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

[Thorburne]

Originally Posted by Louis XXIV

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.

I'd say that is a pretty fair implementation. I don't think that they necessarily have to be expenssive. There can also be earlier canals, but they would be more limited (i.e. only one tile sections, limit the ships that can go through, etc.)

Also, since they are on land, being pillaged by land units renders them useless until repaired.

Originally Posted by steave435

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.

Trust me... even the largest of ships (Aircraft Carrier) can fit through the Suez. I've been through there on a Carrier, so I know.

[vra379971]

Originally Posted by Thorburne

I'd say that is a pretty fair implementation. I don't think that they necessarily have to be expenssive. There can also be earlier canals, but they would be more limited (i.e. only one tile sections, limit the ships that can go through, etc.)

Also, since they are on land, being pillaged by land units renders them useless until repaired.



Trust me... even the largest of ships (Aircraft Carrier) can fit through the Suez. I've been through there on a Carrier, so I know.

Indeed. The 5th Fleet passed through the Suez recently. Seems realistic.

In terms of implementation, I'd say start with 1 hex with engineering, and then scale up to 3 hex max by modern age.

[Revoran]

Originally Posted by Louis XXIV

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.

Actually, the shortest point between Great Britain and mainland Europe (France) is around 34 kilometers (21 miles). There are bridges over water in the world longer than this.

I'm not sure whether it would be practical to build a bridge across the strait of Dover due to ocean currents etc, but going by pure distance it's not that unbelievable.

[dexters]

Canal spam is a problem. I think having them keep it as a world wonder (Panama canal) with perhaps a small wonder (Suez Canal) would keep things limited. You dont want a human player using things like Canals to their advantage, and it's one of those late additions to the game that will most assuredly get very little AI testing, so it will be broken in favour of humans as is with many XP 'vanity' features that devs like to add as fanservice.

[steave435]

Originally Posted by Thorburne

Trust me... even the largest of ships (Aircraft Carrier) can fit through the Suez. I've been through there on a Carrier, so I know.

I said early canals. The Suez is WAY bigger then it was even a hundred years ago when it was new, and that's still a few thousand years after the game starts.

[vra379971]

Originally Posted by steave435

I said early canals. The Suez is WAY bigger then it was even a hundred years ago when it was new, and that's still a few thousand years after the game starts.

Early canals fit early boats. *shrug*

To keep things flexible, and address spam usage, you could have one per civ Canal project, which would give every civ X hexes based on the maptype and mapsize. Then, a late game wonder which would add more to one civ.

[Thorburne]

Originally Posted by steave435

I said early canals. The Suez is WAY bigger then it was even a hundred years ago when it was new, and that's still a few thousand years after the game starts.

As vra379971 pointed out, earlier ships would not need "Big" canals... they can grow with the times.

I disagree with making them wonders. It just wouldn't make sense. I say make it an improvement that is limited to a single tile that must touch water. That way you couldn't canal across an entire continent (at the widest point).

[Asderfut]

i don't think making restrictions on the distance from water tiles is realistic. It would be more plausible to say that it needs to be built on flat land and has like 5 gpt maintenance.

[Glassmage]

I agree with the idea above. Doing that would give players advantage in mobility but a hit in the much needed gold. The wonders idea is too limited.

[MARDUK80]

Originally Posted by The_J

A damn expensive improvement for work boats, which needs at least two land tiles adjacent to it would probably be a good idea.

This is very good idea! They should give work boats some terraforming abilities. So you could turn coastal water tiles into land tiles. Thus creating land bridges to nearby coastal islands and to other continents (SMAC style). This would give interesting new strategical opportunities and could be used to make new city spots on small land masses.

Though it should be very expensive and time consuming to do. At first I thought this would be one of Netherlands new abilities, but it seems it is ability to improve marsh tiles. Terraforming should be available to all Civs and work boats are the best way, I think. Earlier I suggested that perhaps in city screen you could select water tiles and then transform them to land tiles (much like you buy tiles with gold).

Canal improvement should also be a work boat terraforming ability. Loved the forts ability in Civ4 and have been missing something similar from CiV. Just make it very expensive, it takes a long time to build one and max. two tiles long. Could be connected with cities though: water-canal-city-canal-water or water-canal-canal-water.

[Louis XXIV]

Originally Posted by Asderfut

i don't think making restrictions on the distance from water tiles is realistic. It would be more plausible to say that it needs to be built on flat land and has like 5 gpt maintenance.

While you might technically be right, I'm pretty typically conservative about adding new features out of fear that they'll be abused. While an artificial restriction is unrealistic, so is any result that features over-long canals (of ocean depth, I'm not talking about the Erie Canal).

[forty2j]

I like this idea.

When I was playing a conquer-everything (Total Domination, I guess) game on the Earth map, I built a city on the 1-hex isthmus where the Panama Canal would be for the express purpose of getting my east coast-based navy to Asia.

I'd go with high maintenance rather than national wonder as the limiting factor though.

What if maintenance = c * 2^n, where n is the length of the canal in tiles? Constant c could vary by map size.. say 16 for tiny, 0.5 for huge.

[craig123]

Just say that canals can only be built on tiles that are adjacent to the coast. It's not particularly "artificial" and would limit their length to two tiles.

[Gedrin]

Well... I play with mods... lots of mods... The CivV I play is vastly different from out of the box... and besides... IMO the base CiV is with the Unofficial Patch and VEM mod applied [I mean many of Firaxis' official patches come from this mod... I think it was part of the business model kinda like "well we cant balance it nearly as well as the player base can so lets wait for them to do it for us and...", but I digress]

Point is I have been playing of late with
UPDATE Defines SET Value = 0 WHERE name = 'MIN_CITY_RANGE';

Its fun and far more interesting when it comes time to attack a civ that has clustered 3 cities together. So many ranged attacks from those cities... losses are high that is for sure.

[Louis XXIV]

Originally Posted by craig123

Just say that canals can only be built on tiles that are adjacent to the coast. It's not particularly "artificial" and would limit their length to two tiles.

That's an excellent way to do it.

[forty2j]

Originally Posted by craig123

Just say that canals can only be built on tiles that are adjacent to the coast. It's not particularly "artificial" and would limit their length to two tiles.

Anyone know how many tiles across Panama is on a Huge earth map?

(Limiting it by tile size doesn't seem like it would scale terribly well. On one map you may not be able to cross Panama, and on another map you may be able to cut a vertical canal through Australia.)

[craig123]

Originally Posted by forty2j

Anyone know how many tiles across Panama is on a Huge earth map?

(Limiting it by tile size doesn't seem like it would scale terribly well. On one map you may not be able to cross Panama, and on another map you may be able to cut a vertical canal through Australia.)

But the same issue arises for ranged combat and city placement, and these don't scale with map size. I don't see it being a problem.

[Louis XXIV]

Originally Posted by forty2j

Anyone know how many tiles across Panama is on a Huge earth map?

Panama is one tile. As is the Suez. If we go both Earth Maps alone, Canals are unnecessary since they can be adequately represented by just building a city on the spot.

[Thorburne]

Originally Posted by Louis XXIV

Panama is one tile. As is the Suez. If we go both Earth Maps alone, Canals are unnecessary since they can be adequately represented by just building a city on the spot.

Correct me if I am wrong, but in Civ 5, aren't cities limited to the city owner entering? I think in Civ 4 (been a while since I played that) you could enter a friendly city not owned by you, but I don't believe that is the case with Civ 5, making Cities as Canals only viable for the owner.

[Louis XXIV]

Can't you pass through the city with open borders? You certainly can't end your turn there, but I believe you can pass through.