Europa Universalis V’s road feature is proving tricky to manage for many players

With Europa Universalis V released, the economic systems in the game are massive. There are a lot of specialist resources for each area of the game, and the new trade system is massive. One of the features that gives players control over the economic side of the game is the road system, which offers players control over trade routes between provinces.

However, EUV’s roads are proving troublesome to manage, thanks to their high ducat cost. More importantly, it’s one of the only ways that players can offset the Proximity penalties of connecting distant cities. Each city and province will have a value to your capital. Distance, difficulty of terrain, and other features will play a role in establishing a base control point value. Roads will help to mitigate this by bringing control costs down. Yet, if the control is too high, roads won’t necessarily budge it, as spotted over on the EUV sub Reddit.

Where we’re going, we don’t need roads

Thankfully, the road system is not the be-all and end-all. There are other ways to build control in the game. As you progress through the game, you’ll get more laws, research, and age-related improvements for building control and tax for your economic strength.  You’ll also be able to upgrade roads, further increasing their bonuses, and may tip much harder to reach cities and provinces to get them under your capital’s control

Proximity control

Roads are also not just used for Proximity control, though. They make it easier for traders to get to key locations where they want to control economies and taxation. Roads are also important too for increasing the maneuverability of armies that you rally and path around the world. Therefore, it is something to consider for your wider infrastructural and strategic needs.

Also, some players have discovered that rivers are pretty important too. If you have a river flowing where you want to control trade, then that will be generally better than any road. Roads become less efficient. However, you can still build roads along rivers, and even build bridges to further increase maneuverability on land, and buff the proximity that your roads can offer to key areas of your nation / empire. This is something to think more about if you’re super wealthy and can afford it. But if you’re located near a river, then feel free to let nature do some of the heavy lifting for you.

So, in general, think about how tall and wide you want to become. If you go wide, then you need to ensure you can build either maritime presence or control across your borders. Going tall first by affording roads and other buildings is one such strategy to employ. Roads are a good step for some of the early game domination on hand, or for setting up plays in later ages.

More Europa Universalis V pages you may like:

• EUV Best Starter Nations
• EUV Review