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

[Delinard]

Warband map had these a little, and they worked perfectly for AI, although as a player it was a little annoying to path away from it since it was like a magnet.

 

[Lusitani 5th Empire]

I think having the AI moving on roads and "fixed paths" could be interesting.

• We could have roads matching trade routes, caravans, peasants and all non-fighting parties which paths are, in general, repetitive.
• Moving on roads would be faster and safer (you could have a bonus to scouting and bonus to defense in autoresolves/AI battles to the defenders mentioned above)
• If a (non-fighting) AI party moving on a road spots an enemy then, they could turn around and flee or even go off road (you could have a speed calculation that would define the best option, to whatever terrain that causes the biggest difference in speed beetwen the defender and the agressor.
• You could have upgrades to the roads. (Dirt road; Gravel road; Stone-paved road- giving bonuses to speed...)
  • Starting the game with only dirt roads and maybe a few stone-paved ones connecting major cities.
  • The upgrades could be a decision proposed to the clan/kingdom. Costing money and influence. There could be a clan/kingdom fund where Lords would give money (the more you give, more influence you gain)
• For fighting parties (armies, bandits, looters...) and "non-fixed path" parties wouldn't be affected by any of this changes. It would not work, afaik, or maybe it can be donne, I don't know how the pathfinding works.

 

[Welcome_To_Hell]

+1,

Levelling up city / village / castle should have an option to upgrade nearby roads

 

[[Rei]]

Updoot!

Seeing so many excellent ideas, I can't help but sigh that Mount and Blade 2 have too much to do, so I guess it will take TW 2 years to complete the early access version.

Also this lol. I kinda feel for the devs.

 

[bltzn]

Roads is a great idea, but as a software developer I don't think having the AI calculate whether its faster to go offroad or not is a good idea as it may be expensive computationally when you have a LOT of ai parties on the map. Rather, I think the rules for following roads should depend on party type and size. For example, caravans, villages, and armies follow roads unless they are chasing/running away from something. Bandits and noble parties don't. A player led army would not be restricted to roads but would get significant off-road speed penalties.