Roads, rivers and bridges

Roads#

Villagers build roads by dragging a line across open ground, woodland or hills. Roads make armies, caravans and reinforcements much faster, and an army in March Column stays organized on them.

Once finished, a road belongs to the map. Anyone can use it, including your enemies. A fine road from your capital to your border fort is also an invasion route if the fort falls.

Cutting and dismantling roads#

You can cut a road by blocking it with buildings, walls or an army. Gates on a road let permitted units through.

Any player's villagers can dismantle a road segment and keep part of its building cost as salvage. Roads have no owner, so treaties do not protect them, not even from a Truce partner.

Faster roads shorten caravan trips. Each completed trip pays the same, so a road means more trips, not larger ones.

In the development build, roads arrive with the Territorial Age. Each segment costs 4 wood and 4 seconds of a villager's work, and you lay up to 32 in one line on ground you can see. Infantry move 25 %, cavalry and siege 30 % and caravans 40 % faster on a road, and a March Column on a road gains another 10 % and is not disrupted. Dismantling a segment takes 3 seconds of a villager's work and returns 2 wood to whoever does it. Cancelling a segment before it is finished returns its cost. Units choose roads when they save time, and go around anyone standing on one. Select your villagers to open the Roads tools. Build road lays a line when you drag, or one segment when you click. The preview shows the whole line's price; every segment must be clear and currently visible. Hold Shift to queue another line. Escape or a right-click cancels the tool without spending resources. Cancel road site refunds one of your unfinished segments, and Dismantle road sends the selected villagers to salvage a completed segment.

Completed roads join their neighbours on the battlefield and have no player colour. An outlined diamond marks unfinished work. Roads outside your current sight remain dimmed at their last-seen state; a change there is revealed when you see the tile again. The generated maps do not lay neutral roads yet.

Rivers and fords#

Rivers block land movement. Every river has fords, shallow crossings where units wade slowly and formations are disrupted. Generated maps in the development build have a stream along each map edge between neighbouring corners, with two fords each.

Bridges#

A bridge crosses a short stretch of water. Anyone can cross it, whoever built it. Bridges can be attacked and destroyed, which can cut a route in the middle of a war. A Truce protects a bridge from its signatories. Units standing on a bridge when it falls are moved to the nearest bank they can reach.