Can someone explain how roadblocks work in detail?

[FlyinJ]

I'm not really understanding what roadblocks do and don't block.

For instance, do they block people from walking over to buildings that need workers to work in them? They don't seem to block transport of goods from farms/mines/craftsmen to the warehouse... or some other random citizens walking around.

[Vitani]

Roadblocks only work for idle walking characters.

Firemen won't cross roadblock unless they go to a fire.
Entertainers won't cross it unless they are coming from the school to the stage.
Bazaars will pick up food from behind a roadblock, but will not distribute it behind it.
etc.

[Darth Arminius]

There are two types of "walkers" (the people that walk around your city providing services, delivering goods, etc.) in the game.

1. Destination Walkers -- these are walkers that have a destination to get to and they will take the shortest route to get to it. They *can* cross roadblocks and gatehouses, and they can even cross land and desert off road if need be. This is usually your delivery cart pushers, reed gatherers, work camp labourers, etc.

2. Idle/General Walkers -- these are walkers that don't have any particular destination and instead head out to walk along the roads connected to their home building providing their services. E.g. a priest will pop out of a temple and start walking down the roads connected to their temple. These walkers *cannot* cross roadblocks and gatehouses and will instead ignore that road or turn around if it is a dead end. However, it is important to note that most idle walkers will turn into destination walkers after enough time. Essentially, an idle walker will walk around your city for a while then they need to head back to their base building for a bit before doing it all over again. This period where they need to head back home is when they turn into destination walkers and so they will now take the shortest route back and even cross roadblocks or gatehouses to get back to their base building.

Pharaoh: A New Era added a little UI indication for where walkers spawn from their building as well as where they go back inside. This is not necessarily the same spot and so they might spawn at the front of a building and go back inside the back of said building. This allows you to make some pretty interesting routes for said walkers that has them walking across half the map to get back to their building, if you build the route correctly.

Check out videos on "Forced Walkers" tutorials and playthroughs. People have managed to make crazy cities where walkers will walk for kilometers before despawning/returning to their base building.

[FlyinJ]

Originally posted by Darth Arminius:

There are two types of "walkers" (the people that walk around your city providing services, delivering goods, etc.) in the game.

1. Destination Walkers -- these are walkers that have a destination to get to and they will take the shortest route to get to it. They *can* cross roadblocks and gatehouses, and they can even cross land and desert off road if need be. This is usually your delivery cart pushers, reed gatherers, work camp labourers, etc.

2. Idle/General Walkers -- these are walkers that don't have any particular destination and instead head out to walk along the roads connected to their home building providing their services. E.g. a priest will pop out of a temple and start walking down the roads connected to their temple. These walkers *cannot* cross roadblocks and gatehouses and will instead ignore that road or turn around if it is a dead end. However, it is important to note that most idle walkers will turn into destination walkers after enough time. Essentially, an idle walker will walk around your city for a while then they need to head back to their base building for a bit before doing it all over again. This period where they need to head back home is when they turn into destination walkers and so they will now take the shortest route back and even cross roadblocks or gatehouses to get back to their base building.

Pharaoh: A New Era added a little UI indication for where walkers spawn from their building as well as where they go back inside. This is not necessarily the same spot and so they might spawn at the front of a building and go back inside the back of said building. This allows you to make some pretty interesting routes for said walkers that has them walking across half the map to get back to their building, if you build the route correctly.

Check out videos on "Forced Walkers" tutorials and playthroughs. People have managed to make crazy cities where walkers will walk for kilometers before despawning/returning to their base building.

I'm still not clear on where people who have jobs fall into this.

If a road has a roadblock preventing flow from houses towards buildings that need workers, will the workers from those houses not be able to work in those buildings that need workers?

If a worker is working in a building and I put a roadblock between them and where they live, will they abandon that job because they can't walk back to it?

[Darth Arminius]

Originally posted by FlyinJ:

Originally posted by Darth Arminius:

There are two types of "walkers" (the people that walk around your city providing services, delivering goods, etc.) in the game.

1. Destination Walkers -- these are walkers that have a destination to get to and they will take the shortest route to get to it. They *can* cross roadblocks and gatehouses, and they can even cross land and desert off road if need be. This is usually your delivery cart pushers, reed gatherers, work camp labourers, etc.

2. Idle/General Walkers -- these are walkers that don't have any particular destination and instead head out to walk along the roads connected to their home building providing their services. E.g. a priest will pop out of a temple and start walking down the roads connected to their temple. These walkers *cannot* cross roadblocks and gatehouses and will instead ignore that road or turn around if it is a dead end. However, it is important to note that most idle walkers will turn into destination walkers after enough time. Essentially, an idle walker will walk around your city for a while then they need to head back to their base building for a bit before doing it all over again. This period where they need to head back home is when they turn into destination walkers and so they will now take the shortest route back and even cross roadblocks or gatehouses to get back to their base building.

Pharaoh: A New Era added a little UI indication for where walkers spawn from their building as well as where they go back inside. This is not necessarily the same spot and so they might spawn at the front of a building and go back inside the back of said building. This allows you to make some pretty interesting routes for said walkers that has them walking across half the map to get back to their building, if you build the route correctly.

Check out videos on "Forced Walkers" tutorials and playthroughs. People have managed to make crazy cities where walkers will walk for kilometers before despawning/returning to their base building.

I'm still not clear on where people who have jobs fall into this.

If a road has a roadblock preventing flow from houses towards buildings that need workers, will the workers from those houses not be able to work in those buildings that need workers?

If a worker is working in a building and I put a roadblock between them and where they live, will they abandon that job because they can't walk back to it?

Ah I see, in Pharaoh and most Impressions games the workers don't actually "exist" as people who walk around/to their jobs. For all intents and purposes, your entire population just sit in their house all day every day. It is the people who provide services that actually go out and walk. i.e. Instead of a person visiting their temple, a priest will visit all the houses. "Workers" don't need to be able to walk to a building or even have direct road access in order to work there.

Now if you are playing with the Recruiter mode turned on then a walker will pop out of a new building "looking for workers". This Recruiter needs to walk past 2 populated houses in order for them to then pull some workers from your unemployed population pool. It doesn't matter if that recruiter is looking for 10 people but only 2 people live in those houses they walk past. It also doesn't matter if those 2 people already have jobs. The Recruiter just needs to walk past a couple houses for it to count.

If you are playing with the Global Workforce option then you don't have to worry about this and can literally build buildings on the complete opposite side of the map not connected to the rest of your city and they will get workforce so long as you have some unemployed population (or that building takes priority which you can set in your workforce overseer menu).

[FlyinJ]

Originally posted by Darth Arminius:

Originally posted by FlyinJ:

I'm still not clear on where people who have jobs fall into this.

If a road has a roadblock preventing flow from houses towards buildings that need workers, will the workers from those houses not be able to work in those buildings that need workers?

If a worker is working in a building and I put a roadblock between them and where they live, will they abandon that job because they can't walk back to it?

Ah I see, in Pharaoh and most Impressions games the workers don't actually "exist" as people who walk around/to their jobs. For all intents and purposes, your entire population just sit in their house all day every day. It is the people who provide services that actually go out and walk. i.e. Instead of a person visiting their temple, a priest will visit all the houses. "Workers" don't need to be able to walk to a building or even have direct road access in order to work there.

Now if you are playing with the Recruiter mode turned on then a walker will pop out of a new building "looking for workers". This Recruiter needs to walk past 2 populated houses in order for them to then pull some workers from your unemployed population pool. It doesn't matter if that recruiter is looking for 10 people but only 2 people live in those houses they walk past. It also doesn't matter if those 2 people already have jobs. The Recruiter just needs to walk past a couple houses for it to count.

If you are playing with the Global Workforce option then you don't have to worry about this and can literally build buildings on the complete opposite side of the map not connected to the rest of your city and they will get workforce so long as you have some unemployed population (or that building takes priority which you can set in your workforce overseer menu).

So I assume the Recruiter will be blocked by roadblocks and won't be able to "recruit" workers from the blocked off houses?

If this is the case, and a recruiter walks by a house to recruit then the path from that house to the place they were recruited to work gets a roadblock on it after they started working there, will they stop?

I'm having an issue where I have like 20% unemployment and people keep abandoning their jobs working at stockpiles and granaries and I think it may have to do with me using roadblocks after they started working there to try to corral actual walkers like water bearers and bazaar sellers into specific zones

[Leigh]

This is why most modded installs of the older titles made use of the "Global Labour Pool" feature, and probably why most will turn it on for this iteration.

Some love the OpenTTD-esque logistics of the walker system, and building their cities to suit it, but it can cramp your creativity and ideas.

Considering the 20 plus years of official releases, patches, and mods to draw inspiration from, the walker system doesn't appear to have been touched and it could have done with a bit of modernisation and tweaking.

[Darth Arminius]

Originally posted by FlyinJ:

Originally posted by Darth Arminius:

Ah I see, in Pharaoh and most Impressions games the workers don't actually "exist" as people who walk around/to their jobs. For all intents and purposes, your entire population just sit in their house all day every day. It is the people who provide services that actually go out and walk. i.e. Instead of a person visiting their temple, a priest will visit all the houses. "Workers" don't need to be able to walk to a building or even have direct road access in order to work there.

Now if you are playing with the Recruiter mode turned on then a walker will pop out of a new building "looking for workers". This Recruiter needs to walk past 2 populated houses in order for them to then pull some workers from your unemployed population pool. It doesn't matter if that recruiter is looking for 10 people but only 2 people live in those houses they walk past. It also doesn't matter if those 2 people already have jobs. The Recruiter just needs to walk past a couple houses for it to count.

If you are playing with the Global Workforce option then you don't have to worry about this and can literally build buildings on the complete opposite side of the map not connected to the rest of your city and they will get workforce so long as you have some unemployed population (or that building takes priority which you can set in your workforce overseer menu).

So I assume the Recruiter will be blocked by roadblocks and won't be able to "recruit" workers from the blocked off houses?

If this is the case, and a recruiter walks by a house to recruit then the path from that house to the place they were recruited to work gets a roadblock on it after they started working there, will they stop?

I'm having an issue where I have like 20% unemployment and people keep abandoning their jobs working at stockpiles and granaries and I think it may have to do with me using roadblocks after they started working there to try to corral actual walkers like water bearers and bazaar sellers into specific zones

Yes you're correct, recruiters will be blocked by roadblocks and gatehouses. If you block off road access for the recruiter or remove a bit of road or remove the houses the recruiter initially passed then yes that building will no longer have employees and the recruiter walker will come out to try and find employees again.

To avoid this you can split your city so that service buildings are on one "side" of your housing and the industry building are on the other. That way recruiters and idle walkers wont cross paths. E.g. Temple, bazaar, well, etc. on the south side of your row of housing. Industry like potter, clay pit, work camp, etc. on the north side of your row of housing. They are then on 2 separate bits of road. The recruiter can get employees by walking past a couple of houses. The services can provide their service to the houses without walking around your industry area pointlessly. Also just note that walkers have a range of 2 tiles, this means that a house doesn't need to be directly adjacent to a road for a walker to have "touched" the house. E.g. a recruiter can walk past a house 2 tiles away and it still count. Same goes for all other walkers like priests, water carriers, etc.

You can also avoid the recruiter problem by simply turning on Global Labour Pool option. I'll be completely honest with you, as a Pharaoh and Impressions games veteran, I turned that option on the moment I loaded the game and have been wishing for it since they announced New Era. A much needed option that avoids a ton of annoying headaches such as having little shanties next to your industry just so they get workers and such, and of course those 2 little huts need firehouse coverage, architects post, police station, apothecary (if there are reeds on the map) and a physician, all just for 2 little huts that are simply there for the recruiters. Yeah no thanks, I'll take the Global Labour Pool.

[FlyinJ]

Originally posted by Darth Arminius:

Originally posted by FlyinJ:

So I assume the Recruiter will be blocked by roadblocks and won't be able to "recruit" workers from the blocked off houses?

If this is the case, and a recruiter walks by a house to recruit then the path from that house to the place they were recruited to work gets a roadblock on it after they started working there, will they stop?

I'm having an issue where I have like 20% unemployment and people keep abandoning their jobs working at stockpiles and granaries and I think it may have to do with me using roadblocks after they started working there to try to corral actual walkers like water bearers and bazaar sellers into specific zones

Yes you're correct, recruiters will be blocked by roadblocks and gatehouses. If you block off road access for the recruiter or remove a bit of road or remove the houses the recruiter initially passed then yes that building will no longer have employees and the recruiter walker will come out to try and find employees again.

To avoid this you can split your city so that service buildings are on one "side" of your housing and the industry building are on the other. That way recruiters and idle walkers wont cross paths. E.g. Temple, bazaar, well, etc. on the south side of your row of housing. Industry like potter, clay pit, work camp, etc. on the north side of your row of housing. They are then on 2 separate bits of road. The recruiter can get employees by walking past a couple of houses. The services can provide their service to the houses without walking around your industry area pointlessly. Also just note that walkers have a range of 2 tiles, this means that a house doesn't need to be directly adjacent to a road for a walker to have "touched" the house. E.g. a recruiter can walk past a house 2 tiles away and it still count. Same goes for all other walkers like priests, water carriers, etc.

You can also avoid the recruiter problem by simply turning on Global Labour Pool option. I'll be completely honest with you, as a Pharaoh and Impressions games veteran, I turned that option on the moment I loaded the game and have been wishing for it since they announced New Era. A much needed option that avoids a ton of annoying headaches such as having little shanties next to your industry just so they get workers and such, and of course those 2 little huts need firehouse coverage, architects post, police station, apothecary (if there are reeds on the map) and a physician, all just for 2 little huts that are simply there for the recruiters. Yeah no thanks, I'll take the Global Labour Pool.

Thank you this has been really helpful!

So if I have a row of back to back houses with roads on both sides with a depth of two each

==
11
11
22
22
==

A recruiter on the upper road (the = signs) can only reach the workers in the 1 house, not any in the 2 house?

[Darth Arminius]

Originally posted by FlyinJ:

Originally posted by Darth Arminius:

Yes you're correct, recruiters will be blocked by roadblocks and gatehouses. If you block off road access for the recruiter or remove a bit of road or remove the houses the recruiter initially passed then yes that building will no longer have employees and the recruiter walker will come out to try and find employees again.

To avoid this you can split your city so that service buildings are on one "side" of your housing and the industry building are on the other. That way recruiters and idle walkers wont cross paths. E.g. Temple, bazaar, well, etc. on the south side of your row of housing. Industry like potter, clay pit, work camp, etc. on the north side of your row of housing. They are then on 2 separate bits of road. The recruiter can get employees by walking past a couple of houses. The services can provide their service to the houses without walking around your industry area pointlessly. Also just note that walkers have a range of 2 tiles, this means that a house doesn't need to be directly adjacent to a road for a walker to have "touched" the house. E.g. a recruiter can walk past a house 2 tiles away and it still count. Same goes for all other walkers like priests, water carriers, etc.

You can also avoid the recruiter problem by simply turning on Global Labour Pool option. I'll be completely honest with you, as a Pharaoh and Impressions games veteran, I turned that option on the moment I loaded the game and have been wishing for it since they announced New Era. A much needed option that avoids a ton of annoying headaches such as having little shanties next to your industry just so they get workers and such, and of course those 2 little huts need firehouse coverage, architects post, police station, apothecary (if there are reeds on the map) and a physician, all just for 2 little huts that are simply there for the recruiters. Yeah no thanks, I'll take the Global Labour Pool.

Thank you this has been really helpful!

So if I have a row of back to back houses with roads on both sides with a depth of two each

==
11
11
22
22
==

A recruiter on the upper road (the = signs) can only reach the workers in the 1 house, not any in the 2 house?

Correct, only houses 2 tiles or nearer can be "reached" by the recruiter. A 2x2 house (4 houses together in a square pattern) counts if a recruiter passes even just the first tile of it and therefore can be 2 tiles away like this (using the same key you used):

==

11 <-- A 2x2
11 <-- house
..
..
==

A recruiter walking on that top road will be able to "reach" that 2x2 house by simply walking past the first "1" and that will be enough for them to pull from the unemployment pool. It is essentially the same as this except more space efficient:

====
1234 <-- Each number an
5678 <-- individual house tile
..
..
====

With the above the recruiter will need to pass the 1 (which also technically means passing the 5) and then also the 2 (and technically 6) in order for enough houses to have been passed in order for the recruiter to pull from the unemployment pool.

Due to the above requirements, this meant that whenever you built an industry area that was far away from your main city (too far for the recruiter walker to reach) it meant you needed to build at least 2 houses (or ideally a 2x2 house) in order for all the recruiters of that industry area to pass said houses and then be able to pull from the unemployment pool. Of course these houses need firehouse, architects post, police station, apothecary, and physician otherwise they will burn, collapse, contribute towards crime, die from malaria or plague. This means even more jobs and upkeep just so that your industry area actually runs properly. This also became even more difficult to do when you have such high unemployment that nobody actually wants to move into those 2 or so shanty houses you built in order for that industry area to work. This again is one of the big reasons why so many of us have wanted a Global Labour Pool option for ages.

[jhughes]

Ah, this is quite helpful. So the recruiters are not looking for specific workers, they just need to pass the equivalent of 2 small houses and can grab any unemployed worker anywhere. I am actually playing with global workforce on, but it is great to better understand the mechanic regardless.

[Darth Arminius]

Originally posted by jhughes:

Ah, this is quite helpful. So the recruiters are not looking for specific workers, they just need to pass the equivalent of 2 small houses and can grab any unemployed worker anywhere. I am actually playing with global workforce on, but it is great to better understand the mechanic regardless.

Yes that's correct, spot on. This mechanic was added back in the original games as a way to emulate a more "realistic" recruiter searching for workers image. However, in reality this just caused the problems I mention in my previous replies, and the devs of the original games even agreed and removed the mechanic in favour of a Global Labour Pool for their later games.

[Telariust]

Originally posted by Darth Arminius:

Now if you are playing with the Recruiter mode turned on then a walker will pop out of a new building "looking for workers". This Recruiter needs to walk past 2 populated houses in order for them to then pull some workers from your unemployed population pool. It doesn't matter if that recruiter is looking for 10 people but only 2 people live in those houses they walk past. It also doesn't matter if those 2 people already have jobs. The Recruiter just needs to walk past a couple houses for it to count.

Originally posted by Darth Arminius:

..The recruiter can get employees by walking past a couple of houses..

In OG, I've noticed that 1x1 at home is sufficient, but the Building reported something like "poor access to workers" and production stopped intermittently.
When I built a 2x2 house, there was no problem.

Do you know why OG demanded exactly 2 houses?
Was there any penalty at 1x1 house? (except occasional stops)

In the remaster I build a 1x1 house and there is no problem.
It looks like the condition of the 2nd house is not met.

[Quimoth]

Originally posted by Telariust:

Originally posted by Darth Arminius:

Now if you are playing with the Recruiter mode turned on then a walker will pop out of a new building "looking for workers". This Recruiter needs to walk past 2 populated houses in order for them to then pull some workers from your unemployed population pool. It doesn't matter if that recruiter is looking for 10 people but only 2 people live in those houses they walk past. It also doesn't matter if those 2 people already have jobs. The Recruiter just needs to walk past a couple houses for it to count.

Originally posted by Darth Arminius:

..The recruiter can get employees by walking past a couple of houses..

In OG, I've noticed that 1x1 at home is sufficient, but the Building reported something like "poor access to workers" and production stopped intermittently.
When I built a 2x2 house, there was no problem.

Do you know why OG demanded exactly 2 houses?
Was there any penalty at 1x1 house? (except occasional stops)

In the remaster I build a 1x1 house and there is no problem.
It looks like the condition of the 2nd house is not met.

I've always used 2 small sheds(2x1) or one large shed (first 2x2 house). Seemed to work fine in the original game.

If you're playing with global work pool enabled your rule of thumb is: any worker with an overlay will be blocked by the roadblock, except entertainers moving to their pavilion/bandstand (which is similar to the bazaar restocking). Note that those hubs do send out entertainers that CANT walk past a roadblock.

This way you can have housing blocks centered around your temples/services with a path as simple as possible to keep your walkers predictable. The route to resupply is blocked with a roadblock to keep services roaming near the houses.

The more junctions your housingblocks have, the harder it is to fully service all of them. Walkers can often take the same road for years even if it is a full crossing.

Another useful method that i am trying out in my last few games is to have 2 rectangles where my services are on the single road those 2 share, one side has a roadblock, this makes my service walkers ALWAYS walk clock wise on one side and counter clockwise on the otherside. The same can be done with a single square ofcourse.

I also often place roadblocks at my industries/mines to keep the architect and firemen close to the actual stuff they are supposed to protect. If you dont, chances are your mines collapse or need another architectpost to prevent collapse.

[Name]

I get the impression, that the walkers in the remaster are so much more efficient that roadblocks arent event necessary anymore.