Dear Fixaris: In this tactical game, are we EVER going to get canals?!

vra379971

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Why should we have canals?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal#Ancient_canals

I rest my case.

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Make them cost a lot of maintenance. Make them take plenty of turns to build/fix. Make them be only 1 hex at start and get possibly longer even....but give us canals!

It would add so much to the game to be able to do this, and teaching the AI how to do it either should not be overly difficult.

Thoughts?
 
Why should we have canals?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal#Ancient_canals

I rest my case.

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Make them cost a lot of maintenance. Make them take plenty of turns to build/fix. Make them be only 1 hex at start and get possibly longer even....but give us canals!

It would add so much to the game to be able to do this, and teaching the AI how to do it either should not be overly difficult.

Thoughts?

Aqueducts
 
The ability to make land squares traverse able by both sea and land at the cost of productivity, and possibly a gold bonus, is an innovation players have wanted for years.
 
How would this "add so much to the game"?

It would certainly add another strategic layer to the game. If you think in terms of the Panama Canal or the Suez, they have been very important in cutting short the travel time for ships when moving from one Ocean to another. They increase trade and maneuverability.

In game, they can give a base trade bonus, plus they would make it important for players who control them so that others are less likely to attack. Make it so that only friendly units can use them (during war, while an enemy can enter your territory, they would have to control the closest city in order to use the canal). Maybe they can even be tolled for non-enemy but friendly units (cost 1 gold for ship to cross which transfers from the friendly to the controlling player).
 
Agreed. Use them for trade routes and moving sea and land units. It would change the game, a lot, for the better.
 
Just bring back the ability of forts allowing naval units to enter the tile like it was in Civ 4.
 
Canals could be an interesting idea as alternative trade routes (only in case of harbor to harbor) and as a means of transporting naval units.

But even more so, instead of canals I'd like to see rivers being used as trade routes. Maybe with some sort of 'river port'-building.

Just bring back the ability of forts allowing naval units to enter the tile like it was in Civ 4.
I found that a really silly exploit, personally.
 
If they limited that feature to only those tiles that touch coastal water tiles then at most we'd get 2 tile long canals linking one ocean to another. Using forts for this would be no different than adding a new canal tile improvement, because you're still sacrificing other improvements to build the fort on that tile.
 
I would like to see canals too, darn useful for linking up bodies of water, and allowing cities next to enclosed seas access to the wider ocean.
The trouble is there are two types of canal- the big sea vessel ones like Pamama and Suez and little ones that take narrow boats.

The little ones could be presented by a building, buildable only in river or lake side cities, this could give a little production boost and lots of gold.

The big ones could be a step between roads and railways, and allow naval movement over land, boost land movement, cost 2-3 gold per tile, take ages to build and only can be built on flat land next to a water tile.
 
Wasn't there art from before vanilla release that showed the Panama Canal?

:yup: here.



A damn expensive improvement for work boats, which needs at least two land tiles adjacent to it would probably be a good idea.
 
How would you deal with combat:
If a ship ends it turn in a canal and is attacked by a mele unit?
If a ship ends it turn in a canal and is attacked by a ranged unit?
If a mele ship attacks a unit standing on the canal tile?

How would you deal with it in regards to embarked units, would they stay embarked or pass through?

How would you deal with 1UPT, would a ship block a millitary unit or civilian unit?
Can a worker replace the canal with a trade post while a ship is in the canal?

I would really love to get canals, but I see alot of issues that needs to be decided.
 
The Grand Canal of China was closer to a road system than a modern canal as far as game implementation goes (it was in-land, was for quicker transportation, and connected rivers, which, in civ terms, we can't navigate). However, that's not the point about whether there should be modern canals.

In previous games, I found it very easy to work around this by just building a city on a one tile gap between land and water. However, there are two things in Civ5 that make this more difficult. First, the switch from squares to hexes makes the number of times with a one tile gap much smaller. A lot of the time, it seems to be a two tile gap. Second, the minimum distances between cities means you can't string cities through in-land lakes to reach the other ocean.

That being said, what I don't want to see is something like a 5+ tile canal connecting distant landmasses. Canals connecting oceans have historically been on very narrow isthmuses (the equivalent of one tile connection), in which case a city would be sufficient.

I think the fair compromise is this. Allow canals to be built on grassland when there is no more than a two space gap between oceans (for these purposes allow lakes to count too). Make them expensive and don't let them get built until an industrial era tech (to represent modern canals like the Suez and Panama).
ETA: To address the logistics. I would say this. Any ship in a canal would become automatically very vulnerable to ground units (and, obviously, they could be attacked). Also, any ground unit can essentially "shut down" the canal, i.e., block ships from even passing them if the two sides are belligerents.
 
How would you deal with combat:
If a ship ends it turn in a canal and is attacked by a mele unit?
If a ship ends it turn in a canal and is attacked by a ranged unit?
If a mele ship attacks a unit standing on the canal tile?

How would you deal with it in regards to embarked units, would they stay embarked or pass through?

How would you deal with 1UPT, would a ship block a millitary unit or civilian unit?
Can a worker replace the canal with a trade post while a ship is in the canal?

I would really love to get canals, but I see alot of issues that needs to be decided.

they just need to deal with it in the same way they did it in civ4.
If ship is attacked by melee unit it insta dies.
Melee ship cannot attack forts.


As of other problems u could automaticly disembark units.
Make a law that ship cannot finish its turn in a fort.
 
There could be bridges as well, over lake and ocean tiles. lets say that a bridge could be constructed over max 2 water tiles. that would be something. they could even throw a special bridge in like a wonder.
 
It would certainly add another strategic layer to the game. If you think in terms of the Panama Canal or the Suez, they have been very important in cutting short the travel time for ships when moving from one Ocean to another. They increase trade and maneuverability.

In game, they can give a base trade bonus, plus they would make it important for players who control them so that others are less likely to attack. Make it so that only friendly units can use them (during war, while an enemy can enter your territory, they would have to control the closest city in order to use the canal). Maybe they can even be tolled for non-enemy but friendly units (cost 1 gold for ship to cross which transfers from the friendly to the controlling player).

Ah, he linked specifically ancient canals, described as being for irrigation to improve farm yields, so I thought that was what he was after. Canals actually use able by ships is more interesting, but I don't think canals for war ships are very realistic either (not that realism matters much, but he was trying to connect it with that). I could be wrong, but I think those early canals were generally only large enough for very small ships.
 
Would these canals be worker improvements that tie up your worker for x amount of turns? Maybe they could be worker wonders. At a certian tech (industrial era) the worker gets the ability to build a canal. First civ to complete it gets the 1 - 2 tile canal, the other civs get the dried up canal (pre-release art The_J linked).

Maybe to make it more even there could be the Panama canal as a 1 tile worker wonder, and the Suez as a 2 tile canal wonder. (I don't know which is longer I just chose names randomly there).

Maybe they could do that same and have a Worker Wonder tunnel through 1 - 2 mountain range tiles eventhough this is hardly ever a problem on most maps? (Can anyone send me a PM about what map has great large mountain ranges on it, I'm playing way to may flat worlds..thanks.)

Anyways, just thinking as I type...

EDIT: As Danieladler mentioned, there could be bridge improvments as well. I think those would make interesting worker wonders as well.
 
There could be bridges as well, over lake and ocean tiles. lets say that a bridge could be constructed over max 2 water tiles. that would be something. they could even throw a special bridge in like a wonder.

Bridges have been specifically mentioned. There are serious graphical concerns.

I know scale isn't something that's consistent, but you often see one tile gaps representing gaps between continents and islands, like the English Channel that would be bizarre to have a bridge. Plus, with embarkment, I don't think it's all that necessary.
 
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