Roads
Roads are pathways that provide a helpful, walkable surface for citizens. They work best when they're placed in ways that help people reach important frequented areas. The better the road, the more satisfaction citizens will get when walking on it, but the more expensive the resource that's required to make it. Roads can also speed up the walking speed of citizens, which can be very useful in terms of citizens getting to essential jobs much faster. There are 4 types of roads the player can make: dirt, stone, dire and fancy.
The AI of the citizens will have them always prefer paths to walking across the grass. If something is out of reach in terms of using roads, citizens will just leave the path and walk along non-road areas to get to somewhere. Because of this, it is ideal to have as many high quality paths to everything in a settlement as possible.
Citizens that walk on any type of road get an increase to their "roads" stat, adding a slight increase to their overall happiness. The better the road, the higher the positive increase of the "roads" stat, which may include an increase of other stats, depending on the road being walked on.
Only the dirt road is available to the player at the start of the game, the others must be unlocked with knowledge points. The stone and dire roads require "Paved Roads" to be unlocked, while the fancy road by itself requires the titular "Fancy Roads" to be unlocked.
Dirt road
The dirt road is the cheapest road of them all. They are the easiest roads to make, as they require no resources to make. Because there's no foundation in simplistic dirt roads, they require the most maintenance of all road types. Though this road is cheap and unimpressive, citizens do get a slight increase to their "road" stats and move speed.
Move speed: +110%
Roads: 50%
In-game description
"Basic paved road. Requires no resource to construct, but a bit more maintenance."
Stone road
The stone road is a mid-tier road, and can be unlocked (in tandem with the dire road) with 250 knowledge points. It's better than the dirt road, but not as efficient as the dire or fancy road. This is also the first road type that costs a resource, with this road obviously being stone. Citizens walking on this road provides slightly more satisfaction than walking on a dirt road.
Move speed: +120%
Roads: 100%
In-game description
"The road of choice for your durable subjects. Durable, but requires stone to construct."
Dire road
The dire road is another mid-tier road, and can be unlocked (in tandem with the stone road) with 250 knowledge points. It offers roughly the same "road" stat increase as the stone road, as well as also costing stone, but provides better access. The trade-off is that the dire road increases the "dread" stat for those who walk on it. The reason for this is unknown.
Move speed: +120%
Roads: 100%
In-game description
"Instills dread amongst your subjects, while also offering good access."
Fancy road
The fancy road is the best road in the game, but the most expensive. It can be unlocked with 1,200 knowledge points. It's the only road that costs cut stone. Walking on this road offers both faster walking speed and an increase to the "awe" stat.
Move speed: +120%
Roads: 100%
In-game description
"This road not only increases movement speed and road access, but also adds some inspiration for those who walk on it."
Trivia
- Without roads, citizens will eventually wear down grass to dirt as they constantly walk over the area. Although these natural dirt paths do not provide the benefits of a road, they do indicate where you might want to place real roads.
- While roads can normally be removed with the "Remove" tool, this does not work on roads in mountain caves. As a work-around, you can place inexpensive buildings over the roads to remove and then cancel the building after workers have laid the building's floor.
Gallery
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An animation of a zoomed-out area showing cititzens using roads.
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A worn down, diagonal area of grass showing that a lot of people walk there, and would benefit greatly if a road was there.
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Roads can be combined to make interesting designs.
