Are Roads Important in a Civilization?

Civilization IV presents the opportunity to build roads to those playing the game, but it seems almost like an afterthought, secondary to building up an economy and cities, presenting the question of the importance of roads within a society. Throughout history some societies have chosen to focus on building a strong road system, such as that of the Roman Empire, while others have had virtually no roads whatsoever. While reading The Making of Economic Society, Twelfth Edition, by Heilbroner and Milberg I realized the importance of roads historically, and questioned their importance in the game. Roads have been important to success in trading, travel, and maintaining power throughout much of history and in many societies. However, while playing the game I only built roads as an afterthought, more concerned with obtaining gold, food and technology, in addition to expanding my empire.

Building a comprehensive road system gave historical societies a chance to better travel and trade, while allowing an emperor to retain power over his vast empire, as seen in the incredibly successful Roman empire. According to Heilbroner and Milberg in the third chapter of their book, Europe first began to see an emerging market economy through the traveling merchants who visited their towns and brought exotic products for the citizens to purchase. These merchants insisted on being payed in gold, comparable to currency in today's economy, although this policy was highly unlikely in the mostly feudal economy of the time, and presented the first view of commerce and trade that would eventually lead to a market economy. However, the advancement of a market economy through the traveling merchants became drawn out and slow, taking hundreds of years, mainly because insufficient roads caused these merchants to travel slowly from town to town. In addition, not only was it difficult to move goods over the roads, or pathways as the case may be, it was also difficult for people to move or travel over these roadways. Difficulty of travel may be one reason that people remained content to live on a manor, with no desire to see the world or experience a different lifestyle, since it would be incredibly difficult and maybe even impossible. According to Heilbroner and Milberg, "until the roads recovered, economic movement was limited and limping," one explanation for the success of feudalism and lack of economic prosperity within Middle Ages Europe. These observations and comments prove that if Europe had built a sufficient road system earlier in it's history it may have been more successful both economically and militarily.

After realizing the importance of a thorough road system for the advancement of a civilization historically, especially in an economic sense, I began to question my nearly non-existent road system within the game. While playing the game I chose to focus mainly on obtaining new technologies and used my workers mainly to build new cities so I would be able to obtain more research opportunities. I also found it important to make democratic contacts with other civilizations and to expand my empire as far as possible. Finally, I managed to build a somewhat functioning, but by no means perfect, economy by growing vast amounts of food and choosing the technologies, such as banking and math, that promised to advance my economy. I managed to bring in enough gold this way for my empire to be fairly successful, but did not have the richest economy of all the empires in the game, which could cause a problem should war or a desire to conquer other nations occur. Now that I have been reminded by Heilbroner and Milberg about the historical importance of roads, I intend to build a highly functional road system within my civilization to see if it advances trade and travel, ultimately hoping to better my economy. I feel that this new strategy will help to advance the position of my civilization within the game and will hopefully make me the most successful ruler of all the nations.

In conclusion, roads have had a historical significance in the success of nations, economies, trade and travel ever since great empires began to be built. Rome presents a great example of what a wide-ranging road system can do for an empire and shows the success that it brought about. Through this road system, the emperor was able to maintain control over his vast empire by easily deploying military units to sections where people were attempting to rebel. In addition, trade and travel could easily occur within the empire, furthering the economy and leading for an advancement of the people living within the civilization. Without these roads, Rome may never have become one of the greatest empires of all times and may have remained an unknown and short-lived empire. Roads are important within all societies, even today, and this leads me to believe that they would also be significant within the game, a theory I intend to test the next time that I play. Without roads travel and trade would be much more difficult, and even impossible in some areas, and the world would be an incredibly different place from what it is today.