Roads

[Seravy]

We've discussed the economy aspects of roads already but didn't really do that for the movement effect.
This covers three different things.

1. Arcanus road movement speed.
Moving for 0.5 was way too powerful so it was nerfed to 1 and I don't really think there is another option (other than roads having no effect on movement at all).
2. Myrran road movement speed.
This was changed to 0.5 form 0 which helps but if 0.5 was too powerful on Arcanus, why is it not on Myrror?
So maybe this should be 1 too. Enchant road is no longer a thing and it doesn't really make sense why roads on Myrror need to be faster. Is the 0.5 cost contributing to Myrran gameplay? I guess it helps Dwarves in expansion which would be difficult with their slow movement? Cannons especially.
3. Combat movement speed.
This is the main reason for making this post.
I accepted combat roads being 0.5 so far and justified it with "you get more gold but it's harder to defend your cities". That's true - if you're using ranged units to defend and the enemy uses melee forces - the most common scenario. However it's not true at all otherwise. In fact if the garrison is melee units, roads help THEM defend the city. This is especially relevant for Klackons and Gnolls who can't build ranged units. This might be a good feature as it helps melee garrisons which are otherwise inferior but we've never discussed it and it has quite a big impact on the game so we should.

[Domon]

"vehicle" special ability for moving on roads for 0.5, on cannons and such?

[Seravy]

That's a good idea.

[MrBiscuits]

I find moving things across the map too slow and time consuming even on Myrror as it is. I would prefer if Arcanus roads were returned to being 0.5 movement points, rather than roads on Myrror increased to 1.

What makes it too powerful?

[Seravy]

If you move faster you conquer faster so you give the AI less time to retaliate.
You need fewer stacks to conquer the same amount because you need only one turn to reach another city instead of 2-3.
In case they aren't already swarming on your continent, fast roads can allow players to eliminate the AI entirely before having to fight any of their troops at all with just a few doomstacks or good heroes.

In short, moving faster on the overland map wins the game because the human player is allowed to build stacks that are invincible and never lose or get damaged. This probably wouldn't be an issue if conquest wasn't instant or if razing wasn't available in the game. Obviously roads aren't Time Stop but the idea is the same, kill the enemy before they get a chance to attack you back.

I'm honestly unsure if larger distances would help because the AI does take long to travel those distances so the time we gain by making conquest slower we lose on the AI being further on the map from the player - but we can't make the map larger anyway without source code. However roads are different - they increase travel speed specifically where they help the human player attack the AI - between the AI's cities. Meanwhile it's usually not helping the AI at all - they need ships to reach the players continent instead to retaliate and generally don't use the raze and move to next city tactic.

Short version : We've already agreed in the past that faster movement of any kind is extremely powerful and gives the player easy wins. That's why no such spell (or hero ability) was added and why hero items grant less movement in general.

[MrBiscuits]

Can the human player eliminate all AI quickly when there is another one expanding unopposed on the other plane? It's probably only a problem on your starting plane for the best players. 

The problem is that the end game is very slow and time consuming at the moment, you know you have the units to win the game, but it involves inching across the map over many turns to get to where they need to be.

It's probably impossible, but what about having roads only give the speed bonus if it is between two of your cities?

[JustOneMoreTurn]

Late game could use some unit speed-up. For a future game, a spell that increases road speed might be useful. Maybe a global that boosts overland speed. I haven't tried the earth gate spell; does that improve late game play?

[Seravy]

Earth Gate is one of the most powerful spells in the game, it improves conquest speed massively by letting you reinforce freshly taken cities instantly. This kind of effect is limited to one realm and spell in very rare for a reason.

you know you have the units to win the game, but it involves inching across the map over many turns to get to where they need to be.

That's exactly the point. The AI's core strategy is basically "Even if the player has a doomstack that wins the game, I have so many units that I can overwhelm them and win before losing".
If I allow players to move their "units to win" faster, then there is no game to be played - you just win and that's it.
It would be different if we removed razing though.

Of course it's true that it can be painful to move slowly against a weaker opponent who can't win anyway but fortunately the basic structure of the game doesn't really allow for that to happen. If the AI has enough cities for this to take that much time, they also have the units to fight back.

Roads being limited to work only on your territory would work but it's hard to explain to the player. It also gives a massive advantage to defend your own territory as your units can move faster and chase down incoming enemies more effectively, something the AI isn't good at doing.

[MrBiscuits]

That's exactly the point. The AI's core strategy is basically "Even if the player has a doomstack that wins the game, I have so many units that I can overwhelm them and win before losing".

That makes sense from a balance perspective, but it makes the end game a slow war of attrition and a lot less fun.
Even on small maps I end up abandoning the game later on when I'm leading, due to having to deal with hundreds of AI units and having to move all my troops slowly around the map each turn.

Also the problem here isn't the movement speed, it's the fact that a doomstack can take out an enemy completely.

It would be different if we removed razing though.

Maybe a solution could be based around that instead. Perhaps it could take a few turns to raze a city, reducing the population and buildings each turn, so larger cities take longer to raze than hamlets which could be razed immediately.

Roads being limited to work only on your territory would work but it's hard to explain to the player. It also gives a massive advantage to defend your own territory as your units can move faster and chase down incoming enemies more effectively, something the AI isn't good at doing.

Actually I agree that it's not a good solution as a new player will have no idea why the roads are sometimes twice as fast as other times.

[Seravy]

but it makes the end game a slow war of attrition and a lot less fun.

Indeed but what else is it supposed to be?
This is a 4X game which means your resources/empire size directly represents how powerful you are.
You're putting your production (or spellcasting) capacity against your opponent.
So it comes from the definition of the genre.

Also the problem here isn't the movement speed, it's the fact that a doomstack can take out an enemy completely.

That can't be helped. The players expect to be able to fight a battle without losing a unit and there are plenty of game mechanics that make it possible. But if a stack suffers no losses then it can take out an infinite amount of enemies without getting used up in the process, so the only thing that limits that is their speed of movement and number of enemies to destroy.
I tried to make it so that the AI forces the player to lose units whenever possible, but that's not an option in case of game mechanics designed to prevent that, like regeneration or heroes.