Strange: different road-lines...

[Granatenwerfer]

Please look at Kiev, at the bridges. There are two different road-lines. One image is from my old game. The other is from my latest game. I'm surprised I thought the road-lines are always the same?

Screenshots

[Vipman]

No, the roads aren't always the same. The reason to why it happens aren't known (at least to me).

[Maklodes]

It is strange. I do remember seeing something in the modding forums where someone tried to uncover the road-laying algorithm. Roads are not part of the map system -- they're generated on-the-fly according to some sort of "path of least resistance" mapping system. I don't know why they'd have different paths with the same map: maybe there's some sort of tie?

UPDATE: Found the post on roads I was talking about.

[Gigantus]

Looks like roads are generated every time you start your (saved) game. In this case it looks as if the distance via the upper river crossing is the same distance as via the lower river crossing. So I guess some random decision comes into play when comes to laying the road if the distance is the same between two points.

[John Doe]

Could be due to which province upgraded it's road first or if a flood occurred in one of the province

[Granatenwerfer]

Could be due to which province upgraded it's road first ...

I believe that's it.

[Vipman]

Looks like roads are generated every time you start your (saved) game.

No. Once generated the roads remain like that for the rest of the game.

Could be due to which province upgraded it's road first

Possibly, there must be some factors that determine if a road is going to a neighbouring region and splits and goes to other regions, or if it creates separate roads for each neighbouring region... I didn't manage to understand what factors decide this...

[King_of_Spoons64]

a wizard did it

[Gigantus]

No. Once generated the roads remain like that for the rest of the game.

Then this thread would not be in existence:

One image is from my old game. The other is from my latest game

Unless it means two independent games and not a 'early game' and 'late game' screenshot - but even then the road should appear in the same place as it doesn't matter if a road connection from the other region exists or not.
I still stick my other thought:

So I guess some random decision comes into play when it comes to laying the road if the distance is the same between two points.

[Vipman]

It's from 2 different campaigns. Unless he reloaded from a save before building the roads. Roads NEVER change their positions after they were built and appeared on map.

Randomness is the only explanation thus far... But not because of equal distance between 2 points. In the 1st screenshot it's very clear it's faster to get from Kiev to Sarkel than in the 2nd screenshot were the road headed to Ryazan split and also went to Sarkel instead of new road being created towards Sarkel.

Actually you can see that in the 1st screen there are more separate roads, from Kiev to Sarkel, from Sarkel to Crimea, fom Ryazan to Kiev. While in the 2nd screen, there is a main road which then splits and goes to other regions: Kiev towards Ryazan, after bridge it splits and goes to Sarkel. From Sarkel to Kiev, at the border it splits and goes to Crimea. And another one from Ryazan to Smolensk, at the bridge it splits and goes to Kiev.

[Dr. Conquest]

I should have taken a screenshot of this, because it was so laughable, but one time I fought on a battle map where the road from the campaign map went directly through some cliffs. It was literally on its side at one point as it ran along the cliff face. We are talking terrain that was impassable by units on the battle map, making the routing of the road that much more ridiculous. I know that the battle maps are based off the equivalent area of the campaign map and that the roads only serve an aesthetic purpose there, but seriously?

I couldn't help but think of the implications of such a road existing in the real world. I imagined an army scraping their way along a sheer drop to follow the road rather than circumventing it with significantly more ease. And I thought San Francisco was bad!

[Gigantus]

I think I will file that in the same drawer as 'dead princess portraits', 'See Charlie' errors and the likes....

[eXistenZ]

[eugenioso]

this actually has to do with something different. every time you build a road it will try to find the closest and most direct route to another city/castle. since the AI is random about building roads, what happens is that after a save, every individual town that has a road will try to unite said road with that of the other city. the result is what happened to you, roads that seem to change at random, but in fact are readjusting themselves to fit into the other city's road system.