are traversed, so a stomped trail would appear over time, the same event can remove vines.
3. Make stomped roads cost less travel weariness
4. Make paved roads cost even less travel weariness, heavily used roads will be easier to pave because they will be already stomped

Since vines will be created and removed randomly sometimes paving will decay. That would require people to periodically walk the road and check the condition of paving. Unmaintained but used roads will evolve towards dirt roads.

Loading maps is a problem. Possible solution is to count uses for each road globally and individually per map. Difference between two counters is the number of traverses that should be applied to a map when it is loaded. In other words for each road on the map, the map will remember what was the global counter value when it was recently updated.

[vatas]

1. Make roads cost travel weariness

Could work if properly balanced, which would mean short trail within villages should give a fraction of percent. Maybe give roads their separate TW that regenerates faster?

2. Make roads randomly stomp unpaved tiles between signposts as they are traversed, so a stomped trail would appear over time, the same event can remove vines.

This would be good.

3. Make stomped roads cost less travel weariness

Would require the server to check the terrain of each tile with the road.

4. Make paved roads cost even less travel weariness, heavily used roads will be easier to pave because they will be already stomped

Previous point still stands but aside from technical challenges, this would be neat.

[Attas]

Would require the server to check the terrain of each tile with the road.

Sorry if I'm being ignorant, but doesn't the server already check if there's a roadblock everytime a road is travelled? How would that be different?

[Granger]

Would require the server to check the terrain of each tile with the road.

Sorry if I'm being ignorant, but doesn't the server already check if there's a roadblock everytime a road is travelled? How would that be different?

The server currently doesn't seem to fully check terrain (tile type) but only objects, deducted from being able to travel a trail over deep water without swimming. Having to iterate through all the tiles too might be a bit more costly CPU wise.

[loftar]

The server currently doesn't seem to fully check terrain (tile type)

In fact it does, it just doesn't really do anything with it. The original intention was for roads to add travel weariness and so I prepared for that, but then we never got around to do that. Not entirely sure how to feel about that now with paving decay.

[Granger]

Well, should the hard stuff already be in place.. why not add some small chance for a tile to turn stomped (or de-vined should it be paved) to test how that'll play out?

Will certainly be fun to hear the screaming of the ones who routed paths through their fields...

[loftar]

Well, should the hard stuff already be in place.. why not add some small chance for a tile to turn stomped (or de-vined should it be paved) to test how that'll play out?

Well, that's because some information is cached in cases where it is known not to change, so adding mutating operations per tile would indeed make it much more expensive.

[Granger]

Cache the tile mutating operations and apply them in map unload? Rent a bigger server and don't care about more expensive?