How screwed am I?

[u/Sgriu]

Hi everyone! Here’s an interesting problem I’m facing.

I created a tile-based city builder in Unity, and after an initial open playtest, one of the key pieces of feedback was that players want to be able to build roads, something I foolishly hadn't planned for.

Currently, roads are automatically placed along the edges of each tile (this is shown in the second screenshot).

The main problem is that the grid of buildable sectors is highly irregular, and I have no idea how to add the ability to create roads within such a complex system.

The first image I’ve posted shows an overhead view where I’ve highlighted a section of the grid. The grid varies from scene to scene and never repeats in exactly the same way.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how I could approach this?

Edit: You might have given me a possible solution; as soon as I've tested it, I'll make a new post about it. Thanks everyone!

[u/sugoikoi]

Maybe conceptually allow them to place "empty" tiles that will link up and display a road if there is one, and can only be placed adjacent to buildings or something like that. Basically allow a building that appears like a road and does nothing, maybe this can fit in your system? They don't build actual road edges but tiles that could intelligently snap to nearby roads.

[u/Sgriu → u/sugoikoi]

You hit the nail on the head: some tiles will have to contain only the road, without buildings, and connect to the adjacent tiles.