Roads?

I would be pretty satisfied with even non-functional roads, they would make the map that much more lively.

If they added anything functional it would just be even better. But the details to that I leave up to armagan, Lord of Programming (over time plenty ideas have been put forth here and in other threads).

I think roads could be an extremely important part of the game if they were engineered to be so.  Now, here is how I think roads should work.

1) They increase travel speed
2) Tracks are not as easily made on a road, especially if it is made of stone.
3) The world is connected to roads.
4) Forests and mountains should conceal armies, so that nearby roads could in danger of attack.
5) The world revolves around roads.  Armies, merchants, and travellers use them to get around.
6) Roads connected to aligned cities are fixed with a side, unless both ends are different sides, in which case this probably means that route could be a focal point for warfare.
7) Neutral Merchants would try to avoid dangerous roads and trade with different cities, but aligned merchants attempt to supply allied cities, provided escort is available.

The basic idea is to associate the wellfare and enconomy of Calandria's cities, depending on what is happening along the roads.  As such, merchants and other people collect news and resources, and moving manpower around. (hiring, dismissing troops)

EX:  An merchant is at Praven, recently arrived from Rivacheg.  This person is in the local tavern, and the player being the charismatic sort gets into a discussion with the merchant.  The merchant is saying that Rivacheg is where the slave trade is at right now, since there are many battles going on in that area that has resulted in additional merchandise.




CALANDRIA DIVIDED INTO FACTIONS, BASIC CONCEPT




MOCKUP OF THE ROAD NETWORK

Ahh... old school Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Memories.

Simply improving the world map to the level of the battle engine would be a great improvement.

I'd love to see a more complex map system, with 'areas' around cities not just spawning farmers et al, but providing roads, farms, inns, etc on battle maps.  I mean, I'm the kind of player who'd like to be able to identify where a farmer comes from by looking a his clothes... but ambition is good!

PS ROTK is the shiz nit. 

I like that idea
and visual aids help soo much.

I still say that roads are pretty pointless to have apart from adding to the looks of the map. As for functionality - you can travel from one end of the map to the other in about a day depending on how fast you move and visit 3-4 cities in that period of game time. Bit silly - but I'm really hoping that there'll be a new map which is between 5x-10x bigger than the current one in the future.

Should some roads have mountain passes, river bridges, or other similar features? Comments, experts? - John

john259 said:

Should some roads have mountain passes, river bridges, or other similar features? Comments, experts? - John

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Yeah, i would like to see players/caravans forced through tight area's, just to add some fun.

I'd like such landmarks to also be places you can go to on the battle map. If you engage in battle on or very close to a landmark such as a bridge or crossroads, you come to a unique (non-generated) terrain with the appropriate landmark present on it.

Ingolifs said:

I'd like such landmarks to also be places you can go to on the battle map. If you engage in battle on or very close to a landmark such as a bridge or crossroads, you come to a unique (non-generated) terrain with the appropriate landmark present on it.

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Yeah, that'd be good. and roads on battle maps (randomly) would be good, as long as they aren't on some kind of 45O angle like in R:TW.

I wonder how possible it is to code realistic looking roads into the terrain generation. The road would need to be semi-straight and have to be on relatively flat terrain. (no sharp mountainous abberations)

Although historically, there would've been roads winding around mountains, I don't think the random terrain generator would be able to generate roads that snake around mountains without being too steep themselves, and who have the parts of hills cut out to make the roads flat.

What would have to happen is that the raod would take the point in the middle, and both of the sides would be flattened out, to the hight of the middle. i just don't wany to see raods 'painted' onto the ground, which ends up in roads going across a 45O slope.


wait, what you would do is, draw a thin line on the path of the raod, and this will be the middle of the road. then, extend out, on a tangent from the line (the whole way along the road), half the width of the road, and make the ground that hight, then do the some for the other side.

The other problem is that you've got to make sure the road doesn't blindly follow every bump and dip it comes to. You could do this by making the road follow a level curve (Level curve is mathematical lingo for a path on a surface that doesn't go up or down as it goes along, but keeps the same latitude. Like the lines on a contour map are level curves)

Although the problem with that is having the road appear absolutely flat. It's unrealistic. Also, it can't just follow any level curve, it has to follow one that actually goes somewhere, i.e. to the other end of the map. You wouldn't want it to find a level curve around a peak that just results in the road forming a random circle around some hill and not appearing anywhere else.

There's probably an algorithm to find a path of minimum slope change that involves scary looking vector-field calculus.

Yeah, i get what you mean, so if the algorithm that would be based on what i suggested was used, you'd still get roads abruptly falling 3 m down into a river (or 20 m off a cliff). well, then again, we don't wan't roads going off a cliff, useing a minimul angle formulae, that would make a huge embankment

You wouldn't necessarily want a flat curve, but you could put a limit on the slope, like three to five degrees or so.  Just make sure that the derivative of the function of the curve is less than whatever specified limit you wanted.


...I *think* I got that out right.  I'm the historian of the family, I had to message my brother the engineer for a refresher.  

Yeah, that's what i mean, i think (sorry, i haven't done an engineering course, or even advanced maths..... yet)

well, mabye there could just be non random maps along the roads?

An advantage of doing that would be putting objects for performing ambushes along the roads (eg fallen logs for archers to stand behind)

oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if the enemies got that smart? 

Destichado said:

oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if the enemies got that smart? 

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It wouldn't be that hard to do, yo'd just need somekind of non agressive archer AI (eg one that wouldn't walk 1-2 steps forward when fireing) and a trigger for the Ai that stops them from moveing (copletely) when used.

Hmm...this line of thought is interesting.  What if objects on the battlefield were to have 'uses' that an AI could take advantage of for purposes of being more realistic and tougher?  For example, archers would deviate towards hills, bushes, rocks, and walls, and calvary shy away from rivers since they don't fight as well in such places.  Perhaps the 'use' of an area/object is taken into account, then the direction and type of the enemy, which adds up to something?  I know it is a rough concept, but unfortunately I am not terribly intelligent.

Actually, roads are implementable in a mod. 

You need custom meshes (flats) for the world map and custom scenes, of course.  And it's unlikely that the AI would use them properly and the speed bonuses are probably hard coded.