What determines road quality?

[CacoSteven]

The game surprisingly doesn't say much about this. I did some googling, but pretty much all info is old, like 2015 and prior, and it's all conflicting. Some say it's based on the overall wealth of a province or region, some say building orange (city centre) buildings increases it, and others say it's strictly determined by the settlement capital buildings (minor and major).

Right now I'm operating with the assumption it's the settlement capitals, so I've been trying to upgrade the main arteries of troop movement for my empire to tiers 3 and 4 while off-the-beaten-path settlements are usually left at tier 2 to save on food. I just want to confirm, because I notice some roads are still the beige dirt paths, even though they should be darker paved roads.

[Falesz]

I'm pretty sure nobody really knows, at least I haven't gotten a definitive answer to this ever since september 2013 launch. Not that it really matters, though. The trade increase is so negligible it does basically nothing and the roads only ever show up during battles as some extremely feathered faded texture on the ground if you zoom up to it closely, you can't even see them from the birds eye view. During battle, I think they always give the same percentage buff to unit movement, but that also practically never matters as following the road for unit movement is pretty much 100% of the times just bad practice, the AI doesn't use it either.

I always just considered actual roads to be a removed or absent feature :(

[Wayz]

Originally posted by :(:

I always just considered actual roads to be a removed or absent feature :(

Yup, there are trade lanes for land that are visible but roads as we know them in earlier titles got dropped.
There is a mod that adds them although I have never used it to comment on it sorry.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=848222896&searchtext=roads
Or for DEI:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1457588434&searchtext=roads

[CacoSteven]

Originally posted by :(:

I'm pretty sure nobody really knows, at least I haven't gotten a definitive answer to this ever since september 2013 launch. Not that it really matters, though. The trade increase is so negligible it does basically nothing and the roads only ever show up during battles as some extremely feathered faded texture on the ground if you zoom up to it closely, you can't even see them from the birds eye view. During battle, I think they always give the same percentage buff to unit movement, but that also practically never matters as following the road for unit movement is pretty much 100% of the times just bad practice, the AI doesn't use it either.

I always just considered actual roads to be a removed or absent feature :(

Roads do increase campaign movement speed, though. At least it feels like they do. It's just a matter of what exactly makes them improve in quality.

[Wayz]

Originally posted by CacoSteven:

Originally posted by :(:

I'm pretty sure nobody really knows, at least I haven't gotten a definitive answer to this ever since september 2013 launch. Not that it really matters, though. The trade increase is so negligible it does basically nothing and the roads only ever show up during battles as some extremely feathered faded texture on the ground if you zoom up to it closely, you can't even see them from the birds eye view. During battle, I think they always give the same percentage buff to unit movement, but that also practically never matters as following the road for unit movement is pretty much 100% of the times just bad practice, the AI doesn't use it either.

I always just considered actual roads to be a removed or absent feature :(

Roads do increase campaign movement speed, though. At least it feels like they do. It's just a matter of what exactly makes them improve in quality.

https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/140469/are-there-roads-in-rome-2
If these guys are correct then upgrading city centres would be logical. Not being able to directly build roads I just took for granted if I am honest.
Would have to wait on one of our active modders to chime in with actual details having spent time under the titles hood so to speak.
I just chalked up any extra movement my armies had to upgrading the generals and such.