[Guide] An analysis of a road-building strategy

[DeletedUser4844]

Roads are often viewed as a necessary evil. We need them to connect everything to City hall, but they take up valuable real estate that, even if we wanted more happiness, could be better used by cultural buildings, or even decorations. As such, most people try to minimize the amount of roads as much as possible. There are various methods for this. For example, making sure that there are structures requiring a road on both ides of a road, and at the end of it as well, if possible. Also making sure that you have two rows of structures in between roads rather then one. Another common strategy is to try to make neat lines of structures so the roads don't have to bend back and forth or have lots of offshoots. However, the strategy I wanted to discuss here is whether it is better to build roads that generally run northeast-southwest, better to build roads that generally run northwest-southeast, or whether it doesn't matter at all and you should just build in a larger grid pattern or the equivalent.

First off I'll address the grid pattern. I see no real benefit to having streets running in both diagonal directions. You do need at least one street in the other diagonal direction from the one you primarily use in order to connect up all the other streets, but more then one seems unnecessary and unhelpful. Laying things out in a grid pattern will generally connect structures up at more points then necessary, meaning you are using more roads then needed. Ideally, we want to use the minimum number of squares of road possible to connect all the structures in our city that need to be connected to roads.

In order to address which diagonal road directions should be the primary one again need to consider how we can connect stuff with minimal roads. Since straight roads are desirable and we probably want the least number off little offshoot road from the main ones, we want to lay the roads along the structures' smallest dimension. That is, if we have a 4x2 structure, we want to lay roads along it's 2-length dimension rather then the 4-length dimension. The first dimension listed in the game is northeast-southwest (or, if you prefer, upper-right to lower-left). The second dimension is northwest-southeast (upper-left to lower-right). So I looked through the guides on these forums here: http://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/showthread.php?4238-Great-Buildings-Encyclopedia-August-update (Great Buildings update by First Knight92), here: http://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/...-regarding-military-buildings-and-their-units (military buildings guide by HaekelHansi) and here: http://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/...tics-regarding-buildings-and-their-production (buildings and production guide by HaekelHansi). I added up how many structures that required roads had a smaller first dimension and how many had a smaller second dimension in each o0f those guides (ignoring the special event structures). I ignored the structures that didn't require roads (decorations), and those that had the same first and second dimensions. Here are the results:

odd-sided buildings	low first number	low second number
great buildings	5	3
military buildings	11	11
residential buildings	0	4
production buildings	6	13
goods buildings	9	12
cultural buildings	5	8
total	36	51

Most odd-sided buildings in the game have a shorter second dimension (northwest-southeast). Great Buildings are an exception, and military buildings have the same number of odd-sided buildings for each dimension. Other categories all follow this pattern. There are, of course, many other factors to weight. If your city has more road-space requirement in great buildings then in other types that is also important. For that matter, from one age to another thigns may vary in terms of optimal strategy. Residential buildings outside of the industrial age all have both dimensions the same, as do MANY other buildings, so this may not make a huge difference.

However, all other factors being equal, this analysis would indicate that building most roads in your city from northwest to southeast is generally a more optimal strategy then building most roads from northeast to southwest.

 

[*Arturis*]

If you have more than 10 GB in your city, you can use my city in Brisgard as an example to set up the roads.

 

[DeletedUser]

So to make things short and easy to understand, it's better to build my city in columns than rows, correct?

 

[*Arturis*]

Yeah, and stick your City Hall to that dead end NE corner, also no road needed in the boundary of your town because you can't make use of both side of the road with building efficiency.

 

[DeletedUser4844]

columns and rows only work when you're talking about a vertical versus horizontal context. Unfortunately building layout is more in a diamond pattern. It's better to build most roads from upper left to lower right then to build them from upper right to lower left.

 

[DeletedUser]

Yes I know it's a diamond pattern, but if you rotate everything 45 degree clockwise then it'll become a rectangle, hence the rows and columns. It's just easier for me to comprehend than all those NE-SW terminology of yours

 

[DeletedUser4844]

If that makes it easier for you to understand, then yes, rotate everything 45 degrees clockwise, and the majority of roads you should be building should be vertical (columns). I can work with that.

 

[DeletedUser4074]

The problem with that is I think of "up" as northeast, so they would be horizontal for me. Using the absolute directions prevents that confusion.

 

[DeletedUser]

This does make a lot of sense, but I feel one extremely important caveat needs to be emphasized: in Industrial Age (and maybe the following ages if you're slow to replace buildings) houses take up the majority of your land: this implies to me that the structure should be altered to accommodate them efficiently, once you have a significant amount of 3x2 houses.

 

[DeletedUser4844]

Yeah, 3x2 houses, like the majority of odd-sided buildings in the game have a low second number. If you built your city to accommodate the generally low second number this will not require any changes in direction to the road network in your city. However, as you point out, when houses stop being 2x2 and grow to be 3x2 you may well need to space the roads further apart. Going from 4 available squares between roads to 6, for example, at least, for the roads you plan to build housing between. So it's a good point, JamesBondage.

 

[DeletedUser]

Keep in mind that once you hit PE houses will become 3x3, so it's better to build your InA houses in columns. That way whenever you upgrade to PE houses you wont have to move buildings around. Make sure to accommodate for 2-ln streets if you plan for High-rises

 

[DeletedUser4844]

This is just more confirmation that it is better to build your roads in such a way that they adjoin the 2-length sides of the industrial houses. That way, when they turn into 3x3 houses you're all set... well...unless you want to build 2-lane roads to get high-rises, then you'll probably have to redesign your city a fair amount to accommodate the extra road width.

 

[DeletedUser]

Now we wait to see if Innogames's gonna increase houses' sizes again for ME and throw everybody's city out of whack yet again, which I deeply suspect will happen. 4x3 or 3x4 houses? who knows?

 

[DeletedUser8794]

My iron Age town currently.
Replacing the goods buildings on bottom left with EMA ones soon.
Adjusting the bottom right side as I get more space expansions.
Trying to make room for my zues and a collosuem soon to come.

 

[DeletedUser]

Well well looks like my 4x3 ME houses prediction did come to pass

 

[DeletedUser4844]

Indeed it did. Frankly, looking at the population per square and coins per square I don't see the 24-hour modern age 4x3 houses as being significantly more efficient then the progressive age 3x3 houses. Granted, the new houses don't require 2-lane roads, but if you already have the progressive age houses I am not sure that is sufficient reason to switch, especially since, in the modern age, you HAVE to build the goods producing buildings, which require 2-lane roads.

 

[DeletedUser]

Yes you will need to switch to suburban houses if you want to farm the recurring quests for medals/fps pks/diamonds. It doesn't look like ME gbs are must-haves, so once you're finished with the tech tree you can minimize goods production.