> Foundation does this. No road building at all. Paths are created organically by activity.
You can put the roads where you want them by placing taboo zoning where you don't want them. Foundation's villagers have an unnaturally strong preference for staying on existing roads, so this is necessary if you want to straighten a road that was kinked due to an obstacle that no longer exists.
> In addition, the player never builds houses either. The townspeople pick where they want their house to go.
This is even less accurate; the townspeople can only build houses in areas that have been actively zoned for housing.
And their "desirability" requirements also mean that they won't build houses unless you've specifically built a lot of decorations nearby, so even if you zone everywhere houses will only appear in places where you make an effort to get them to appear.
Yes, you can micromanage roads if you like using the forbidden zone tool. You can also shape the roads by plopping a building into the middle of a path and forcing the citizens to route around it. But, by and large, the roads are generated mostly from activity. It's been one of the selling points of Foundation from the beginning.
And you are correct about houses. But it's still a difference from the usual medieval city builders in which house placement is something players do directly. Part of Foundation's goal of making their villages more organic and less grid. That was the point I was trying to make without getting into the weeds of how the housing mechanic worked in detail.
On a side note, I wish Foundation had the option for direct placement of houses. There were bugs in past versions which prevented house construction without enormous amounts of decorations. The current version is much better, but can still be mysterious as to why houses aren't being built in a desirable area with what seems to be plenty of room and the townspeople are wanting more houses. The reasons for the non-construction are not often clear. One thing I hope the game improves over time.
You can put the roads where you want them by placing taboo zoning where you don't want them. Foundation's villagers have an unnaturally strong preference for staying on existing roads, so this is necessary if you want to straighten a road that was kinked due to an obstacle that no longer exists.
> In addition, the player never builds houses either. The townspeople pick where they want their house to go.
This is even less accurate; the townspeople can only build houses in areas that have been actively zoned for housing.
And their "desirability" requirements also mean that they won't build houses unless you've specifically built a lot of decorations nearby, so even if you zone everywhere houses will only appear in places where you make an effort to get them to appear.