Quote Originally Posted by NeonKnight View Post
Some great points all, but another thought on roads we should understand is, a paved/cobble ROMAN road and a dirt path as wide as a single cart are both roads. While an Empire (or large Kingdom) could conceivably create and maintain a paved road, once the middle ages were in full swing and the roman road was thing of the past, dirt paths soon became a pot-holed 'beaten path' as traffic grew.

Additionally, consider the following image:



This is an animal trail. If this trail was located somewhere between Town A and Town B where no current road exists, an enterprising merchant could utilize it as a means to get from town A and Town B and reduce his expenditures (both time and energy remember) to travel. As he does so, he will make the path wide and more pronounced as his wagons/animals and attendants further flatten the surrounding vegetation. Soon others who may want to take the shorted route will utilize this route to get about, and this animal path soon becomes a road (paved or not).
I live in the American Southeast, and I swear that this is precisely how half the roads in town are laid down. There seems to be no other explanation for the meandering, curving, I'll-get-there-when-I-danged-well-please nature of the roads down here. In the Southeast, the shortest distance between two points is "why would I go the shortest distance between two points?"