Or did Kings and Emperors just not think stone roads important enough to justify the cost?
How much effort would the King of England, Emperor of Germany, or the Landmeisters of Prussia and Livonia put into constructing roads for the Realm? Especially in a place like the Baltic that didn’t sit on top of the remnants of ancient empires?
This article has some interesting insight on research into ancient roads in the Bohemian Kingdom:
"Jan Martínek explains that people in the Middle Ages naturally selected the easiest path depending on the time of year, the weather, what and how much they were carrying and whether they were on foot, on horseback or in a wagon.
This made sense: A person on a horse or on foot could often take shortcuts that were impassable for a wagon. Interestingly, most of the bundles of ancient roads already followed the general directions of today’s highways and motorways."
Follow-up question: did pre-automotive cities have complex interchanges other than roundabouts? Speaking from my Cities Skylines experience