Roads play a crucial role in the game, they connect buildings together, serving a few purposes:
- Establishing the connection from a trading post to other buildings, such a connection is absolutely mandatory for many buildings to function
- Connecting residences with public buildings which fulfill their needs
- Allowing for transportation of goods between buildings via horse carts or trucks
- Allowing emergency units to fight city incidents by connecting affected buildings with emergency services
Trading Post connection[]
In order to properly function, almost every building has to be connected to the trading post. However, the road connection between a building and the trading post can be interrupted by a warehouse without disconnecting the building from the trading post. Warehouses can therefore act as connection hubs between the trading post and other buildings on the player's island. This allows to construct a complex road network connected through warehouses without having to connect buildings with the trading post directly.
Range of buildings[]
Many buildings in the game have a certain range which usually depends on the road connection between the building and its target. For example, marketplaces fulfill population's need for a market only at a limited range, determined by shortest road distance between a residence and a marketplace. If the distance is larger than a certain value, the need of the residence is fulfilled only partially, or if the distance is really large, it may not be fulfilled at all. Buildings such as production buildings also have certain range which determines how far their carts can travel in order to fetch and deliver resources from and to warehouses and to other production buildings. If a building has a limited range, whatever its function could be, when that building is selected, its range will be indicated by roads being highlighted in green or blue (if the building is in blueprint mode).
Road types[]
There are three main types of roads: dirt roads, paved streets and quay streets. In Seeds of Change DLC there are also two distinct types of roads: hacienda paving and hacienda pathway.
Dirt Road[]
Dirt road is the first and most basic type of road, available since the start of the game. It is available in every region in the game, though in The Arctic it is known simply as 
Road, while in Enbesa it is called 
Desert Road. It costs 2.5 
per tile, the final cost when laying out a road is rounded up, for example 1 tile costs 3 , 2 tiles cost 5 . Dirt roads provide basic connection between buildings, with buildings having the shortest range over dirt roads and units having default speed.
Paved Street[]
Paved street is a more advanced type of road in comparison to dirt road. For the first time it is unlocked after reaching 1 
Workers in Old World. It is also available in New World upon reaching 1 
Obreros or in Enbesa upon reaching 1 
Elders. There are no paved streets in The Arctic. Paved streets provide enhanced connection between buildings, with buildings having their range increased by 50% over paved streets and units having increased speed in comparison to dirt roads.
Paved streets cost 12.5 and 0.25 tons of 
bricks per tile (
mud bricks in case of the paved street in Enbesa). The final cost of the road is rounded up, for example 1 tile costs 13 and 1 ton of bricks, 4 tiles cost 50 and 1 ton of bricks. In order to fully utilise every ton of bricks, it is best to pave at a time only such number of tiles which is a multiple of 4.
When placing paved streets on top of dirt roads, the cost is a difference between the cost of the paved street and the cost of dirt roads. Upgrading 1 tile of dirt road to paved street costs 10 and 0.25 tons of bricks.
Quay Street[]
Quay streets can be constructed in Old World and New World when attempting to place dirt roads or paved streets in the harbour area of an island. Quay streets function like harbour version of dirt roads, they connect buildings placed in the harbour area with the rest of the island. Quay streets cost 20 per tile.
Hacienda Paving and Pathway[]
Hacienda Paving and Hacienda Pathway are two types of roads available in Seeds of Change DLC. Both of them have the same properties as paved streets, such as improving the connection between buildings, except for not forming bridges over rivers and not forming crossings with the railway. They cost 50 per tile. They are constructed as modules of a hacienda, selectable from hacienda's module menu, and have to be connected to the hacienda. Unlike other roads, you can build only a limited number of them on an island: 999 tiles. The limit is not separate for each road, placing a tile of one road decreases available number of tiles of the other road.
Placing roads[]
To place a road select it in the construction menu first, or use the right-click menu, or use a shortcut: S for dirt road and Shift+S for paved street. Then click on a tile where you want the road to start and then click on a tile where the road should end. If the starting and ending tile are not in one line, the road will be built in such a way that the distance between both points is the shortest and corners will be placed where needed. If no objects block the path, the road will form two sides of a rectangle. By clicking , or . you can change on which sides of the rectangle the road will be placed. You can build only one tile of road if you click twice on the same tile when placing roads.
To quickly build long and complicated roads, it is possible to hold Shift when placing them. While holding Shift, click on the starting point, then on a tile where you want the road to change direction. This end tile will become the starting tile for the next segment, the next tile you click on is where the second section of the road will end. Keep clicking on other tiles, all while holding Shift, to plan a long road. In this mode you can build really long roads in any arrangement you want. Once you planned the whole road, stop holding Shift and left-click to confirm your road placement. This way of placing roads is especially useful in case of paved streets, this mode ensures that you use up every ton of bricks as efficiently as possible. When constructing roads using the Shift key, you can right-click while holding Shift to cancel your road planning and get rid of the roads you already planned. If you right-click without holding Shift, you will cancel only the last segment of the planned road.
Bridges[]
You can cross rivers with roads by building bridges. To construct a bridge, the starting tile of your road should be on one side of the river and the ending tile on the other side of the river. The game will attempt to establish a road with bridge over a distance as short as possible between those two tiles. In rare situations it may turn out that the road and the bridge cannot be placed in a way that you expected. In that case, right-click to cancel planning the road and try again, changing the starting and end tiles to try to build a bridge in a slightly different location or direction. Two bridges cannot be directly next to each other, there has to be at least one tile wide space between bridges which go in the same direction.
Bridges cost additional resources besides regular costs of the road, the cost of a bridge is independent from its length.
- Dirt road bridges (wooden bridges): 1000
and 20 (or wanza timber in case of Enbesa) - Paved street bridges (stone bridges): 2000 and 20 (or mud bricks in case of Enbesa)
Crossing railway[]
For more information, see: Railway
Roads can also cross railway without any impact on trains movement or on the connections between buildings. Roads built across the rails do not cost any additional resources. Rails can be crossed not only by single one tile wide roads but also by two tile wide roads. Railway has to be only one or two tiles wide to be able to allow the roads to cross the rails.
