I used paving stones outside in my early game for a little bit before abandoning them as they're a pain to place or dismantle en-masse. They don't serve much purpose besides blocking plant growth, and in general in early game you want plants growing. I never had pathing being disrupted by wild plants as mages can walk through most of them. For your own planted garden areas, as you can walk over crops, placing paving stones just reduces your plot output for no reason.

However, it is slow for mages to walk across big stretches of grass. How about giving them a speed boost on paving stones similar (or probably nerfed a bit) to the floor runner carpets? Then I'd be incentivised to place paving stone paths. You could make them cost more resources, and maybe make them 2 block squares instead of a 1 block size. It would also be very nice to be able to place them on hills, which is a big slowing down point for ground level movement if you have a school over two levels.

As they get damaged by fog, people would probably not place them super far out until fog management is under control. And it would be an alternative to getting out onto the map before you can make the (rather silly) broom station outposts many of us have relied on to travel out.

Anyone here actually use paving stones or have anything they found them good for?