where we're going, we'll need roads

No. This is pointless. Terraform maybe.

Really? I mean serious, really?

No to roads, completely unnecessary.

We'll have suggestions for connecting the electricity between buildings and putting the plumbing in next.....

If it has a high cost, it won't be able to compete with simply building a new factory in your second base. The game being as it is, the benefit of being able to move buildings from your own bases to your own bases is so minor that it wouldn't be overpowered to have them teleport. A piece of infrastructure that needs to be constructed along its entire length that can be attacked and destroyed by the enemy anywhere along its length will never be worth it.

Maybe subterranean tunnels, which would also allow crossing oceans and provide protection from enemy fire, and be considerably more efficient on a sphere, but I'm against this idea since it would create an entire underground layer, and that is a can of worms that does not want opening.

what no cable TV?

If there are going to be area commands in PA, maybe instead of actual roads, you could paint entire areas with concrete/tarmac. Just like good ol' Tiberian sun.

It would increase the speed at which units within your base, but it could also protect from possible subterranean units, like the concrete in Tiberian sun did.

In Dune 2, arguably the first RTS and certainly the one that set the template that has been followed ever since, you had to build concrete slab foundations for your buildings or they would only have half hit points. It was so pointless that no game ever copied it, and the developers Westwood abandoned for their next game Command & Conquer.

This road idea reminds me of Dune 2's foundations, and I am dead against it.

What? Starcraft 2 has creep spread. It's a fun and interesting mechanic.

Now imagine that creep needs to be built one square at a time by your drones. And you can't queue orders.

I think that this game will allow you to queue orders.

What's the point in limiting your own imagination, just to win an argument? No one benefits from it.

It's pretty obvious that the OP and supporters aren't asking for an exact implementation of roads, but rather they just want a "stationary speed buff".

Knickles and sal0x2328: I was responding to the assertion that creep in Starcraft was like roads in Warcraft I. Why you two are talking about PA in response to this is baffling.

And I'll note that nobody has addressed the fact that the necessary cheapness of factories obsoletes this entire idea.

Of course, how silly of me. It's baffling that I'd assume someone was staying on topic, and not just nitpicking how a single game poorly implemented the general idea.

I'll also note, that the cost of factories is completely irrelevant. It's about moving your existing army.

Moving a large existing army from a location you control to another location you control over a route you control is not a thing that often happens. In order for a road to be not a useless complication, this would have to happen multiple times per game, over the same route. This is Planetary Annihilation, not Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe: Tower Defence (which would be a perfectly fine game, but it would not be this game).

Moving between two bases isn't uncommon when you're on the defense. There's also no downside to reducing the travel time, between your base and the enemies, if the cost is right.

What? The game hardly exists. You have no basis to say how the game does and doesn't play.

I think roads would only serve as something that you'd NEED or something that'd be useless.

Air Transports.

Hey, nothing wrong with options.

no load/deploy time + safer travel VS no terrain obstacles

Some of you are being irritatingly obtuse about the whole thing.

That said, I believe this idea would work well in a game that's more focused on the terrain of the planet(s) in question. A large single, or maybe double, layered RTS with more of a focus on high detail terrain would work for this type of mechanic. Something where sneak attacks through bulldozed forest or carving out mountain passes for ground troops is not only an applicable part of the game, but a main component of the strategy. If it was a multi layer I suppose it could translate to actual burrowing under the ground and tunneling around to give your troops easier routes to the enemy.

No, we don't need roads. Please, no.

We have air transports. It may have been mentioned already here, but still.

Transports, whetehr they're air, sub-orbital (and full orbital I guess), amphibious, or whatever, should be necessary.

Not convenient, as they were in Supreme Commander, no, I think they should be necessary. But, they should be easy to use too.

As in, specify a ferry route, move a huge army in said 'ferrier', and it'll keep transporting them to wherever the route leads. Something like that I guess.

Roads is a bit too much sim for an RTS I wouldnt mind a flat skirting area of "hardstanding" around every building so that when you build a base it comes auto-paved and improves unit movement around buildings a bit.

In SupCom wayfinding and collisions made a base full of units like a quagmire, if the units moved quicker then they would get out of the way quicker and crossing a base to respond to directional threats or get away from them would be less frustrating.

On that theme IMHO all units should get out of the way automatically before another unit under commanders orders collides with them, just on the strength of the route they plan to take, where that intersects with units not under a move command they should move out of the way, and if other units block their movement then they should move too.