Roads at game start

[SAmaster]

On the topic of Roads, I hope the Great Chinese Canals are represented, alongside the potential to build the Eerie Canal in the US- arguably the first great infrastructure project of the US, it allowed sailors to go up the Hudson to the Lake Eerie, a small distance overland, thereby bypassing the need to sail into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

 

[GDQuirm]

On the topic of Roads, I hope the Great Chinese Canals are represented, alongside the potential to build the Eerie Canal in the US- arguably the first great infrastructure project of the US, it allowed sailors to go up the Hudson to the Lake Eerie, a small distance overland, thereby bypassing the need to sail into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Doesn't seem to be buildings, but there are definitely the canals represented at least as provincial* modifiers.

*Edit - Locational modifiers, I guess would be the new term?

 

[Linbot#6018]

The Via Imperii was not a physical construct. Most of the Via Imperii were dirt tracks, the most sophisticated were boardwalk. The signifcance of the Via Imperii was that it was a political construct. While travelling on roads which were considered imperial roads, travellers were guaranteed imperial protection and were not to be subject to mistreatment or unauthorised taxation or extortion by landholders. The roads were in a loose sense "policed" and kept free of bandits, making them safe compared to alternatives.

I think roads such as these are still very important to represent.

For example, Chinese armies preferentially travelled along the courier routes, so that has a direct impact on one of the game's most prominent systems.

 

[Goblin Slave]

I found this map of Chinese transport/road systems in a chapter about Ming and Qing roads in the book Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World, I plan on posting chunks of the chapter soon but until then I'll just leave the map here for now

Amazon.com

 

[CrabHelmet]

I made this just to contribute meaningfully to where I think L2 roads probably should be in France.

To do this, I cross-referenced the Roman road map at https://orbis.stanford.edu/ against the known French road network map at http://medievalfrenchroads.org/, then also cross-referenced against some well-known journeys not specifically taken internally within what was then the Kingdom of France (i.e. travellers on the Via Francigena who at points were often in the HRE). It gives a likely indication of where Roman roads, or the remains of them, were still in use or partially in use. This is mostly the Via Agrippa and the Via Domitia. Somewhat surprisingly, what remains of the Via Agrippa north of Beaune had fallen largely into disuse, and travellers going from paris to Marseilles usually went from Lyon via Auxerre, but, as was put quite nicely in the source "road networks in France between the fall of Rome and modernity tended to be characterised by what Jean Mesqui called a "hairy" (chevelu) mass of interconnecting routes both old and new", and the path between Paris and Lyon appeared to be exactly that hairy a mess.

If you were feeling generous, you could probably connect Beaune to Langres via Dijon to create a connected loop - that is how it worked in Roman times, and although there is no account in the medieval itinerarium of such a trip, it is a short distance and we may simply lack a historical account of it rather than it having disappeared altogether.

 

[Lt. Ungustl]

If the starting level of road is dirt/gravel road, then almost every European location would have L1 roads to neighbours except for the absolute most mountainous or forested locations.

I agree Paradox has the representation of paved roads wrong at least; there's a real absence of paved roads in France. However, Germany had almost no paved road at all in 1337 (because almost all paved road extant at this period was Roman and the Roman road network did not extend to Germany). The sole exception was the road running from Langres to Koln.

The Via Imperii was not a physical construct. Most of the Via Imperii were dirt tracks, the most sophisticated were boardwalk. The signifcance of the Via Imperii was that it was a political construct. While travelling on roads which were considered imperial roads, travellers were guaranteed imperial protection and were not to be subject to mistreatment or unauthorised taxation or extortion by landholders. The roads were in a loose sense "policed" and kept free of bandits, making them safe compared to alternatives.

Well, the Roman road network extended to parts of Germany at least, especially since Germany in this time period would include most of modern day Austria.

The Via Imperii was following the old Roman Via Raetia until roughly Augsburg, it should be a road in the game at least until there. And the route from Regensburg east to Linz and Vienna and eventually Hungary follows the Roman miltary road south of the Danube (Via Iuxta Danuvium). Of course some of the movement on that route would use the Danube itself, but it seems that the road was also still in use. A small part of this road does seem to be present on the map, but I believe it should extend further west. What shape the road was in further east I do not know.

 

[riadach]

Ireland's roads from Colm Ó Lochlainn's "Ancient Roads of Ireland" in Féil-Sgríbhinn Eoin Mhic Néill" (1940). Map derived from archaeological evidences, dinnseachas material and annals and saint intineraries. Of note are the five Slighe, Slighe Mhidluachra, Slighe Assail, An tSlighe Mhór, Slighe Dhála and Slighe Chualann. Seems to be somewhat reflected in the game map.

 

[Fawr]

Yeah but Scandinavia's road network is criminally overrepresented compared to the normal parts of Europe, and I have no knowledge of Scandinavians being road network superpowers.

Overall it's peculiar that primarily only the countries where the team is from have roads in Europe, with a few minor additions

I think this is an obvious case of unfinished roads.

It also makes sense to me that a game developer would start by making the road systems in the places they already know the history for without needing to do extra research. That is likely to be the countries the team is from. Then look at how it impacts gameplay, if they have the numbers correct, and only then try to expand the system by doing research on the rest of the world.

 

[ArVass]

I think this is an obvious case of unfinished roads.

It also makes sense to me that a game developer would start by making the road systems in the places they already know the history for without needing to do extra research. That is likely to be the countries the team is from. Then look at how it impacts gameplay, if they have the numbers correct, and only then try to expand the system by doing research on the rest of the world.

Probably indeed

 

[Fehervari]

https://nemzetiatlasz.hu/MNA/National-Atlas-of-Hungary_Vol1_Ch5.pdf

ramparts, causeways and roads of Roman origin in the 1330s (feat. the dioceses)

http://viamercatoria.abtk.hu/ (WIP)

 

[Mixxer5]

That sounds reasonable! To think and plan the routes for trade and military instead of "spamming" roads everywhere.
I like it.

Every building should have maintanence cost. They should never be spammable, instead having to pay for themselves. And typically it shouldn't be a problem (except for buildings that don't earn money, e.g. ones granting manpower) but if plague hits and depopulates the land or your industry isn't profitable (someone else fills the market cheaper), it'd add additional layer to investments, simulating supply and demand. Better yet- you could also wage war to destroy enemy's industry so your own can flourish. This would help in natural representation of nation falling into hard times instead of bouncing up as soon as enemy leaves and some arbitrary values go up/down (stability, war exhaustion, etc.).

 

[ArVass]

View attachment 1339535

https://nemzetiatlasz.hu/MNA/National-Atlas-of-Hungary_Vol1_Ch5.pdf

View attachment 1339549
ramparts, causeways and roads of Roman origin in the 1330s (feat. the dioceses)

http://viamercatoria.abtk.hu/ (WIP)

If you had to choose, do you think the Salt Road going through Szolnok and Várad towards Kolozsvár, or the one going through Szeged, Lippa and Gyulafehérvár is more important to represent in the game?

 

[TitaniumMan91]

I ask this question sincerely: If you translate this entire road system in the game, what is left to build for the player ?
The fact that these paths were used a lot does not mean that these roads were as practical that a national road system...

Ignoring local use, there's a reason so many trade caravans preferred to move goods via baggage animals rather than carts in most of the world. There are always "roads" everywhere people live formed by simple desire paths, but if "road" represents something maintained well enough for long distance trade, they would be much rarer.

It's strange to have literally no roads when we know there were important roads there, especially when tier 1 roads are rather... unimpressive (just dirt/gravel road).

Dirt roads are unimpressive (I disagree, have you ever tried to maintain one?), but gravel roads? Think about the era and the tools they had to move the massive amount of rock required to make a gravel road worthy of the descriptor and it only gets worse if you try and cobble them like the Romans did. Even today, maintaining gravel roads is a major expense for rural areas rural parts of the US. During the game period, these would have been part of the corvee system that required local peasants to do unpaid labor for the local lord so they would have certainly been quite nice near the cities and large towns surrounding them, less so over mountains and other less populated areas. It just takes a relatively wealthy state with pretty high state capacity to build an maintain what most people think of when they hear the word "road," which is what made/makes the Roman roads such an important and impressive part of history.

Even maintaining proper dirt roads means digging and maintaing ditches entirely using human labor and the rather basic shovel of the era. Not knocking the shovels, either, but I've done a lot of digging using modern solid steel shovels and the thought of trying to do it with a wooden shovel sheathed with iron for the blade? *shudder* You couldn't even properly sharpen the blades, they'd always be much thicker than even a dull modern shovel.

 

[CrabHelmet]

Ignoring local use, there's a reason so many trade caravans preferred to move goods via baggage animals rather than carts in most of the world. There are always "roads" everywhere people live formed by simple desire paths, but if "road" represents something maintained well enough for long distance trade, they would be much rarer.

Dirt roads are unimpressive (I disagree, have you ever tried to maintain one?), but gravel roads? Think about the era and the tools they had to move the massive amount of rock required to make a gravel road worthy of the descriptor and it only gets worse if you try and cobble them like the Romans did. Even today, maintaining gravel roads is a major expense for rural areas rural parts of the US. During the game period, these would have been part of the corvee system that required local peasants to do unpaid labor for the local lord so they would have certainly been quite nice near the cities and large towns surrounding them, less so over mountains and other less populated areas. It just takes a relatively wealthy state with pretty high state capacity to build an maintain what most people think of when they hear the word "road," which is what made/makes the Roman roads such an important and impressive part of history.

Even maintaining proper dirt roads means digging and maintaing ditches entirely using human labor and the rather basic shovel of the era. Not knocking the shovels, either, but I've done a lot of digging using modern solid steel shovels and the thought of trying to do it with a wooden shovel sheathed with iron for the blade? *shudder* You couldn't even properly sharpen the blades, they'd always be much thicker than even a dull modern shovel.

Conversely - almost every populated location in Europe would have had dirt road connections, often created out of local necessity rather than at state whim. So far as the player is concerned, it would be pointless busywork to represent this sort of thing, they're better shown by e.g. marginally increasing movement bonuses with higher development. If the player is to be faced a meaningful choice, then the player wants to be concerned with building (or not building) the roads that occupied the thoughts of kings and queens, of which there were far, far fewer (in fact, arguably none in Europe for the first half of the game!). We do not start in the era of road-building.

Also will lend a real satisfaction to reaching the late 1600s and being able to throw down paved roads for the first time, and real show the passage of time to the player.

 

[TitaniumMan91]

Conversely - almost every populated location in Europe would have had dirt road connections, often created out of local necessity rather than at state whim. So far as the player is concerned, it would be pointless busywork to represent this sort of thing, they're better shown by e.g. marginally increasing movement bonuses with higher development. If the player is to be faced a meaningful choice, then the player wants to be concerned with building (or not building) the roads that occupied the thoughts of kings and queens, of which there were far, far fewer (in fact, arguably none in Europe for the first half of the game!). We do not start in the era of road-building.

Exactly. You will have the most basic roads anywhere you have people, that's just how roads work(ed), but in a game with thousands upon thousands of locations, you want to build the Imperial Highway crossing the empire to enable faster movement of your forces not the road from Who Cares Ville to Nowheres Burg.

It would be cool if there was some sort of tech or pop-built building to represent those kinds of connections, but please dear lord don't make me build a road in every location.