caravans

I'd prefer that caravans were entirely automated. They're a hassle to deal with, and yet still necessary.

It would also be nice to have the option to jump to the location when a caravan is killed.  Currently the message appears, but I have no idea where the attack took place (when my empire is large).

I agree with the concept of trade route management.  Now I have to manually make a list of my trade routes to know what cities are connected.

Caravans, as a unit, are going away.

Wow!  Automatic upgrading trade routes then? =)  Maybe the ability to build roads?

Implementing ideas even before I come up with them. ^^

Roads between cities and outposts will become a function of your overall civilization rather than something players have to manually do.

Interesting but what about trade routes... Will you still set those.

 I don't know why everyone wants automated roads if its just going to take away any choice in the game. Is it just a graphical feature? A tech unlock with slight upgrades? Or are we retaining the ability to choose road placement, just getting rid of the caravans?

Like, maybe you get to place one road every 100 population or something.

I like you.

Huzzah

It's like one of those NBA trades where you trade away a good player and in return, the other team also takes your bad player.

If you can't do something right....I think this should be a nice change.

I never would have thought that caravans would be axed. This is great news!

While I can see the removal of caravan units being a good thing I am worried that not being able to manually place roads and trade routes will remove depth from a already lacking civics system.

YAY!

How about a change that you can't use roads in enemy territory?  This will be especially important if roads are placed automatically between all your cities.

make a spelll road

Umm no this would make no sense at all.

Sometimes you need to make compromises for gameplay, not realism-based reasons.  And I'm not saying you can't use the enemy roads, just that you will pay normal movement costs for them.  If you want a realism-based reason, you could say that you are extra cautious when walking on an enemy road, because of the possibility of an ambush.  Btw: what if Assassins or fast scouts could do ambushes in their friendly territory in FE?  Then there really *would* be a gameplay AND realism-based reason for going slower on enemy roads.

And even then, sometimes gameplay trumps realism.  This is perhaps one of these cases.  In Civ4 you can only use enemy roads' movement bonuses if your unit has the Commando promotion - maybe there could be a similar trait in FE, perhaps for Assassins or scouts.  If it was available to regular units as traits, it would have to be late on the tech tree and very expensive for a unit - perhaps a multiplier on the unadjusted production cost of the unit.

What is the gameplay reason for this? As I see it, roads are only between your cities. In the first battle they play to your advantage because you can move reinforcements faster. Once you lose your first city, the advantage is slightly tipped towards the attacker. I don't see the reasoning behind making roads unusable.

Well, you have some good points.  I was just raising the way Civ4 did it, with roads that were built manually by a worker unit.

The gameplay reasons for being able to build roads where you want them are:

1. defense network:   one army can cover a broader space.   Think of what the romans did with roads - they put them both to and along their frontiers.

2. faster movement: If you have long distances to cover in a repeat fashion roads reduce the overall drudgery effect.

3. Offense:   It is possible with a good road network to assemble  an army to attack quickly anywhere along the border.

I do not agree with a system that does not allow road building, for a cost in time and money, where ever the player needs them built.

I'm all for some sort of Engineer ability to give a unit to build roads. (ALA. AOW:SM )