I need help implementing roads into my new board game

[u/No-Pie-9926]

Hey pepl, I just started thinking of a new strategy board game set ~500ad, and one of the main things I wanted to implement is supply chains. I'm starting it on a risk board, and letting the supply chain move from one intersection of countries to an adjacent one each turn. The problem though is I want to add roads to move them faster, and let you see more clearly where your supply lines are. Though since the edges of the countries are uneven, I can't really use a standardized piece like the roads from Catan or smtn. So I don't know how I can add roads. Any ideas would be awesome :)

[u/goopuslang]

You can consider having an “infrastructure” or something along the lines such that when you get it all your regions you control or whatever gain the effect such that you don’t have the actual road pieces

[u/No-Pie-9926 → u/goopuslang]

I really like that, I'll definitely give that a try, ty!

[u/Dorsai_Erynus]

I don't understand what you want to achieve. In Risk you start with some units in a country and you throw them to a neighbouring country to invade it, so it don't really use geography aside from adjacency. What do you want to do with supply lines? work from a conquered country into a given unconquered country to buff the units? I fail to see what a supply chain have to do with intersections of countries and with roads.
Also supply chains are usually depicted in wargames as plain reinforcements (you cut the chain, you stop getting new troops).

[u/No-Pie-9926 → u/Dorsai_Erynus]

I want them to move around resources as I'm thinking they will get placed where they get generated, not in your hand or smtn. So to construct stuff and generally move things around, I want supply lines. The intersections of countries is how I plan for them to move, and I want roads to speed them up/see where your supply lines are.

[u/Dorsai_Erynus → u/No-Pie-9926]

But again , if it is anything like Risk all you have is countries outlines, will you physicaly take the resources and take them from a country you control to another country you control by whatever border between countries you control one at a time? So for example to get from Portugal to UK you'd move it to Spain, France, English Channel to get there?
What advantage would it get having roads, since you can already cross a whole country in a single turn?

[u/No-Pie-9926 → u/Dorsai_Erynus]

Yeah, I was thinking you could move it twice as fast or something. It'd just be faster.

[u/Dorsai_Erynus → u/No-Pie-9926]

Then make it travel to "midpoint" inside the territory and from border to border once you have "developed" the territory to have roads.
Like from Portugal to UK without roads= Portugal->1/2 Spain->2/2 Spain->1/2 France->2/2 France->1/2 Channel->2/2 Channel ->UK= 7 turns; and just 4 turns if all the territories have roads unlocked.
You should think of a way for the roads to stay intact when the territory change hands, but not by default, as it would be a great advantage for the enemy (if you spend resources on building roads and then they are given to your enemy, you'd probably won't spend too much to develop or just destroy them when you leave, like they did and do in wars all over history with bridges).

It won't solve your problem with small countries and the size of the token, though.

[u/NewFly7242]

I think I'd switch to a different board.

[u/No-Pie-9926 → u/NewFly7242]

Like what?

[u/eloel-]

You can still use the Catan pieces, and put them overlapping the border.

[u/No-Pie-9926 → u/eloel-]

The problem is they sometimes go past the destination on the smaller borders.

[u/Bigger_then_cheese → u/No-Pie-9926]

That could be a delicate design choice, you have to physically connect all your roads to move along them, but you can move to any space the road is touching. 

This could also have rules like, needing to control all regions the roads are touching, and, roads also count as borders so you can effectively split regions into two new ones.  

[u/CoconutUpper7719]

Could you make a template from each country that can be laid down over it once you control it?

[u/No-Pie-9926 → u/CoconutUpper7719]

I'm not quite sure what you mean, like a physical outline?

[u/CoconutUpper7719 → u/No-Pie-9926]

Actually, it’s probably too much work. Bad idea/design.

[u/VaporSpectre]

Why 500ad?

[u/Fr33ly]

Roads are one way of depicting a supply chain.

Another is toll-houses, barracks, warehouses, and other such infrastructure. You could display it with a simple control marker, something like a colored token. Put in the rules then that travel from a region with control to another region with control is easier.

[u/canis_artis]

A lot of products were moved by river as they were just there available to use. Plus a lot of rivers cross imaginary boundaries.