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I've started playing Civ 4 recently; it's a great, complex game, and there's a ton to learn.

One aspect that puzzles me are roads. I read something about needing roads to gain access to resources - but my pasture worked just fine without any road! On the other hand, I did need to build a road for, if I recall correctly, an iron mine to start giving me iron.

What resources require roads, and, outside of the movement bonus, are there other uses for them? For example, is there a trade bonus for connecting cities with a road?

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  • It's been a long time since I played Civ IV, so I can't really answer, but another use for roads is that it decreases movement cost of that tile by a third.
    – Adeese
    Commented Dec 25, 2012 at 19:44

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Roads have two primary functions:

  • They reduce the costs to move units (i.e. your units can walk further if they're walking on roads; like hills vs. grassland).

  • They establish trade routes between cities on land (this won't work without roads, unless both cities have a port).

  • I don't remember any tiles requiring roads built (but feel free to correct me).

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  • Rivers act like roads in Civ. So any tile connected to a river which has any form of connection to a city will act like a road. And the river can pass through unowned or enemy territory. Once you have the correct technology, the whole oceon acts as a road for trade and resource routing. But you will need to have a city with a trade port to allow connecting between oceon "roads" and the rest of your road network.
    – StarPilot
    Commented Dec 25, 2012 at 22:25
  • @StarPilot The correct tech being Sailing.
    – kapa
    Commented Dec 27, 2012 at 13:43
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    You do need to connect a resource square to a city using roads before you can use that resource - e.g. if you have a horse resource with a pasture then you get the food/coin/production bonusses for it without a road, but if isn't connected to a city you can't build horse units in that city.
    – DJClayworth
    Commented Jan 4, 2013 at 21:25
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    @bazmegakapa: Sailing is coastal waters only, ocean-crossing is only with Astronomy.
    – MSalters
    Commented Aug 1, 2013 at 19:54
  • @MSalters Yep, true.
    – kapa
    Commented Aug 2, 2013 at 0:10

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