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Build Roads to connect Buildings to satisfy the Needs of your Population and to enable you to pick up Goods.

Roads are the most basic structure in the game. They allow you to connect Trade buildings to Production and Farm buildings to pick up Goods, and are needed to connect Residences to their required Public buildings. In addition to this, they can be used to connect your Settlement to Neutral powers, or simply as decoration. Note that Trade buildings do not need a Road connection between them for Goods to be shared across an Island.

We make a distinction between Roads and Squares (Ornamental roads). Roads are recommended for functional purposes like connecting buildings, while Squares are purely ornamental. Squares also act differently when placed, as they automatically fill in a rectangular area between two points, instead of creating a shortest-path line. This page focuses on Dirt roads and Cobblestone streets. For information about Ornamental roads, see Ornamental buildings.

Dirt road[]

Dirt road
Dirt road with market
Building details
Cost Gold coins 5
Icon Dirt road icon
Connects Buildings.
Enables you to pick up Goods.

The Dirt road is the most basic road-type. It's the cheapest option for connecting buildings, and is perfect for measuring and demarcating areas. Dirt road is the only structure that can be selected using a key assignment. When placed across a river, Dirt roads create a wooden bridge.

Cobblestone street[]

Cobblestone street
Cobblestone street
Building details
Cost Gold coins 20 · Stone 1
Prerequisites Citizen Citizens
Icon Cobblestone street icon
Connects Buildings.
Enables you to pick up Goods.
Increases the speed of Market carts, Medic, Carpenter and Firefighter.

The Cobblestone street is the upgraded version of the Dirt road. It is unlocked after reaching the Citizen level, and costs 1 ton of Stone per tile. This additional cost is offset by increased speed of Market carts and Support buildings, however. It is recommended to use Cobblestone street for Housing layouts to speed up Firefighters in particular. Cobblestone streets are less useful when using Production layouts, but can still be recommended when the distance between buildings is far. When placed across a river, Cobblestone streets create a stone bridge.

Journeymen[]

Processing plants have an Influence area. All the Goods required will be picked up directly from Plants or Market buildings within this area by a Journeyman.

Production buildings require resources to produce new Goods. It would make sense to assume that these are delivered from Trade buildings just like how the produced Goods are picked up, but this is not the case. Production buildings can only retrieve required resources from Trade buildings that are within the Production building's Influence area, which can lead to scenarios where Goods can be picked up from a building, but required resources cannot be retrieved. The advantage is that Production buildings can also retrieve resources directly from other buildings nearby, and don't require a Road connection to do so.

This is the basis of most advanced Production layouts. Goods that are retrieved directly by the next building in a Production chain don't require a Market cart to pick them up, and don't require a Road connection, which saves space. This mechanic can also lead to hiccups, however. Journeymen do not always choose the nearest building to retrieve resources from, and for Production buildings with a large Influence area (looking at you, Ropeyard) this can lead to large delays between when resources are picked up, which stalls production. These issues tend to sort themselves out over time, but it's important to keep in mind that a lack of resources is not caused by a shortage of Market carts, and will not be resolved by upgrading Trade buildings.

This does not mean that intermediate production steps should never be given a Road connection. For production chains that tend to stall often (like Tools production), a Road connection can allow the supplying buildings to continue producing Goods, even if the Toolmaker's workshop has stopped. The intermediate Goods can then be stored for later use. This can also be useful for completing quests that require intermediate Goods to be completed.


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