Although its not obvious what is happening as multiple roads get built in different places at the same time in different speeds. I would prefer a linear build queue that is capable of adding to top and bottom (just like the city build order in civ4).

Army strength should be a consideration is player vs AI diplomacy anyway.

In stronghold I think they used a 'troops build sheehat' system for things like pitch ditchs? (im not sure, was long ago) But that only works because of the small scale and the 'setup for comat' gameplay.

It seems like it would need serious micromanagment to get troops to build roads. Either it becomes a pusedo-worker like horrible Civ4 style or its automated and you either have troops trapsing from positions into dens of evil as they try to build a road a hundred tiles away or your roads never get built because theres nothing in the area.

Okay heres an example, the back of my territory has an ally player. He wants to put units to the orther end of my boder, through my territory. I want to build a road through my territory for that reason. Im assuming local citys will have units but I don't want to take them out because of unrest|ninjas|marauding dragons|I will forget to put them back and bad things will happen.

There is nobody capable of doing any work (like pesenats) through out my ENTIRE empire? I need to train some soldiers esppecially or bring back some units from the front like to build a road? Shurely you can't be serious!

There is nothing creative about building a road. Your empire never changes? No new threats arise? No borders change? I don't want to micromanage indavidual units to build roads. I want to tell my empire to build a damn road. Here. Get it done you worthless bunch of fools!

I should not have to personally send a messenger to the captain of an elite unit of skull crushing death warriors that they are being recalled from thier front line duty so I can connect a trade route in the peaceful south. They would rather die!

Pesants. Those are the useless idiots that I exploit to build things, not my most valuable brutes! Your insane, off with his head!!

Pissants, are abstracted. I don't like any worker units in TBS. They are only facades upon unnessesarry mico-managment. I should be making fun desisions, managing interesting resources or whatever. I don't see why I should tell indavidual units to do something so mundane as build a road which is a nessesity for a funtional empire. When a unit attacks something thats an interesting (some of the time anyway) event. I don't tell the smithy to build weapons, not in this scale of game. Even Anno where you build actual weapons (or settlers, whatever) you build roads really really easily since they are a nessesity that is part of manament (setting up fast, efficent roads is a fun thing to do but you can just plough them with no thought).

Just to make it clear, I do like 'planning' roads in TBS but not microing them.

Maybe have roads build naturally between 2 citites that have some sort of an agreement or are from the same nation.  The roads would build x tiles a turn or somehting.  Of course you would not have a say as to what path the road takes.  If there needs to be a bridge, ti would be buitl at a slower pace.

Pushing military units into a road-building role moves them away from the massive game system they're intended to interact with, which is combat.  Combat already has its own choices -- risk your army in this battle, or hang back?  Defense or offense?  Fast travel on a road, or concealed travel through a forest?  Not to mention the entire tactical combat system.  Imagine an existing game, let's say Civ 4, with a design change intended to give military units a domestic option.  Now cavalry in Civ 4 are still cavalry, but they're also used to dig wells.  You want a well, you've got to bring in a cavalry unit.  Never mind that this is micromanagement, or that you have another set of options that cavalry are supposed to be interacting with...

Not my idea of a good time.

A lot of games tie fortification to armies staying in one place.  Kohan, for example -- leave a unit somewhere, and it fortifies automatically.  Move it and the fortification is lost.  I endorse this idea for Elemental -- end turn without moving an army, and the army fortifies.  Do it again, and it fortifies further.

Ooookay .... but I would like to construct ACTUAL fortresses as well.

they are used all the time ... smaller than castles, little to no civilian population ... an oversized military outpost with thick walls and (in later eras) lots of cannonfire.

I suppose this brings me back to wishing Keeps and Fortresses had turrets, and that if you built a city attached to a Fort it could upgrade into a Keep.

However, there are fortresses of all sizes ... and I would like to see defensive networks be buildable by People who are into that sort of thing, and have enough stone for it to be feasible. Say, a series of Fortresses and Walls, with the occasional Gate, with roads from the forts and roads to the cities. A fort with walls on either side, and the gate going through the fort ... would be a VERY well defended stretch of land

Potentially a Marginot Line-esque defensive line (but with archers instead of cannons), and lets not forget the Land-Mine-esque magical traps. (Marginot Line *was* effective, actually, and the Ardennes offensive would of never worked if the Allies had coordinated, instead of arrogantly upholding their Rivalries and such. The French had more Tanks than the Germans!! and most of them were used in full Armored collumns. The strength of the Germans was actually in their Coordination and Defenses. The West simply couldn't afford (or didnt want to afford) attacking the German line due to the massive fields of German mines. Mines were a relatively new invention of warfare, as was the hollowed-explosive. The germans were the first to use these in the opening years of WWII (or at least the opening round) ... they used Hollow Explosives to destroy the "indestructable" turrets at the Belgian Fort Eben Emael. That being said, even with the first usages of Airborne Infantry, Gliders, and hollow explosives ... the Germans were in some ways technologically and industrially behind the allies in the opening curtain of the war. It was only after the capture of France that Germany had a much better production of tanks and planes. Of course, that started to turn sour with the Allied Bombings from Britain ... but that is aside the point.

The point is that a Marginot Line could of worked in a WWII setting, and in fact the Pre-WWII Nazi Germany spend MOST of its Military Budget on DEFENSES!!!! lines of bunkers with similar function as the marginot, as well as vast fields of anti-personel and anti-tank mines. Also, Poland did have some tanks and planes, and the Polish Cavalry was simply a way to get the Polish elite infantry where they needed to go quickly. They weren't charging tanks on horseback, they were riding to Point B, and attacking/killing the German supply train trying to get from Point A (fuel) to point C (stalled line of tanks). In fact, the Polish military devised effective strategies for attacking/destroying tanks that were stalled in such a manner. Generally all trapped onto a narrow road-way.

That being said, I think we should have the option to build up Mundane Defenses and Fortifications (as well as raise up mountains as stated earlier ofc) ... such as walls, roads, and Fortresses.

Not necessarily--look, for example, at the Great Wall. Huge stone fortifcation, but no city. Also, sometimes its important to hold a position where having a city would absolutely suck (think narrow mountain passes). You'd want to have an impressive, permanent fortress there, though.

Still not seeing the point against units building roads. As I stated earlier, it is not like your elite units should do it, at least not in times of war or combat. You let the guards who barely have any other function do it. You know, those units that you barely need to keep the peace? Those may as well build roads.

Also when amassing an army you invariably have some units that are trained first while waiting for the army to grow in size. They can start building a road. Later when the army grows more and more units commit to the road building, until finally you have enough to actually wage a war. Then you can leave the road building for what it is and just engage in combat. Never did I suggest that your soldiers should actually come back from the front in order to pave a little barely worthwile peace of road.

Also in between wars you tend to have some veteran troops that have no function besides being on hold for the next war. they therefore have quite a few spare turns left before their services are needed again. They are free to lay down roads, so they may as well.

Also note that anything from a lowlife with nothing but a club and those with a steed, well armed and equiped both count as soldiers. The poor equiped clubmen barely have a function anyway, a sane man would not send them into combat. Why should they not build roads? 'Just have the cities build the roads' sounds like road fairies to me, magically laying down roads to battle a very tiny bit of micromanagement.

At the start of the game, there is very little to do besides building roads. What does it matter if the one unit of soldiers you have have to lay down a road? I see how the 'auto-build' road system reduces micromanagement insofar that it requires maybe 3 less clicks. It does however take away from planning and managing the nation. If that is your idea of fun then that is perfectly cool of course, but I am looking for something a bit more challenging, even if it is a tiny bit.

Love the idea of stationary armies building fortifications btw. Maybe it should be unlocked with warfare techs?

Let me get back to first principles here.  Variable levels of complexity between game components are a design tool, and the complexity goes where the focus goes.  Elemental could have a highly complex road system, and if roads were all there was, or the point of the rest, that would be good.

But this is Elemental, and it's a spiritual successor to Master of Magic, not Railroad Tycoon.  Its core areas are armies, cities, and magic.  We've got some idea of how those systems are going to be complex.  For armies you've got recruitment, equipment, magical assistance, the whole tactical battle aspect.  For cities, there's city management, and -- as with Master of Magic -- you can build buildings in your cities to expand their capabilities, and cities are connected to revenue and recruitment and resource collection.  For magic, there will be a two-layered magical resource system (nodes and mana), combat spells in the tactical battles, overland spells on the map, global spells, summoned creatures, terrain effects...

The point is that there's complexity where the complexity goes.  Intricate, attention-demanding gameplay mechanics for roads are only going to diminish the core areas of the game.  Elemental needs ten player-selected types of road like it needs ten player-selected types of breakfast.  The best realization of roads in Elemental will leave them subordinate to cities and magic, and provide a modest, simple benefit to armies.

With organic roads, roads can become a layer of city management rather than their own noisy but ancillary show.  With spells that influence roads, players can pursue magical goals in order to manipulate road systems.  (Presumably the contest for nodes and the acquisition of mana are driving forces in Elemental gameplay.)  And with armies that don't build roads, the roads serve the armies and not the other way around.