Roads over existing buildings

[Endru1241]

One of the things, that kept bothering me since introduction of road construction is lack of possibility to create roadwork over existing buildings.
I had one idea to add stone road placement on building upgrade, but that is not enough - what about all those towers then.

I already checked and it's possible to cast effect that places decoration on the end of effect lasting (I checked in game!).
My idea is to give Elite Worker or all workers ability three abilities - start road, start stone road, decrease roads lasting.
Potentially some roman units could be given this in addition, but working a little differently (slower maybe).

My questions:
1. How exactly balance timeout and number of turns, that is decreased on 3rd ability usage (e.g. 8 turns, -2 per usage for regular road or 30 turns,-10 on usage or 90 turns, -30 on usage etc.)? In other words how fast it should be build and how much impact should waiting time have.
2. What targets should be allowed and in which way?
I tested it, by creating new hidden category, so buildings were hand picked and by making effect target friendly units.
It could be casted on friendly units or by placing environmental (like group heal) and only then affecting targets in range (under icon). Should it affect like I plan factories, towers, gates, tcs + buildings with carry, including neutral and only excluding docks, forest buildings (to avoid removing it)?
Should such category be visible and if so how to name it (e.g. Road Usable)?
3. I don't see a way to block usage of start road ability once building already have it (or road under it). Should it be non- castable by AI or just given very low priority (e.g. 7 stone road, 5 regular road, 80 - construction). Or maybe some idea how to block it without code change?
4. Any more than 1x1 sized building would only have road placed on leftmost, bottom tile. Any idea to deal with it?
5. Which exact units should be assigned ability? Should it require any tech?
6. Anything I haven't thought about?
7. Should it be implemented despite problems or just left until engine would have more possibilities (probably a long wait, as stratego is busy with Unity migration)?

[L4cus]

i was playing a campaign and realized about it...
1. i think it should take longer, instead of less time...
2. i like ur idea of having all those structures as possible targets
3. i think it could follow the same logic of terrain compatibility of other buildings. the ia should not be able to build them
4. no idea
5. only workers and upgraded workers
i think it should have requirements! as well as stone roads i think (like "pavimented roads" tech)
6. is there not a way to be a upgrade tech for each building? it would "stop" production though

[Endru1241]

1. So in your opinion number of turns by itself shouldn't affect it much. It'll have to be constructed if we set it to e.g. 80 turns. But how many usages of 3rd ability (representing mending actions) should it take? The same as respective roads after ambidexteria?
3. What I wrote in the first post means - it cannot be done like that. Normal road construction creates a unit (road under construction), but tile has to have no units for that. Even if the whole ability would be changed to e.g. summoning (so that it could have limits based on terrain) no unit could be made for buildings without carry capacity. And it would take away one carry space. And most importantly - I don't even know if unit inside carry space could be targetted by 3rd effect (I know it could be affected by making it environmental, but then we'd have 3rd ability castable at any time).
So it's a question more concentrated more on how exactly to set it.
5. If it would be limited to elite workers only we already have some requirement (without need to create new tech).
As for additional tech for stone road - remember, that normally build stone road doesn't have tech requirements.
6. Upgrade tech needs another unit for each affected building, that it's upgraded to and I am unsure if it could work for non-factories.

Anyway - thanks for the feedback.

[godOfKings]

Logically, no one should b able to make a road right under a building, so as long as we can make a road first then a building on top of it, thats also fine, no?

[Endru1241]

Logically, no one should b able to make a road right under a building, so as long as we can make a road first then a building on top of it, thats also fine, no?

Who's telling it's under the building?
It's over/around/inside the building.
Take TC as an example - it's probably widening or increasing number of gates, better roads inside.
Whatever workers are doing - it brings infrastructure to the level of roads.

And it actually is a problem to deny already constructed structures that upgrade - because if it can be used at all (and it is!), then why should order of construction matter?

This is mostly visible on campaign maps, when player already have factories over the limit - you cannot bring down the building and build it again.

So imho - we should either remove roads on finishing construction or bring some way to build them after.