Streets and Roads

[Paeng]

I know this has been touched upon before, but I'm still puzzled by this - it's all very confusing...

Street-building scenarios -

A - dirt street, loose gravel
B - dirt street, packed gravel
C - stone road, unpaved
D - stone road, paved
E - dirt street, packed gravel, marked for demolition (x)
F - stone road, paved, marked for demolition (x)

The worst case is D, because it involves picking up stones from a (often far away) stockpile, which apparently disrupts the regular chores assigned to a peep in a serious way.

To add to the confusion, it is not clear who really is responsible for this work - I'd swear that by now I have seen every type of professional hacking away at streets at one time or another... Right now I'm not even sure anymore whether you need to assign Builders to construct (stone) roads...

Anyone with a more clear understanding of the 'mechanics'?

[rkelly17]

I know this has been touched upon before, but I'm still puzzled by this - it's all very confusing...

Street-building scenarios -

A - dirt street, loose gravel
B - dirt street, packed gravel
C - stone road, unpaved
D - stone road, paved
E - dirt street, packed gravel, marked for demolition (x)
F - stone road, paved, marked for demolition (x)

The worst case is D, because it involves picking up stones from a (often far away) stockpile, which apparently disrupts the regular chores assigned to a peep in a serious way.

To add to the confusion, it is not clear who really is responsible for this work - I'd swear that by now I have seen every type of professional hacking away at streets at one time or another... Right now I'm not even sure anymore whether you need to assign Builders to construct (stone) roads...

Anyone with a more clear understanding of the 'mechanics'?

@Paeng, I'm not sure what you mean by A and B. I only see marked but not yet built dirt roads and already built dirt roads. Am I missing something?

My impression--which is not backed up with conclusive evidence--is that builders whose assigned project is not yet ready for building or otherwise unassigned builders are the ones who build roads. For that reason I try not to build roads too far from current building projects and only build stone roads when I can throw a bunch of unassigned builders at the project (and have lots of stone). In then end, though, the citizens do move more quickly on paved stone roads (I watched one yesterday to check and you could actually see the little fellow pick up speed) so the time and materials may be worthwhile if you need them to get around more quickly.

[slink]

Only builders can build a road, but anyone can remove a road.  This is true of both dirt and stone roads.  Removing a planned road before the game is saved results in immediate removal of the not-yet-existing road, but after a save-and-load cycle, this requires general labor the same as if the road had already been built.  This has only been true since the bug was squashed where planning a stone road over a completed dirt one and then removing that also removed the dirt road.  Closing a relatively minor exploit broke that part of the game.  On the positive side, dropping items on stone roads no longer makes them non-removable.  This was also fixed with that patch.  You take the bad with the good.

[Paeng]

I'm not sure what you mean by A and B. I only see marked but not yet built dirt roads and already built dirt roads. Am I missing something?

Nope, that is exactly what I mean with A to D... you can already see the proposed road or street (A, C), but someone still has to go there and actually 'build' it (B, D)...

Yeah, I know that stone roads make for faster travel, also about the changes made via the patches...   

Only builders can build a road

I take your word for it