Do we have --Canals-- yet?

First things first- why hasn't Firaxis ever bothered to include Canals in the Civ games?

Now anyway, has anyone created a canal with the creation/customization utility yet?

What I'm hoping for aren't canals with a limit of up to 3 squares, but those that cost maybe 500-1000 gold per square. There have been canals in history that were over 1,000 miles long. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_of_China )

Therefore, what are all of the canal mods that we have so far?

well, canals are a great idea. I don't think there are mods yet, but there is another thread about it right now.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=168675

Yep. We need canals too. As expansive a game as Civ4 is, it seems to me, they've left some glaring holes. Sea resources, worker functionality, public works economic costs, tile types. Let's get some canals, and bridges, and swamps.

Canals should be a building that allow a +1 or +2 on food for all farms, you also need to research Civil Services to gain this.

The earliest canal built was the suez by another name, by the early Egyptians in.. what.. 1200 BC? Something like that. It's main purpose was, as has been the main purpose of canals throughout history, to provide access for boats. Major canals, the ones we care about (in theory) are basically artificial water squares that allow a boat to move through a land square (presumably to get to a sea square on the other side).

Smaller canals were also made all over to extend rivers, or combined with locks to turn unnavigable rivers into navigable ones. If we were to model those, they would probably have to look like the ability to make man-made rivers. Personally, I'd rather not see a borg-like network of rivers built in a 5x5 plus pattern across everyone's empires. It may not be a logical reason, but it's compelling... for me at least 8).

darkedone02 said:

Canals should be a building that allow a +1 or +2 on food for all farms, you also need to research Civil Services to gain this.

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nah, that would be to easy.

I think canals should be a new route that allow naval units to pass over land sqaures. Canals are made very expensive, and allow about 2 moves for the boat each turn, what do you say?

how about when you get construction you can build canals and the ymove 1 sqaure,
and then when you get electricity you can move them 2 sqaures.

another great thing would be underwater tunnels. REALY EXPENSIVE, and can only be built bery late in the game. They can also not be built under ocean, they have to be built by workboats in coastal sqaures.

Wonders can have a good effect on this. build the "suers canal" (think thats how its spelt) give realy cheap canals for a certain amountof turns, or a certain amount of canals (like the next 3 canals you build a free).
Same for the channel tunnel. The next tuneel you build is free

How are we on canals Now?

I haven't gotten Civ V yet so I would hope that we can build canals as long as we'd like (though we may have to pay many gold per tile.)

(I was a professional Necromancer in Diablo II; my abilities helped defeat both Diablo and Baal, plus countless other evil incarnations. There are advantages to necromancy, believe it or not. Sorry.)

I thought about the same thing time ago.

I'm currently (learning to) modding for a project that would need them.

So, if there are news, let us know. If I would get ridd of it myself (improbable) I will post it.


I like all of your ideas, expecially those about undersea tunnels and wonders.


I think we should have different types of channels, basically: navigable and not-navigable.

First ones would allow for naval units to move, allow more strategics, and commerce (boats).

Second ones would also provide water to near tiles, as an improvement that spread better food, health etc.


Than we have Great Channels that are channels running through land from coast to coast, changing the world' s face and possibilities for both economy and strategy:

just like Suez or Panama Channels. Those who control those tiles have great income and advantages.

These could be done with proper tech and will be calculating shorter path between start and end tiles.

Er... vanilla BtS has canals, of a sort. Build a fort on a coastal tile and move a ship into it.

With the latest patch, I actually think that you can chain-build Forts in order to build a defacto canal...

...But considering that it would thus allow for _land_ units to stuck in, it would be far from acceptable result imo.

I think that it is better Belizan' idea of adding the ability to "create" man-made "rivers". With proper models and stats btw.

It could be done by a worker action similar to "create path": near a water source, you have this option available, then you specify path similar way until destination path.


Depending on water source/destination tile type you will have the different channels types.


River/lake Water -> Land Tile = Non navigable channel, supply water (+food +health)

River/lake Water -> Sea Tile = Navigable channel, can move naval units (also + defence, + commerce)

Sea tile lead to -> Sea Tile = Navigable channel (salt water only) can move navals (only + defence + commerce but greater bonus)

I experimented with strait/canal tiles that would allow maps like in Civ2. It worked, but created a number of side effects that I wasn't able to fix (I didn't spend much time on it though, so I think it's still possible). Basically I added a new strait tile that looked like raised water and allowed both land and sea units to pass through, allowing Gibraltar, Bosporus etc. to work like in Civ2. If the tile was converted to land it would work like Suez etc.

On game mechanics level it was a hack: the tile behaved like a fort that belonged to everyone, so that everyone could pass through it, not just the tile owner. These kind of dirty DLL hacks are needed since the pathfinding code that would have to take canals/straits into account is not in CvGameCore DLL, but uses a few functions from it (like isFriendlyCity() used to tell whether a land plot is a friendly fort or city so that a naval unit can move through it). The main problem was that for some weird reason it was possible for land units to enter sea by stopping on the strait and moving sideways. I'll try to find and post the code if anyone wants to and is actually able to work with it.

Either way, you're not likely to see the above ideas come to reality because this part of the game isn't fully modable. It's more about finding a proper hack and trying to get from it as much as you can.

I applaud you for your work

Don't misunderstand my intention I just want to make some questions. I have no any technical mean to know it myself so don't blame me.

If the reason of the odd game behaviour is the fact it's a new tile type without possibility to have relative proper code... could it be done as a new improvement?


The idea was to make not a new tile type but a new improvement on a normal tile, just like a "man-made river" (Belizan).

It should be available to coding and to proper set ownership just like any other tile.

I saw some mods allowing for ingame creation of land tiles in sea to set cities, and they supposed to work properly with ownership... and if we can make game allow casting tiles, it should be possible add a "river" edited... isnt'it?


Btw this would be huge work, nobody complains if no one has will/skill to do it. But it would be great.

Anyway you also spoke about possibility to fix it with enough time.

IF this is at least a possibility, I would try when I' ll learn enough. For now I can do Almost nothing (2d leaderheads, if anyone is interested).

It was already done as an improvement - that is, a tile with an improvement. The strait/canal tile simply always has a zero-defense Fort improvement that belongs to everyone, which allows everyone to pass through. So yes, you can use the universal fort as a buildable canal improvement, but it's the same deal as with new terrain type, except that it will look ugly (improvement graphics won't look like connected rivers).

Yes, you can modify the map in-game, i.e. change tile types or add rivers, but that doesn't add any kind of canal functionality. If you turn the Suez to water to allow ship passage, the land passage is closed.

Another possibility is playing with route types to see if it's possible to make a naval only route that can be entered from the sea - I didn't look at the code for routes yet.

All of this is not huge work in terms of amount of code - it just needs a lot of experimenting with the SDK, and I've ran out of clues last time.

I did not meant to enter editor nor change terrain type, I talk about a new improvement to add to tile without changing its terrain type.

As others said, to make the ability to build man-made rivers ingame (not in editor btw) that would have certain stats.

An improvement would be far less annoying than new terrains.


Graphics would be last thing, as it would include water basically is a river with two walls of stone.

4lexander said:

I did not meant to enter editor nor change terrain type, I talk about a new improvement to add to tile without changing its terrain type.

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Once again: yes, you can use the universal fort as a buildable canal improvement, but it's the same deal as with new terrain type, except that it will look ugly. This has nothing to do with the editor or adding new improvements anyway, its C++ code.

As others said, to make the ability to build man-made rivers ingame (not in editor btw) that would have certain stats.

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Rivers can have stats but they have nothing to do with ship movement. I think we might have a misunderstanding here - I'm talking about naval units being able to pass through straits/canals, not about buildable rivers, which I'm sure can be done but I see no use for it as far as gameplay goes.

An improvement would be far less annoying than new terrains.

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For navigable canals, it's exactly the same. If you just want buildable rivers, then forget about both terrains and improvements, you simply have to use rivers.

Idea of buildable rivers wasn't mine, I only reported it. (Belizan's)

Anyway, if an improvement like roads and trains allow for movement cost reduced/cancelled... could it possibile to script it the effect to allow naval units movement?

Then ingame would appear as a river adding one to the tiles involved, but actually units will move on this edited tile. Is it possible?

Belizan said:

Major canals, the ones we care about (in theory) are basically artificial water squares that allow a boat to move through a land square (presumably to get to a sea square on the other side.

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Don't forts and cities already fulfill this function?

We cannot build a line of forts or even cities all a continent long to allow it without


(a) messing with resources, improvements tiles on the way.

(b) losing literally centuries of time ingame.


We thought about a single improvement that could allow for naval units to move trough. In a word, a canal.

4lexander said:

Idea of buildable rivers wasn't mine, I only reported it. (Belizan's)

Anyway, if an improvement like roads and trains allow for movement cost reduced/cancelled... could it possibile to script it the effect to allow naval units movement?

Then ingame would appear as a river adding one to the tiles involved, but actually units will move on this edited tile. Is it possible?

Click to expand...

No, unless you manage to code a hack similar to the one with fake fort. As far as I can it's the only way to let a naval-only unit on land.