SP - World Map The world Calradia needs roads in detail, here's how.

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As I roam across the open fields and woodlands of Calradia, the frozen north to the dunes of the south. I've began to notice something very unsettling about this world...

I'm literally just wandering around aimlessly and so is every party I cross. And why is that? Why even with all these grand castles and cities does this land feel like a playground of random structures...it's because there not a single road system anywhere. Even when i'm travel from one point to another, my character is just b-lining to his destination but still makes where cuts and strangely sharp lines that clearly look off path.

So what I'm desperately pleading to the devs is to implement a road system in Calradia. (I'll break down functionality in a bit) Roads will greatly give the world a visual polish. It'll give this world some civilized structure.

Attached are my proposed plans on a road system. The lines have all been hand traced and followed on the map by myself. Mountain paths and forest paths all. The intention is to link all capital cities together and any close castle and villages as they would be realistically. The general focus is from trade and travel. In any world, real or fiction, villages aren't just sitting in the middle of nowhere. They are formed from a resource pool that gathers workers to work and live. And with that, they wouldn't be tucked into the wilds of the world. They would have ready access to a road system to branch off from their goods. Conservatively not everything is connected of course. Not everything connects to the main road obviously and of course there are still "Short cuts" that locals or armies could take. Though as all short cuts go, they are thru some brush or a more narrow mountain path. So have a look and then i'll discuss how exactly this can be implemented.

Physical map of Calradia (Map thanks to user Vesper_)
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Political map of Calradia (Map thanks to user Vesper_)
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Cool lines but how would this work and change the world?

So the first thing of course is how would AI and the player character utilize the roads. At first i was thinking that the Devs could add an additional mesh or layer (I'm not a game developer) on the the road lines that would grant a small speed boost. That way anything using the roads would be able to travel "faster", thus in the AI calculations. "Destination=Poros, Faster route=roads and cutting certain corners" genius-proof right?

So now that you seen the example and heard the idea of implementation. I don't think that the roads should grant a speed boost. But actually...the roads should be the only mesh to grant "normal" speed movement while going "off the road' would give the debuff of a slower speed called..."Off road" along with any other speed debuffing terrain. Again genius proof right?

The reason I think it should be that way, is because i think it would provide a chance for deeper player and game immersion thru perks and troop specialty. Meaning, Troops from the Battantian culture should get less of a speed penalty while traversing forest. Same as for Sturgia troops, they would see bonus in the snow. Same as the Aserai in the desert. There's a lot of room for imagination here, and that's why a road system would be great!

And as a last note. If all my blabbering was just non-sense. A road system would atleast be eye candy to see on the map, because it's a beautiful world map, and it deserves some sexy definition.

 
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It would look immersive indeed, I wonder what developers think about it, because it will affect other mechanics, for example AI of parties, when they should cut off the paths and when not, and this will create some problems, however, there was roads in some places in Warband, so why not, it would be great, I would like it.
(I apologize for my English, sometimes I write obscure things because it is not my native language.)
 
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This is has to be one damn sexy idea. I didn't know I wanted this so bad until I read it.

I totally agree on roads being the normal speed and I'd like to add that party size should affect proportionaly how much impact the debuffs off road have.

My only concern is that warband roads were pretty buggy and this seems like quite a lot of work to implement. There are also so many other things to fix and complete that we might never see final release.

Thanks for the idea and let's give this thread the attention it deserves so it gets to the devs to at least consider.
 
It would look immersive indeed, I wonder what developers think about it, because it will affect other mechanics, for example AI of parties, when they should cut off the paths and when not, and this will create some problems, however, there was roads in some places in Warband, so why not, it would be great, I would like it.
(I apologize for my English, sometimes I write obscure things because it is not my native language.)
Indeed it could present some issues. The game over all I feel needs to be smarter tho when it comes to pathing. I hate that sometime parties want to go the stubborn slow routes thru forests and what not. When clearly just a small nudge to the left or right and they would run clear at full speed.
 
@Azhael thank you haha It took me a few long afternoons to put together. But it was so immersive that now it's all I think about when I wander around the random landscapes of Calradia. Without some sort of roads, I feel a little lost all the time like I'm not going the right way.

And my idea doesnt need to expand on every town, village and castle. But there should be just a smidge of a trader's highway, if not local military castle to town road way.
 
+1
Love the idea, perhaps maybe these trade routes/highways could be have a bittersweet element. For example, you mentioned the faster map speed which would be a good bonus but how about along these routes their could be an increased risk of bandits and looters?
 
how about along these routes their could be an increased risk of bandits and looters?

Yeah I was considering that bandit troops could have a special park where they are unaffected by off terrain elements. This could be a perk in the Roguery skill. Where it could be like "off road travel is reduced by a (quarter 1st perk/half 2nd perk)". Because in reality, nobody strays off the beaten path besides cutthroats and thieves.

And party size should be effected from and on the roads too. so small parties would be less effected, while bigger parties are hindered more. This would really make the world more menacing for the innocent as those small bands of looters and bandits can now properly pray on the weak. and also make venturing in the wild woods, fields, and open desert more treacherous. So what used to be short cuts and random corner cutting would be come the right proper realm of criminals.
 
This is something that has really been bothering me too, I'm really glad someone else did the work to trace out all the routes. Ideally to me they would be used in default pathfinding for both players and AI. In the realm of whimsical wishlist ideas it would also be supercool if you could upgrade specific routes through your fief management and then have that affect all the parties on the map. For example I hold Ortysia and Jalmarys, so I start building projects at each to improve the route between them, which then provides faster movement than less well-maintained routes, so it becomes more favoured by caravans etc. I think such routes could also provide a basis for sending our parties on patrols (between x and y settlement). Maybe all of that is too complicated to hope for, but we absolutely need the basic roads at least.
 
Building roads, upkeep of roads should be a thing per region. Random chance of floods or earthquakes damaging roadways which makes travel slower. Roads are tied to the major city and castles per subregion.
 
That's a substantial work you've done on that map. In case TaleWorlds decides on adding roads, which I also vouch for, they could use the heatmap tool for caravans and peasant parties to determine the most used routes, and then apply roads based on that information.

Also, the player should have an option to force the party to stick to roads. It should be something your can toggle right on the main map, along with the game speed buttons.
 
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This needs to be bumped up. As an avid Aseri player, we of the desert sands need stable stone roads for our silk trade to flow through, where the perfect awaiting ambush could see the opportune caravan heist every crescent moon. Roman Roads for Roman Feet plz!
 
Eh, cool idea but they need to improve the pathfinding in that case. Anyone else remember Warband's goofy pathfinding that would have you turn ninety degrees in order to take advantage of a road while running from sea raiders?
 
That's a substantial work you've done on that map. In case TaleWorlds decides on adding roads, which I also vouch for, they could use the heatmap tool for caravans and peasant parties to determine the most used routes, and then apply roads based on that information.

Also, the player should have an option to force the party to stick to roads. It should be something your can toggle right on the main map, along with the game speed buttons.

Exactly what I think; here is a relatively recent post where I comment on it.

Agree for road implementation. I would really profit from the heat maps that we were told about previously (devblog). By means of a travel simulation where the AI was ordered to go from a point A to a point B passing by all the settlements, a neuralgic system of routes would be generated. Exploiting the routes drawn by the caravans when going from one place to another would also be a good template for drawing a road route on the map.
Therefore, profiting from heat maps to draw roads on the map but with no practical effect; only aesthetics.

On the other hand, it would be interesting (for me) to give a twist to the roads issue. I would like to find a road improvement in the management panel of each city. An improvement that would lead to a paving of the road network between the city and the villages that depend on it (affecting the surrounding castles to some extent). Having a paved road system in the kingdom could give bonuses for transporting goods and troops... going outside the boundaries of these roads could mean a higher probability of being attacked by bandits...but well, it's just an idea similar to the OP.

It is also true that if eventually it is decided to implement a road system; I suggest not to do it "aimlessly". To do so, I would personally look carefully at how the Roman roads are distributed along the orography, coast line and river routes, being these only avoidable in low stretches.

Interactive map of roman roads ---> http://orbis.stanford.edu/orbis2012/#
 
Dirt roads alongside main roads would be nice, having one main road makes sense but having only a single road between each city is just not believable. Dirt or less developed roads would still cut the debuff by half but would be more susceptible to forest ambushes, but would act as shortcuts.
 
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