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[Clutzy]

I'm on my way to making my duchy a capital and the only thing missing is the road value. I tried a few basic stones I had in largely quality (jet, mudstone, orthoclause, quartzite) with no results. Is it only gold or silver that will count, or are there other stones that will make road value?

[KtosoX]

Any road will increase road value. Blocks are worth more than regular stone, so you might want to build out of those. Anyway, since you are going with low value materials, go for quantity. Or if you are in a rush, build a small road out of something expensive.

[Oaktree]

And since one stone/block/bar can pave up to three squares you can cover a lot of ground with roads building up that value.

I ended up using marble or kaolinite, marble block, and eventually also paved some squares in the royal quarters with gold bars.  Roads from tunnel exits to the map edge for caravans to use, and paving surface or soil area that I wanted to stop the plants from growing on were first.  Then I paved the edge of my pond and some trails in my "park" area, and finally paved the bottom of my defensive ditch for the heck of it.

I was also doing checkerboard patterns in places with lead and zinc bars, but the contrast is not high enough between them to really be "showy" and the value was not that high compared to using stone. 

[moki]

Building the road of small 1x1 pieces helps. Usually roads take 1 block/stone for several tiles, but as you want to cram as much value into as little space as possible, building small roads is more useful. I usually just pave the whole fortress with roads from metal bars, if I don't need them for something else. Once the king and his entourage have arrived, you can just bulldoze all the crap that you built for him.

[Ross Vernal]

I prefer to use native gold blocks.

Incidentally, I always try to exceed what's needed. The value of my road for one of my forts was higher than the minimum export value.

[Girlinhat]

Bars and blocks have the same value, do note.  Native gold costs 30, smelted gold costs 30, boulders cost 3, and bars and blocks cost 5.  Ergo: Native Gold Boulder = 90, Native Gold Block = 150, Gold Bar = 150, Gold Block = 150.  Of course it depends on if you want that "rich and earthy" native gold or "sleek and shiny" smelted gold.

[Ubiq]

The dwarf(ves) making them is also important; a dwarf with levels in Building Designer is going to design finer roads and a quality Mason/Carpenter/Metalsmith is going to construct better roads than a Novice or Dabbling dwarf.

It's entirely possible to get extremely high quality roads with cheap materials if at least one of the dwarves involved is Legendary in one of those skills. If they both are amateurs or one dwarf is designing and building, though, it's better to use more expensive materials.

So if it's taking too long, train up an Architect or turn off Masonry on all but your most skilled dwarves.

[Girlinhat]

Ah, I keep forgetting that.  Roads can have an quality value, and a masterpiece road is with 12x as much.  So that 1x1 plot of native gold block road can give you 1,800 value.  Even a block of microcline can give as much as 60 value.  Consider this when you can't manage to make a noble's room valuable enough.  Training up an architect can give everything value.

[Ubiq]

Supports are a really good way to crank up the value of a noble's room, especially in those situations where the noble likes Bismuth or Pig Iron and, barring a lucky artifact, it is hard to produce furniture that they really like. Seeing a Support made out of their favorite material tends to perk them up quite a bit. I had one dwarf who was constantly miserable to the point of tantrumming, I built a Bismuth support in his room, and that bumped his mood back up to content.

[Quietust]

Ah, I keep forgetting that.  Roads can have an quality value, and a masterpiece road is with 12x as much.

A masterfully designed and masterfully constructed road will have 24x the value of its components. Actually accomplishing this is rather difficult, though, since constructing a road (post-design) has no labor requirement, unlike all other buildings requiring architecture.

[Oaktree]

Ah, I keep forgetting that.  Roads can have an quality value, and a masterpiece road is with 12x as much.  So that 1x1 plot of native gold block road can give you 1,800 value.  Even a block of microcline can give as much as 60 value.  Consider this when you can't manage to make a noble's room valuable enough.  Training up an architect can give everything value.

That explains a lot of my dwarves getting a happy thought from a fine paved road.  Must be a stretch that a lot of them see somewhere that worked out to high value.

[Vehudur]

Will the trolls smash up my roads?   I've never bothered building any.